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[UPTON, John] The Confessions of Isobel Gowdie (The ALBION Sketchbooks of the Ayrshire Wica)
[UPTON, John] The Confessions of Isobel Gowdie (The ALBION Sketchbooks of the Ayrshire Wica)
Introduced by Melissa Seims and Dr. John Callow
[UK]: Hell Fire Club Books, No Date. First Edition. Hardcover (issued without dust jackets). Large quarto. 2 Volumes in slipcase. Limited to 200 sets, this being No. 187. Unpaginated (over 250 total pages). Both volumes bound in black cloth with covers blocked in copper tone, half-cloth with snakeskin-like spines. Housed in a cloth slipcase with large gilt device to front. Both volumes with full color illustrations by Upton throughout. Many of the illustrations contain explicit imagery. Some very light rubbing to the cloth, some pages a bit wavy (previous copies I've sold have all been like this). Otherwise a near fine set.
This large format work features a combination of two extensive art books produced by the initiated witch and pop-mural artist John ‘Albion’ Upton (1933-2005).
John Upton left a full 13 sketchbooks and designs for an initiated Tarot deck which comprise the story, workings, heritage and Book of Shadows of the original initiated Ayrshire Wica (‘The Wica’ as it is known).
The two sketchbooks reproduced here tell the stories of the trials and executions of three Scottish witches: Isobel Gowdie, Aleson Piersom and Bessie Dunlop, and form a remarkable connection to both the initiated practice of witchcraft and the folklore of Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries up to the present era.
John Upton's artworks are a dazzling and explosive mix of vibrant colour coming from his involvement with the subculture of psychedelia among artists in Brighton in the 1960s.
With collage, numerous physical inclusions on the original pages (including feathers, plants, talismans and photographs), sections of the work physically opening up as doorways, images powerfully erotic and pansexual: John Upton tells the story of witchcraft through the practice of the craft itself fusing faery lore and channelled voices in a vibrant modern graphic novel style. Through the imagery by which he recounts the stories, John Upton divulges initiated witch lore: the ritual and sexual practices by which the devotee became immersed in the sabbat.