I Challenge Thee to Mortal Combat... with Scorpers by Griselda Heppel

Many years ago, at the height of Britain’s football hooliganism problems, I came across a delicious comedy sketch on BBC Radio 4 which went something like this: 

Policeman: I'm arresting you for affray leading to grievous bodily harm, with intention to commit. Do you have anything to say? 

Lout: Yeah, well, it were like this. Me and my mates was just leavin’ Waiting for Godot at the Prince Edward theatre, like, when these guys come up to us and start rantin’ and swearin’ that Beckett’s rubbish, everyone knows that, not a patch on Chekhov whose Three Sisters could wipe the floor wiv us, yeah, and our muvvers too. Well, that crossed a line that did, I’m not takin’ that lyin’ down. So yes, officer, I did clock ‘im one but there’s provocation, see. 

Laugh-out loud comedy, ah those were the days. 

Having the temerity to issue a challenge. 
Photo by Daisa TJ: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-holding-sword-3408420/
Anyway, this popped into my mind because recently I had the temerity to issue a challenge on social media. 

About book illustration. 

I know. 

It wasn’t really a challenge, I mean, I didn’t expect anyone to take it up, I just got over-excited. About a wood engraving. 

Yes, I know (twice). 

I blame my husband (who doesn’t?), a collector of wood engravings and fine press books. He had just taken delivery of an exquisite hand printed edition of Pastoral Elegies, including Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, by the Barbarian Press

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray.
Wood engraving by Christopher Wormell for the Barbarian Press.
Opening the book, I caught my breath. 

Could there be a more beautiful or apter illustration of the first verse than this wood engraving by Christopher Wormell? You stand where the poet stands, gazing out into the parting day, your eye following the lowing herd as it winds slowly away from you, drawing you into the soft darkness and stillness that Gray evokes. I felt, not that I was reading the poem, but that I was in it, such was the effect of the combination of Gray’s luminous poetry with Wormell’s acutely sensitive interpretation. 

In rapture I posted the picture on Instagram, with exactly this rhetorical (as I thought) question…. Only for the challenge to be taken up, perfectly reasonably, by another distinguished wood engraver and fine press printer, Miles Wigfield of The Reading Room Press. What about Agnes Miller Parker? He countered. 

Wood engraving illustration to Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard
by Agnes Miller Parker, 1938.

Oops. 

Agnes Miller Parker (1895 – 1980), one of the greatest wood engravers, did a famous edition of Gray’s Elegy back in 1938. I looked it up and yes, her illustrations are stunning. 

Luckily wood engravers and finepress printers are generally a gentle sort, unlikely to force me to defend my challenge with scorpers* at dawn. Otherwise who knows what kind of brawls might take place between those championing Eric Ravilious, say, against Monica Poole. 

Well now, there’s another potential BBC Radio 4 comedy sketch in the offing. 

I’m sure someone will do it.


*wood engraving tool


OUT NOW 

The Fall of a Sparrow by Griselda Heppel

BRONZE WINNER in the Wishing Shelf Awards 2021 

By the author of Ante's Inferno  

WINNER of the People's Book Prize

Comments

Sarah said…
I remember the sketch - a classic. Great post which sparks many ideas!
Peter Leyland said…
That's lovely piece Griselda. Those engravings for Gray's Elegy are fantastic. It put me in mind of my student days when we did lino printing for our poetry magazine, Idle Times, and of a beautiful book I bought then of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience with his original engravings. I think the two mediums of poetry and accompanying printing styles go well together. I am now going to look up The Reading Room Press from your notes.