The Woodcuts of Simon Brett

There is a lot of received wisdom in the publishing industry about what does and doesn't sell:

* Short stories don't sell.

* Translations don't sell.

* Poetry doesn't sell.

* Slim books don't sell.

Thus, a slender book of translated Russian short stories in verse is an obvious money-spinner. Fortunately, publisher David R. Godine ignored the financial side of things, and put out Antony Wood's translations of a number of Alexander Pushkin's narrative poems, The Gypsies.



This gorgeous little book features a number of woodcuts by engraver Simon Brett. Here's a sample (click for a bigger version) from 'The Golden Cockerel'.



Brett is great. He's done a lot of work in the past for the Folio Society; here's a selection.

For George Eliot's Middlemarch:



Marcus Aurelius's Meditations:



Aristotle's Ethics:



Cicero's On the Good Life:



Lucretius's On the Nature of Things:



John Keats (soon to be cinematically fucked up by Jane Campion!):




Henry Fielding's Amelia:



and Legends of the Ring:

* * *

Further reading: a different set of Pushkin illustrations, including Ivan Bilibin on 'The Golden Cockerel'; plus the woodcut geniuses Lynd Ward and Fritz Eichenberg.

Orinyansky's Руслан и Людмила

One of this blog's many passes at Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita looked at the gorgeous illustrations for a Russian edition done by one Pavel Orinyansky: his style for that book was a wondrous mix of Privat-Livemont, Erté , Klimt and Beardsley.



I've found that he has also illustrated another great Russian work: Alexander Pushkin's epic fairy tale in verse, Ruslan and Lyudmila (or Руслан и Людмила). The text of this is available online in English translation here or here, but I'd suggest your best bet is the recent Hesperus edition, translated admirably by Roger Clarke.



Orinyansky's edition seems not to have a cover image, just a cloth cover, so instead I'll bombard you with the interior artwork. The plot of the poem, to give you some context, concerns the trials and tribulations of the heroic Ruslan as he attempts to save his beloved beauty Lyudmila from the evil wizard Chernomor. For all of these, click for much bigger versions.














Orinyansky's artwork for this edition of the book pays deliberate homage to Ivan Bilibin, a famous Russian artist who did a lot of theatrical work as well as illustrating a large number of folk and fairy tales.

Here is one of Bilibin's illustrations for Ruslan and Lyudmila...



..and here are a couple of his illustrations for another fantastic Pushkin story, The Golden Cockerel.




And, just for the hell of it, one of his illustrations for Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid.