The text of THE WARRIOR & THE MAIDEN was written on the 4th of April, 1964 under the provisional title ‘Love & War’.  It was printed as a Gogmagog Press book in 1967/8 with ten ‘reverse-offset’ linocut illustrations (which he refers to on the copyright page as ‘intaglio engravings’).  The relatively short four year gap between the writing of the text and the production of the book represents near contemporaneity of word and image, somewhat unusual for Gogmagog books.  The use of linocuts is of note, as he had for several previous books been exploring the possibility of ‘nature printing’ to great success.  The illustrations for THE WARRIOR & THE MAIDEN, then, mark a return to more linear depiction that he would also use in a later Gogmagog Press volume, MAGOGMAGOG, which Cox noted as being ‘perhaps my favorite book’.

     Alan Tucker’s observation that every Gogmagog production tells the reader how it is to be read holds true for THE WARRIOR & THE MAIDEN.  The book itself is bound in white felt, which has a flame pattern printed in red-orange.  It comes in a slipcase covered in vividly striped Japanese paper.  Of this binding Alan Tucker has written, ‘The slipcase imprisons the book (the stripes of the Japanese patterned paper make an interference pattern of bars seen against the light) which has to be pulled from it like a sword from a scabbard, releasing fire and war).'  (GOGMAGOG 40)  Of the text and images, Colin Franklin has written, ‘A clinical chill in the strange episodes, reflecting dreams in a night of poor sleep rather than any rational narrative, is reflected in the themes and colours of prints precisely cut for full type measure opposite the half-filled passages of text'. (ibid. 146)

     These two observations by Tucker and Franklin effectively communicate the integral marriage between text, image, and design.  THE WARRIOR & THE MAIDEN, like all Gogmagog Press books, is an object whose meaning does not rely on any one facet.  Instead, its meaning is created through the interaction of its various elements; text, images and binding are inseparable.  Joined together they make a complete work of art.

     This Virtual Facsimile of THE WARRIOR & THE MAIDEN shows the pages at nearly full size (a bit of the top and bottom margin had to be sacrificed).  To make viewing more practical, the endpapers have not been produced, but the paper is the same as that used for the slipcase.  The bibliographical information is included in the Virtual Facsimile itself, on the copyright page and colophon.   - BH/03
 

THE WARRIOR & THE MAIDEN (text & images) is ©2003 by the Trustees of the Morris Cox Estate.  All reproduction rights remain with the Morris Cox Estate.