And The Mysteries of Kit Williams

Question...


Frequently Asked Questions

Question... You offer the "word from the master riddle" on every painting's page. What/where is the master riddle?

I'm sorry I was vague about this--it's caused a bit of confusion. If you own the paperback, this is explained, but here's a quick and dirty version: When a line is drawn from the eyes through the longest finger/biggest toe on each creature in every picture in the book (as per the clue on the book's title page, about using your eyes and pointing to the prize), the lines point to the letters on the border, and the master riddle phrase is spelled out: "Catherine's long finger over shadows earth buried yellow amulet midday points the hour in light of equinox look you." That is, the first painting reveals the word "Catherine's," the second painting reveals the words "long finger," The first letter from each word in that phrase spells "Close by Ampthill," a geographical confirmer and the heart of Kit's riddle. See the Sir Issac Newton page for the key to this method. If you do not currently own the paperback edition of the book with the solution explained, I recommend it, even if you already own the hardcover. Kit offers this explanation himself, and much more eloquently.

Question... And what of the barbed letters and red letters?

Most people notice the bright red letters around the border of each painting. Less notice that other border letters have little thorns poking out of their middles. Rearrange the red letters to form one secret word and the barbed letters to form another.

Question... Where can I buy Kit Williams' books?

If you'd like to buy Kit Williams' books, I am sorry to report that they are not currently in print. Even Masquerade: The Complete Book with the Answer Explained, a small paperback and therefore dirt cheap when it was actively being printed, has now started to climb in value. Click here to order check what the ever-mighty Amazon may have in store for you.

For the other out-of-print works, multiple people have suggested Advanced Book Exchange, and I will join the chorus--it's a great site and a great service. On their web site you can order copies of Masquerade, Untitled, and Out of One Eye from independent booksellers who specialize is rare and older books. The prices can't be beat; you can get original copies of most of the above for around $20 ($30 for Out of One Eye). As cool and convenient Amazon may be, they horribly overcharge for used/OOP books (unless you go through Amazon's used channels or Zshops), and ABE help keep small bookstores in business--and my mother-in-law Mary Jane Auch, a children's book author and illustrator herself, would kill me if I didn't act responsibly! I would also recommend Lucky Dog Books, which has come through for me twice in the past on hard-to-find tomes.

Bamber Gascoigne was the only other person who knew the secrets of Masquerade during the hunt. As a result, he was uniquely qualified to write a post-mortem about the whole Masquerade phenomenon; his Quest for the Golden Hare is an absolute must-read for anyone who cares enough about Masquerade to, say, build a web site in its honor. The book details not only the complete solution and every riddle in the text, but also tells about Kit's own background, exactly how he constructed the riddle and how it evolved, what happened when the world submitted to "lagomania." Bamber also takes a close look at a handful of the millions of lives the book affected--some for the better, a few for the terrifyingly worse. As a bonus, several black and white photos are included. The reading is very easy, and you get the feeling that Bamber is as impressed and amazed by the book and its repercussions as everyone else--this is not a pompous recollection, it's a labor of love and a tribute to open-minded wonder. It's awesome, and it introduced me to still more details I had not yet noticed some 16 years after reading Masquerade for the first time. I can't recommend it enough, and it's surprisingly cheap through ABE and Bibliofind.

Intrepid puzzle solver and creator Stephen Parkes offers some tantalizing info for collectors: "Kit released a limited editon of the solution book to Masquerade; it was limited to 1,000 copies, each was bound in royal blue cloth with guilt edging. Each copy was signed and numbered by Kit. [250 of these were reserved for purchase through the Sunday Times.--Dan] Also, I have managed to aquire is the PRE publishers copy of Untitled; it is the same in every respect as the published copy, except it is a paperback, with a blank white cover and back. The dustjacket is the same also except it says on the back that the competition was to be drawn from the hat from all correct answers received. But we know that to be different from the final produced book." If you can find either of these rarities, expect the price to be waaaay up there--two of the signed/numbered copies of Masquerade surfaced on eBay in 2004 (which is where I snagged the picture to the left--please note that Painting #1 graces the cover of this edition) and the bidding went into the hundreds. My strategy is to tell Stephen what a great fellow he is over the next few decades in hopes that he might leave them to me in his will.

Question... Where can I buy Kit Williams' paintings?

