Book cover design for ETA Hoffman's The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, a book whose premise is based on a printers error.
(I've been playing with linoprint lately)
Showing posts with label Tomcat murr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tomcat murr. Show all posts
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Monday, 27 February 2012
Murr
another illustration for The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr
From the cover sleeve: "Tomcat Murr is a loveable, self-taught animal who has written his own autobiography. But a printer's error causes his story to be accidentally mixed and spliced with a book about the composer Johannes Kreisler. As the two versions break off and alternate at dramatic moments, two wildly different characters emerge from the confusion - Murr, the confident scholar, lover, carouser and brawler, and the moody, hypochondriac genius Kreisler. In his exuberant and bizarre novel, Hoffmann brilliantly evokes the fantastic, the ridiculous and the sublime within the humdrum bustle of daily life, making "The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr" (1820–22) one of the funniest and strangest novels of the nineteenth century."
From the cover sleeve: "Tomcat Murr is a loveable, self-taught animal who has written his own autobiography. But a printer's error causes his story to be accidentally mixed and spliced with a book about the composer Johannes Kreisler. As the two versions break off and alternate at dramatic moments, two wildly different characters emerge from the confusion - Murr, the confident scholar, lover, carouser and brawler, and the moody, hypochondriac genius Kreisler. In his exuberant and bizarre novel, Hoffmann brilliantly evokes the fantastic, the ridiculous and the sublime within the humdrum bustle of daily life, making "The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr" (1820–22) one of the funniest and strangest novels of the nineteenth century."
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Tomcat Murr
"Another difficult problem was dipping my pen in the ink well, for as I dipped it I couldn't contrive to keep my paw clean; it kept getting into the ink too, so the first few characters, written more with paw than the pen, were bound to be rather big and broad. Consequently, the ignorant might take my first manuscripts for little more than paper splashed with ink. "
- from The Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr by E. T. A. Hoffmann
Monday, 6 February 2012
"Can the idea of instinct as a blind involuntary urge be reconciled with the ability to dream?"
A terrible lack of blog posts, as I've been away masquerading as a receptionist for a couple of months whilst developing a voracious appetite for reading - at the moment: The Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr by E.T.A. Hoffman (which was written about 200 years ago but is funny and surprisingly fresh) and The Quay Brothers: Into a Metaphysical Playroom by Suzanne Buchan (fascinating insights into the Quays influences and working processes, as well as tiny snapshots of their early illustration work)
Anyway, I've just updated my website after about three years of letting the moss grow over it:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)