Tender is the Night. A Romance -
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sam Taylor-Wood (photographer)
2006 - Penguin Books, London - Limited edition number 270 of 1, 000 copies
‘You're the only girl I've seen for a very long time that actually did look like something blooming.’
Published on the occasion of Penguin Book's 60th Anniversary, ‘Tender Is The Night: A Romance’ is one of five classics that the publisher issued in a Limited Edition by commissioning five of the world's most important artists in their respective fields.
Taylor Wood, who many consider to be the natural successor to Avedon and Annie Leibovitz, utilizes one of her most austerely beautiful photographs on glassine paper that serves as the Artist Book's translucent inner dust-jacket. ‘An elegant young man as he stands before us with his hands in his pocket and bare feet. He perfectly sums up the elegance and fragility of Nicole and Dick Driver's world’. ‘Between the First World War and the Wall Street Crash the French Riviera was the stylish place for wealthy Americans to visit. Among the most fashionable are the Divers, Dick and Nicole, who hold court at their villa. Into their circle comes Rosemary Hoyt, a film star, who is instantly attracted to them, but understands little of the dark secrets and hidden corruption that hold them together. As Dick draws closer to Rosemary, he fractures the delicate structure of his marriage and sets both Nicole and himself on to a dangerous path where only the strongest can survive. In this exquisite, lyrical novel, Fitzgerald has poured much of the essence of his own life; he has also depicted the age of materialism, shattered idealism and broken dreams’. [Penguin]
***
Sam Taylor-Wood is one of our finest living artist/photographers. She is especially noted for her portraits of ordinary subjects as well as the most well-known celebrities of the day. Many consider her to be the natural successor to Avedon and Annie Leibovitz, but that judgment, while flattering, does not do justice to the singular qualities of her work.
Sam Taylor-Wood – ‘I first read Tender Is the Night while I was at college. It is one of those books that you read and feel a shift. Trying to choose your favourite novel is always difficult, but when I thought about which novel to design a cover for, Tender Is the Night shot to mind as one that had inspired me early on. What really resonates with me is how the story opens with this decadent, glamorous lifestyle and spirals into the demise of the central character, Dick Diver, and all those around him. As the novel unfolds you see the other characters - Rosemary, the young girl Dick Diver falls in love with, his wife Nicole and his crazy friend Abe North - all threatening to pull him down. But in the end, he is mainly responsible for his own downfall. When you begin to read it, you think it is all going to be about Rosemary, and then Nicole, but essentially it is all about Dick and how he is the maker of his undoing, as he descends into alcoholism. I reread it this summer, and the story is told so poetically and eloquently. It is one of those books that you read and think: if I could only remember that sentence - it is so beautiful.
I think a lot of my work has that sense of decadence, with an under-lying turbulence or unease, which is so powerful in the novel. My cover is a photograph I took of the writer Harland Miller, who features in quite a lot of my work. I knew the photographs I could take of him would be very Dick Diverish. It is a simple black and white photograph of him in a cream Riviera-style suit, with his head hung low. Harland loves the book, too, and he was very happy to be Dick Diver. He has made paintings that are reworkings of Penguin Classics, so it was lovely to put him on one of the covers. They are classic and iconic - all the titles you really want to read. I'm so excited to see the book out. I love it.’ [The Guardian newspaper, 2006]
***
The other titles are Gustave Flaubert's ‘Madame Bovary’, D. H. Lawrence's ‘Lady Chatterley's Lover’, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ‘Crime And Punishment’ and ’The Idiot’ (he is the only novelist to be honoured with not one, but two, masterpieces in the Series).
References: Penguin Classics, web. Random House, web. Faber and Faber, web. Condition: Fine in fine slipcase. Ref: 112703 Price: HK$ 4,000
Published on the occasion of Penguin Book's 60th Anniversary, ‘Tender Is The Night: A Romance’ is one of five classics that the publisher issued in a Limited Edition by commissioning five of the world's most important artists in their respective fields.
Taylor Wood, who many consider to be the natural successor to Avedon and Annie Leibovitz, utilizes one of her most austerely beautiful photographs on glassine paper that serves as the Artist Book's translucent inner dust-jacket. ‘An elegant young man as he stands before us with his hands in his pocket and bare feet. He perfectly sums up the elegance and fragility of Nicole and Dick Driver's world’. ‘Between the First World War and the Wall Street Crash the French Riviera was the stylish place for wealthy Americans to visit. Among the most fashionable are the Divers, Dick and Nicole, who hold court at their villa. Into their circle comes Rosemary Hoyt, a film star, who is instantly attracted to them, but understands little of the dark secrets and hidden corruption that hold them together. As Dick draws closer to Rosemary, he fractures the delicate structure of his marriage and sets both Nicole and himself on to a dangerous path where only the strongest can survive. In this exquisite, lyrical novel, Fitzgerald has poured much of the essence of his own life; he has also depicted the age of materialism, shattered idealism and broken dreams’. [Penguin]
***
Sam Taylor-Wood is one of our finest living artist/photographers. She is especially noted for her portraits of ordinary subjects as well as the most well-known celebrities of the day. Many consider her to be the natural successor to Avedon and Annie Leibovitz, but that judgment, while flattering, does not do justice to the singular qualities of her work.
Sam Taylor-Wood – ‘I first read Tender Is the Night while I was at college. It is one of those books that you read and feel a shift. Trying to choose your favourite novel is always difficult, but when I thought about which novel to design a cover for, Tender Is the Night shot to mind as one that had inspired me early on. What really resonates with me is how the story opens with this decadent, glamorous lifestyle and spirals into the demise of the central character, Dick Diver, and all those around him. As the novel unfolds you see the other characters - Rosemary, the young girl Dick Diver falls in love with, his wife Nicole and his crazy friend Abe North - all threatening to pull him down. But in the end, he is mainly responsible for his own downfall. When you begin to read it, you think it is all going to be about Rosemary, and then Nicole, but essentially it is all about Dick and how he is the maker of his undoing, as he descends into alcoholism. I reread it this summer, and the story is told so poetically and eloquently. It is one of those books that you read and think: if I could only remember that sentence - it is so beautiful.
I think a lot of my work has that sense of decadence, with an under-lying turbulence or unease, which is so powerful in the novel. My cover is a photograph I took of the writer Harland Miller, who features in quite a lot of my work. I knew the photographs I could take of him would be very Dick Diverish. It is a simple black and white photograph of him in a cream Riviera-style suit, with his head hung low. Harland loves the book, too, and he was very happy to be Dick Diver. He has made paintings that are reworkings of Penguin Classics, so it was lovely to put him on one of the covers. They are classic and iconic - all the titles you really want to read. I'm so excited to see the book out. I love it.’ [The Guardian newspaper, 2006]
***
The other titles are Gustave Flaubert's ‘Madame Bovary’, D. H. Lawrence's ‘Lady Chatterley's Lover’, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ‘Crime And Punishment’ and ’The Idiot’ (he is the only novelist to be honoured with not one, but two, masterpieces in the Series).
References: Penguin Classics, web. Random House, web. Faber and Faber, web. Condition: Fine in fine slipcase. Ref: 112703 Price: HK$ 4,000