The South Polar Times has been published at long last! It is five years since I first saw the originals, and over two years since we started working on it in earnest, but we still went to the wire – the books were delivered on January 17^th, one hundred years to the day since Scott and his companions finally reached the South Pole. The publication is causing quite a stir – the New York Times has already run an article about it, and the Observer and The Times are also planning features. We have donated a copy to the ship’s library of the Orion, which runs tours to the Antarctic, and to the Explorer’s Club in New York for a charity auction, as well as to the three British institutions where the originals are housed – the Royal Geographical Society, the British Library and the Scott Polar Research Institute.

Mezzotints by John Martin for 'Paradise Lost'

Talking of the British Library, I was there the other day looking at John Martin’s illustrations to Paradise Lost. He produced two different sets of mezzotints for the poem, one for the quarto and one for the octavo edition of the book, and as you can see even in this rather shaky iPad photo there are significant differences between the two. Mezzotints are extremely hard to reproduce – the shadow detail tends to get lost when they are photographed – so I am on the lookout for an unbound set of the prints (either format) from which we could scan direct, and thus achieve a quality worthy of the originals. If anyone knows of such a set, do let
me know.

Niroot Puttapipat came in the other day with the binding artwork for his next book. There are four blocking passes (copper, silver, gold and black) on a tan material. The separations are things of beauty – here they all are. No prizes for guess which book he’s working on!

Gold (left) and Black (right)

Copper (left) and Silver (right)

I found a new use for the iPad the other day. I was at the Yale Centre for British Art, checking the proofs of William Blake’s illustrations to the poems of Thomas Gray against the watercolour originals, and they weren’t looking too good, so I brought the iPad camera into action:                   As you can see from this example, the proof (on the left) is distinctly ‘warmer’ than the original. Being able to photograph the two side by side in the same lighting conditions, and email the result to the repro house, is an immense help in getting the colour right. I try and avoid superlatives in this blog, but I have to say that handling over a hundred original watercolours by Blake is pretty exciting!

The dummy copy of Poems of Thomas Gray has recently come in from the binders, designed by David Eccles as a companion to Night Thoughts which we published a few years ago.

David is also working on lettering for the presentation box of the Vellum Leaves by William de Brailes. He has based it on de Brailes’ own inscription within one of the illuminations – these letters are less than 2mm high so it requires a magnifying glass and lots of patience to copy them. Here is de Brailes’ original, hugely enlarged, together with David’s version.

After my visit to Yale I went to New York for meetings at various august institutions, sounding them out about the possibility of holding special events for our East coast members. The Morgan Library (who possess one of the de Brailes leaves) and The Grolier Club were both extremely welcoming and receptive to our ideas. Most intriguing was The Explorers Club, where we hope to hold an event to celebrate the South Polar Times. It is a magnificent building, with all the accoutrements one would hope for in such an institution, from solar topees to huge elephant tusks and a stuffed polar bear.

On my flights to and from New York I was engrossed by Steven Pinker’s latest book The Better Angels of Our Nature, a fascinating analysis of the gradual decline of violence over the history of mankind. His accounts of medieval tortures and executions are grimly fascinating, and it was serendipitous that my last call in New York was at the Richard Feigen gallery, where Sam Fogg is showing some remarkable Northern European late medieval paintings, some of which rejoice in their depictions of unimaginable suffering. Here is a torturer from one of the paintings, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr Bean.

Finally a word about a fund-raising initiative from House of Illustration, our partners in the annual Book Illustration Competition. Please click here to support their excellent cause.

Finally, finally, Quentin Blake has been awarded this year’s Prince Philip Designers Prize, to add to his amazing collection of honours. Is there any other appropriate award he has not won?

Yesterday evening I went to the opening of the Royal Manuscripts exhibition at the British Library. We all had to arrive early for security reasons, but fortunately there was no shortage of champagne, so we had a jolly time waiting for the Queen and Prince Philip to arrive. In due course, Her Majesty declared the exhibition open and then we could go down and take a look. There are almost 200 fabulous manuscripts on show, all from the British Library’s own collection: every one is a treasure, and most are rarely on view, so it’s unmissable. I was mesmerised by this image of   ‘God Creating Heaven and Earth’: one tends to think of God the Father as an angry old man, but here I feel he embodies all of the trinity in one – so the suffering in his face is a premonition of his own suffering on the cross.

Last weekend I went to Oxford for the Fine Press Book Fair. As ever, there was a tempting array of goodies on offer from both sides of the Atlantic. I was very taken by Walter Bachinski’s new Circus Book, and also by a remarkable collection of type specimens all designed and printed by the self confessed ‘Alphabetical Fetishist’, Russell Maret. I was sorely tempted by both, and finally fell for the latter – of course lo-res images on screen cannot begin to do justice to this superb letterpress printing, but that’s precisely the reason why work of this kind should be possessed in physical form.

