Beyond this Point.

Bookseller Notes

Inscribed by the author to the flyleaf: 'For Elizabeth Hudson, my friend: Lance Sieveking, [Morgan Library, June 11th 1936'. Sieveking has also noted his address ('60 Carlyle Square, Chelsea') to the front panel of the dustjacket.The recipient, her small bookplate to the front pastedown, was an American nurse, active in relief efforts in France during the Great War (and then on the board of directors for the Coordinating Council of French Relief Societies in World War Two). She was a friend, and subsequently the bibliographer, of Irish author E. . Somerville. Her papers, including correspondence with Sieveking, are held at Yale's Beinecke Library.The book is an 'absolute collaboration' (blurb) between author and illustrator; in five sections, it maps human experience - an ascent, even through death, jealousy and ruin, continuing until the short 'Beyond this Point?' conclusion. Sieveking's experimentation with 'new forms of literary and dramatic expression' are here enhanced by Bruguire's innovative photography; the American photographer was at this point living in London, and collaborating with Oswell Blakeston on books and a film ('Light Rhythms'), all working on the principle of abstraction through the use of light - the dustjacket blurb here credits him as 'the first artist to use photography as a direct medium of expression'.