Folio Society                                                         please click on the icons above and the 'live' text below to navigate the site

Aeschylus: The Oresteia

Translation by Robert Fagles

Drawings by Lawrence Preece

Published by The Folio Society 1984

The original intention was for this publication to be printed in Letterpress in the style of their earlier publication of The Georgics 1969. I decided to make a series of relief images on copper to compliment the impressed quality of letterpress: the images appearing to be burnt into the page.

Subsequently it was decided to use photolithography as the printing process and a thinner paper, which altered the effect as I had to use brush painted images instead, that were intended to have no halftones. The quality of lithography in this case is not so effective as a block print. Significantly the cover images were block printed and work the way that I intended for the images in the book.

The plays are exciting: fast moving and dramatic enough, so my intention was to make images that would not hold up the reading of the text.

                                                                                                                                                                       [ click on images to enlarge ]

              covers                                                                                                                              inside cover      

                                                                                                                rear inside cover