One of the most enjoyable tasks this week has been type-setting the text of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury in an array of different colours, so as to assist the reader in following the different strands of the narrative. The narrator of the first section of the book is Benjy, the idiot alluded to in the book’s title; in this page, for example, his ‘present day’ narrative which resumes towards the foot of the page, is printed in black, while the green and brown passages form part of his memories of two different days in childhood, about twenty years earlier. This is a notoriously tough novel to read, and I’ve found that this approach to the text – which was wished for by Faulkner himself, but never before realised in print – is enormously helpful to one’s understanding it.

Some days are more bloggable than others, and yesterday was a bumper day.  In the morning, I went to the Kensington home of Lisa von Clemm, doyenne of the Designer Bookbinders, to take part in judging their annual competition. Each year The Folio Society donates printed sheets of a set book to be bound by all the entrants. This year it was Bruce Chatwin’s Songlines, illustrated by Simon Pemberton. I’m not allowed to tell you who won but here is a selection from the 50 or so entries. In addition to the Folio set book, entrants can also submit a book of their choice, here are a few that caught my eye. The middle one is called Nest and Egg.

After lunch I went to visit David Attenborough to discuss a new project. David spent over a decade tracking down every plate drawn by Edward Lear for the various bird books published by John Gould. There are 70 plates altogether, and once the collection was complete, he had them bound in an original Gould binding case. Lear was in a class of his own among the bird painters of the day: here is one magnificent example, the Eagle Owl.  We are hoping to publish a facsimile of this unique volume in a year or so, including a new essay by DA himself.

David also told me some of his experiences when making his current TV series Frozen Planet, including his visit to Scott’s hut, which remains just as it was left in 1913. He approached and entered it entirely alone, and felt the tangible presence of the spirits of the past – ‘if ever I were to believe in ghosts, it was at that moment!’ I told him about the forthcoming publication of South Polar Times and he said he could not wait to see it.

In the evening I went to see the premiere of a new opera at Covent Garden’s Linbury Studio Theatre, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness composed by Tarik O’Regan with a libretto by Tom Phillips. The intensity and moral complexity of the story were brilliantly recreated in the operatic medium – do try and get to see it.

Finally, talking of seeing things, there are two interesting shows on in London at the moment for the lovers of illustrated books. John Vernon Lord has an exhibition of his work for Alice Through the Looking Glass at The Illustration Cupboard until 5 November; while at Sophie Schneideman Rare Books the great American engraver and book artist Gaylord Schanilec has an exhibition until December 3.

I am delighted that John Holder has received the rare accolade of an honorary doctorate from Anglia Ruskin University. John has illustrated some great Folio books over the years (including the Hippopotamus shown here), and is a fine musician to boot.

Here’s a moody picture of the artist.  The citation describes him as:

‘a veteran illustrator who is known internationally for his phenomenal creative talent.  He specialises in classic pen drawing with a generous twist of humour and these intricate, expressive and evocative drawings have been acclaimed by art critics from every corner of the globe.’

In an earlier post I mentioned that we were working on a complete facsimile of South Polar Times, the in-house magazine of Captain Scott’s Antarctic expeditions. Devising a suitable box has been quite a challenge: it has to hold the twelve books in an upright position and protect them from damage, and we have tried to find which evokes the style and materials available to the expedition. After a few prototypes, we came up with this one, in rough canvas.  There’s a lot of interest building up around this publication, which will appear early next year in what promises to be a blizzard of activity around Scott’s centenary, centred on a big exhibition at the Natural History Museum.

Last week was the Frankfurt Book Fair, at which we have had a stand for the past three years.  It gives a rare opportunity to chat with some of our German members, whose enthusiasm for Folio and for British culture in general is inspiring.  The main reason I go to Frankfurt is to meet with some of the European facsimile publishers, and look at each other’s latest offerings.  Here is one of the most elaborate bindings I came across this year. It is for a manuscript known as the Speyer Pericopes, and is constructed from various metals – the central figure is gilded – and numerous gems. The book is selling for around €20,000.  (If anyone would like to know more, just let me know, and I’ll put them in touch with the publishers.)

Red letter day. The final proofs of the Vellum Leaves by William de Brailes arrived from Italy. Everyone who sees them says – these are amazing, they’re like real vellum! Yes, because they are real vellum. I’ll be taking them to the Frankfurt Book Fair next week, and look forward to some jaw-dropping reactions from the other facsimile publishers.

Meanwhile, I have finally finished positioning the type and photographs in the Japan books. These are a great record of Japanese culture just over a century ago, to all appearances totally unaffected by the West. Here are a couple of pictures that amused me – the postman, and farmers in their raincoats.

