Wrenching Times, 1991
Gwasg Gregynog, Newtown, Wales, UK
Poems from Drum-Taps by Walt Whitman
Selected by M. Wynn Thomas
Wood engravings by Gaylord Schanilec
Drum Taps was first published by Walt Whitman at his own expense in 1865. He described it as ‘expressing the pending action of this Time and Land we swim in, with all their large conflicting fluctuations of despair and hope….’ Drum-Taps was very largely the product of the two and half years the middle-aged Whitman spent as unofficial visitor in some of the fifty army hospitals in and around Washington during the Civil War. During that time Whitman estimated he made six hundred visits and saw between eighty and a hundred thousand sick and wounded soldiers.
Designed and printed on Zerkall mould-made paper by David Esslemont at Gregynog with the assistance of Hugh Willmer. The typeface is Monotype Baskerville, the compositor David Vickers. Gaylord Schanilec’s wood engravings were made at Gregynog and printed from the original wood-blocks. Bound in quarter leather by Alan Wood and Rhian Ticehurst at Gregynog.
380 x 240 mm. 72 pp Number 186 from the edition of 450.
£400 (plus P&P and insurance)