distilled from the pages of A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare
chiaroscuro woodcuts by Chris Nurse

2004
250x280mm
64 pages
ISBN: 0 907664 63 6

The edition is limited to 160 copies, numbered and signed by the artist.

£195 (+ £6 p&p in UK; overseas at cost)

The somewhat irreverent decision to make a book out of just the 'play within a play' so that the 'rude mechanicals' could literally take centre stage, has here given rise to a suite of masterly relief prints. In a recent essay about the work of Chris Nurse, Ann Jones, a curator at the Hayward Gallery wrote, of these images: They are, however, not really illustrations in the conventional sense. Although they are clearly inspired by the richness of the text, like the best artists' books, they capture a parallel vision. They convey the atmosphere and complexity of the written word, rather than illustrating it literally.

Chris Nurse writes: The project draws together many earlier preoccupations and influences; the tradition of the grotesque, carnival and folkloric rites that make light of sex and death. It is always preferable to first learn of death through the loss of a guinea pig or goldfish.

The type is Bulmer. The paper is 250gsm Somerset Printmaking. All the images, single- and two-colour, are woodcuts by Chris Nurse and were printed from the wood. The book is half-bound in brown leather with heavy boards covered with printed papers with designs by the artist. Further designs, together with titling, are blind-blocked on the leather.