Part C of Peake in Print: dustwrappers & drawings

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Part C of “Peake in Print”

Peake’s contributions to books in the form of dustwrappers and other drawings

Unless otherwise indicated, the place of publication is London.

Albert Joseph Guerard, The Past Must Alter. Longmans, 1937. Dustwrapper drawing.
Reproduced on the back cover of PS 6:ii (April 1999).
E. Bulwer Lytton, Guy de Maupassant, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexander Pushkin, William Austin (contributors), Tales of the Supernatural. Pan Books, 1945.
The first Pan book, with a Pan’s head on the front cover and a full-length picture of Pan playing his pipes on the title-page and rear cover.
Before they began numbering their books, Pan published four titles: Tales of the Supernatural (1945), Sterne’s Sentimental Journey (1946), The Diary of a Nobody, and Stevenson’s Suicide Club (both 1946). Tales of the Supernatural is the only one with Pan’s head; the others have the full length picture, both on the front cover and on the title-page (reduced).
When Pan began publishing in earnest in 1947 (25 numbered titles), they used only the bust of the full-length drawing, reduced and filled in to form the now-familiar silhouette. Over the years the logo has undergone little change – sometimes a little longer, sometimes shorter. Occasionally it has been used reversed, but the main difference has been the frame: since 1978, it appears framed in an open book.
Pan’s 1997 anniversary catalogue acknowledges that Peake drew their logo for them. Part G quotes a dubious story put about by Adrian Room in the Dictionary of Trade Name Origins (Routledge, 1983).
John Brophy, The Human Face. Harrap, 1945.
Contains “Study of a Baby” (p.33) and “Grotesque Head” (p.209).
Published in the USA in 1946 by Prentice-Hall, with a different d/w and the illustrations on different pages (27 and 203 respectively).
Jack Bilbo, Famous Nudes by Famous Artists. Modern Art Gallery, 1946.
Contains painting, “Woman with Crow” (Pl.59).
C. E. M. Joad, The Future of Morals. John Westhouse, 1946.
Small portrait (38 x 32 mm) of Joad placed top centre of the d/w (on which the title reads “JOAD / on the future of / MORALS / herd morality and the / new liberty of action:” etc.).
John Brophy, Body and Soul. Harrap, 1948.
Contains “The Hair-Pin” (p.128) and “Recumbent Model” (p.129).
Vincent Stuart (ed.), Harvest, Volume 1, Travel. Castle Press, 1948.
Contains 4 line drawings that illustrate Maurice Collis’s contribution, “The Extremities of Celestial Piety” (pp.21–28).
Also seen bound in with Vol.2 – see Part C, prose, 1st item.
John Brophy, The Mind’s Eye: a twelve-month journal. Arthur Barker, 1949.
Contains “Study of a Head” (p.96) and “Vulture” (p.97). The “Study” is a portrait of MG which had already appeared in The Windmill in 1946 (see Part D - drawings) and was reprinted on the d/w of Brophy’s Prince and Petronella (item 15, below) and in A World Away, facing p.33; the “Vulture” had already appeared with Bernard Denvir’s article on MP in Studio (Vol.32, No.642) for September 1946.
Also reproduces (facing p.256) the photograph of MP that appeared in the same issue of Studio.
Stefan Schimanski and Henry Treece (eds.), A New Romantic Anthology. Grey Walls Press, 1949.
Four sketches between pages 80 and 81 accompanying his own article, “How a Romantic Novel was Evolved” (pp.80–89): [i] “Study for Steerpike”; [ii] “Study for Fuchsia”; [iii] “Study for Swelter with Urchin”; [iv] “Manuscript page with sketches of Fuchsia and Steerpike”.
All four have been reprinted; there is a slightly different version of [i] facing page 140 in the third edition of Gormenghast (A9d): the direction in which the eyes are looking has been changed. [ii] and [iii] are in the fourth edition of Titus Groan (A4d), facing pages 58 and 368. [iv] is in A9d, facing page 354.
Pamela Hansford Johnson, Catherine Carter. Macmillan, 1952 (January; reprinted in March).
Small portrait, dated 1949, on the back of the dustwrapper. Reprinted on the back of PS 5:2, Spring 1997.
Maurice Edelman, Who Goes Home. Allan Wingate, 1952.
Dustwrapper drawing of robed Parliamentary figures, highlighted in pink and yellow.
Reprinted in January 1953 for the Book Society with revised dustwrapper design (and the origin of the paper indicated on the verso of the title-page).
Clifford Witting, The Glory of the Sons: a History of Eltham College. Eltham College (Eltham), 1952.
Contains five small drawings: “`The Old Barn’” (p.17), “The Clock in the Central Hall” (p.66), “Eric Liddell in Action” (p.77), “Edward Unwin” (p.106), and “GG and SHM enjoy a game of chess” (p.195).
Roger Manvell (ed.), The Cinema. Pelican, 1952.
There are some sixty-three pages of black-and-white photographs in the middle of the book; the sixth page reproduces “Designs for the British Film Institute’s series, Poet and Painter” (items 11–13). The middle one, between John Gilpin by William Cowper (by Ronald Searle) and In Time of Pestilence, by Thomas Nashe (Michael Ayrton) is “Spring”, by William Shakespeare (Mervyn Peake). It was reproduced on the back cover of PS Vol.8 No 4 (April 2004).
David [Robert Alexander] Thomson, The People of the Sea. Turnstile Press, 1954.
Contains a frontispiece drawing of seals.
