The last few months have been exciting ones for Full Circle Editions with the publication of our new books, The Barley Bird: Notes on the Suffolk Nightingale by Richard Mabey accompanied by Derrick Greaves' striking images and Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay by George Ewart Evans, with David Gentleman's beautiful watercolours and drawings.
The Barley Bird was launched on Friday 5th March, at the Aldeburgh Literary Festival. The Jubilee Hall was packed and Richard Mabey gave an enthralling reading. The book was described in Val Hennessy's review in The Daily Mail (2nd April) as: "....nature writing at its most poignant, a treasure".
Derrick Greaves' suite of images for The Barley Bird, premiered at the Festival in the Aldeburgh Cinema Gallery, will be shown again in an exhibition of his most recent work at the James Hyman Gallery, 5 Savile Row, London W1S 3PD. This opens on the 10th June. The book will be for sale at the show and all supporters of Full Circle and fans of Derrick Greaves' work are welcome at the private view.
Our collectable edition of Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay marks the centenary year of George Ewart Evans' birth. The book also, coincidentally, celebrates the 80th birthday, in March 2010, of David Gentleman, whose watercolour paintings and drawings, more than 60 in number, grace its pages. David worked on the images all through the summer, autumn and winter of 2009 in Blaxhall, the Suffolk village on which the book is centred. Our book was launched at the opening of David's Fine Art Society exhibition on the 23rd March. The event was a great success for both the book and his work with more than half the pictures in the show being sold on that first evening.
A Suffolk event at Snape Maltings two days later proved to be an equal success with more pictures being sold and a great response to the book.
In addition to the main trade copies of The Barley Bird and Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay we are offering a special signed and numbered edition of 100 copies of each book, presented in a slip-case. These are priced at £39.00 and £50.00 respectively. Due to the great press coverage we've had there has been a very good response to the special signed edition of Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay and over seventy have been sold to collectors since publication at the end of March. If you would like one of these limited, signed editions before they all go please email by clicking the HERE button at the bottom of this page.
We are very pleased to announce too that apart from all the individual collectors The Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, USA has started buying our slipcased and signed editions for it's Special Collections Library. This is one of the great libraries of the world and Full Circle are honoured to be part of their holdings.
Our new books for autumn 2010 are going the printers and include Rose Tremain's Wildtrack, a collection of four short stories set in East Anglia with a new introduction by the author and specially commissioned artwork by Jeff Fisher (the artist who created the Hare logo for us). Next up is Maggi Hambling's The Aldeburgh Scallop, her own account of the genesis, construction and installation of her controversial sculpture on Aldeburgh beach. Both these books are scheduled for publication in October. Fenwomen by Mary Chamberlain (an oral-history classic first published by Virago 35 years ago) with a new colour photo-essay by award-winning photographer Justin Partyka (check out his website in our LINKS section) will appear in January 2011 followed by Jules Pretty's This Luminous Coast in February/March. More information on these new books coming soon.