Twelfth Night - by William Shakespeare (Hardcover)
About this item
Highlights
- Artist Eric Ravilious's stunning illustrative interpretation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
- About the Author: Eric Ravilious (1903-42) was a British painter, book illustrator, and designer.
- 96 Pages
- Drama, Shakespeare
Description
About the Book
"This translation modernizes the language of this comedy and takes the archaic humor and renews it for a contemporary audience"--Book Synopsis
Artist Eric Ravilious's stunning illustrative interpretation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
Together with a newly commissioned introduction, this book includes a facsimile of one of artist Eric Ravilious's finest illustrated works, William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. This edition was first published by the Golden Cockerel Press in 1932 in a limited print run and is now considered a masterpiece of typography and illustration.
Ravilious was fascinated with Elizabethan and Jacobean poetry and drama, both as literature and as visual inspiration. His playful wooden engravings depict characters such as Viola, Sebastian, Sir Toby Belch, and Malvolio in period costumes on imaginary stages or in garden scenes. In addition, decorative borders and vignettes enliven the pages.
In his introduction, Alan Powers tells the story of how the publication of this edition was very nearly derailed by the onset of the economic Depression and how the resourcefulness and determination of the artist, publisher, and printer brought about this extraordinary version of Shakespeare's beloved comedy.
Review Quotes
"Among the various fine achievements of Eric Ravilious's war-abbreviated life (1903-42), one of the finest was his set of engravings for the edition of Twelfth Night published by the Golden Cockerel Press in 1932. You'll find copies of this notable productions of the private press movement offered by rare book dealers for large sums. Fortunately, a facsimile Twelfth Night has just been published. It comes with an introduction by Alan Powers, tracing Ravilious's development as an engraver and the peril in which Robert Gibbing's press found itself as this project got under way."-- "The Times Literary Supplement"
"In this beautifully produced edition, the play's bittersweet mood is perfectly expressed in the texture and form of Ravilious's wood engravings. His colored images bring just the right tinge of melancholy to the comedy."--Emma Smith author of "The Making of Shakespeare's First Folio"
About the Author
Eric Ravilious (1903-42) was a British painter, book illustrator, and designer. Alan Powers has published widely on twentieth-century design and architecture. He is the author of Eric Ravilious: Imagined Realities and Eric Ravilious, Artist and Designer.
