Please note: I am not now selling this book but have left this post up for interest.

Once in a generation you come across a real tour-de-force, a masterpiece, and this is the case with Sheila Waters’ illustrated and calligraphic interpretation of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. It is simply stunning! In the accompanying notes to the book Sheila writes: I realised that the manuscript I was making would be a legacy that I would leave behind, that should long outlast me ….

 

To have a sneaky peek inside the book, here is a short clip.

 

 

 

 

 

 *****PLEASE NOTE: I am not now selling this book so please contact Sheila directly.

(Special Offer! Sheila’s book is available full size in a strictly limited edition, together with her notes and explanation of the thought processes behind creating the book and how she did it. This article has details of Sheila’s ideas for the design, and page-by-page notes on the illustrations. Each copy of the book will not only be signed by Sheila, but she will also write your name inside. This is a terrific, once-in-a-lifetime offer. So the book (signed by Sheila and with your name in it), and the accompanying 27-page article (in a special folder) of the background to the manuscript, which has been set in typefaces designed by Julian Waters, Sheila’s son, costs £100. This includes postage to UK addresses. This is a wonderful opportunity not only to enjoy and own the book itself, but to use it for your own studies of a contemporary Caroline minuscule written by the supreme master who developed this hand from mediæval manuscripts. Again please note: I am not now selling this book so please contact Sheila directly.)

 

The cover of the book is stunning, with an impressive blind embossed panel on ivory paper (above). This panel is repeated inside the book, with Sheila’s typical majestical Roman Capitals in black with intricate drawings and vibrant colours as shown on the right. This panel alone took Sheila a month to design and execute.

 

 

 

 

She took a long while to decide on the most appropriate writing style, and the accompanying notes about the book have examples of some of the lettering that Sheila considered and then rejected. Her final choice was a neat, very slightly sloping formal hand based on that in the 9th-century great bibles mainly from Tours in France – Caroline Minuscule. Being Sheila, though, it has been given a modern twist and her own distinctive style. This contrasts, on some pages, with a delicate light Italic for selected parts of the text.

 

 

Sheila chose black and a specific limited colour scheme for the opening spreads, which was echoed in the layout of the pages. The one on the right is one of the green pages where the text columns are towards the centre of the book. This page also shows one of the extraordinarily detailed illustrations – Captain Cat and his dreams.

 

 

 

 

In the text Lord Cut-Glass owned 66 clocks ‘all set at different hours’, imagine trying to illustrate all of them! Sheila chose 22 clocks, all different and all authentic – and created an amazing design. Note Lord Cut-Glass’s face peering out of the grandfather clock at the top, his hand just above half-way holding a pocket watch, and his boots supporting the base of another clock. Ingenious!

 

 

 

This book is so much more than a sum of its parts. Dylan Thomas’ words are simply wonderful, but to have them written here in such a way, and illustrated so inventively and skilfully too, means that the result is a real joy and such a treat for the eyes. This is not a cheap offer, but it is a chance to treat yourself in a big way, and own what just has to be one of the true manuscript masterpieces of the twentieth century.