372. Catalogues Imitating Books (2)

Catalogue Number Four was the Spring 1984 catalogue of Pagoda Books in London and it was dressed in a thick white paper cover containing images of the front and back cover of a book designed by Charles Ricketts and described in the catalogue as number 242.

Catalogue Number Four, Pagoda Books (1984)

The example for the catalogue was Oscar Wilde. Recollections by Jean Paul Raymond & Charles Ricketts (1932), published posthumously. Of course, Charles Ricketts and Jean Paul Raymond are one and the same person. It is a weird use of a pseudonym, but it allowed Ricketts to pose as an interested listener, or, as the prospectus explained:

Ricketts invented Raymond so that he might create and control his auditory, command its sympathy, and suggest in the half-tones of familiar conversation certain elusive qualities of Wilde as a friend. The artifice succeeds. In a subtle sense he paints a new portrait of Wilde.
(Prospectus and Retrospectus of the Nonesuch Press 1932)

Oscar Wilde, Recollections (1932)

The cover seems to echo Ricketts's own design for Wilde's The Sphinx (1894). The front and back images of both designs together tell a story. 

The catalogue didn't use the spine design, and the gold was replaced with black.

Catalogue Number Four, Pagoda Books (1984)

Each cover is divided into four compartments with a man greeting a woman on the front panel, she is accompanied by a lady, and she herself reveals her young body while raising a glass to the young man. On the back cover the man welcomes her, holding a kylix. This seems the reverse order for the story, which we also see at the top of both covers. On the back the man is alone on a couch, again raising a kylix. On the front of the book the man and woman lie down embracing. Some critics suppose that the order of the images has been reversed by the printer. But Ricketts had intended this order. The original drawing, now in the British Museum, clearly shows this.

Charles Ricketts, design for cover
© The Trustees of the British Museum

The stories told by Ricketts are never straightforward, or one-dimensional.

Oscar Wilde, Recollections (1932)

Pagoda Books was the antiquarian book firm of Julie Speedie who wrote a book about Wilde's friend Ada Leverson.