Kit's works are still handled by The Portal Gallery in London, although folks have written in to suggest that he rarely displays there any more. "Kit apparently now works only to commission but he also opens up his studio once a year to the public for one week only to display recent works," says Toby Malcolm. "You can get an invite by writing to Kit via the Portal Gallery who are still more than happy to forward mail to him." If you want to comission Kit, expect to pay a lot for his custom creation!

Works that have already been sold (as many, if not all, of the Masquerade paintings were) are sometimes auctioned off through Sotheby's or Christie's. Expect to pay even more. Click on Tara Tree-Tops there to the right for a scan from a Sotheby's auction catalog in 1988 (thanks to Toby Malcolm for that).

Question... Where can I buy posters or reproductions of Kit Williams' paintings?

Unfortunately, there are no prints currently available of Kit's paintings--I think we'd all love to buy poster-sized reproductions of some of Kit's Masquerade artwork! However, there was a small promotional poster made of measuring roughly 16" x 18". These were apparently only released in the UK and sometimes show up on eBay (that's where I got mine), often as a bundle with the book. More interestingly, Anthony Greenwood writes in to say, "My wife has a print of one of his paintings – she acquired this when she went to see an exhibition of his works at the Harris Library in Preston, Lancashire. Kit Williams was present at the exhibition and he signed and dated the print. My wife then had it mounted on a wooden board. The picture depicts a lady asleep in the grass with flowers growing out of her, a comb lies near her head; in the background there are undulating fields. Besides several bees, there is also a hidden elephant in the background." Kit fans will recognize this as "The Death of Spring" from Untitled. I have no idea how many of these were made or what they would be worth now, but clearly, they exist, so...happy hunting.

Question... What was in the 1982 Masquerade calendar?

Kate Owen reports that the calendar contains 12 of the book's paintings and new riddles, but those riddles do not have any bearing on the book's ultimate solution (in other words, if you missed the calendar, you didn't miss part of the main hunt). One such riddle, graciously typed in by Kate:

There came four men from out the wood
Their way was straight and their strength was good
Then over a bridge the four men ran
To come together as one man
There came a horse without a bone
That made the four men whine and moan
Wood and men and bridge are all but one
Put them together and you'll find my riddle is undone.
You're welcome to take a stab at it; she sent me the answer too. :)

Question... What did Kit have to say after the jewel was found?

Most often he expressed relief that the whole ordeal was over, and as you'll see in the following FAQ entries, a certain amount of regret and sorrow. However, when the Sunday Times printed the solution, Kit wrote the following introduction (supplied to the site by James McLaughlin):

THE QUEST FOR THE GOLDEN HARE THAT MADE MY WORLD TURN CRAZY
If I was to spend two years on the 16 paintings for Masquerade I wanted them to mean something. I recalled how, as a child, I had come across 'treasure hunts' in which the puzzles were not exciting nor the treasure worth finding. So I decided to make a real treasure, of gold, bury it in the ground and paint real puzzles to lead people to it. The key was to be Catherine of Aragon's cross at Ampthill, near Bedford, casting a shadow like the pointer of a sundial: near it is an inscribed stone that bears the words 'The earth is full of thy riches...'

When the book was published the world went crazy. People seized on all the clues I had put in the paintings and lots I hadn't. Some found their gardens invaded because of a chance resemblance to those in the paintings; others mounted bizarre night expeditions in distant parks; one man came from Switzerland and ended up on a cliff-face in Cornwall; and muddy people with spades kept turning up at my door. None of them found the secret. Even the man who finally unearthed my golden hare had not fully solved the riddle. So for all those who tried in vain, the full solution is provided this week in the paperback Masquerade, exclusively previewed in THE SUNDAY TIMES today.
Kit Williams

There are a few more comments by Kit about the solution in another Sunday Times article, which contains a biographical profile of kit and is therefore located on the About Kit page.

Question... Is it true that the man who won Masquerade cheated? What's that whole controversy about?

In short, yes. It's true in that the person who won didn't actually solve the book's master riddle, but instead used ancillary clues and personal information about Kit to determine the burial place. Chris Cole has been kind enough to send me this sad story from the London Times, dated December 11, 1988:

HEADLINE: Unmasked: the Masquerade 'con'
BYLINE: BARRIE PENROSE and JOHN DAVISON

KIT WILLIAMS, author of Masquerade, the best-selling treasure hunt book, last night conceded for the first time that he had been 'conned', along with the thousands of enthusiasts who had chased its prize, an elusive golden hare.

