Viollet-le-Duc – { feuilleton }

The Mercenaries of the Stolen Moon

As promised last week, here’s my latest cover for Megan Derr’s gay fantasy series, Tales of the High Court. The first book wasn’t intended to have this many sequels so my initial cover design also wasn’t planned as something that might be a template for later volumes. The previous books (below) borrowed bits and pieces from a set of early Viollet-le-Duc illustrations, a decision that posed problems as the series evolved when I began to run out of usable material. The new book required a different setting so I was able to dispense with the medieval architecture in favour of a hybrid of Indian and Cambodian stonework. I’ve always enjoyed the ruined-jungle-temple aesthetic so this was fun to work on, and made a break from all the black-and-white illustration I’ve been producing for the past year or so. The Mercenaries of the Stolen Moon will be published by Less Than Three Press later this year.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Heart of the Lost Star
• Tales of the High Court

The Heart of the Lost Star

Presenting my cover for the third book in Megan Derr’s gay fantasy series, Tales of the High Court. Since this cover follows a pattern established with the first book in the series, The High King’s Golden Tongue, I’ve posted volumes one and two below for comparison. In my post about the series last year I said that I appeared to have exhausted the Viollet-le-Duc illustrations which I was plundering for the (collaged) architectural frames. As things turned out I was able to work up a new one but if this series continues then further ingenuity will be required.

The Heart of the Lost Star will be published by Less Than Three Press later this month. Meanwhile, I have a number of other projects—most of them horror-related—waiting to be officially revealed. As always, watch this space.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Tales of the High Court

Tales of the High Court

I thought I’d already written something about my cover for Megan Derr’s gay fantasy novel, The High King’s Golden Tongue, but it seems not. This appeared last year from Less Than Three Press, and the next volume in the Tales of the High Court series, Pirate of Fathoms Deep, has been published this week. My earlier omission allows me to show both covers together.

When working on the first volume I didn’t expect I’d also be working on a sequel so there was no need to consider whether the design could be carried over. The architectural frame is from a book about French architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, taken from one of Viollet-le-Duc’s illustrations for a study of the architecture of old France. I added the windows and curtains before colouring the stones and providing shadows and highlights. This became a problem for the second cover because my Viollet-le-Duc book only had one example of this kind of stonework. After some lengthy searches at Gallica I was able to find enough scans of other pages from the books that Viollet-le-Duc illustrated to piece together a new frame. The Gothic window frames on both covers are from another French volume, and I’ve now exhausted all those examples so a third volume in this series will no doubt present further challenges.

Fonthill Abbey

Views such as these are all we’ve ever have of Fonthill Abbey, a monstrous pile that would have been Britain’s most grandiose folly had it not collapsed in 1825. William Beckford (1760–1844) was the man responsible, among other things a very wealthy and bisexual writer whose Vathek (1786) is one of the better Gothic novels. The Gothic fad fuelled many such constructions, Horace Walpole having inaugurated the trend decades earlier at Strawberry Hill House. Fonthill always fascinates for that outrageously excessive octagonal tower which must have been visible for miles across Wiltshire. Plans and other views show that excess was also a factor elsewhere, especially in the vast hall. The pictures here are from Wikimedia Commons. There’s a book at the Internet Archive A Description of Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire (1812) by James Storer, a contemporary account describing the building in detail, and also Delineations of Fonthill Abbey (1823) by John Rutter.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Gothic details
• Schloss Falkenstein
• Pite’s West End folly
• Viollet-le-Duc

Gothic details

Gargoyles, Notre Dame de Paris.

These aren’t all as old as they look, the gargoyles are part of Viollet-le-Duc’s 19th century restoration of Notre Dame, but the sepia tone makes them seem complementary. There’s a lot more at the Andrew White Architectural Photographs Collection at Luna Commons.

Wrought iron torch holder or horse tether from the Strozzi Palace by Benedetto da Maiano.

Flying buttresses, Reims Cathedral.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Schloss Falkenstein
• Pite’s West End folly
• Viollet-le-Duc