Continuing my cheerful theme of life as insufferable gloom, I feature here Ram Rischmann's 1947 wood engravings for a French edition of "Fall of the House of Usher" (in Baudelaire's translation).
A huge thank you to Christophe for sharing scans from a truly rare book.
Click for larger versions.
A huge thank you to Christophe for sharing scans from a truly rare book.
Click for larger versions.
frontispiece
3 comments:
Really excellent illustrations. Thanks for posting it.
The French have always been remarkably keen on Poe, partly no doubt because he was translated by Baudelaire. You could bankrupt yourself just collecting all the fine limited editions of Poe in French, illustrated by artists such as Alexeieff, Fini, Farneti, and Lobel-Riche. It's nice to see these striking wood engravings by a less well-known hand. Ram Rischmann seems quite an obscure figure. I think he was born in 1908...
Beautiful: because of Lemony Snicket, the Baudelaire children, my 12 year old daughter recognizes Baudelaire as "the guy who translated Poe into French", from my explanation. As I heard the story, Poe had to be appreciated in France first, before he got a following in the U.S. kind of like Jerry Lewis, or maybe Jimi Hendrix.
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