Charles Ricketts (18661931) is one of the most intriguing yet least understood figures in British art. He was multi-talented: a book illustrator who founded the short-lived Vale Press, personally creative across a range of media, including sculpture, an exceptionally imaginative theatrical designer, and an author and critic of considerable insight. His letters reveal him in a new light opinionated, argumentative, witty and articulate. His accounts of London during the Great War are historically valuable, and his sympathies for the young men at the front are touching. His partnership with fellow artist Charles Shannon lasted until his death. This richly-annotated edition of his collected letters thus illuminates English artistic life from the end of the nineteenth century to the early decades of the twentieth.
John Aplin, who gained his Ph.D. in Musicology in 1977, followed an academic career in Music before developing broader interests in the Humanities. He is author of A Thackeray Family Biography, 18761919 (2011) and editor of both The Correspondence and Journals of the Thackeray Family (2011), and The Letters of Philip Webb (2016), the Arts & Crafts architect and member of the William Morris circle.
Paul van Capelleveen is curator at the KB, National Library of the Netherlands. He has published articles and books and curated exhibitions about private presses (The Ideal Book, 2010), shipboard printing, artists books (Artists & Others, 2016), bookbindings, book collecting, book design; he published a checklist of books designed by Charles Ricketts (1996) and a survey of Rickettss early illustrations (2024); since 2011, he has published a weekly blog about Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon (charlesricketts.blogspot.com).
