Of love, adventures, fortunes lost, and a jewel of solid gold. Within the pages of this book there is a story told He started getting strange letters from people looking for a hint. Frustrated treasure seekers started turning up at his house in the middle of the night. They often dug at night so as not be seen in case they found the jewel or to avoid embarrassment if they failed. People became obsessed with finding the hare.įor three years, men in anoraks toured the British countryside, digging holes in likely and unlikely locations, while their long suffering wives looked on. Treasure hunters flew in from abroad to take on the challenge. It was embraced by people who enjoyed puzzles, crosswords and so forth. The book was a huge success, selling 500,000 copies in the UK. But Williams came up with idea of the treasure hunt himself and asked for £3,000 in advance to make the golden amulet, which he preceded to bury somewhere in a terracotta casket. Williams was persuaded to create a simple children’s book by the publisher Jonathan Cape.

But somewhere along the way Jack Hare drops the amulet and the reader must unravel the clues to find the treasure. The book describes his journey to deliver the moon′s amulet to the sun. The moon falls in love with the sun and wants to give him a token of her affection, and sends Jack Hare as her courier. The illustrations were and still are beautiful depictions of English rural life accompanied by an intriguing storyline. I know the answer but I don’t know how to solve the clues. In the days before Internet search engines, this was not an easy puzzle to crack. Nowadays a mere google search will reveal where the treasure was buried. Real buried treasure… that people gets excited, or at least it did in 1979 when there was no Facebook or YouTube and people had a lot of time on their hands. It was worth about £5,000 at the time, and it had been buried somewhere in the United Kingdom.

It has clues in its illustrations which indicate the whereabouts of a small gold and jeweled hare, as in the animal, like a March Hare.

What’s so special about Masquerade? Well, this one got people out of their homes, had them digging holes in the British countryside at the dead of night and turned readers into treasure-hunters.Īn artist called Kit Williams wrote and illustrated the book. Thousands of children’s picture books are published every year. Do you remember Masquerade, an illustrated children′s puzzle book from 1979? Probably not, unless you are British and of a certain age.

Masquerade book kit williams