The Journals of Susanna Moodie - Hardcover

Margaret Atwood; Charles Pachter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 155199013X ISBN 13: 9781551990132

Publisher: Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1997

Synopsis

The landmark collaboration of two pre-eminent Canadian artists in an attractive, affordable format. As fledgling artists in their respective fields, Margaret Atwood and Charles Pachter were enthusiastic collaborators in a unique art form, the livre d'artiste the marriage of original graphic work with literary text. Beginning in the mid-sixties, while both were still students, they worked together on five limited-edition handmade books, volumes of Atwood's poetry with Pachter's interpretive artwork. The culmination of their collaboration, the work that is considered their masterpiece, is The Journals of Susanna Moodie. In her reading of Susanna Moodie's chronicles of pioneer life in nineteenth-century Canada, Atwood found the haunting and timeless themes that still obsess us. The poems of The Journals of Susanna Moodie were first published in 1970 in a standard format. This sequence of poems is regarded as a classic, in addition to being connected with her later novel, Alias Grace. In 1980, Pachter was able to add his own vibrant, evocative images and create the version they had dreamt of: a hand-set, hand-printed illustrated limited edition of 120 numbered copies. This popular edition is a faithful re-creation of the original, accompanied by an introductory memoir by Pachter, describing his friendship with Atwood and the creative process behind this breathtaking work, and a foreword by David Staines, who pays homage to Atwood, Pachter, and Moodie and their central places in our art and literature.

About this title

Review:

The poetic/artistic exploration of what it means to find yourself thrown into a hostile environment, these poems by Margaret Atwood and silk-screen illustrations by Charles Pachter are based on the journals of Canadian pioneer Susanna Moodie. The setting allows Atwood to write cutting lines about the fundamental tensions in creating and defining a self. One such tension, the assertion of will on the world as well as on one's self, set against the spirit-crushing tribulations of loneliness and hopelessness, is especially electric. The Journals of Susanna Moodie is a beautiful and hypnotic book.

About the Author:

Charles Pachter is one of Canada's leading contemporary artists. He is an award-winning painter, printmaker, sculptor, designer, historian, and lecturer. His canvases hang in public and private collections around the world, and in the McMichael Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, and the Art Gallery of Ontario. He is the author of two children's books, M is for Moose: A Charles Pachter Alphabet (winner of the IODE Book Award, nominated for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Illustrated Book Award and the Canadian Booksellers Association's Libris Award) and Canada Counts: A Charles Pachter Counting Book. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada. He lives in Toronto.

Margaret Atwood has published 17 books of poetry. Her first poetry book, The Circle Game, was typeset and illustrated by Charles Pachter (Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1964) prior to publication and won the Governor General’s Literary Award in 1966. She has collaborated with Charles Pachter on several projects, all of which have been published in limited editions. Her work has been published in more than 22 languages in more than 30 countries, and includes 7 collections of short stories, 13 novels, 12 works of non-fiction, and 8 children’s books. She is the recipient of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction (The Handmaid’s Tale, 1986), the Scotiabank Giller Prize (Alias Grace, 1996), and the Man Booker Prize (The Blind Assassin, 2000), among many other awards and prizes. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada and lives in Toronto.

About this edition

• Publisher: Macfarlane Walter & Ross
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 155199013X
• ISBN 13: 9781551990132
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 73