FLEECE PRESS. MILLER PARKER, Agnes. ROGERSON, Ian. ~ Agnes Miller Parker, wood-engraver and book illustrator, 1895-1980 with recollections of the artist by John Dreyfus.
One of 241 ordinary copies, from a total edition of 300. 30 wood engravings printed from the original blocks and 5 other illustrations. Printed on an Albion handpress and a Heidelberg cylinder press. Oblong 4to., original blue cloth backed, patterned paste paper covered boards by Claire Maziarczyk, original brown cloth slipcase with printed paper spine label. Near fine, with a little rubbing to the slipcase.
Born in Scotland, Agnes Miller Parker attended the Glasgow School of Art where she met, and later married, the artist William McCance. They lived in London and later Wales, teaching and making their work. She began to illustrate books with linocuts and wood engravings being unusual amongst other engravers of the inter-war years in that she was not connected with the Noel Rooke or Leon Underwood ‘schools’. She came to the notice of the Gregynog Press and did her most remarkable work for them with her luminous and remarkable engravings for The Fables of Esope and XXI Welsh Gypsy Folk Tales. She then went on to do work for the Golden Cockerel Press, the Kynoch Press, the Limited Editions Club and for trade books including her famous Through The Woods and Down the River, both written by H.E. Bates and published by Gollancz.
She was one of the greats and as Macy of the Limited Editions Club wrote, “it may not be true that Mrs McCance is the finest wood engraver in the world today, but there are dozens of perfectly competent authorities who say she is”.