Twelfth Night: Illustrated by Eric Ravilious

Artist Eric Ravilious’s stunning illustrative interpretation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Together with a newly commissioned introduction, this book includes a facsimile of one of artist Eric Ravilious’s finest illustrated works, William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. This edition was first published by the Golden Cockerel Press in 1932 in a limited print run and is now considered a masterpiece of typography and illustration.

Ravilious was fascinated with Elizabethan and Jacobean poetry and drama, both as literature and as visual inspiration. His playful wooden engravings depict characters such as Viola, Sebastian, Sir Toby Belch, and Malvolio in period costumes on imaginary stages or in garden scenes. In addition, decorative borders and vignettes enliven the pages.

In his introduction, Alan Powers tells the story of how the publication of this edition was very nearly derailed by the onset of the economic Depression and how the resourcefulness and determination of the artist, publisher, and printer brought about this extraordinary version of Shakespeare’s beloved comedy.

Eric Ravilious (1903–42) was a British painter, book illustrator, and designer.

Alan Powers has published widely on twentieth-century design and architecture. He is the author of Eric Ravilious: Imagined Realities and Eric Ravilious, Artist and Designer.