It had been a braw week in the wild west Highlands of Scotland, albeit a wee bit on the chilly side, and Algy and his little green dragon friend had made the most of the unusually fine spring sunshine, for the weather ahead did not look so good… in fact the forecast suggested that it was about to start raining, and would then continue non-stop, in dense Scotch mist, until Wednesday of next week…
But for the moment all was bright and beautiful, and even tolerably warm at ground level, which caused the little green dragon to emit a happy orange glow as he chatted with Algy among the pretty spring flowers. As Algy looked at the primroses around them, he remembered an odd little poem by William Wordsworth, and - wondering whether his funny wee friend had ever eaten strawberries - he anticipated what he fervently hoped would be a bountiful strawberry harvest in months to come, even though he had observed that the strawberry plants in his assistants’ garden were not even thinking about flowering just yet…
Pull the primrose, sister Anne! Pull as many as you can. –Here are daisies, take your fill; Pansies, and the cuckoo-flower: Of the lofty daffodil Make your bed, or make your bower; Fill your lap, and fill your bosom; Only spare the strawberry-blossom!
Primroses, the Spring may love them– Summer knows but little of them: Violets, a barren kind, Withered on the ground must lie; Daisies leave no fruit behind When the pretty flowerets die; Pluck them, and another year As many will be blowing here.
God has given a kindlier power To the favoured strawberry-flower. Hither soon as spring is fled You and Charles and I will walk; Lurking berries, ripe and red, Then will hang on every stalk, Each within its leafy bower; And for that promise spare the flower!
[Algy is quoting most of the poem Foresight by the 19th century English poet William Wordsworth.]
Spring had arrived at last, and although the air and wind were still cold, there was a quality of warmth in the vernal sunshine which Algy had not felt for six months or more - not to mention an enormous increase in the quantity and intensity of light, which was almost too bright to contemplate after the endless months of dreary darkness under perpetual rain clouds.
Few creatures could resist the joys of such a spring day, and Algy and his little green dragon friend were no exception. When they saw a large clump of daffodils opening their petals in the sun they rushed towards them and revelled in the glory of the golden trumpets.
As Algy watched his friend inspect the unfamiliar flowers, he was delighted to observe that there were several bumblebees buzzing around them, and all the birds of the vicinity were helping to celebrate the coming of spring in their own individual voices. Some only managed a chirrup or a tweet, and some proclaimed their opinions with an incessant “widgy widgy widgy widgy widgy”, but for a moment Algy caught the beautiful sound of the first skylark of the season, singing in the heavens, and he smiled a very large fluffy bird smile.
Resting on the mossy ground under the daffodils, it was inevitable that Algy was reminded of Wordsworth’s famous verses, for, like the poet, he “could not but be gay in such a jocund company”… although, basking in the sunshine with the little green dragon beside him, Algy was neither wandering nor feeling the slightest bit lonely.
So he hopes you will forgive him if he repeats the often-quoted poem once more for the sake of his dragon friend, for he suspects that the funny wee creature may not have had the usual advantages of a literary education when young
I wander’d lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretch’d in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: - A poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company! I gazed - and gazed - but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills And dances with the daffodils.
[Algy is of course quoting the famous poem Daffodils by the 19th century English poet William Wordsworth.]
I am pleased to announce the completion of my most recent binding, a copy of “Lines: Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a tour: July 13th 1798″, or, in short, “Lines”. The book is a 2002 publication by The Old Stile Press of a poem written by William Wordsworth which is often abbreviated to, “Tintern Abbey” although the building doesn’t actually appear within the poem. It was written by Wordsworth after a walking tour with his sister in this section of the Welsh Borders on the banks of the River Wye. The abbey fell into ruin after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century.
Frances and Nicolas McDowall from The Old Stile Press actually live on the banks of ‘the Sylvan Wye’, about two miles upstream from (‘above’) Tintern Abbey. Taken from The Old Stile Press website:
“Having lived for more than fifteen years amidst ‘these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape’, we felt the time had come to tackle the work that we have come to regard as 'our’ poem.
We can almost see William Wordsworth’s footprints on our riverbank. Even before we came to live here we felt a deep affinity with this poem. Wordsworth helped us to understand and to accept the 'sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused’ of which we have always been aware. The images involved Nicolas editing photographs which had been taken on our stretch of the river but Frances too spent long hours at the vat to make paper for the entire project text, endpapers and binding.
