War Horse author on the inspiration, and the lie, behind famous book and its unlikely success
- Michael Morpurgo’s moving testament to the thousands of horses that served and died during the first world war was based on a painting that never was
- The stage adaptation, by the National Theatre of Great Britain, will show at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts next month
The original 1982 book War Horse begins with a formal “Author’s Note”.
“In the old school they use now for the village hall hangs a small dusty painting of a horse,” it reads. “… if you were to look closely you can see, written in fading copperplate writing the words ‘Joey. Painted by Captain James Nicholls, autumn 1914.’”
War Horse is the story of the horse in that painting, and it was written, the note says, so that neither Joey, nor the war he lived through, will be forgotten.
Is the painting still there? Michael Morpurgo, the author in question, says: “I’m afraid it was a lie.”
The 75-year-old says he used the idea of a painting to try to make the book seem more serious and believable. “If I started it with the horse speaking then people might think ‘oh it’s just another Black Beauty,’ and scoff and close it up. But I wanted them to give it a chance.”
More pertinently, he had no expectation anyone would find him out. In the 1980s he was not the famous award-winning author that he is today. He was someone who wrote children’s books that sold maybe a couple of thousand copies, mostly to libraries.
