{illustrators} – Page 126

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

Cover design by James Iacobelli.

The sequel to The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases is published next week in the US but we have permission to write about it before the official release. The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities is a chunky hardback of 320 pages with a host of contributors including Holly Black, Greg Broadmore, Ted Chiang, Rikki Ducornet, Amal El-Mohtar, Minister Faust, Jeffrey Ford, Lev Grossman, N.K. Jemisin, Caitlín R. Kiernan, China Miéville, Mike Mignola, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, Garth Nix, Naomi Novik, James A. Owen, Helen Oyeyemi, J.K. Potter, Cherie Priest, Ekaterina Sedia, Jan Švankmajer, Rachel Swirsky, Carrie Vaughn, Jake von Slatt, Tad Williams, Charles Yu and others. I provided title pages for the various sections of the book, as well as a variety of found and bespoke illustrations. And seeing as how I seldom miss an opportunity to take a dig at Rupert Murdoch (especially this week), it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention that it’s published by an imprint of HarperCollins which means I’m currently feeling somewhat tainted by the Evil Empire. Mea culpa. When you sup with the devil, use a long spoon.

My title spread.

That aside, this is a treat for anyone who enjoys the more experimental, eccentric and surreal end of the fantasy spectrum:

After the death of Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead at his house in Wimpering-on-the-Brook, England, a remarkable discovery was unearthed: the remains of an astonishing cabinet of curiosities. Many of these artifacts, curios, and wonders related to anecdotes and stories in the doctor’s personal journals. Others, when shown to the doctor’s friends, elicited further tales from a life like no other. Thus, in keeping with the bold spirit exemplified by Dr. Lambshead and his exploits, we now proudly present highlights from the doctor’s cabinet, reconstructed not only through visual representations but also through exciting stories of intrigue and adventure. A carefully selected group of popular artists and acclaimed, bestselling authors has been assembled to bring this cabinet of curiosities to life.

From what I’ve read so far the general tone is a lot less overtly wacky than the first book, and if set beside some of the more clichéd and pedestrian fantasy works being jobbed out at the moment will probably seem downright avant garde. Editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have been at pains to emphasise that this isn’t another steampunk collection although seeing as how many people now equate steampunk with any kind of antique graphics that’s the way some may take it. Alan Moore aficionados should know that Alan’s piece, Objects Discovered in a Novel Under Construction, is a riff on some of the contents of his forthcoming novel Jerusalem. My illustration for that entry is below.

Jeff had some blog posts this week related to the book, one looking back at the Disease Guide, the other with details of the US tour he and Ann will shortly be undertaking. A couple of my other contributions follow.

Continue reading “The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities”

The Worlds of Mervyn Peake

Illustration by Mervyn Peake for The Sphinx by Oscar Wilde (1949).

The centenary of writer, artist and poet Mervyn Peake is being celebrated this year with a number of events in the UK. Mervyn Peake: A Centenary Celebration is a small exhibition of Peake’s drawings which has been running since April at the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. That show ends on July 17th so if you want to be glared at by Fuchsia Groan you’re advised to get your skates on.

The Worlds of Mervyn Peake is a more substantial affair opening this week at the British Library, London, which promises to have materials from the British Library collection and the Peake archive on display. Two evenings of talks are also scheduled although the first of these, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, is now sold out. The Guardian ran a feature at the weekend with pieces by some of the people who’ll be involved in the discussions, including Michael Moorcock, who’s been championing Peake’s work since the early 1960s, and China Miéville. For those who can’t make it to the exhibitions, there are also books: The Gormenghast Trilogy has been republished in a new illustrated edition, and the British Library is selling an American edition of Maeve Gilmore’s Peake’s Progress, a 592-page selection of writings, drawings and poetry which has been out-of-print in the UK for years. Essential purchases for any Peake enthusiast.

Update: There’s also an exhibition of artwork by Mervyn Peake and Maeve Gilmore at Viktor Wynd, London. Thanks to Vadim for the tip.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• A profusion of Peake
• Joseph Cavalieri’s stained glass
• Mervyn Peake at Maison d’Ailleurs
• Peake’s Pan
• Buccaneers #1
• Mervyn Peake in Lilliput
• The Illustrators of Alice

Weekend links 65

From Light Beyond Sound, a new series of works by Tatiana Plakhova.

