Inspiring Older Readers

posted on 18 Mar 2018

Candide and Other Romances by Voltaire, translated by Richard Aldington and illustrated by Norman Tealby

Voltaire’s Candide has been one of my favourite satirical novellas ever since I first read it all those years ago when I was an English Literature undergraduate. It is, of course, a landmark text of from the blossoming Age of Reason and a grouchy, scintillating attack of the vapid optimism that characterised so much of the second division literature of the 18th century.

Although Voltaire himself thought it was nothing much more than a squib, it has turned out to be one of those books that not only says something quintessential about the intellectual life of the age that produced it but has been an astonishingly popular read for subsequent generations. It is, in fact, one of those classics that has never been out of print.

For me, it’s also one of the books I keep an eye open for in its different incarnations – if I can find a copy that’s beautifully or interestingly produced I will try and buy it as long as its not up for sale for silly money. Not so long ago I came upon the copy I’m featuring here. Published in 1928 by The Bodley Head, it features Candide  and seven other very short ‘romances’ that I must confess I haven’t yet read. The translation has been done by Richard Aldington, a significant poet, novelist and biographer in his own right.

But it’s the illustrations that most intrigued me when I picked it up. I think, based on the limited research I’ve been able to do, there should be a rather unassuming, rather plain dust jacket that would have been there when it was issued but that has now gone. Its purpose would have been to protect the dark blue cloth of the hard cover which is decorated with a very typical art deco design imprinted in gold and showing two female figures dancing with monkeys. The pen and ink illustrations inside the book fall into two kinds – full page plates crammed with detailed design and smaller decorative details that sit at the top or bottom of some pages of the text.

The artist is Norman Tealby and I’ve been frustrated by just how little I’ve been able to find out about him. The internet offers virtually nothing and so I spent some time consulting my printed reference books – but with very limited success. He does get a small entry in Alan Horne’s Dictionary of 20th Century British Illustrators but details are very limited. No date of birth or death is given but his work seems to have all been done between 1927 and 1931 and we are told:

Tealby illustrated a few books, including Martin Armstrong’s translation of De Alarcon’s Three-Cornered Hat (1927), for which he produced some strong black and white illustrations and stylised colour plates in rather flat colours.

And that’s pretty much it.

Perhaps Tealby himself was conscious of the shortcomings of his colour work and abandoned it by the time it came to illustrating Candide because here he sticks with black and white.

I didn’t pay much for this copy which is in good condition with just a hint of foxing on the inside title pages and – unusually for books of this kind – a spine that hasn’t cracked yet. For a 1928 edition you might expect to pay more than £30 for a copy but there are later Nonsuch Press reprints from the 1950s that are cheaper.

 

Terry Potter

March 2018

 

(Click on any image below to view the illustrations is slide show mode)

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