Book Commentary
September 4, 2002
By Michael
I have to admit to a passion for the Renaissance and, well, early modern Europe. I'll snoop about in whatever comes our way, though I try to keep my paws off and leave it on the store-shelf. This item that just came in, The Queen's Conjuror, reminded me of Peter Ackroyd's excellent The House of Doctor Dee. The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, by Benjamin Woolley, is firmly based on his diaries, I didn't know those existed, and the author's travels in Dee's footsteps across eastern Europe. His was a fascinating life and there are even connections with the early attempts to develop trading links with Muscovy. Come to think of it, I read about that in Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond novels.
A somewhat older work is A.S. Atiya's A History of Eastern Christianity ,as first released by Methuen in 1968. A fine solid book, regrettably without a dust-jacket but in green cloth and with a fine heft, there are sections on the Copts, Nestorians, Armenians and others. It's the kind of book I can't resist just opening up a random and, well, reading about the survival of Nestorian Christianity in Iraq into the twentieth century. And I find Atiya's prose to be quite accessible, even conversational in parts.
A few months ago I mentioned a novel by Cecilia Holland: The Kings in Winter, a first edition of her third novel. It sold in a few weeks; we now have a second printing of her second novel, Rakossy, also published by Atheneum back in the late sixties and also attractively designed by Harry Ford. It's placed in Hungary in the sixteenth century, just as Sulieman the Magnificent was set to invade. She has a new book out, The Soul Thief, set in Jorvik (York, England) in 950 A.D., and will be the first of a five novel series. I am very much looking forward to reading these.
My love for historical fiction can probably be traced to reading Watchfires to the North, an historical Arthurian by George Finkel. That led to Rosemary Sutcliff and the illustrator Charles Keeping. We have a Oxford large-format paperback of the retelling of the Beowulf legend, text by Kevin Crossley-Holland and illustrated by Charles Keeping. I have always admired his work for Sutcliff's books, especially The Silver Branch and The Lantern Bearers. I find his style striking yet atmospheric. This one on Beowulf has plenty of his idiosyncratic, moody illustrations draped around the text.
That was Keeping's style, as he mentions in The Telling Line, Essays on fifteen contemporary book illustrators. Other covered include Victor Ambrus, Jan Pienkowski and Quenton Blake. As you can see, the range is wide and maybe I should stress they cover more than children's illustrators. The bibliographies look complete and the book is handsomely made and, of course, very well illustrated in colour and black-and-white.
Going well beyond illustration is the work of Patrick Woodroffe. You can buy prints of his paintings on the Web nowadays but in my youth (my youth!) where you found Woodroffe was principally on fantasy and science-fiction paperbacks and rock albums. I was happy to see he is still going strong, and selling art and prints directly rather than commercially, if you know what I mean. We have a copy of his Mythopoeikon, from back in 1976; a collection of his paintings, etchings, book-jacket and record-sleeve illustrations. He found, back in the flush of his '70's success, that the commercial work was interfering with his muse and was happy to return exploring his own personal mythology. But the commissioned work, he explains, provided a routine, a discipline, as well as paying the rent.
The Queen's Conjuror; the Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Advisor to Queen Elizabeth I by Benjamin Woolley. Henry Holt, New York, 2001. $19.
A History of Eastern Christianity by A.S. Atiya. Methuen, London, 1968. $60.
Rakossy, by Cecelia Holland. Atheneum, New York, 1967. Second Printing. $35.
Beowulf; text by Kevin Crossley-Holland , illustrations by Charles Keeping. Oxford University Press, 1982 (1992 reprint). $7.
The Telling Line; Essays on fifteen contemporary book illustrators. Julia McRae Books, London, 1989. $40.
Mythopoeikon: Fantasies, Monsters, Nightmares, Daydreams; by Patrick Woodroffe. Fireside Books, New York, 1976. $25.