KATE HOLLAND, designer bookbinder. GREGYNOG PRESS. FORTESCUE,The Hon. J.W. ~ The Story of a Red-Deer.
One of 250 copies. 11 illustrations by Dorothy Burroughes printed in colour at the head of each chapter, text printed in red and black. Sm. folio, bound by Kate Holland in full rust brown morocco with onlays representing a forest of citron and light green morocco on the spine and obth sides with gilt ruled highlights to one side of the lengths of green morocco, thre is a charming touch with the tail of a deer in gilt amongst the trees on the front cover, implying the deer is hiding in the forest, edges tinted yellow, yellow painted endpapers by the binder, housed in the original rust- brown and brown cloth velvet lined solander box with blind lettering along the entire length of the spine. In superb condition.
Fortescue’s book was a very interesting choice of text. It was written for the author’s 9 year old nephew and tells the story of a Red Deer on Exmoor from the aniimal’s point of view. The precursor to another famous Exmoor animal book, Williamson’s Tarka the Otter. Burroughes spent some time in Exmoor researching the background to her illustrations.
Kate Holland has been a Fellow of the Designer Bookbinders for some years and is much in demand for her design bindings as well as her teaching skills. Her bindings are vibrant and visually arresting. She has a great use of colour, and enjoys using gentle wit and small motifs in her bindings as we see here. This is a fine example of her strong and technically excellent work.