Books

Andrew's first book 'Snap!' was published in 1974 shortly followed by 'The Rooks of Trelawne', 'The Vanishing Cabinet', 'A St. Ives Album' and 'Cornwall - Peter Lanyon Drawings, Photographs Andrew Lanyon'.

Many of the books are limited edition letterpress, hand set and printed in St. Ives on mould-made paper with tipped-in colour plates. As crafted objects the books rapidly increase in value - Peter Lanyon 1918-1964 was available to subscribers at £40 in 1989 and now out of print sells second-hand for £1000.

The latest book on Peter Lanyon is Peter Lanyon The Cuttings, a limited edition of 150 copies, is still available for £180. Casebound in a slip case. 65 pages. Copiously illustrated with tipped-in colour plates. This book presents the idea that the painter was driven by narrative as much as by images.

Advanced payments from subscribers pays for the production of the books, who in return get a good deal, though sometimes they have to wait two years.

The Rowley books introduce Walter Rowley, an iconoclast from St. Ives who discovered that art is the only visually transmitted virus. He also isolated itegrity and marketed it as a paste. Dozens of books later, the Rowleys (Walter, Mervyn and Vera) are still going strong, in books but also in films. Each book can stand alone. In each volume we learn that everything is not how it was in the previous volume. For example in The Quick Change Act, Vera invents and acts Walter and Mervyn. Then in the next book, Room to Manoeuvre, Walter and Mervyn invent Vera.

1. Deadpan (Out of print)

2. Second Nature  £275   'Lanyon belongs to the genus of Hamlets who clown, church organists who prefer pub pianos and poets who tap dance.' Anna Adams. Apollo.

3. The Loose Connection  £190   'Ingenious, funny, entirely constructive too given the chaos theory.' George Melly

                                                    'The world would be the poorer without the revelations that a book like this provides.' Sir Alan Bowness

4. The Unjustified Text  £150   'A bargain.' Christopher Logue    'A beautiful, intelligent and provocative volume.'  Dan Rose Word and Image Journal

                                                'An exciting, incorruptible vision defended by a great talent.' Derrek Hines

5. The Quick Change Act  £125   'A stunning simplicity and directness. The idea of all these cloned artists gives me a most satisfying hysteria.' Lionel Miskin

6. Room to Manoeuvre  £125   'A profound work of fiction-philosophy-psychology rendered into his unique idiom.'  Christopher Bollas

                                                  '...including a superbly comic turn placing the origins of language in the excuses of male hunters when they failed to bring home the bison.'                                                           Jane Addams Allen

7. Dying for Eternity  £95     'Magnificent.' Patrick Hughes

                                             'You do not open such a book as step inside.'  Des Hannigan

8. A Persistence of Visions  £90    'I was at once gripped and read it avidly with growing delight and sensations of inspiration.'   John Michell

                                                       'The humour is as fresh as ever and as always masks serious intent.'   John McDowall

9. The Tower of Silence  £75    'A mature essay on language.'   Rodney Burt

                                                 'It made me laugh out loud and rather raucously, so I was glad I wasn't on a train.'   Roz Chandler

10. Mervyn Rowley's Marionettes (Out of print)

11. A Novel Solution  £75   'The art of camouflage refined to the finest degree. Another essential piece in the Rowley jigsaw.'   Jennifer Martyn

12. The Palette and the Retort  £65   In which words and images fall for each other.

13. In Search of Rowley Hall (cheap edition £15, not letterpress)    A detective is sent by a reader of the Rowley books to St Ives before the war to find out if the Rowleys are                                                                                                           real.

14. To Dye Eternity (cheap edition £20, not letterpress. Ready December 2009)   In a world that has never known laughter one of Vera Rowley's ancestors steals the formula                                                                                                                                  for laughing gas.

15. Vera's Disappearance (subscribers invited, £50. Ready December 2010)   Vera Rowley invents a mind-reading device and has to flee abroad to escape the agents of a                                                                                                                   multi-national corporation who will stop at nothing to get hold of her invention. Fully illustrated as usual.

More reviews of these books will be added soon. Readings from these books will be posted on Youtube shortly.

Books can be ordered by mail, email or phone. See Contacts for details. You can also send an SAE for a complete book list (there are about twenty other cheaper books, some letterpress, some on the work of others, including Paul Spooner, Bill Marshal, Paul Newman, Lionel Miskin, Sam Lanyon and Rosa Levin). If abroad send a nice postcard!