"Mummers' Fool"

[ MUMMERS’ FOOL ]

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MUMMERS’ FOOL:

A note on the Virtual Facsimile

The text of MUMMERS’ FOOL dates from 1937 (revised 1955),
making it an example of Cox’s ‘early’ poetry, at which stage his work depended
greatly on sound. Its theme also exhibits Cox’s interest in the folk
customs of Britain, as well as his interest in the possible latent pagan
wisdom in such rituals as the Mummers’ Play and the Sword Dance, as explained
in the Forward. The presentation is from a later date, 1965, at which
point Cox was fully engaged in exploring the potential of printing innovations
dating from 1957. The direct/offset method allowed him to print from
a variety of materials, such as gesso and found objects, such as grasses,
flowers, and pine needles. While the blocks themselves could be very
simple, the flexibility of the method allowed Cox to achieve the most interesting
colour effects and textures.

MUMMERS’ FOOL is interesting
for other reasons as well. It is, in the proportion of word and image,
among the most balanced of Gogmagog Books (along with 9 POEMS FROM NATURE
(1959)). Also, being from 1965, it comes just before the four ‘season’
volumes, which took the printing methods used in MUMMERS’ FOOL and the
experimental print book A WEB OF NATURE (1964) to full maturity and virtuosity
(see the individual spreads from AN IMPRESSION OF SUMMER and AN IMPRESSION
OF AUTUMN).

Colin Franklin called the binding
‘perhaps [Cox’s] masterpiece in this kind, with mounted specimens of grass
rising above a misty moonscape and across the moon’s disc, a smaller grass
on the back cover, title printed up the cloth spine’. (GOGMAGOG 135)
The subtlety and simplicity of the cover suggests Japanese art. The
paper was first monoprinted, with sweeps of colour spread on the plate,
and to this was pasted the paper moon-disc and the grass specimen.
The whole was then covered with a thin, semi-transparent paper which holds
the grass in place, and mutes the whole cover in haze.

As the source book was
too large to fit into a scanner, digital pictures have been produced, but
reduced from the original 10” h by 6”w dimensions (when closed).
The Jefferson Gothic type that Cox used for the text is difficult to read
in this reduced format, so the text has been typed and placed beneath each
page for ease of us. The bibliographical information is included
in the Virtual Facsimile, on the copyright page and colophon.
– BH/03

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