is a cornucopia of literary and artistic delights from the pen, brush, and chisel of the author. Mine is the 1955 first edition of J. M. Dent protected by a somewhat worn jacket.
The embossed designs on the front board and the spine are therefore as fresh as they were 64 years ago.
Gibbings earned his living as a highly skilled and sought after wood engraver. This book tells of a trip to Paris and to Positano following his desire for colour and brushes as a break from the black and white bread and butter work. The writer’s memoirs are peppered with fascinating anecdotes from his own encounters and from tales of other artists. The history and geography of his subjects are presented with deceptive ease.
The book contains eight colour plates, one of which is repeated on the jacket above.
There are also forty examples of Gibbings’s wood engravings. These scans of sample pages offer the reader tastes of his elegantly simple prose; the last image above containing one of his many entertaining and informative insights into the art world.