The book will be available from the OSP website from next week, but you can click HERE to get see more pictures of it on their blog, together with information about prices and special editions. Above, as I promised some time ago, is a full image of the original artwork for the cover. (My apologies for having teased Artlog readers for so long.) Nicolas decided to reverse it for the book, so that Catchmays Court is on the front cover rather than the back. In this way the new volume better references the layout of the cover for the first volume of the bibliography that I did ten years ago. From the photographs Nicolas has posted I can see that the printers have done a beautiful job of reproducing the strength of colour and detail of the original painting, to the point that the sgraffito in the hedge almost looks as though it’s been scratched into the cover. I’m enormously pleased with the result.
In the top of the house you can see the glow of a light from a circular attic window. This is my homage to Frances, up there burning the midnight oil as she busily packs copies of the bibliography to dispatch to libraries and book collectors around the world. The trees lining the river are balsamic poplars. So much have Peter and I enjoyed the fantastic perfume they give up when the Spring sap rises in them, that the first sapling planted at Ty Isaf when we moved here was a balsamic poplar, to remind us of Catchmays Court.
The first copy to be delivered to Catchmays Court. The rest follow on Monday.
(Photograph of bibliography by Nicolas McDowall)
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Splendid shapes and colors in the dream forest and fields. I like the way the wild world outside rather overpowers the house at night, so that it is sketchy and a bit ephemeral. Like the little moon-window too.
I have the fancy that Frances is up there behind the round window of the attic, burning the midnight oil as she packages up copies of the bibliography to send out to libraries and private collections across the world!
And a nice harvest moon it is, too. Maybe it’s glowing from the bright covers.
The printer of the cover has done a great job. It’s made me very happy!
Hurrah for people who know what they are doing!
Oh I heartily second that Marly!
the painting is an absolute wonderland. the colors are magical, and i am so taken with the house! it’s very inspiring…
what a gorgeous book…so many lovely projects for you, all at once! you are a miracle machine!
Zoe, I feel very privileged that the two Old Stile Press bibliographies came my way. A real stroke of luck. And this second one was a great pleasure to produce. Everything just came together, and believe me that isn’t always the way of these things!
It’s beautiful, Clive. A job very well done!
AM
Thanks Anita. A big relief. As an artist yourself you know how only too often everything can go wrong twixt the digital image and the printer! in this case the painting was captured well by Peter and his camera, and the printer was able to transfer the image so that nothing was lost. It can be done, but it takes care and attention to detail. The image was sent as a Tiff, and so there was lots of information packed in it. Of course all this is helped by the nature of the book, and the fact that Nicolas and Frances at the Old Stile Press don’t have the constraints of a commercial publishing outfit that would have to use the wraparound to carry a tile and author on the front, and a blurb on the back. The fact that this is a Private Press edition meant that I didn’t have to take all of those things into account. Just had to get those sheep midway across the composition, which was easy. I’m glad that single black sheep of the first edition has at last got some company!