PRE-ORDER: OBSOLETE SPELLS
POETRY & PROSE FROM VICTOR NEUBURG & THE VINE PRESS
Hello There,
We're incredibly happy to announce the publication of Obsolete
Spells: Poetry & Prose from Victor Neuburg & The Vine
Press, edited by Justin Hopper, arriving May 16th
and available for pre-order now.
Obsolete Spells will be publishied in two editions:
- A deluxe hardback special edition including a chapbook
edition of Wax: A Drama of Evolution by Runa Macleod, and Swift Wings,
an 8 track CD of new arrangements by Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus for
£45.00
- A standard paperback editon for £16.99.
Victor Neuburg had two claims to fame: he discovered Dylan Thomas, and Aleister
Crowley once turned him into a camel.
Obsolete Spells presents another side of Neuburg, through his own
earthy-yet-diaphanous poems and the strange books of the Vine Press, a
hand-operated imprint he ran from his West Sussex cottage between 1920 and
1930.
As a printer and publisher, Neuburg acted as a conduit for bohemian writers and
arts luminaries, and those dedicated to experimental living: Peter Warlock set
his words to music, singer Marian Anderson lived in his spare room, and he was a
fixture at his local utopian free-love community, the Sanctuary. Through it all,
he turned the handle on the Vine Press, publishing books of nature writing and
folksong; neo-pagan poems and utopian philosophy; hymns to Old Gods and paeans
to love and wonder.
Obsolete Spells offers selections from every Vine Press book, including
texts by Neuburg and many others, most of which have been out of print for a
century. Introductory essays by editor Justin Hopper, a foreword by Richard
McNeff and an afterword by Margaret Jennings-White (daughter of author Rold
White) round out this unique glimpse into a lost literary idyll.
All the best,
Jamie & Mark