Tuesday, 13 March 2012

'Blue Hold' by Elizabeth MagillOne of the most successful titles in our current programme has been Selected Poems and Prose by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which was beautifully illustrated with paintings by Elizabeth Magill. Now Elizabeth has reworked the cover image ‘Blue Hold’ as a nine-colour lithograph which is being published by Manifold Editions in an edition of 75 copies. The full price is £900 but the publishers have kindly agreed to make the print available to our members at the special pre-publication price of £750. For full details, please click here. Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta is one of the undisputed classics of travel literature, yet has never appeared in a photographically illustrated edition. Doughty was no photographer, but enquiries at Harvard have revealed a rich collection of largely unpublished photographs many of which are almost contemporary with Doughty and cover significant parts of his route.  Here, for instance, is Doughty’s description of Mount Hermon: ‘There arose the high train of Hermon aloft before us, hoar-headed with the first snows and as it were a white cloud hanging in the element,’ and here is a contemporary photograph by F. M. Good. The other photo, of a Bedouin encampment at Jericho, is by Félix Bonfils. Further to my note on Leonard Rosoman, it has been brought to my attention that he had a walk-on part in another Folio Book, in his capacity as fireman during the blitz. London, Portrait of a City, published in 1998, contains an extract from William Samson’s short story, ‘The Wall’, based on a true incident in which two firemen were killed by a collapsing wall, while two others, standing right by them, were unharmed. The fortunate pair were William Sansom himself and ‘Len’ – who was in fact Leonard Rosoman. Here is Leonard’s painting of the event.