![]() ![]() ![]() “Certainly not that many.” With his ink-spotted workman’s shirt and shock of grey curls, he doesn’t look like the wealthy man such sales must be making him – a question Mackesy, Radley-educated scion of a military family, sidesteps gently. “I didn’t imagine we’d be selling very many books,” says Mackesy. In the UK alone it had sold 1,967,949 copies by last Christmas, becoming the bestselling UK hardback since records began. By December 2021 there were more than 5.5 million copies in print internationally. Without knowing or planning it, Mackesy had written a psychological survival handbook for a worldwide epidemic. “No one knew of course,” he says, “but I do remember thinking there was something coming and that we had to get the book done.” The book was published in October 2019, just before the pandemic arrived. With its origins in a series of social media postings that went viral, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is a picture book about a young boy who encounters three animals and, with them, learns the wisdom of kindness. The random scruffy artist has previously collaborated with Nelson Mandela and his little book is an international phenomenon. Amid this fantastic mess stands Charlie Mackesy or, as he introduces himself, “a random scruffy artist, who happens to have made a little book”. ![]()
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