The Journals of Susanna Moodie by Margaret Atwood
with a memoir by Charles Pachter and foreword by David Staines
4to. unpaginated. illustrations by Charles Pachter. quarter cloth. clear dust wrapper (near fine). Toronto: Macfarlane Walter & Ross, [1997].
ISBN-10: 1551990601 / ISBN-13: 9781551990606
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Beginning in the mid-sixties, Margaret Atwood and Charles Pachter were enthusiastic collaborators in a unique art form, the livre d'artiste - the marriage of original graphic work with literary text. They worked together on five limited edition handmade books, volumes of Atwood's poetry with Pachter's interpretive artwork. The culmination of their collaboration, the work that is considered their masterpiece, is The Journals of Susanna Moodie.
This popular edition is a faithful reproduction of the original hand-set, hand-printed version of a treasured Canadian classic. In her reading of Moodie's chronicles of pioneer life, Margaret Atwood found haunting themes that obsess us still. Charles Pachter's vividly evocative images later the poems with startling echoes and insights. Their work is accompanied here by a new introductory memoir by Pachter and a foreword by David Staines, who pays homage to Atwood, Pachter, and Moodie and their central places in Canadian art and literature.