Revised edition, subtitled A Journey in Search of the Seal Legend, published by Barrie & Rockcliff, 1965. Published in America by World Press (Cleveland), 1967 (offset from the revised edition).
John Brophy, The Prince and Petronella. Chatto & Windus, 1956.
Dustwrapper drawing of MG, “Study of a Head” – see item 8, above.
The book can be seen bound in bright lemon and in blue. The former is the first edition.
Thelma Niklaus, Harlequin Phoenix, or, The Rise and Fall of a Bergamask Rogue. Bodley Head, 1956.
Contains a frontispiece drawing of a harlequin which is also used on the d/w.
George Gissing, New Grub Street. Oxford University Press, 1958. (World’s Classics No.566)
Dustwrapper drawing of an impoverished writer, chin in hand.
Daniel Defoe, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders. Oxford University Press, 1961. (World’s Classics No.587)
Dustwrapper drawing in black of Moll Flanders, on an orange ground, highlighted in white.
Henry Fielding, Jonathan Wild. Oxford University Press, 1961. (World’s Classics No.382)
Dustwrapper drawing, in black on a yellow ground, with white highlights, of an eighteenth-century figure at a table with glass and stacks of coins.
[Arthur] Humphry House, The Dickens World. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 1960. (Oxford Paperback No.9)
Cover drawing of Dickensian characters against a misty background.
Cervantes, Don Quixote. Dent, 1961. 2 vols. (Everyman’s Library Nos.385 & 386)
Dustwrapper drawings of Don Quixote figure with windmill, and with Sancho Pança, in black with white highlighting against vivid lilac ground. Wrapper marked © 1961 but Dent put the new wrapper on previously printed stock (presumably with an increased cover price) so copies can be found dated as early as 1954, it would seem.
John Hampden (ed.), Ghost Stories. Dent, 1961. (Everyman’s Library No.952)
Dustwrapper drawing of a figure and tree trunk; marked © 1961 but Dent put the new wrapper on previously printed stock (presumably with an increased cover price) so copies will be found dated 1960.
Edgar Allen Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Dent, 1961. (Everyman’s Library No.336)
Dustwrapper drawing of a falling man with torch, overprinted in yellow; marked © 1961 but Dent put the new wrapper on previously printed stock (presumably with an increased cover price) so copies will be found from as early as 1955, it would seem.
Also used on the 1971 edition, which is marked “Jacket design by Mervyn Peake” on the front flap, and “Jacket design copyright J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd 1972” [sic] on the back.
John Brophy, The Human Face Reconsidered. Harrap, 1962
Plate, “Young Negress (detail)”, p.112.
John Brophy, The Face in Western Art. Harrap, 1963.
“New Born Baby” (Pl.104): four sketches from a sheet of eight.
Maeve Gilmore, A World Away. Gollancz, 1970.
Contains seventeen drawings, not all previously unpublished.
The cover of the paperback edition (NEL Mentor, 1971), reproduces the drawing from facing p.112, “Heads float about me....” It does not contain the other drawings.
John Batchelor, Mervyn Peake: a biographical and critical exploration. Duckworth, 1974.
Dustwrapper drawing of a hand.
The same drawing appears on the cover of the paperback issue (1977).
John Watney, Beer is Best. Peter Owen, 1974.
Reproduces two of the drawings commissioned by the Brewers’ Society in 1946, “The characteristic charm of English inns” and “Cricket” (see Part E).
John Watney, Mervyn Peake. Michael Joseph, 1976.
Contains twenty-four drawings, not all previously unpublished.
In the paperback published by Sphere (Abacus) in 1977, the illustrations are grouped as plates.
Rupert Croft-Cooke and Peter Cotes (pseud.), Circus: a world history. Paul Elek, 1976 or 77.
Contains a black-and-white line drawing of a “Circus Dog” on the half-title (also printed in MPR 5:40) and two studies of clowns in colour, one of two clowns embracing and the other of a melancholy clown (p.160, facing the heading for Chapter 7, “The Cult of the Circus”). In chalk or pastel.
Dorothy K. Haynes, Peacocks and Pagodas. Paul Harris (Edinburgh), 1981.
Dustwrapper drawing of a witch and her unusual familiar.
Reproduced on the back of MPR 14.
Gordon Smith, Mervyn Peake: a personal memoir. Gollancz, 1984.
Forty-nine illustrations (some of them letters by Peake) and four photographs of MP, plus one of Maeve. A few of the illustrations are from previously published sources; most appear here for the first time.
Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child. Cape, 1988.
Dustwrapper reproduces “Small Boy with Crossed Arms”, plate 51 in The Drawings of Mervyn Peake (A7), calling it (on the rear flap) “Boy Reclining”.
The same drawing (smaller and trimmed left and right) was used on the Paladin paperback edition (Grafton Books, 1989).
Richard Milton, Dead Secret. House of Stratus, 2000.
Dustwrapper reproduces the figure of Life in Death from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 2nd ed. (B5g), with the lips coloured red, as in the original artwork.
Chris Hare (ed.), Good Old, Bad Old Days: the Sussex of Lawrence Graburn. Southern Heritage Books (Worthing), 2001.
Three line drawings of rustic characters, first published in local newspapers (date not yet known), illustrating articles by Graburn.

This document last updated April 2008.

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