Time Was Away. A Notebook in Corsica

Alan Ross. Illustrations by John Minton.

John Lehmann. London. 1948. First edition. Hardback; yellow cloth-bound boards, dust jacket. 189 pages. Jacket, 8 colour plates, and over 50 black and white drawings, mainly full-page, by John Minton. English. 240 x 175mm. 0.5kg. . Near fine, in near fine dust jacket; slight shelf wear to jacket, slight ruffling at head of spine, short 3cm tear to top edge of front panel, two short 2cm tears to top edge of rear panel, not price-clipped; lower forecorners lightly bumped, very occasional spotting, clean internally with no inscriptions.

A first edition of Alan Ross and John Minton's artistic collaboration and ode to the island of Corsica. Ross and Minton were commissioned by the publisher John Lehmann to travel to Corsica and put together a book of words and images.They visited the island in the post-war summer of 1947. The resulting travelogue contains history, descriptions, impressions, maps, stories, poems and illustrations. Minton's Neo-Romantic illustrations perfecly capture the heat and spirit of the island and the book is arguably his most successful and influential illustrated work. The typography of the cover was designed by Keith Vaughan and the title comes from the Louis MacNeice line - 'Time was away and somewhere else.' Scarce with the dust jacket in such good condition.   [Spalding, Frances. John Minton. Dance Till The Stars Come Down. 2005. p. 109-14.]