Wednesday, November 16, 2016

277. An Indispensable Supplement to Charles Ricketts's Biography

An indispensable supplement to the biography of the artist, book designer, publisher and art critic Charles Ricketts (1866-1931):

Charles Ricketts’s Mysterious Mother
By J.G.P. Delaney and Corine Verney

When Delaney published his biography of Charles Ricketts in 1990, he had had considerable difficulty with Ricketts’s mother. There was little information about her to be found, and what was there was inconsistent. Some said that Ricketts’s mother had been born in France, but was of Italian and Spanish origin; others stated that she was Neapolitan, with some French blood, and generally, she has been described as French.

Ricketts felt a deep affection for his mother, who died when he was fourteen. At sixteen he lost his father. He argued that he had a deep bond with France. 

In Charles Ricketts’s Mysterious Mother, the remarkable, moving, and hitherto untold story of Ricketts’s mother, will reaveal the truth about her origin. Delaney writes: Ricketts’s mother was not named ‘Hélène de Sousy’, she was not the daughter of the marquis de Soucy, she was not French in origin, nor was she illegitimate. She was born in Rome, and ten years older than one imagined.


Design: Huug Schipper|Studio Tint, The Hague
48 pages, full colour, bound by Van Waarden, Zaandam
Illustrated, including a photograph of Charles Ricketts as a boy that has never been published before
Edition: 100 copies
Price: € 40,- (including handling and international postage). Price in Europe: € 35,-.

To order copies please contact paulton@xs4all.nl.
Paypal payments accepted (paulton@xs4all.nl)



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