The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice

Bound by Nicky Oliver

The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice
Decorated by Charles Ricketts
The Ballantyne Press, 1900

"The design is a slight departure from my usual colourful approach - I like to respond to the text of a book - each book has a different voice... a different rhythm. This is why a lot of my bindings can vary and while this text had a wealth of material, the one mental image I couldn't shake was of the character Othello - a really pissed off Othello.

I wanted to keep the design bare and raw. The Faircalf from J Hewit & Sons was perfect for the background and I made a series of linear, brass hand tools to foil the calf in an angry, scratchy way.

The scratch design was also used for the top edge and a fragment of the title was lettered onto the leather endband. The edge-to-edge doublures are hand-printed Japanese papers".

You can see more of Nicky's work on her web site, Black Fox Bindery