The Book of the Erinyes

Being a True And Illustrated Account of Vengeful Pursuit & Damnation

* To receive email updates about The Book of the Erinyes please sign up to the Lazarus Corporation Newsletter.The Book of the Erinyes is coming in December 2008*.

The Book of the Erinyes† is a handbound limited edition artist’s book currently being created by Paul Watson, an artist based in Brighton, England. † In the original ancient Greek, the word Erinyes is properly rendered as Ερινύες and its literal translation is “the Angry Ones”.

Fragments of text will provide a disjointed partial narrative to the artwork rather than being an illustrated story. The text, written in the style of a late 19^th century apocalyptic text transcribed by an opium addict, presents an incomplete narrative giving tantalising insights into the artwork.

The text will be composited and printed using old-style movable lead type on a Letterpress machine at the open access fine art print workshops run by Brighton Independent Printmakers, so it will have an unevenness that you don’t get with word-processed type, reminiscent of turn-of-the-century printing. Each page will be high quality thick artists’ paper, to give it a great tactile æsthetic.

The Book of the Erinyes draws influences from ancient myths, the growing tradition of artist’s books and altered books, graphic novels, the underground popularity of Letterpress printmaking, and authors such as Jorge Luis Borges and Gene Wolfe.

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 everyone to comment and ask questions. There is a thread dedicated to the Book of the Erinyes on the Lazarus Corporation Discussion forum - feel free to sign up and comment/ask questions.

“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.

The Book of the Erinyes is a new website from The Lazarus Corporation