The hare, set with five precious stones, sold for Pounds 31,900 at Sotheby's last week, six years after it was found in a Bedfordshire park by a shadowy businessman calling himself Ken Thomas. The discovery brought to an end two-and-a-half years of frantic activity that saw the book sell more than 1m copies and readers scour its pages, and the British countryside, for clues.

Williams says that he has always had reservations about the find. Now new evidence, obtained by The Sunday Times, has convinced him that there was a complex plot to find the hare involving a former girlfriend of his, late-night digs with metal detectors, and even militant animal rights groups.

'This tarnishes Masquerade and I'm shocked by what has emerged, ' Williams said last night. 'I feel a deep sense of responsibility to all those many people who were genuinely looking for it. Although I didn't know it, it was a skeleton in my cupboard and I'm relieved it has come out.'

The plot revolves around Veronica Robertson, the girlfriend with whom Williams was living when he thought up the idea for Masquerade, had it published and saw the first flood of letters pour in from treasure-hunters.

While admitting to questioning Williams over some of the 30,000 letters, she denies that she ever knew, or wanted to know, where the hare was hidden.

But The Sunday Times has discovered that less than a year after leaving Williams she was out searching Ampthill Park, where it was buried, in the dead of night with metal detectors.

The man who organised those trips was John Guard, with whom she was then living. At the time, it has emerged, he was the business partner of Dugald Thompson, the real name of 'Ken Thomas' who was later to find the hare.

Robertson said last week that from the first time she met Guard he was interested in her connection with Williams, and that he introduced her to Thompson so that he could question her about the jewel's whereabouts. She now concedes that it was she who pointed Thompson towards Ampthill, where she had often visited Williams in the early 1970s.

At the same time Guard had persuaded her to join him in looking for the hare, with the suggestion that the takings could be given to militant animal rights groups, of which she was an active supporter.

Soon afterwards Guard enlisted the help of Eric Compton, 60, and his son Richard, metal detector enthusiasts, on the first of seven searches at Ampthill.

'We got there about midnight and worked until daylight, ' said Compton, a civil servant. 'They told me the hare would be sent to a store in Texas and the money would go to animal rights.'

He confirms that Robertson was there, but did not say anything. She took with her a copy of the hare's casket, given to her as a present by Williams.

Compton also said that Guard had offered him Pounds 1,000 to do all the television interviews after the hare was found; but, worried about his reputation, he pulled out.

Robertson will only say that she 'cannot remember' if she went on the dig: 'I don't say they're liars. But my mind is now blank.' She does, however, admit that when the hare was found it was Guard who told her that 'Ken Thomas' was Thompson.

'It was mind-boggling. I was very worried that the link might be made, ' said Robertson. She has written to Williams, apologising for the embarrassment he will suffer.

When approached last week, Guard initially denied knowing Thompson at all, but after being shown company documents that carried both their names he changed his story, saying that he had never searched for the hare.

In 1982, however, he told the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper, using the name 'Mike', that he knew where the hare was and would find it.

Thompson, who after his discovery appeared on television and in The Sunday Times heavily disguised, denies Guard's involvement with the find, saying that only his girlfriend had helped him dig. 'At no time did I know he had been looking or digging for the hare up there.'

But in 1982 he told The Sunday Times that he found the hare helped by another man, whom he refused to name.

Thompson's story then was that he had been pointed to Ampthill by reading that Williams had once lived nearby. He was attracted to the exact spot, he said, when his dog 'ran off to have a wee' a few yards from a stone cross, which held the vital clue.

Thompson used the hare as security to set up a computer-game company which met financial problems. Last week's sale was on behalf of the liquidator.

Williams said: 'I never really believed that he had solved the puzzle, but I had no proof. This new evidence convinces me.

'They knew roughly where the hare was, they were willing to pay two men Pounds 1,000 to find it. They had worked out who would be the front man with the press, and they knew where they would dispose of it in the USA.

'I have tried to think why Veronica would get involved, as she was not interested in money. The only thing she would do it for would be animal rights groups. It now seems that someone masterminded the plot. It did not happen by accident.'

