The Wanderer and Other Old-English Poems (Limited Edition)

The Wanderer and Other Old-English Poems. London: The Folio Society, 2018. Translated and edited by Michael Alexander, foreword by Bernard O’Donoghue, illustrated by Alan Lee. 342 × 246 × 43 mm. Pp. [1–2], [i–vi] vii–xix [xx], 1–220 [221–222]. Type: Arcadian Bembo. Printed in black and grey-blue by Memminger MedienCentrum. Quarter bound by Josef Spinner in quarter dark grey blocked goatskin leather with paper boards printed and blocked by Napier Jones. Silver top edge. Dark grey endleaves printed in gold. Dark blue cloth slip case blocked in silver with Folio logo. 

A limitation certificate printed letterpress by The Logan Press has been tipped in on page [iii] and reads in part ‘limited to 750 copies signed and numbered by the artist and twenty lettered copies hors de commerce’. Eight colour plates by Lee have been tipped in on pages [iv], [23], [43], [55], [73], [95], [119] and [145]. He has also provided a great quantity of other material, ranging from numerous drawings and copious borders to the imagery used for the binding and endleaves.

Limited edition numbered 251 of 750 copies, of this lavishly-ornamented book, illustrated and signed by renowned British artist Alan Lee. The Old English texts and their translations by Michael Alexander are set on facing pages for ease of reading.

Condition Report

Near-fine copy with pages clean, bright and tightly bound, with only a very small mark to the fore edge of the closed text block, as pictured. In like slipcase that shows a little shelf-wear; else clean and structurally sound.

Contents include:

• Poems: 'The Ruin', 'The Wanderer and The Seafarer'.
• Love Poems: 'The Wife’s Lament', 'The Husband’s Message', 'Wulf and Eadwacer'.
• Heroic Poems: 'Deor', 'The Fight at Finnsburgh', 'The Battle of Brunanburgh', 'The Battle of Maldon', 'Widsith'.
• Gnomic Verses: 'The Dream of the Rood', 'The Exeter Riddles'. 

From the Folio Society website:

"Alan Lee is the most celebrated living illustrator of myth and fantasy: a recipient of the Kate Greenaway Medal; the Tolkien estate’s artist-of-choice for over 25 years; and an Oscar-winner for his conceptual work on Peter Jackson’s films of The Lord of the Rings. An artist steeped in myth, legend and folklore, his other-worldly images place him at the forefront of a tradition established by the Pre-Raphaelites, Rackham and Dulac.

‘As an illustrator, my aim is not to dictate how things should look, but to serve the author’s vision, and to create an atmosphere, a space between the words where the eye and mind can wander, and imagine for themselves . . . what will happen next.’ (Alan Lee)

Lee’s lavish illustrative scheme sets the poems in a modern re-imagining of an illuminated manuscript. Detailed watercolours evoke their magic and their mystery, bringing key moments vividly to life. Intricate ink-drawn ornamental borders – where knot-work turns into writhing dragons and shattered twigs become the broken strings of a harp – mirror their themes of life and death, and the brokenness and integrity of the texts themselves. And witty visual puns, where a picture is simultaneously a pile of twisted branches, bones and hail; the outline of a chicken; and the solution to a riddle, spelled out in runes, reflect their complexity and their humour. Crowning this scheme is the stunning design that adorns the binding – a lightning-shattered evocation of the Sutton Hoo helmet that hints at the inspired, and inspiring, tales enclosed within this magnificent volume.

Over 1000 years ago, the visionary Anglo-Saxon ruler Alfred the Great strived to replace Latin with English as the principal language of his kingdom. Verse in the vernacular flourished and, at the turn of the 11th century, monastic scribes wrote down these innovative oral compositions creating the first literature in English. Just decades later, William the Conqueror’s Norman invasion transformed the linguistic landscape of England so dramatically that, before long, these verses had become the unreadable remnants of an extinct language. One of the greatest collections of Anglo-Saxon poetry – the Exeter Book – was dismissed in an early 14th century inventory as ‘worthless’, and used as a beermat and chopping board, its vellum pages stained, sliced and singed.

After centuries of neglect and ill-treatment, the tattered remains of this Old English literature were finally recovered in the 19th century. The tiny handful of preserved manuscripts were transcribed, edited and translated by pioneering scholars, attracted by their historical value and their heroic and ‘Romantic’ qualities. Since then, these miraculous survivors have been acknowledged as the earliest known masterpieces of English poetry, influencing and inspiring writers as varied as William Morris and Ezra Pound, Alfred Tennyson and J. R. R. Tolkien. Shafts of light illuminating a dark age, they give a unique insight into the Anglo-Saxon world, over-shadowed by Roman ruins and embattled by Viking incursions, torn between pagan fatalism and Christian hope.

One of the most striking features of Old English poetry is its directness. Its narrators frequently address us in the first person, sharing deep truths drawn from lived experience, and exploring a remarkable range of subjects and emotions: the loneliness of the exile, cut adrift from his lord, and of the sailor, lured from the comforts of civilisation by the call of the sea; the yearning for a lost Golden Age provoked by an encounter with monumental ruins; and the bitterness of a loyal wife, alienated from her husband by false accusations. Epic accounts of resounding victory in battle and heroic defeat at the hands of marauding invaders sit alongside an ecstatic description of Christ’s crucifixion, narrated by the Cross itself; pithy proverbs and delightfully tantalising riddles follow musings on the fate of the successful – and the unsuccessful – poet."