This book has poems from each of the three authors and is signed by all three. The outer case is leather as is the book itself...which is soft as buttah. A real feelix. The cover lining paper is stunning as you can see from the picture--what the picture doesn't show is there is a 'texture' to the paper too. The book and case are in excellent shape and it is one of the 'prettiest' books I've ever seen.
Back cover
Beautiful hand-printed Japanese paper lines
the inside front and back of this book
Damn hedgehog snuck in...
Leather slip case
5 comments:
That looks like a pure beauty. Is that from the press that Ted's sister founded I wonder?
Hi George~ Yes! Looks like you are correct. Here is a blurb I found with a quick google:
(from Emory)
"Olwyn and Ted Hughes inaugurated a fine, limited, first editions press, Rainbow Press, that released sixteen titles between 1970 and 1981. It published various works by Hughes and Plath, Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Ruth Fainlight and Alan Sillitoe. Olwyn managed the press, helped by the advice from Hughes, from Leonard Baskin who illustrated several of the books, and from various printers, notably Sebastian Carter of Rampant Lions Press. She married Richard Thomas in 1979. The marriage ended in divorce some years later."
http://marbl.library.emory.edu/findingaids/content.php?id=hughes980_10379
We have this at the Poetry Room where I work; it is a very lovely book - and the significance of the Isidis image embossed on the book is worth mentioning. There is a photograph of Plath with Frieda (also in the Poetry Room) and on the wall behind SP is this Isidis image. I remember reading it was removed from a book that SP & TH owned or something?
You know, when I first pulled the book out and saw the 'goddess' I was thinking it was somehow related to Graves' The White Goddess, but just now a quick google didn't have a hit with the picture (re: Graves). I did find a site with a clear pic and explanation when you google: image: isidis (the link is too long). And the pic you mention sounds familiar, but I may be imagining it.
I like the trail of learning this endeavour is creating. George's Olwyn prompt and now this...
A quick look found the picture with Sylvia holding a baby with this Isidis picture behind her in Letters Home. It is the chapter picture of Part Six.
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