So that, more or less, was that....until I received the following e-mail from Frank Branston, who offers this fascinating first-hand account:
"Further information to add to the truth about how the Masquerade masquerade was uncovered.

"It wasn't the Sunday Times which uncovered the truth about how the Masquerade hare was found, but a local paper, Bedfordshire on Sunday, and more specifically, me, Frank Branston, the then editor, and now Mayor of Bedford. My family controls Bedfordshire on Sunday, widely known as BoS.

"John Guard, the associate of Dugald Thompson alias Ken Thomas, alleged finder of the hare, worked for me as a sales rep. One day he came into my office and asked what I would do about it if he found the hare. I said, of course, that I would run it as a story. After a bit of chat I asked him if he had found it. He said he knew where it was. Asked how he knew, he said: 'You know my girl friend Ronnie (Veronica) Roberts used to be Kit Williams girlfriend, she's told me enough to work it out.' I asked why he didn't get it, then, and he said the actual point was marked by the position of a shadow at dawn on the summer solstice.

"Had it not been for the Roberts connection (which I knew to be true) I would have dismissed it as fantasy. A couple of times thereafter I asked if he had found the hare but he screwed up his face and said it was more difficult than it seemed.

"A year or so later, the hare was found allegedly by a dog. Guard was, by this time, no longer working for me. I tracked him down and asked him if he had got the hare and he said: 'No. what a bummer.'

"There were enough clues in the Sunday Times report to indicate that Ken Thomas was local and he used a Bedford solicitor. I tried to find out his name from them without success and tried the name of John Guard on Simon Freeman, the Sunday Times reporter who wrote the 'hare discovered' story and whom I knew slightly, but drew a blank. I gave up, but didn't forget the story.

"Years later, in 1988, I think, I read a paragraph in The Observer that the hare was about to be sold to cover the debts of a company called Haresoft which had been set up to exploit the hare in a videogame but which had gone bust. The next day I got the company details of Haresoft and found the name Dugald Thompson living in Bolnhurst, a village north of Bedford. Listed amongst his other directorships (maybe the only one) was a company called Clayprint. This I knew to be a company set up by Guard. Bingo! the connection was made.

"I got a reporter to go and see Thompson at the same time as I went to see Guard. He didn't exactly admit it, nor did he exactly deny it at first, but eventually he said that Kit Williams had visited Ronnie Roberts, who was by then living in Bedford, the night he and Bamber Gascoigne had buried the hare and told her about it. Guard had persuaded Ronnie to give him the information on the basis that he would give any money he made to animal charities (both he and Ronnie Roberts were fanatical vegetarians and anti-animal exploitation). Guard said: 'In the end, the only people to make any money out of it were the banks.' The reporter who went to see Thompson did not get much out of him but I felt we had enough. We led on the story under the suitable heading 'Masquerade.' The Sunday Times bought the story but reneged on its promise to credit BoS with breaking it.

"A week after we published, a local metal detector hobbyist called to tell me how John Guard had taken him several times to the cross to try and unearth the cross but had failed (Kit Williams had encased it in clay to defeat metal detectors).

"A few years later, Guard died of drink and drugs in the flat where I had interviewed him. He was a weird chap with a chequered history, but I maintained a certain affection for him.

"My guess is that Guard had failed to unearth the hare. He told me he used to regularly inspect the site, and I think one day he saw diggings made by the two academics who actually discovered the solution and realised people were getting close, so hatched the idea with Dugald Thompson of sending to Kit Williams a sketch plan of the solution. As we know, Williams, who received sackfuls of 'solutions' was delighted and there was an official unearthing. Guard could not appear as the discoverer because people knew of his connection with Ronnie Roberts, and Thompson used a false name because his connection with Guard was well-enough known for the truth to have come out, as it eventually did in the manner detailed here."

Question... Did "Ken Thomas" ever speak publicly about finding the jewel?