And, on a more serious note, here is the result of an earthquake in 1891, in which 10,000 people were killed and 20,000 wounded. The caption laconically observes: ‘Earthquakes . . . are feared by everyone except the newly arrived tourist, who seems to enjoy the novelty of the situation.’ Plus ça change!

A recurrent problem for books where the photographs and text must be printed on the same paper is finding a stock that suits both – if the paper is chosen to suit the text, the photos tend to look muddy, and if the paper suits the photos, the text area tends to be glaring and unsympathetic. We have sourced a new type of paper that we think will do the trick for this book. Here is a reduced size image of our test proofing document – at the top are two of the standard pages, with different background shades; below them are one of the large photographs and an art print, ‘mounted’ onto coloured papers; at the bottom of the sheets are strips of all the different shades we will be employing for the mounts; finally there are a couple of lines of text newly typeset by us, alongside the original version, for comparison, printed on a further selection of backgrounds.

We have been checking these colour proofs at the John Rylands Library in Manchester. Here is a photo of their magnificent reading room.

I had a phone call from John Murray on Friday.  He said he’d been reading my blog about our new facsimile of South Polar Times. ‘In case you’re interested,’ he said, ‘I’ve got some original glass plates here we inherited from Smith Elder (the publishers of the original facsimiles).’  Of course I was interested, so I called in to see him yesterday. I worked at John Murray for over ten years before joining Folio, so mounting the steps of 50 Albemarle Street always stirs up a cocktail of memories and awakens the ghosts of authors I was lucky enough to meet – John Betjeman and Kenneth Clark, Patrick Leigh Fermor and the redoubtable Dame Freya Stark. (Dame Freya always wore her hair low on one side because – it was said – her ear had been bitten off by a camel.)

Here is a photo of the plates, which clearly had been made by Ponting himself from his original negatives. The reflection at the bottom of the picture is of the idiosyncratic dome in John Murray’s waiting room.

Just round the corner in Berkeley Square is Maggs Bros, the venerable antiquarian bookseller: it is an extraordinary place, more like a scholarly library than a shop. I was there a few weeks ago talking to Ed Maggs about Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta, which we are considering for a Limited Edition. Ed showed me a remarkable copy of the book (‘so rare that most collectors have never even heard of it’ he said), one of only six copies of the 1921 edition specially printed on large paper for T.E. Lawrence, in lieu of a fee for his introduction to that edition. The book bears the signatures of both Doughty and Lawrence.

Ed was hopping with excitement about his new boat, a beautiful 50-foot gaff ketch. We spent last weekend sailing in the Solent, putting the Betty Alan through her paces.

Last year we inaugurated a new Book Illustration Competition in conjunction with House of Illustration, which was won by Matthew Richardson - one of his illustrations for Camus’ The Outsider is shown here. We have just announced the second annual competition and I’m delighted that Marina Warner and Angela Barrett have agreed to be guest judges.

Our new edition of the Golden Cockerel Troilus and Criseyde is nearly ready for press, and we have been carefully checking proofs against our copy of the original. We were interested to find that a few of the engravings are different from the versions included in the definitive edition of Gill’s engravings published by Christopher Skelton in 1983 – presumably they were revised by Gill for re-use in the Canterbury Tales, which appeared later. Here are three examples.

Peter Suart came in on Friday to sign his etchings for the new Gulliver’s Travels – the final stage of a project which has been in the pipeline for well over a year. Meanwhile I was polishing my letter to members announcing the publication. I came to the phrase ‘many believed that Gulliver’s Travels was a true – if exaggerated account’ and thought – surely not! By serendipity, my lunchtime stroll that day took me past the Royal College of Surgeons, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and I popped in to the Hunterian Museum. Among the fascinating items in that sometimes gruesome collection is the skeleton of Charles Byrne, the famous Irish giant – here it is, together with a contemporary print (I particularly like the small gentleman on the right).

Also on display is a portrait of another small gentleman, the famous ‘Count’ Jozef Boruwlaski who had reached the height of just 28 inches by the age of 22; he lived to the grand old age of 97 and is buried in Durham Cathedral. With such extreme examples to hand, and with explorers returning to British shores with incredible tales of wondrous discoveries around the globe, it is indeed conceivable that some people took Captain Gulliver at his word. (By the way, an unexpected fact about Count Boruwlaski is that he had a brother of six foot four!)

I took the proofs of his Cicero illustrations down to Tom Phillips in Peckham and he was mightily impressed. Lying around his studio were various early ideas for his Rilke project. This one includes the first line of the Duino Elegies, in his own translation. Tom told me on no account to miss looking at the old waiting room in Peckham Rye station – ‘one of the finest rooms in England’. Here’s a photo, showing the shell of what must once have been Venetian grandeur. Thankfully, its restoration is now under way.

