{This article is from Books and Vines contributor Neil.}

{Ed. Note: I apologize for the spelling error of the title and in the watermark on the pictures below, auto correct struck, and I did not catch it.  Note that Neil had it right, and I screwed it up!  Sorry.}

Epithalamion was the first book from ‘The Gemini Press’ of Blair Hughes-Stanton and Ida Graves. The name of the press emphasises Hughes-Stanton’s determination to produce the perfect collaboration between the author and artist. Blair Hughes-Stanton wrote in the original prospectus:

I have founded the Gemini Press to be able, when occasion arises and unhampered by any outside prejudices, to make books in which there is a real fusion between contemporary writer and artist, and where possible a definite collaboration from the start, so that the book is integral and not a decorated or illustrated vehicle of the text. By personal printing and publishing it will be economic to produce at a reasonable price, yet with fine hand craftsmanship, experimental work of this kind which could not reach the public otherwise. Epithalamion, the first volume, is a poem of extreme beauty and grandeur in twenty three stanzas, dedication and envoi; the twenty three page engravings were cut as the poem progressed, a drawing occasionally directing it. Hand set and printed by myself in 24pt Blado italic……………..

The majority of the engravings for Epithalamion appear to have been made when Hughes-Stanton was still at Gregynog in 1933 and completed in 1934 after he had left Gregynog to set up the Gemini Press with Ida Graves. Epithalamion is a song or poem in praise of the bride and groom, although in this case Hughes-Stanton had divorced the artist Gertrude Hermes, but Ida Graves was still married to Herbert Marks – so, for the time being, marriage was out of the question! The poem is a sequence of sexual imagery and symbolism celebrating love, consummation and conception.

Epithalamion was chosen as one of the books to be displayed at the Venice Biennale and won Hughes-Stanton the top prize for engraving in 1938. The book was produced in an unfavourable economic climate and this, allied to the fact that Hughes-Stanton was a brilliant engraver but a poor salesman, meant that only about half of the edition (50 copies on Japanese Vellum and 280 copies on Basingwerk Parchment paper) were sold. Copies on Japanese Vellum were sold to Christopher Sandford, George V and the British Museum and those on Basingwerk Parchment to Jacob Epstein and Douglas Cleverdon. The remaining unsold copies were bound and sold by the Basilisk Press in 1980.

Ida Graves was born in India in 1902. Her father was Colonel Douglas Graves (a surgeon in the British army) and her mother was Mabel Petley. At the age of six she was sent from the exotic surroundings of India to a boarding school in England; an unhappy time that was reflected in her early poetry. Graves was happier when moved to a ‘normal’ school some years later and, at the age of 19, she went to University College, London to study English Literature. In the twenties Ida was part of the circle surrounding Leonard & Virginia Woolf and her first collection of poetry was published in 1929 – ‘The China Cupboard & Other Poems‘. She married Herbert Marks, but in spite of the two children they had, the marriage failed.

Ida met Blair Hughes-Stanton in 1930 when he was still married to Gertrude Hermes. After Hughes-Stanton left Gregynog, they set up the Gemini Press together in 1933 to produce books that gave equal importance to the poet and artist. Their first, and only (the Gemini Press only produced another two books), major publication was Epithalamion. The relationship between Blair and Ida produced a son and daughter.

Ida had a large circle of friends that included many artists such as Jacob Epstein, Mark Getler, Stella Gibbons, Henry Moore and Stanley Spencer. In 1946 the Fortune Press published her long poem, ‘Mother & Child‘. During the fifties she had two autobiographical novels and three childrens books published under a pen name. In 1953 she met Don Nevard, a jazz pianist who she later married. Ida continued writing poetry for the next 40 years, stuffing her completed work into drawers. A friend sent them to the Oxford University Press and in 1994 they published a volume of her poetry in the Oxford Poets Series – Ida was 92!

About the Edition

• Epithalamion : A Poem by Ida Graves with Associate Wood-engraving by Blair Hughes Stanton
• The Gemini Press 1934
• Hand set in 24pt Blado italic and printed on Basingwerk Parchment paper by Blair Hughes-Stanton on an 1873 Columbian press
• 23 full page wood-engravings
• Bound in Winterstroke Tudor Brick paper edged with brown leather
• 345 x 207mm
• 50 copies on Japanese Vellum and 280 on Basingwerk Parchment
• This is number 279 of the Basingwerk copies, bound in 1980 by the Basilisk Press with an additional booklet providing a background essay printed by David Esslemont

Pictures of the Edition

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