Yes. In addition to a few newspaper interviews and some very brief direct quotes in the May 1982 issue of Smithsonian magazine (download a 7MB PDF version of that article here), Harold Benney says he gave an interview on the UK TV show Omnibus in 1982, much of which Paul Harkin transcribed and sent in:

KEN THOMAS: (Referring to the 'one of six to eight' clue) It led me to Kimbolton Castle, which is where she lived and died. The next thing I saw was the picture of this little man's hand - pointing to the date - which is the Vernal Equinox. So, of course, I tried to work out where the Vernal Equinox came in at Kimbolton. And, er, I was having a lot of difficulty until I wrote down another word, which is at the end of the book - 'culmination', and this gave me clues to the meridian, and shadows, and high peaks. And then I thought I'd look at it another view and investigate Kit Williams and find out where he lived and areas he'd lived in. And I went to Steppingley and Millbrook and all round that area - couldn't find anything though that was relevant. And on my way back from there I stopped at Ampthill Park to let the dog go for a run. Now, as you know, there's two lovely crosses in Ampthill Park and, erm, there's this stone which indicates, 'the riches in the earth', the sign on there.

INTERVIEWER: How did you actually find the stone?

KT: Well, my dog went over and weed against it. I followed him over, and then I turned and looked at the crosses and...things came together. So I investigated one of the crosses, and it turned out to be Kate's Cross...Catherine's Cross - apparently she was imprisoned there. And I just transferred all my clues to Ampthill.

KT: I dug rather a large hole, I might add. It was eight foot long, and about two foot six across, and about three foot deep.

INT: A fair amount of work.

KT: Yes, a whole night. A whole night. I told him that someone else had dug twenty-three foot away from the cross out to twenty-five feet, and he said, 'No, he's too far away'. And I said, 'Well, I'm twenty foot', he said, 'Well you must be there'.

KT: It took me ages to sort out, erm, the numbers on the football field. They turned out to be atomic numbers, and it tells you to 'think again' - so it was all a waste of time.

INT: How do you mean - it tells you to 'think again'?

KT: Well, when you change the atomic numbers over to the atomic letters - the numbers transfer to letters which make up words, and it's: "FALSES NOW THINK AGAIN".

INT: Weren't you somewhat irritated by that?

KT: All the time, every red herring you find, you do - but I must...other people must be the same.

INT: When you found other people, searching, did you, sort of, chat with them?

KT: Oh no, oh no. No - you keep yourself to yourself.

INT: Fairly competitive?

KT: You've got to, yeah. You could give a clue away that would...could be a main clue, and you might not realise.

INT: What has tonight been like - an anticlimax?

KT: It's been an anticlimax since I found it. Erm, you look for something for fifteen months and when you find it, it's all over. Er, it's all gone, hasn't it? Finished now. So we've got to look for another jewel to find. I shall put it in the bank and leave it in safe hands.

INT: And in the end, I suspect you'll sell it?

KT: Well, I might not. I have children - I might leave it to my children.

INT: Do you think it'll be worth a lot of money?

KT: Maybe, one day. Depends who wants to buy the thing.

INT: You were lucky, really, weren't you?

KT: Very lucky. My dog is the one. Without my dog, I don't think I'd have bothered. If I hadn't stopped to, er, let him have a look, you know, have a run, and have a wee - might never found it. I'd still be digging at Kimbolton - along with the others.

INT: Did you... did you enjoy the whole process?

KT: Oh yes, very much. On reflection, yes.

INT: But now you don't like the publicity?

KT: No...no.

No indeed.

Question... What about the two men who solved Masquerade correctly but just a little too late?

Mike Barker and John Rousseau did, in fact, completely dismantle Kit's riddle as he'd intended, and were also digging very close to the actual burial spot. They had solved the puzzle at the same time Ken had, but Ken's letter reached Kit first--and although it was far less elegant or complete, it was still technically correct. Their story--and their "perfect solution," as it's come be be known--is relayed in full in Bamber Gascoigne's Quest for the Golden Hare--another reason that book is a must-read for Masquerade fans.

Frequent contributor James McLaughlin was nice enough to send along this transcription of a relevant Sunday Times article that appeared shortly after the book was solved (probably June 20, 1982):

A Golden Riddle is Solved
by Roy Perrott

THE SUNDAY TIMES can today give the solution to a master-riddle which more than a million people racked their brains to solve. The answer, desperately sought for more than two years by treasure-hunters of all ages, is contained in a 19-word acrostic: "Catherine's/long finger/over/shadows/earth/buried/yellow amulet/midday/points/the/hour/in/light of equinox/look you".

