With a fully revised introduction by Robert Macfarlane and paintings by landscape artist Rose Strang, this Folio edition of Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain celebrates her timeless ode to nature.
Summer
A Folio Anthology
Illustrated by Petra Börner
Preface by Storm Dunlop
Edited by Sue Bradbury
An enchanting selection of prose and poetry inspired by summer, with commissioned illustrations and binding.
£29.95
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Summer
Whatever else it was, it was one hell of a summer.
- Bill Bryson, from One Summer: America 1927
Published in series with Spring: A Folio Anthology, Winter: A Folio Anthology and Autumn: A Folio Anthology.
Long, lazy days; doors flung wide to catch the breeze; etiquette abandoned for informal alfresco meals; and skin bared to absorb the warm rays. Summer is the season of freedom, spontaneity and discovery; and a lifetime of magical childhood memories. Sue Bradbury has captured the essence of summer in this beautifully illustrated collection of anecdotes, poetry, prose and memoir that features a wonderfully eclectic group of writers, such as Jerome K. Jerome, Robert Burns, P. G. Wodehouse and Andy Warhol.
The extracts include Elizabeth David recounting the pleasure of simple summer picnics enjoyed on the banks of the Seine. Bill Bryson travels back to the iconic American summer of 1927 with Babe Ruth, Al Capone and Henry Ford all cited in his evocative overview. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic a decade earlier, Siegfried Sassoon delights in the ’pale gold of the wheat-field and the faded green of the hazy muffled woods on the low hills’ as he journeys to London on a hospital train across the landscape he fought to save.
The collection is illustrated with a series of striking double-page designs by Petra Börner. The Swedish-born artist has worked across the Folio seasonal anthologies and her work moves fluidly through the seasons with a changing colour palette and imagery. Börner also created the book’s elegant binding design.
Meteorology expert Storm Dunlop’s fascinating preface takes an astrological and weather-related approach to summer, intertwining the less scientific, but no less valid, lyrics of Nat King Cole’s ’Those-Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer’ to help decipher the significance of the season.
’Days I have held,
days I have lost,
days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms’
- Derek Walcott, from Midsummer, Tobago
Production Details
Quarter-bound in cloth with Modigliani paper sides
Set in Caslon
96 pages
Frontispiece, 4 colour double-page illustrations and selection of spot illustrations
Please note this edition is not slipcased
8¾˝ × 5½˝
About Sue Bradbury
Sue Bradbury became Editorial Director of The Folio Society in 1984, a position she held for twenty-five years. Her own publications include a translation of Three Tragedies by Federico García Lorca, Midnight Madonna (1995), a novel set in the Spanish Civil War, the biography Joanna, George and Henry: A Pre-Raphaelite Tale of Art, Love and Friendship (2012), and she also collaborated with Robert Fox on his magisterial four-volume Eyewitness to History for The Folio Society. She was awarded the OBE in 2010 for services to the publishing industry.
About Storm Dunlop
Storm Dunlop is a meteorology and astronomy expert whose books have been translated into 23 languages. His extensive published works include Philip’s Guide to Weather Forecasting (2008), the Oxford Dictionary of the Weather (2008), Come Rain or Shine: A Weather Miscellany (2015), Weather: A Very Short Introduction (2017) and How to Read the Weather (2018). He is a Fellow of both the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Meteorological Society. He has also lectured widely on both subjects.
About Petra Börner
Petra Börner, originally from Sweden, is an artist and illustrator based in London. She studied Fashion Design at St Martin’s School of Art in London, and her first commissions came from Elle and Vogue. Through numerous commissions by clients including the V&A, Oscars, Carven and Penguin Random House, her signature style features in a variety of cross-industry collaborations. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, at the National Portrait Gallery, Claire de Rouen, the Design Museum in London, Portefoin in Paris, as well as at the Swedish Embassy in Tokyo.
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