Spring water on its way to the Wye is an essential part of this paper making process and plants grown beside that stream were used in the endpapers. Altogether a very personal project!”
The original cover of the binding pictured below:
Although there is no mention of Tintern Abbey by name in the poem, the title of the book is very specific. The whole point of the poem is the location and the time, it tells the reader exactly where the speaker is and exactly when it was penned. The influence of this bit of nature “a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” had upon Wordsworth’s development influenced the cover design I chose for the binding.
I searched for plans of Tintern Abbey online and found some wonderful architectural drawings that were published on March 22nd 1884 in, The Builder.The Builder was a journal of architecture published in the UK in the 19th and 20th centuries. It began publication in 1843 and absorbed another journal titled Architecture.
I chose to base my cover design on a plan I found of the “Detail of West Entrance”:
I decided to split this plan in half and tie the front and back covers together by using Lines (therefore directly relevant to the title of the book) to link across the spine. This design was then mapped out onto a piece of tracing paper to use as a master template for working on the covering leather.
I then went on to depict the “Jamb and Arch Moldings” from the West Entrance on the endpapers and doublures, the pattern of which was directly influenced by another drawing in the series from The Builder.
I outlined the shape of this architectural detail onto my endpaper and doublure and cut out the shape with a scalpel. I designed it so that the pattern would run across the endpaper and onto the doublure, this was mirrored between the front and back covers.
I wanted to fill in the ‘void’ with a striped effect, similar to the detail seen on the plan. At first I experimented with drawing lines with ink however I wasn’t pleased with how it looked so instead turned my attention to using gold leaf.
I adhered some gold leaf to very thin lens tissue (9gsm) using PVA glue. This was then cut into very small strips (around 1mm wide) with a scalpel.
These thin strips were then glued to a piece of Japanese paper using fine pointed Tweezers to help position them into place. I had marked out the outline of where I need to fill with a pencil, plus added in some guidelines so that the strips remained straight across the whole expanse.
I left one end of each of the gold leaf strips unglued as I wanted them to lay on top of the blue doublure/endpaper paper once stuck in place, in order to avoid the look of a straight ‘cut’ line this end. These were individually stuck down at a later stage.
The Japanese paper was stuck together with the blue paper and pressed. I used a paper template to position further cut paper detail on the surface and also to pierce through and mark points for a small amount of embroidered detail.
The paper for the endpapers was laminated to a gold effect handmade paper. I made sure that the embroidery I did on the endpapers was really neatly tied down on the reverse as I knew when these papers were laminated together the threads would be visible, as below:
The text block was only three sections and was made from thick handmade paper. The paper was an important part of the making process for the book itself as an excerpt from the Old Stile Press website explains:
To begin, therefore, with the paper. Of a purity so important to the process, ‘the waters’ taken and used by Frances were indeed ‘rolling from their mountain-springs with a soft inland murmur’, as they pass our house on their way to the Wye itself. Also the inclusions (Reed &c.) that give such character to the endpapers and the cover were all picked ‘on the banks of this delightful stream’.
I chose to bind this book using stubs as this was a good solution to dealing with the thick sections. I worked out the number of stubs I needed for the thickness of the book and sewed the book up onto four tapes. The endpapers were made to the full width of the book so no stubs were needed for them.
The text block was rounded and backed and the endbands were sewn. The spine was first lined with some Aerolinen and then a strip of goatskin which was stuck to the spine, skin side down. This was sanded flush and a two-off one-on hollow was attached.
The boards were laced on and back-cornered and the edges of the boards were all sanded to a long bevel.
At this point I was able to accurately measure the exact size of the leather and therefore the outer edge of the design. I used strips of suede that I had edge-pared from the back of miscellaneous skins using my Brockman paring machine. I don’t throw any of these away as I have discovered they work really well as onlays. I like the colour variation they provide and when backed to lens tissue this stabilises them well.
In particular for this design the suede onlays gave a great mottled look, in my mind mimicking the look of stained glass. They were stuck down to the covering leather through a template using PVA glue.
Once the onlays were stuck in place they were back-pared. I was then able to get on with the embroidery process. Initially I used the tracing paper template to prick holes through with my needle pricker to mark out the lines I needed to embroider.
Given the multitude of embroidered lines making up this design I did the initial linear work using my sewing machine to speed up the process.
Once these guide lines were in place I ‘whipped’ around each of these with threads of differing colours to add definition and colour variation.
