Most Popular Books by Lynd Ward

Pictures and text tell of Canadian history and accomplishments.

The second volume of collected woodcut graphic novels from a “brilliant and iconoclastic” author who has been compared to Frank Capra and John Steinbeck (Jonathan Lethem, New York Times–bestselling author of The Fortress of Solitude) In this, the second of two volumes collecting all his woodcut novels, The Library of America brings together Lynd Ward’s three later books, two of them brief, the visual equivalent of chamber music, the other his longest, a symphony in three movements. Prelude to a Million Years (1933) is a dark meditation on art, inspiration, and the disparity between the ideal and the real. Song Without Words (1936), a protest against the rise of European fascism, asks if ours is a world still fit for the human soul. Vertigo (1937), Ward’s undisputed masterpiece, is an epic novel on the theme of the individual caught in the downward spiral of a sinking American economy. Its characters include a young violinist, her luckless fiancé, and an elderly business magnate who—movingly, and without ever becoming a political caricature—embodies the social forces determining their fate. The images reproduced in this volume are taken from prints pulled from the original woodblocks or first-generation electrotypes. Ward’s novels are presented, for the first time since the 1930s, in the format that the artist intended, one image per right-hand page, and are followed by four essays in which he discusses the technical challenges of his craft. Art Spiegelman contributes an introductory essay, “Reading Pictures,” that defines Ward’s towering achievement in that most demanding of graphic-story forms, the wordless novel in woodcuts.

Capolavoro della letteratura gotica affermatosi con rara potenza nell''immaginario collettivo, dalla sua pubblicazione nel 1818 il romanzo di Mary Shelley non ha mai smesso di eccitare la fantasia di lettori e artisti di tutto il mondo. Opera fondamentale per lo sviluppo del genere horror e di quello fantascientifico, la storia del giovane Frankenstein che riesce a dar vita a una "creatura" assemblata con parti di cadaveri colpisce ancora oggi per l''attualità delle questioni affrontate, dalla sfida dell''uomo ai limiti posti dalla natura al desiderio di poter sfuggire alla morte. In questa edizione di pregio, il mondo perturbante del romanzo trova perfetta rappresentazione nelle visioni di Lynd Ward, tra i fondatori della graphic novel statunitense, definito dallo stesso Art Spiegelman "uno dei più eminenti e completi artisti americani": le sue tavole, straordinarie per drammaticità e forza plastica, esaltano le atmosfere e gli scenari attraverso cui si svolge la folle caccia tra Frankenstein e il mostro, fissando in maniera indelebile la grandiosa visionarietà di un''opera immortale

This is a new release of the original 1935 edition.

Collection includes all but two of the woodblocks that constitute the artist''s graphic novel, Vertigo, as well as several blocks apparently intended for Vertigo but excluded from the published sequence and early versions of other published blocks.

Two volumes consisting of six wordless woodcut novels of Lynd Ward.

Presents a collection of wordless graphic novels that cover the themes of social unrest and the plight of the downtrodden worker and are illustrated with wood cuts and lino-engraving.

From the eve of the Great Depression to the onset of World War II, Lynd Ward, America''s first great graphic novelist, bore witness to the roiling, dizzying national scene as both a master printmaker and a socially committed storyteller. His medium of expression, the wordless "novel in woodcuts," was his alone in the United States, and he quickly brought it from bold iconic infancy to a still unrivaled richness of drama, characterization, imagery, and technique. In this, the first of two volumes collecting all his woodcut novels, The Library of America brings together Ward''s earliest books, published when the artist was still in his twenties. Gods'' Man (1929), the audaciously ambitious work that made Ward''s reputation, is a modern morality play, an allegory of the deadly bargain a striving young artist often makes with life. Madman''s Drum (1930), a multigenerational saga worthy of Faulkner, traces the legacy of violence haunting a family whose stock-in-trade is human souls. Wild Pilgrimage (1932), perhaps the most accomplished of these early books, is a study in the brutalization of an American factory worker whose heart can still respond to beauty but whose mind is twisted in rage against the system and its shackles. The images reproduced in this volume are taken from prints pulled from the original woodblocks or first-generation electrotypes. Ward''s novels are presented, for the first time since the 1930s, in the format that the artist intended, one image per right-hand page, and are followed by four essays in which he discusses the technical challenges of his craft. Art Spiegelman contributes an introductory essay. "Reading Pictures," that defines Ward''s towering achievement in that most demanding of graphic-story forms, the wordless novel in woodcuts.

Proof copy of North Star Shining: A Pictorial History of the American Negro, by Hildegarde Hoyt Swift, illustrated by Lynd Ward. Includes letter from Ward to a Mr. Rohde, Feb. 16, 1950, which mentions the illustrations in the book.