|
A title from The Old School Press Antigone A narrative poem by Desmond Post, with wood cuts by Inger Lawrance | ||
|
| ||
|
About the book One of the books in our series of British Contemporary Poets. The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Antigone was sealed in a cave by her uncle Creon after she had, against his command, tended the body of her brother who had died fighting to succeed Oedipus. Desmond Post's poem is an imagined soliloquy as she awaits death in her tomb. Writing of his work, Desmond Post says 'Antigone, of all the royal house of Thebes, is the most deserving of recall. There was a need that I should cast her within the character that Sophocles made noble, so her words are spare and acute, and her spirit, questioning and defiant, does not succumb to the creeping despair. Her death is an affirmation of her self against the pitiless Fates.' A sample page from the book
About the edition In asking Inger Lawrance to provide five of her striking wood cuts (cut on cherry wood), I think I found a complementary visual voice about which the words 'spare' and 'acute' can also be used. I first came across her work in illustrations for The Old Stile Press and she published in her own right at The Windmill Hole Studio. The text is hand-set in the 14pt version of Stephenson Blake's casting of Eric Gill's Perpetua. The edition consists of 112 copies, signed by poet and artist, of which twelve sets of sheets were reserved for binders. £42. 30pp. The series is to a uniform external design: quarter bound in yellow cloth with boards covered with a hand-made paper from the Larroque mill. The Larroque paper comes in a range of delicate colours, and a different one is used for each title in the series. Each book bears its title embossed in gold on the front board. The text paper is either 145gsm Zerkall or 170gsm Magnani mould-made paper, and the end papers black Canson Mi Teintes. Each book is about 265mm high and 175mm wide. | ||
|
Find out more about the book |
View a designer binding by Rachel Ward-Sale of the book: |
|
