Kathy Martin's Blog - Posts Tagged "tewkesbury"
Musings on jacket design
, jacketHaving just taken delivery of my personal copies of The Woodville Connection, now seems like a good time to pay tribute to Dominic Allen, the brilliant individual who took my rather wishy-washy brief for a jacket design and came up with precisely what I wanted.
I’d asked for something with a late medieval feel that hinted at transience and a mystery with multiple layers. I believe this is exactly the effect Dominic has created with a flickering candle set within the framework of a repeated gothic archway.
The icing on the cake is the knowledge that the archway image used on the cover came from Minster Lovell, the 15th century Oxfordshire ruin which was once the home of Francis Lovell. As many will know, Lovell was one of Richard III’s most loyal adherents and he is name-checked in the book. It is pure coincidence but for some reason it makes me very happy. This leads me on to another aspect of the jacket design that makes me happy – but first I must digress a little.
About 25 years ago I stopped off in the Gloucestershire town of Tewkesbury en route to somewhere else. As I recall, Tewkesbury wasn’t exactly on the way to the place I was visiting but I knew it wouldn’t take me too far out of my way and I have always had a soft spot for the town due to its important connection with the Wars of the Roses.
As I remember telling my travelling companion over a pub lunch, in 1471 a major battle was fought at Tewkesbury and many lives were lost, among them the young Lancastrian heir. The upshot of this battle (and Barnet, the one immediately preceding it) was that Edward IV was able regain his grip on the English crown. Young Richard of Gloucester commanded Edward’s vanguard at Tewkesbury and the Yorkist victory was due in no small part to his leadership and courage.
Lunch over, we mooched about the town until we found an antiques shop to investigate and that’s when I saw it – a large needlework picture depicting a medieval man on horseback hunting a wild boar. After that, there was never any question that I would be leaving the shop without the picture. It’s true that the boar is grey, unlike Richard’s emblem which is white, but I wasn’t going to let a minor detail like that spoil my joy in finding this gem in Tewkesbury.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this needlework picture is one of my most cherished possessions; my husband is less keen on it but I feel an emotional connection to it that I cannot begin to explain. Now it appears (in a bleached out version) on the back of The Woodville Connection. That makes me very happy indeed.
I’d asked for something with a late medieval feel that hinted at transience and a mystery with multiple layers. I believe this is exactly the effect Dominic has created with a flickering candle set within the framework of a repeated gothic archway.
The icing on the cake is the knowledge that the archway image used on the cover came from Minster Lovell, the 15th century Oxfordshire ruin which was once the home of Francis Lovell. As many will know, Lovell was one of Richard III’s most loyal adherents and he is name-checked in the book. It is pure coincidence but for some reason it makes me very happy. This leads me on to another aspect of the jacket design that makes me happy – but first I must digress a little.
About 25 years ago I stopped off in the Gloucestershire town of Tewkesbury en route to somewhere else. As I recall, Tewkesbury wasn’t exactly on the way to the place I was visiting but I knew it wouldn’t take me too far out of my way and I have always had a soft spot for the town due to its important connection with the Wars of the Roses.
As I remember telling my travelling companion over a pub lunch, in 1471 a major battle was fought at Tewkesbury and many lives were lost, among them the young Lancastrian heir. The upshot of this battle (and Barnet, the one immediately preceding it) was that Edward IV was able regain his grip on the English crown. Young Richard of Gloucester commanded Edward’s vanguard at Tewkesbury and the Yorkist victory was due in no small part to his leadership and courage.
Lunch over, we mooched about the town until we found an antiques shop to investigate and that’s when I saw it – a large needlework picture depicting a medieval man on horseback hunting a wild boar. After that, there was never any question that I would be leaving the shop without the picture. It’s true that the boar is grey, unlike Richard’s emblem which is white, but I wasn’t going to let a minor detail like that spoil my joy in finding this gem in Tewkesbury.
It’s no exaggeration to say that this needlework picture is one of my most cherished possessions; my husband is less keen on it but I feel an emotional connection to it that I cannot begin to explain. Now it appears (in a bleached out version) on the back of The Woodville Connection. That makes me very happy indeed.