Further embroidered detail was added using cotton and metallic threads.
I also added extra detail to the surface of some of the suede onlays using a fine-nibbed pen.
Once all of the embroidery was done I marked out where the brickwork was going to be by pricking around the outlines through the template. I was able to add some sewn detail onto some of the bricks at this point before the leather was glued onto the book.
Once all of the embroidery was complete the front of the leather looked like this:
And the back like this:
It was then time to stick the leather to the book - always the bit I find most daunting after spending so many hours working on it before it goes onto the book! I dampened the front of the leather using a water atomiser. Once damp I turned the leather over and applied paste. I did three applications of paste to make sure that it had absorbed well into the leather.
Once the leather was on and the headcaps had been formed I left the book to dry under a light weight for 24 hours changing the blotting papers regularly.
Once completely dry I applied a run of water to the spine joints using a water pen to dampen the leather at this point before attempting to open the covers. The covers were opened and the text block, along with the leather joints, were released from the paper and cling film wrapper that was keeping them away from the moisture created during the covering process. The leather joints could then be stuck down in position.
I had bought some gold wire that I wanted to attach to the boards on the topmost line of the abbey design. I blind-tooled a groove into the leather at this point using a gouge with the correct curve.
Small holes were drilled right through the board using my Dremel and a very tiny drill bit. I used these holes to anchor the wire to the front of the board using a thread.
The thread moved up from the back of the board, over the wire, and then back through to the back of the board to hold the wire in place.
Once the wire had been sewn on through the boards, the boards were infilled with watercolour paper. An additional layer of Zerkall paper was glued down and sanded to level out any bumps and then the finished paper doublure was glued down in place. Final pen detail was added to the onlays at this point.
I then spent time working on the bricks. I scored lines into the surface of the leather using a fine bone folder and a T-square in order to get them even and regular. These brick outlines were then marked in using ink to build up the pattern. The lines were also run across from the front cover design to the back to link both together.
I used variety of methods to illustrate the bricks; gold leaf stuck to leather (using glaire and heat to fix it in place), embroidery (French knots and stem stitch), suede onlays, leather onlays and blind tooling.
I wanted to add a title to the spine so punched circles out of the gold leaf-faced leather. This was then carbon tooled with the book title and stuck to the book spine.
Finally the book was blind tooled to add a decorative look to the book as a whole.
Once the book was complete it was time to photograph it in all of it’s glory!
I now do all of the photography of my bindings myself, and thankfully have a wonderfully light conservatory in my house in which to take these photos. Later this week you will be able to see more images of the book on my website here.
The book was housed in an oak box, with a simple ‘line’ and title on the lid which was tooled on coloured suedes and embroidered to match the book cover.
A detail shot of the front cover:
The endpapers and doublures:
The title page:
And in conclusion, an excerpt from the tail end of the book, penned by Nicolas McDowall:
The images, too, even of for some tastes they may lack the literalness that would come from drawings or wood engravings, are all derived, as is my won’t, from photographs…which were taken on our stretch of the river.
I have felt a deep affinity with this poem since youth, when I never for a moment imagined we would one day live here. I have always been a ‘lover of the meadows and the woods and mountains’, and it was Wordsworth who helped me to understand and accept the ‘sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused’ of which I was so profoundly aware, then as now.
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquility; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea; Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly. Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year; And worshipp'st at the Temple’s inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not.
There is a change—and I am poor; Your love hath been, nor long ago, A fountain at my fond heart’s door, Whose only business was to flow; And flow it did; not taking heed Of its own bounty, or my need.
What happy moments did I count! Blest was I then all bliss above! Now, for that consecrated fount Of murmuring, sparkling, living love, What have I? shall I dare to tell? A comfortless and hidden well.
A well of love—it may be deep— I trust it is,—and never dry: What matter? if the waters sleep In silence and obscurity. —Such change, and at the very door Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.
Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!
I am pleased to announce the completion of my most recent binding, a copy of “Lines: Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a tour: July 13th 1798″, or, in short, “Lines”. The book is a 2002 publication by The Old Stile Press of a poem written by William Wordsworth which is often abbreviated to, “Tintern Abbey” although the building doesn’t actually appear within the poem. It was written by Wordsworth after a walking tour with his sister in this section of the Welsh Borders on the banks of the River Wye. The abbey fell into ruin after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century.
