Descripción
A nicely put-together and handsome old book, like a shire horse or a cob-walled cottage: 37 essays by Llewellyn Powys, 53 photographs by Wyndham Goodden and an enticing cover design by Gertrude Powys. The book's well printed on good-quality paper. No markings to the text, but the binding is getting tender in five places, there's some spotting around the outer edges and a bit of browning and fainter spotting towards the very back and front. A small former owner's sticker is on the front endpaper. The vivid blue-green boards are slightly mottled down the spine but otherwise sound. The jacket is worn around the edges, with small tears at seven corners and a larger bit missing - about a centimetre square - at the top back rear corner of the spine. The top of the spine is frayed so the SOMERSET of SOMERSET ESSAYS is still readable as SOMERSET but part of the top of each individual letter is missing. The bottom of the spine is rubbed, there's a couple of other small closed tears elsewhere, and some general signs of shelfwear and handling picked up since 1937. Internally the jacket's broad flaps are unclipped. The blurb is somewhat surprising. "There is,' it says, "not a page that is not redolent of fields and grassy hills and withy beds." This despite the fact that several essays are about parts of Dorset (for example, Corfe Castle, Durdle Door and Hardy's Monument) whose claims to fame are most certainly not "withy beds". There's also an essay about Dartmoor. One wonders if the idea may be that Somerset is such a force that other parts of the South West simply fall within its shadow. But in a preface Powys states that he has not troubled his head about boundary lines. Rather his aim is "to catch at moods common to all reflective country-bred people who feel themselves emotionally attached to cities, villages, roads, lanes, and fields familiar to them since childhood". He catches well: in Porlock, for example, "it was one of those spring evenings that seem as cool as a mossy grotto, when all life appears suddenly wide awake like a little girl talking to herself in her nursery cot". Places featured include Montacute (extensively), Athelney, Ilchester, Witcombe Bottoms, the River Yeo, the River Parrett, Wookey Hole, Cadbury Camp, and Ham Hill. People featured include John Locke, Sir John Harington, Thomas Shoel, the Duke of Monmouth and Rosamund Clifford. Subjects covered include An Old Clock Weight, A Christmas Story, A Famous Wreck and The Book of Common Prayer. The photographs are evocative, particularly ones of Montacute and various rivers, for example Badgworthy Water at Malmsmead and in 'Lorna Doone Valley'. Photos of Somerset Essays will be posted soon: the book will be supplied in a protective sleeve. N° de ref. del artículo 000739
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