Green Blades, from her mound [No. III of X of the special edition]; Poems from "Poems of 1912 - 1913" by Thomas Hardy, A selection by Mark Cazalet who also made all the images

[Monmouthshire]: The Old Stile Press, 2007. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Cazalet, Mark. No. III of X of the special edition, total edition 210, folio size, 46 pp., signed by artist. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is one of Britain's most influential Victorian novelists and poets; he often wrote of tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In addition to being a writer of prose he was a prolific poet; from 1898 until his death in 1928 Hardy published eight volumes of poetry, with about one thousand poems being published in his lifetime. As is often the case, his inspiration came from life; Hardy's wife, Emma, died in November 1912 in the attic room of their house where she had lived estranged from him; their marriage had hardened into an empty shell and Hardy had long been in love with Florence Dugdale, whom he married the following year.

However, on reading Emma's secret memoirs detailing his cruelty and the breakdown of their marriage, Hardy was hit by an avalanche of grief. He returned to the north Cornish coast of their courtship and spent the rest of 1912 and 1913 producing his most lyrical and abiding collection of poetry. In this lovely version by The Old Stile Press, Mark Cazalet's images act as visual equivalents for the extraordinary insights Hardy found in the depths of his experience, with the sequence of poems arranged to suggest Hardy's gradual reconciliation to guilt and grief, resolving into a dawning sense of acceptance. (N.B., from the web sites of the Old Stile Press, Wikipedia and Poetry Foundation.)

___DESCRIPTION: Bound in yellow ochre cloth with white paper wrapping around from the back to front boards with brown illustration and green lettering, twenty-two full-page black illustrations with various colours, each image is formed from one woodcut and one linocut and were all printed from the original blocks; set in Centaur on Fabriano Tiziano paper, folio size (approximately 13" tall), unpaginated with 23 printed leaves, bound by The Fine Book Bindery in Wellingborough, signed and numbered by artist Mark Cazalet; the special edition was limited to ten copies numbered I - X, this being no. III, total edition of 210. Accompanying the special edition is a separate yellow ochre cloth bound wallet including six separate original linocuts titled, numbered, and signed by Cazalet, each with its own tissue guard. Both items are encased in a green cloth clamshell box lined with brown velvet-like material, the front cover has a cream paper label with a brown illustration.

___CONDITION: Both volumes and case are in fine condition; clean, crisp, as new from the publisher.

___POSTAGE: Due to the weight of this set, additional postage will apply; we are happy to ship at cost for both domestic and international customers, please inquire for more details.

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