A Novel Solution
Limited edition of 150. Hardback in slipcase, casebound and hand set letterpress
on mould-made paper with tipped-in colour plates.
This includes (by special request) a long overdue guide to Rowley Hall. It is
a little known fact that for some years the St. Ives primitive painter Alfred
Wallis supplemented his pension by challenging trippers to find Rowley Hall,
flying them low over the area in his three-seater. Assisted by Mervyn Rowley,
who thoroughly camouflaged the Hall, Alfred made a living while ensuring that
the Hall remained undiscovered. It was probably only because Mervyn had some
tins of paint left over from painting the outside of the house that he then
turned his attention inside. Gradually everything indoors vanished too. Finally
he moved abroad where, disguising himself as foreign scenery, he sent home postcards
of himself not anywhere all over the world. A reader of the Rowley novels grows
suspicious after an aeroplane flight to find the Hall and begins to question
the existence of the Rowleys themselves. On her return to the home counties
she sends a detective to find out whether the Rowleys are real. When this detective
disappears, she sends another. When he too vanishes, she journeys again to St.
Ives, only to discover that the first detective has become Mervyn, the second
Walter. So she becomes Vera and they all live happily ever after. Yet another
millstone in the History of Art.