Blog posts of '2016' 'January'

[caption id="attachment_1420" align="aligncenter" width="444"] Embroidered Binding of The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul, 1544[/caption] It is common now to associate old and antiquarian books with leather bindings - the cherished patinas and leathery smells, embellished perhaps with armorial motifs or previous owners' library markings giving a sense of permanence and authenticity.   But it wasn't until around the time of the Restoration in the latter part of the 17th century that English bookbinders took up the French fashion of working almost exclusively in leather. Until then "English bookbinders had never been content to regard leather as the sole material in they could work".  Books bound in cloth (binders most commonly used canvas but velvet and satin were also used) and decoratively embellished with embroidery have a long history: there is a embroidered Psalter, now in the British Library collection, which was stitched by one Anne Felbrigge towards the end of the 14th century. Embroidery as means of binding books was especially popular, among those who could afford such luxuries, in the Tudor age.  Silver and gold threats were often used, with the base material perhaps studded with pearls or other jewels, to create an unrivaled decorative effect. [caption id="attachment_1419" align="alignnone" width="600"] Manuscript of The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul, 1544[/caption] The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul exemplifies the fashion for embroidered bindings at Henry VIII's court and truly counts as a beautiful book, beside its historical significance.  At the age of 11 the young Princess Elizabeth (later to become Elizabeth I, England's Virgin Queen) wrote out the manuscript in her own handwriting.  In it she says it is a translation from "frenche ryme into english prose" and that she has joined "the sentences together as well as the capacitie of my symple witte and small lerning coulde extende themselves".   The french rhyme to which Elizabeth refers was the Miroir de Lame Pecheresse, a devotional piece by Marguerite of Naverre about the soul's love of God and Christ - an appropriate gift for a Queen known during her reign for learning, a love of modern languages and devotional piety.  And as James P Carley notes in his The Books of King Henry VIII and his Wives, "a fit tribute from the daughter of Anne Boleyn" (British Library, 2004, p. 140). It is said that the embroidered binding around her manuscript is also the work of Princess Elizabeth.  This is hard to prove but quite likely.  Princess Elizabeth dedicated and presented the book to her stepmother, Queen Katherine Parr, in 1544.  Queen Katherine's initials appear in the centre of the binding, suggesting that the book was made for her specifically.   There is a touching dedication in the book from Princess Elizabeth to Queen Katherine: "From Assherige, the last daye of the yeare of our Lord God 1544 ... To our most noble and vertuous Quene Katherin, Elizabeth her humble daughter wisheth perpetuall felicitie and everlasting joye". This image perhaps gives a better idea of both the condition and original colours. The Countess of Wilton in her book on the art of needlework says that "Elizabeth was an accomplished needlewoman" and that her "embroidery was much thought of".    The Rev. W. Dunn Macray in his Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford [Claredon Press, 1868, p.52] considers this binding to be one of the princess's "bibliopegic achievements". The design is similar on both sides, although the back is now sadly very worn.  The base of the embroidery is worked in pale blue silk stitched all over the canvas.  Surrounding Katherine's initials is a geometric motif worked in scroll-work in gold and silver braiding and in each corner a heartease appears, worked in purple and yellow silks interwoven with fine gold thread.  The volume comprises 63 small quarto parchment leaves and measures around 7 by 5 inches.  It is now in the collection of the Bodleian Library. For more English Embroidered Bookbindings see my curated board on PinInterest.

