Johnny Jones The Magpie December 1923

Yesterday at the BL I read Johnny Jones which is the earliest of Beatrix's short stories I've found so far. It was published in the December 1923 issue of the Magpie. The Magpie seemed like a really nice literary and art magazine, it was published on lovely gorgeous paper with ads for companies like Harvey Nicks, and beautiful full colour art pictures. The stories were by authors such as Aldous Huxley, Agatha Christie and (my favourite later Gothic writer) Marjorie Bowen. Pretty good company for a first story. The story itself was a simple fairly short love story, with a lot of smoking, and a twist at the end which destroyed the happy ending. Beatrix would have written it when she was 19 or 20.