I purchased the "Strange Case of Jan Torrentius" 6 volume boxset by Brian Howell from Zagava - and must say I am impressed, the presentation is impeccable, but beyond the fine craftmanship lies a real treasure of a book. The full tale of that most enigmatic of Dutch painters, the camera obscura and possible "rose cross madness" had originally been cut in half (with the second half cut straight from the middle of the entire text and leaving out many of the allusions to Rosicrucianism) and published as "The Stream and the Torrent" in Zagava's and EOP's short and now terminated run of joint publications. Why the text has been edited as it was is absolutely beyond me (to fit the then current preferred series format of books?) -
It's a pleasure to now have the text with multiple addenda as originally envisioned by the author. It makes much more sense now. It's a sumptuous visually stunning production, using the only surviving artwork by Torrentius for the highly decorative slipcase and just the border of the only surviving portrait of the artist as the cover for all 6 hardback volumes. The set features additional small book-/leaflets for acknowledgements, sources, 2 prologues, 1 epilogue and a signed and numbered limitation card. A masterful and restrained piece of craftmanship without the overboarding pinterest-derived artwork overkill found elsewhere.
People who own the earlier and erratically edited version even get a chance of purchasing a box with just the missing pieces of text (3 books), all the extras and a slipcase that will hold the older book and the 3 new ones. This is what I call a publishing victory.
Apparently there are only a handful of copies of both versions available still.
Now is good time to head over to Zagava.... new volumes by both Mark Samuels and Thomas Phillips (this should be fantastic!) up for pre-order and much more upcoming greatness advertised.
- Zagava