While this may be gobbledegook to those who have never heard of the children's book Masquerade, the answer may bring a mixture of relief and chagrin to the army of readers who tried to find the vital words from picture clues in the best-selling story by Kit Williams.

No one is entitled to be more chagrined than two Lancashire teachers who, it was revealed last week, were alone in managing to put together the 19 words that could have led them to a valuable treasure. This was the gold and jewelled figure of a hare which the author buried two feet in the ground "somewhere in Great Britain," shortly before the book's publication in September 1979.

The men are John Rousseau, head of physics at Rossall School, Fleetwood, and Michael Barker, a physics teacher at William Hume's Grammar School, Manchester. An article in today's Sunday Times magazine tells how they missed the £5,000 jewel by a fraction.

The essential clue was in the initial letters of the words or phrases in the 19-word sequence above. They spell out "close by Ampthill".

At the Bedfordshire village of Ampthill, you might have guessed from the 19 words, and other clues in the book, that the sun's shadow cast by a statue of Catherine of Aragon at the equinox of March 22 would pinpoint the treasure.

As for what John Rousseau and Mike Barker are doing now, I don't know, but I received a nice note from Daniel Morris saying "Mike Barker was my physics teacher at William Hulme's Grammar School, Manchester, England during my time there 1982-1987. My class had read Masquerade when I was a young child at primary school and I used to love asking him about the golden hare and how he had dug and obviously just missed it or even turned it over! I don't know if he still works there but the school has a website at whgs.co.uk."

Obviously, if either Mike or John finds this page and would like to contribute any of their personal memories to the proceedings, I would be very pleased and grateful to incorporate them. :)

Question... What happened to the jewel after the book was solved? Who owns it today?

After winning, Ken Thomas stored the jewel in a bank vault. He had agreed to loan it to a museum for public exhibition, but changed his mind at the last minute.

Paul Harkin knows more: "In 1985, a computer game/puzzle named Hareraiser was released in 2 parts by a company called Haresoft. Part one was called 'Prelude' and part two 'Finale.' The prize was the Golden Hare. It was released across several formats of home computer in the UK; I'm not sure about other countries worldwide. I remember seeing 'Prelude' on sale at the time but I never bought a copy. If you really want to, you can download the program and a ZX Spectrum emulator to see what it looks like. There is a small snippet of info from a computer magazine of the time at Your Spectrum." [Note to American visitors: the ZX Spectrum was sold in the U.S. as the Timex Sinclair 2068.]

I've found the original box art from the Sinclair version, which should look familiar enough--come to think of it, even if I didn't know that it was "the jewel from Masquerade," I would probably at least pick it up off the software shelf to have a closer look. I'm guessing all the boxes looked similar.

Through the magic of technology, you old computers never die--they just get emulated by newer computers, which are made to think they're old computers. In other words, if you want to try Hareraiser, you still can, but you'll need to download an emulator for one of the old machines (they are often available for Windows, Mac, DOS, and several other platforms) as well as the ROMs of the games for that system. A very special thanks to James McLaughlin who tirelessly gathered the ROMs on the site's behalf:

ROMS Emulators
ZX Spectrum - Prelude & Finale ZX Spectrum emulators
BBC Micro - Prelude & Finale BBC Micro emulators
C64 - Prelude C64 emulators
Acorn Electron - Prelude Acorn Electron emulators

I warn you--no matter which machine you use, once you get Hareraiser running, the game does not make a hell of a lot of sense. Here's a few screens from the Spectrum version of Prelude:

Paul continues: "I also have a newspaper cutting from the Daily Mail (UK), December 7 1988, which details what happened to the Hare after that. It transpires that Ken Thomas (real name Dugald Thompson) set up the company, Haresoft, with a partner, John Guard. At the time of the newspaper article, the company had recently gone into liquidation, and thus the hare had re-emerged from its bank vault that week, to be sold at auction, at Sotheby's, to an anonymous buyer, for £31,900. Kit Williams went along to bid, but dropped out at £6,000." A scan of the auction catalog appears at the left (thanks again to Toby Malcolm); click the photo for a larger version, including the detail of its expected price. If the jewel was auctioned off when the company went under, it's safe to assume that Hareraiser did not sell well and the computer game's puzzle was not solved.