“The invasion philosophy of the Olympic Park strikes me as just like the invasion philosophy behind going into Iraq,” he says, “or anywhere else that you blast into, put up the fence, establish the Green Zone, explain everything, put it all into this lovely eco-terminology…” Iain Sinclair

• Iain Sinclair has a new book out, Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project, a critique of the tendency of British governments to waste money on white elephant projects. He’s visited this territory before in Sorry Meniscus, the small book/essay about the Millennium Dome. That book grew out of a piece for the London Review of Books which can be read here. Among the current round of interviews there’s this piece in which the title of the book is explained, and a talk with John Walsh at The Independent where he describes how the site for the 2012 Olympics has destroyed his patch of London.

• A celebration of the writing and art of Mervyn Peake: “Mervyn Peake, creator of Gormenghast, is now recognised as a brilliant novelist and artist. Michael Moorcock, China Miéville, Hilary Spurling and AL Kennedy celebrate his achievements.”

• Looking like a children’s book invaded by the inhabitants of alchemical engravings, Die Geburtstagsreise (The Birthday Trip, 1976) by Monika Beisner.

• At AnOther mag this week: The ear in Blue Velvet and publisher Peter Owen on Salvador Dalí’s novel Hidden Faces.

• Four Days, Four Recordings by Jon Brooks aka The Advisory Circle. Related: The Hauntological Society.

• Leaving it to Chance: maverick director Nicolas Roeg on Don’t Look Now.

• Brian Eno: “This is my problem with Tracey Emin; who fucking cares?”

• Scans of Max Ernst’s masterwork Une Semaine de Bonté.

• Susie Bright: Mapping the Erotic and the Revolutionary.

• How to Become a Sensuous Witch, 1971.

• The View From Her Room (1982) by Weekend | Weekend live on the OGWT (October, 1982) • Gormenghast Drift (1992) by Irmin Schmidt.

Rossetti and His Circle by Max Beerbohm

Rossetti’s name is heard in America (Oscar Wilde).

The Happy Hypocrite was Max Beerbohm’s words illustrated by George Sheringham; here we have Beerbohm’s caricatures from a 1922 collection depicting notable figures among the Aesthetes and Pre-Raphaelites from the 1860s on. Beerbohm wasn’t born until 1872 so there’s something of a younger generation’s mockery in these drawings. That said, he was just as happy to mock his London friends of the 1890s, Oscar Wilde included, and often poked fun at himself in his cartoons and his writings.

Some of the pictures in Rossetti and His Circle are familiar from books about the period, the Wilde picture in particular is often reprinted. You don’t always see them in colour, however, so once again the scans at the Internet Archive give us a fuller view provided you ignore the security perforations on each print.

Blue China (JM Whistler and Thomas Carlyle).

A drawing which complements Wilde’s description of Whistler as a “miniature Mephistopheles”. Beerbohm was more succinct in one of his verbal portraits: “Tiny”.

Algernon Swinburne taking his great new friend Gosse to see Gabriel Rossetti.

Swinburne, it seems, was another diminutive figure.

The sole remark likely to have been made by Benjamin Jowett about the mural paintings at the Oxford Union: “And what were they going to do with the Grail when they found it, Mr. Rossetti?”

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Happy Hypocrite by Max Beerbohm

Morlocks, airships and curious cabinets

Things I was working on late last year continue to percolate or, if you prefer, build a head of steam. My cover for KW Jeter’s Morlock Night appears in a short piece by Rick Poynor in July’s Creative Review. That feature is prompted by the British Library’s Out of the World exhibition. Nice to see something of mine with Hannes Bok’s illustration for Who Goes There? by John W Campbell, the story which was filmed as The Thing from Another World, and later, John Carpenter’s The Thing.

Morlock Night is also one of my contributions to the lavish Steampunk Bible which editors SJ Chambers and Jeff VanderMeer have been promoting for the past couple of months. USA Today ran a feature on the book which included my piscine airship among the selected illustrations.

Next up will be the Thackery T Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities for which I’ve provided a number of illustrations and decorative title pages. Jeff V has a preview shot of the cover. That will be out next month. More later.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Steampunk Bible
• Steampunk Reloaded
• Steampunk overloaded!
• Vickers Airship Catalogue
• The Air Ship
• Dirigibles
• More Steampunk and the Crawling Chaos
• The art of François Schuiten
• Steampunk Redux
• Steampunk framed
• Steampunk Horror Shortcuts
• The Airship Destroyer
• Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls
• The Hetzel editions of Jules Verne