Just before Christmas I heard about the Icelandic tradition of book giving and book reading on Christmas Eve.  Envious of such a fine tradition, I tried to join in by reading a book by an Icelandic author, set in Iceland, over the Christmas break, starting in that fine Icelandic tradition on Christmas Eve.  Snow Blind had been on my TBR pile for a while and fitted the bill nicely. I am in Ragnar Jonasson's debt.  My reading year (which I always, for reasons lost in the depths of time, mark from Christmas Day to Christmas Eve, rather than on the calendar year) could not have got off to a better start.  Snow Blind is outstanding crime fiction - tense, atmospheric, plot-driven, human. It swings from compelling to shocking and back to compelling with a lyrical ease so smooth you don't even realise your emotions are being rocked. (NB, no spoilers here, so read on.) The clever plotting starts on page one, with a chilling crime scene. For scene two, we've been thrown back some 12 months. (Reader's tip: pay attention to the timelines in the chapter headings from the get go!). By scene three, we really don't know where, or when, we are.  But relentlessly, with an excruciating inevitability, the three story lines mesh into a single web of intrigue and investigation.  Give this book three minutes reading and you won't want to put it down until you've finished. That's a promise.  A tense, tight plot is spun to tautness by masterful storytelling. [caption id="attachment_1347" align="alignright" width="300"] Siglufjordur[/caption] Ari Thor Arason, a decent young man still wet behind the ears and taking the first steps in a career in the police force, is uprooted from the busy hub of Reykhvik and takes a posting in the remote, northern fishing village of Siglufjordur. Siglufjordur is a small place, and like most small communities, everyone know's everyone else's business and almost everyone was probably in love with with some else's partner years ago.  Ari Thor finds himself oppressed not only by his sense of otherness, of being an outsider, but also by the guilt of what he's left behind and most of all by the ever present mountains which surround the town and the relentless absence of daylight of an Icelandic winter. A constant, sometimes menacing, sense of place is essential to Snow Blind's atmospheric charge: Siglufjordur is a real place, nestled along a narrow fjord and surrounded by mammoth snow-covered mountains, it could only be reached by sea until the 1940s when a long, thin tunnel was driven through mountain rock.  When an avalanche blocks that tunnel, Snow Blind's claustrophobic and inescapable isolation touches on malevolence, beautifully echoing and amplifying the deepened sense of plot-driven tension.  And as winter and and his inner qualms threatened to overwhelm Ari Thor, he is thrown in at the sharp end of a complex web of inter-linked of jealousies and prejudice, illicit attractions and warped kindnesses which cover a crime of shocking callousness.  I loved way in which Jonasson makes place and people inextricable. Ari Thor is an engaging and likable 'detective hero' - although he has few heroic qualities beyond a basic decency and a determined, fine mind.  He's morally and ethically flawed, and all the more credible for that. Things I liked less included the brief section where it's clear that Ari Thor has found a game-changing clue, but it's withheld from the reader. This always makes me feel a little cheated;  and the one time where the theatre, a key place in the novel, is referred to as a cinema.  Perhaps in Icelandic the terms are interchangeable, but the distinction was enough to bother me and momentarily break the Snow Blind spell while I worked out where on earth we'd got to. [caption id="attachment_1346" align="alignleft" width="300"] Ragnar Jonasson[/caption] Snow Blind by Ragnar Jonasson was published by Orenda Books in 2015. I'm betting that Jonasson is set to become a leading challenger to the kingship of Nordic Noir.  Signed first editions of this debut novel are already being offered at prices well above retail, suggesting that crime fiction fans are already backing his books as both readable and collectible. I bought my copy of Snowblind (from the fabulous indy bookshop, Wimbledon Books and Music) on the recommendation of publisher Karen Sullivan or Orenda Books.

Addendum - added 14 January 2015

Delighted to have a response from the published on the cinema/theatre point, which speaks volumes of the care and attention to detail that authors get from Orenda Books.  But even better for me, as a collector of crime and detective fiction books, is to have confirmation from the publisher of a 'point of issue' to identify a first edition beyond doubt (although I'm not sure whether this applies to the hardback version, which may be the true first).

@BookAddictUK @ragnarjo What a GREAT review!! Thank you so much! Fabulous! You'll be glad to know we fixed 'theatre' in reprint :)

— Karen Sullivan (@OrendaBooks) January 13, 2016