Flash forward almost ten years later, and Tim Tate picks up the trail: "I saw on CNN Headline News [in 1996 or 1997] that the Hare was auctioned off. They interviewed Kit Williams himself, who was also bidding on the Hare. He didn't say much, but that he really wanted it back. In the end, it was purchased by an anonymous bidder who was not present. There was no indication of who the bidder might be. I can't remember the purchase price." Did anyone else catch this piece on CNN?

Question... Did anybody win the prize for Kit's untitled book? Where is the titled copy of that book now?

Yes--the winner's name is Steve Pearce of Leicester.

Matt Fletcher writes: "The prize for [the second book] was won. The challenge was to discover the name and represent it in some artistic way. I remember watching the final on a TV programme called Wogan which was a chat show hosted by the most uncharismatic man on British TV, Terry Wogan. There were four of five beautiful representations including one with a detachable bee on a fishing rod type gizmo. They were all fantastic creations...Kit was present to judge it and I think he felt sorry having to pick a 'winner' as all the finalists were so talented."

Harold Benney offers more detail--as well as a photo of the winning entry--on the Untitled page.

Question... What's Kit's e-mail address?

I don't know that he has one. Part of me thinks that, just by his sheer curious artist nature, he might have a computer--he was, after all, a computer operator in the Navy way back when--but the other part of me realizes that while he may not be a luddite, he certainly values his privacy and is more concerned with things mechanical and organic than electronic. My guess is that if Kit does have a computer and does correspond by e-mail, we'll never know it. Your best bet is to contact him through the Portal Gallery in London.

Keep in mind that I have no direct contact with him, nor do I know if he's ever seen this website. I hope he'd be flattered.

Question... Has Kit appeared on TV?

Yep. In addition to his appearance on Wogan to announce the winner of the untitled book, Kit was the subject of a half-hour TV special called Kit Williams: Beyond the Masquerade. Produced by Carlton (now part of ITV) in 1985 as part of the Contrasts series, it shows the real Kit at home in his studio, working on a series of round paintings, explaining where he gets his inspiration (and introduces the real-life "High Tea Man" as well!), demonstrating the infamous puzzle box, which he showed to the Portal Gallery in 1972 and established himself as an artist, and other fun things. It's not a long show but it is interesting to see him working in his studio, fun to see some of the international editions of Masquerade, and to learn that, yes, that's his kitchen pictured in Untitled.

My sincere thanks go out to Ben Arrowsmith for arranging a viewing of this special, so I could document it for the site! I had no idea it existed, and Bern supplied me with all I needed to know. Here are a few screen captures of this rare video.

Question... What's Kit up to now?

Art, I'd expect. Some of his recent works are detailed in the About Kit photo gallery.

Question... Will Kit write any more puzzle books?

Sadly, no. With all the problems that Masquerade caused him, I don't expect he wants to do similar projects again. Plus, it's not like he got anything wrong the first two times. What would he gain artistically by doing another book in the same vein? But don't take it from me--take it from Kit, in the TV special Beyond the Masquerade: "What I want to do now is concentrate on painting and making things. I'm not going to do any more puzzle books--I've had enough of all that."

A tantalizing rumor went around in late 1999 that Kit was working on a new book for the millennium, and apparently Amazon in the UK even listed it as "coming soon"--but it quickly disappeared. This may or may not have been The Scarlet Thread, on which Philip Lowe can eloaborate: "In a documentary, Kit said that he was going to publish a book called 'The Scarlet Thread' which was to contain the round paintings he was working on (one of which can be seen on the Portal Gallery website) and that the book would have a CD in the cover containing music composed by an Irish composer to go with the paintings. No treasure hunt, but the music would mean that readers would be encouraged to study the paintings for longer rather like Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition'." This project has yet to surface, so it's anyone's guess.

However, in addition to the art collection Out of One Eye, Kit has created another non-puzzle book called Engines of Ingenuity, a paperback showcasing some of Kit's mechancial artwork. This could well be the book that was mentioned above.

Question... Where can I find other treasure hunt books like Kit's?

There are many, as Kit unintentionally spawned an entire new genre---the "armchair treasure hunt." There is a complete list of current hunts in the Links section of the site. Among the older books (the solved ones) worth tracking down are Maze by Christopher Manson, Treasure by Dan James, and of course, Kit's Untitled book, which I'll gladly provide hints and assistance for rather than give the answer away.


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