HOLT, William. The Wizard of Whirlaw (signed with postcard)
HOLT, William. The Wizard of Whirlaw. Kilnhurst, Todmorden. Self-published. 1959. 8vo. First edition, second impression. Publisher’s blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the striking dust jacket designed by Ivan Cuba. This copy inscribed by the author to the front endpaper, with a pictorial postcard of the author and his horse, Trigger—an ex-rag-and-bone horse who carried him across Europe on a long and well-documented journey—with lengthy inscription on reverse, dated 1963. A good copy, the cloth quite heavily mottled, corners and tips gently bumped, the contents fine though edges slightly darkened. The jacket unclipped (15s net) with several small nicks, chips to most edges, spine panel slightly creased. Nevertheless striking.
William Holt was an ‘all or nothing’ self-educated nomad, editor, translator, inventor, and proud Yorkshireman. He taught himself several languages as a child, enlisted for the First World War although underage, and later war journalist in the Spanish Civil War. He became the only Communist Town Councillor in Yorkshire and, though nomadic until his final years, was a mainstay of the Todmorden area for decades, often publishing and selling his own books door-to-door on horseback. The recipient of the postcard was John Tobin, a local photographer who might well have taken the photograph of Holt and his trusted Trigger.
HOLT, William. The Wizard of Whirlaw. Kilnhurst, Todmorden. Self-published. 1959. 8vo. First edition, second impression. Publisher’s blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the striking dust jacket designed by Ivan Cuba. This copy inscribed by the author to the front endpaper, with a pictorial postcard of the author and his horse, Trigger—an ex-rag-and-bone horse who carried him across Europe on a long and well-documented journey—with lengthy inscription on reverse, dated 1963. A good copy, the cloth quite heavily mottled, corners and tips gently bumped, the contents fine though edges slightly darkened. The jacket unclipped (15s net) with several small nicks, chips to most edges, spine panel slightly creased. Nevertheless striking.
William Holt was an ‘all or nothing’ self-educated nomad, editor, translator, inventor, and proud Yorkshireman. He taught himself several languages as a child, enlisted for the First World War although underage, and later war journalist in the Spanish Civil War. He became the only Communist Town Councillor in Yorkshire and, though nomadic until his final years, was a mainstay of the Todmorden area for decades, often publishing and selling his own books door-to-door on horseback. The recipient of the postcard was John Tobin, a local photographer who might well have taken the photograph of Holt and his trusted Trigger.
HOLT, William. The Wizard of Whirlaw. Kilnhurst, Todmorden. Self-published. 1959. 8vo. First edition, second impression. Publisher’s blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the striking dust jacket designed by Ivan Cuba. This copy inscribed by the author to the front endpaper, with a pictorial postcard of the author and his horse, Trigger—an ex-rag-and-bone horse who carried him across Europe on a long and well-documented journey—with lengthy inscription on reverse, dated 1963. A good copy, the cloth quite heavily mottled, corners and tips gently bumped, the contents fine though edges slightly darkened. The jacket unclipped (15s net) with several small nicks, chips to most edges, spine panel slightly creased. Nevertheless striking.
William Holt was an ‘all or nothing’ self-educated nomad, editor, translator, inventor, and proud Yorkshireman. He taught himself several languages as a child, enlisted for the First World War although underage, and later war journalist in the Spanish Civil War. He became the only Communist Town Councillor in Yorkshire and, though nomadic until his final years, was a mainstay of the Todmorden area for decades, often publishing and selling his own books door-to-door on horseback. The recipient of the postcard was John Tobin, a local photographer who might well have taken the photograph of Holt and his trusted Trigger.