The Book of the Erinyes

The Book of the Erinyes is a handbound limited edition artist’s book currently being created by artist Paul Watson. It is due to be completed in 2011*.* You can receive email updates about The Book of the Erinyes - sign yourself up to the Lazarus Corporation Newsletter.

Fragments of text will provide a disjointed partial narrative to the artwork— of pursuit by the Erinyes— rather than being an illustrated story.

The text, written in the style of a late 19^th century description of pursuit by the Erinyes† transcribed by an opium addict, presents an incomplete narrative giving tantalising insights into the artwork. † In the original ancient Greek, the word Erinyes is properly rendered as Ερινύες and its literal translation is “the Angry Ones”.

The Artwork

The Book of the Erinyes is essentially a limited edition collection of pieces of artwork, bound together in the form of a book (itself a form of Book Art).

The “interior” artwork is still being created, and currently consists of photographs (some digitally enhanced & distorted) and lino prints.

You can view completed pieces of the interior artwork and photographic documentation of “the making of” the Book of the Erinyes in the Artwork section, which is regularly updated.

The Text

As the artwork is being created, Paul Watson is also printing the text for the book.

The text is being composited & printed using old-style movable lead type on a Letterpress machine at the open access fine-art print workshops run by Brighton Independent Printmakers, giving it a unique turn-of-the-century finish that is unachieveable with modern printing.

Each page will be high quality thick artists’ paper, giving it a great tactile æsthetic that you can feel as well as see.

Influences

The Book of the Erinyes draws influences from classical mythology, the growing tradition of artist’s books, and altered books, graphic novels, the underground popularity of Letterpress printmaking and hand-bookbinding, and authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, and Gene Wolfe.

Formats

In addition to the limited edition handbound artist’s book (which will be the most exclusive— and expensive— outlet for this artwork) prints of the artwork will be available in a number of formats:

1. Very Limited Edition Handbound Artist’s Book - hand-printed text, hand-collaged photographic prints, all hand-bound in a unique binding by the artist. This will be a strictly limited edition of between thirty and fifty of these book-shaped art objects.
2. Paperback version - a print-on-demand full-colour paperback version of the The Book of the Erinyes made available through Lulu.com.
3. Limited Edition Colour Postcards - a limited edition set of full-colour postcards featuring artwork from The Book of the Erinyes at affordable prices.
4. Free eBook version - a freely downloable PDF file (and possibly also an epub‡ file) of the The Book of the Erinyes. ‡ “.epub” is the file extension of an XML format for reflowable digital books and publications. “.epub” is composed of three open standards, the Open Publication Structure (OPS), Open Packaging Format (OPF) and Open Container Format (OCF), produced by the IDPF.
5. Other formats & Prices - as they are investigated.

The whole process—from planning to creation and beyond—will be openly documented with an opportunity for you to comment and ask questions.

The artist’s journal is a blog where you can add your comments or ask questions.

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“I mouth the words of the sixty-ninth of the Orphic Hymns, hoping to entice their kindlier aspects to the fore, but Alecto’s cold hiss of breath chills the back of my neck. Perhaps writing is the atonement that can placate them. I embrace this small hope. And so I write because I can no longer run…”

— From the First Chapter of The Book of the Erinyes.

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