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Paul Delrue binding of a John Clare poem

$2,250.00

A powerful John Clare poem beautifully bound

(Paul Delrue – Bookbinder) John Clare: the Flitting. Edited by Eric Robinson. The Tern Press. Market Drayton. 1991. n.p. 5.25” x 7”. Printed on T.H. Saunders papers from a variety of ancient sources of Caslon type. With prints from combinded techniques. Set, printed and illustrated by Nicholas Parry. No. 46 in an edition of 100 copies signed on the colophon page by Nicholas Parry and Mary Parry in pencil, as well as by Paul Delrue in ink with his address and date.

Unique binding by Paul C. Delrue. January 2009, with his stamp on the inside front cover. Bound in gray goatskin ‘oasis’ sewn on tapes with colored end leaves. Design of a free flowing abstract landscape with onlays of green, yellow and tan, held together with black lines. Blind tooling and cross hatch form an ‘open door’ to nature on both covers. Title in black on spine. Laid in a green buckram dropback box lined with mustard suede; title in black on front and spine. Fine.

From Robinson’s Introduction: “Clare’s word ‘Flitting’ or ‘to Flit’ is characteristic of him, it is direct, short and dialect. For some of us it will be associated with ‘a moon light flit’, a night time move to avoid paying the rent, but for Clare it did not have such dubious associations. Perhaps it reminds him rather of a bird hopping from twig to twig. …“The Flitting” is the archetypal poem of dislocation and disenchantment and one of the most powerful Clare ever wrote.”