Frances and Nicolas McDowall from The Old Stile Press actually live on the banks of ‘the Sylvan Wye’, about two miles upstream from (‘above’) Tintern Abbey. Taken from The Old Stile Press website:
“Having lived for more than fifteen years amidst ‘these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape’, we felt the time had come to tackle the work that we have come to regard as ‘our’ poem.
We can almost see William Wordsworth’s footprints on our riverbank. Even before we came to live here we felt a deep affinity with this poem. Wordsworth helped us to understand and to accept the 'sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused’ of which we have always been aware. The images involved Nicolas editing photographs which had been taken on our stretch of the river but Frances too spent long hours at the vat to make paper for the entire project text, endpapers and binding.
Spring water on its way to the Wye is an essential part of this paper making process and plants grown beside that stream were used in the endpapers. Altogether a very personal project!”
Happy Halloween @GreenSoil! (Ode to William Wordsworth by Nancy Wallace) #Wordsworthrevisited
Playing with Poo (My Brew of Choice)
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden regal cows;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
I chanced upon some moo poo tea.
Such bovine beauties did grace the meadow,
And bellow such a sweet libretto.
They roamed in never-ending line
Along the golden country side:
Ten thousand cattle I saw at glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance,
Whilst pooping as they pranced.
Then through the tumble-down, farm-shed door,
Cometh Annie to complete the chore,
Trowels a'blazing! a perpetual collection of poo ensues,
(Nothing but organic will do.)
She gathers bags of moo poo tea
Enough for you, enough for me.
Oh! such garden goodness we create through brew.
Get your poo on, with organic compost tea from Authentic Haven Brand, HERE.Created from livestock raised on permanent native grass pastures at the Haven Family Ranch, California. Naturally organic.
“It was a grief,— Grief call it not, ‘twas anything but that,— A conflict of sensations without name, Of which he only, who may love the sight Of a village steeple, as I do, can judge, When, in the congregation bending all To their great Father, prayers were offered up, Or praises for our country’s victories; And, ‘mid the simple worshippers, perchance I only, like an uninvited guest Whom no one owned, sate silent; shall I add, Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come.”
William Wordsworth, The Prelude, describing his feeling of alienation from his own country when Britain declared war on France.
Fuck it, post with the Frev alignments of the First Gen Romantics:
William Wordsworth: Girondin. He literally hung out with Brissot (maybe. probably. it’s a long story) what did you expect
Robert Southey: he worshipped the ground Robespierre walked on and called himself a Jacobin
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: mostly at the time he would just call himself a democrat, he never really used the labels they used in France. As far as the government was concerned he was considered a Jacobin, though (see: Spy Nozy incident)
Dorothy Wordsworth: did not leave behind anything about politics at all. I would probably guess her views were similar to her brother’s, perhaps a little more moderate
Lamb siblings: tbh I don’t really know. I don’t think Mary cared very much and I haven’t looked into Charles in that period much
Robert Burns: he was almost proto-marxist in principle and loved both the principles of both Frev and Amrev. Again, he didn’t ever basically tattoo JACOBIN on his head like Southey but his sympathies probably lied there
William Blake: I’m pretty sure Blake didn’t call himself anything but he was pretty much an early anarchist so make of that what you will
Robert Southey went ultra-conservative later in life though. As Lord Byron put it in his amazing satire on Southey, The Vision of Judgement:
“He had written praises of a Regicide; He had written praises of all kings whatever; He had written for republics far and wide, And then against them bitterer than ever; For pantisocracy he once had cried Aloud, a scheme less moral than ‘twas clever; Then grew a hearty anti-jacobin— Had turned his coat — and would have turned his skin”
Also I hugely recommend all the French Revolution-related sections of Wordsworth’s Prelude (even though he also went over to conservatism). Especially the part about his guilty nightmares after his friends the Girondins were executed:
“Such ghastly visions had I of despair And tyranny, and implements of death; And innocent victims sinking under fear, And momentary hope, and worn-out prayer, Each in his separate cell, or penned in crowds For sacrifice, and struggling with fond mirth And levity in dungeons, where the dust Was laid with tears. Then suddenly the scene Changed, and the unbroken dream entangled me In long orations, which I strove to plead Before unjust tribunals,—with a voice Labouring, a brain confounded, and a sense, Death-like, of treacherous desertion, felt In the last place of refuge—my own soul.”
“What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower…”