Went to a fabulous performance of Puccini’s Il Trittico the other night. I was reminded of a project I have long cherished – to publish properly printed and bound opera libretti in parallel text. Those supplied with CDs are invariably printed in tiny type and the booklets tend to fall apart. Some libretti – such as those by da Ponte for Mozart, and Hofmannsthal for Strauss – are literary works in their own right and should be read as such. One could illustrate them with classic set and costume designs such as Alfred Roller’s for Der Rosenkavalier.

Comments on this – and any other ideas raised in this blog – are more than welcome!

Last Wednesday I went to the Fitzwilliam Museum
in Cambridge to check the proofs of vellum leaves from a psalter by William de Brailes. I was accompanied by Lorenzo, the amiable Italian printer, who will be seeing the job through the press.  This will be the first ever manuscript facsimile actually printed onto vellum, and places unusual demands on the repro process. We had already checked three stages of digital proofs, and now we were seeing the images printed on vellum for the first time. I am glad to say that the match was remarkably good, and I think the effect will be totally convincing once we have added the gold and the blind tooling. Here is one of the leaves (gold still to be added) showing the Tree of Jesse, and an arty photo of the splendid Founder’s Library, in which we were working.

Our Letterpress edition of Shakespeare has now been in production for five years, and we have decided to reward the loyal members who have bought all the volumes in the series by sending them a facsimile of the only page of Shakespeare’s work that survives in his own handwriting. This forms part of the play Sir Thomas More, to which Shakespeare contributed a charged encounter between More and the rioting citizens of London. The fragile manuscript resides in the strongroom of the British Library, and it was there that we checked our first proofs. Seeing Shakespeare’s own writing, evidently written at speed (Sir Thomas More’s name is given as moore, moor and even moo) gives a great sense of closeness to the man himself. Meanwhile, we have commissioned Professor John Jowett, who edited the definitive Arden Shakespeare text of Sir Thomas More, to write a brief account of the genesis of the play, and create a version of his transcript to accompany our facsimile leaf.  Ironically the refusal by the Master of the Revels to license the play was indirectly responsible for its survival, since the play was never printed. When plays were printed, the original manuscripts were thrown away, but this one lay forgotten on a shelf somewhere before its importance was recognised as late as the 1870s.

Last week we received the dummies of one of next year’s Limited Editions – Japan: described and illustrated by the Japanese, a deluxe publication from the 1890’s, containing over 500 hand-tinted original photographs. Our binding has been designed by Neil Gower based on one of the original editions. Some months ago, we bought a set of these scarce volumes to reproduce from, but some of the images were badly faded.  The John Rylands Library in Manchester possesses another copy, in which many of the photographs are much better than ours, so we have been comparing one against the other, found that not only does the condition of the photographs vary enormously from copy to copy, but so does the hand-colouring (a red sash in one copy is green in another); sometimes even different negatives were used.  So we have selected the best from both copies.

Back in the office after a wonderful holiday in the Abruzzo – our hovel was just behind this castle at Rocca di Calascio.

Amongst the 305 emails which had stacked up while I was away were two of particular interest. One was from Tom Phillips, who has just finished his Cicero illustrations for us.

He sent a scan of the original Roman coin he had cunningly doctored for his dig at Berlusconi. The illustrations are full of contemporary references, and why not?  Cicero’s impassioned outcry ‘o tempora, o mores’ is as pertinent today as it ever was –and not just in Rome.

Tom also said the book he would most like to work on next is Rilke’s Duino Elegies–he’d like to translate the poems as well as illustrate them, so it would be an out-and-out artist’s book – probably printed letterpress on hand-made paper with giclée illustrations.

The other interesting email was from Quentin Blake, proposing La Fontaine as his next victim. Strangely, Folio has never published the Fables before – but I scarcely care what book Quentin does, it’s such a joy working with him. He sent this appetiser, of the Ant and the Cricket.

I have been kept busy this week working on South Polar Times, the ‘in-house journal’ kept by Captain Scott’s men on his two Antarctic Expeditions. We are publishing a facsimile of all twelve issues to coincide with the centenary of his death next year. The twelve original volumes are housed in three different locations – the Royal Geographical Society, the British Library, and the Scott Polar Research Institute, and we have been scurrying between these august institutions with stacks of colour proofs.

One could easily get blasé about handling such treasures, but there’s still an amazing frisson of excitement about these fragile typewritten pages, knowing the conditions in which they were produced and the tragic outcome of the Terra Nova expedition. All the best illustrations are by E.A. Wilson, who was in the polar party who perished with Scott. Here is one of his covers.