The Legend Of Glastonbury KNOWLES, Horace J.; CHANT, A.G. Arthur Chant’s retelling of the story of Joseph of Arimathea provided Knowles with the opportunity to produce a final book in his preferred style, illustrating every aspect from cover to cover. The royalties were devoted to the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund as Arthur Chant’s son, the dedicatee of the book, was shot down and killed flying over France in June 1944. Of Knowles’s depiction of the boy archer on the rear endpapers (illustrated opposite), Chant confided to Knowles in a private letter that “the boy is the natural youngster I have always wanted”. 86. Complete Archive Of Original Drawings [c.1946]. Complete archive of original pen and ink drawings on paper. Forty sheets comprising the body of the text and illustrations, each sheet 29cm x 39.5cm. Dustwrapper design (including flaps) 71cm x 36.5cm. Endpaper illus- trations, pencil on board 51cm x 39cm. Knowles’s instructions to the print- ers in pencil in the margins. Occasional spotting to the margins. [33006] 87. Original Sketch Book & Correspondence [c.1946]. Unpublished sketch book. 4to. 26cm x 20cm. Brown paper covered notebook, lettered in yellow. Knowles’s name and address pencilled in on the front pastedown. Front and rear endpapers sketched in pencil, half titles, dedication, title page, frontis and the first few pages of the book are sketched and lettered in detail. Thereafter there are many studies and notes in pencil. Pencil illustrations and studies, plus calligraphic text and small sketches in ink. Edges rubbed and spine cracked. [33007] Accompanying the sketch book are four letters from Arthur Chant: 1) 19th December 1946: Chant arranges a meeting with Knowles. 2) 6th October 1947: Chant discusses the arrangement of the dedication. 3) 26th November 1947: Discusses a meeting with Knowles and praises one of his drawings “You have put such power into it and it also has that air of mystery which I wanted you to catch.” 4) 16th December 1947: two page letter in which Chant thanks Knowles for sending him a “delightful book” in which he had “infused a real architectur- al character into some of the trees and given them a magnificent feeling of structure”. He also talks at some length about the dedication of the book to his son, and his likeness to some of Knowles’s depictions.
85. The Legend Of Glastonbury The Epworth Press, 1948. First edition. 4to. Grey cloth with gilt lettering and vignette, in grey dustwrapper with map design print- ed in red and blue. Price of 10s 6d net print- ed on the front flap. Double page pictorial endpapers, with different designs to the front and rear. Ten full page drawings and many smaller drawings in the text. A fine copy in a fine dustwrapper. [33005] The royalties for the book were “devoted to the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund” (front flap). The dedicatee was Arthur Chant’s son, William Morton Chant, an RAF pilot who was shot down and killed in France, June 1944.
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