Don Rodrigo puts the lion in a netted cage

Don Rodrigo puts the lion in a netted cage, an illustration by John Vernon Lord  for 'The Cid', 

in Epics of the Middle Ages, The Folio Society, 2005

‘The Book of Taliesyn’ Deep Purple

‘The Book of Taliesyn’, record album cover for Deep Purple, 

designed by John Vernon Lord, EMI Parlophone, 1968.

Yesterday I was shuffling through old briefs that my agent Saxon Artists used to give me.

Among them was a brief from Barbara Thompson, one of the agent's reps. Saxon Artists used to have their premises at 53, New Oxford Street in London, situated above Smiths the long established umbrella shop. The brief is order number 18428 and it is dated August 30th (either 1967 or 1968).

Here is what it says:

John

Design for record sleeve "The Book of Taliesyn" the Deep Purple Group. Size 12.5 inches square (the half is overdraw). Mainly a line drawing but with touches of colour. The title to be drawn in your own style & to be fairly prominent and to go almost to the full width but don't take it to more than quarter of an inch of the edge - & then it can be repeated much smaller as often as you like in the rest of the design. Also the group's name incorporated in design. This is pure fantasy, having the theme of Arthurian Bards, minstrels, troubadours, castles - even a chess board with Arthurian figures on it - music instruments etc.

The late Jon Lord (the leader of Deep Purple) wrote to me some time ago saying that it was pure coincidence that I was commissioned to design the album cover because my name was John  Lord.  

A website claimed that I had carried out the artwork under the direction of Les Weisbrich but in truth I never met him. I presume that Les Weisbrich briefed my agent who in turn briefed me.

The fee for the design was 30 guineas - 25% to the agent. In those days, in the UK, we were always paid in guineas. One guinea = £1 and 1 shilling, equivalent today as £1 and 5 pence.

Renewart swings his pole at the monster

Renewart swings his pole at the monster, an illustration by JVL from 'The Song of William' 

in Epics of the MiddleAges, The Folio Society, 2005.

Charles dreams about a leopard, bear and hound

Charles dreams about a leopard, bear and hound, an illustration by John Vernon Lord 

from 'The Song of Roland' in Epics of the Middle Ages, The Folio Society, 2005.

An artists's palette

An artists's palette, an illustration by JVL for a poem entitled 'The Paint Box' by EV Rieu,
in The Song that Sings the Bird; Poems for Young Children chosen by Ruth Craft, Collins, 1989.

A Christmas Card for Saxon Artists

A Christmas Card for Saxon Artists of 53, New Oxford Street, London, 

an design by JVL for his agent, c1965.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

The Butcher's algebraic formula & The Bellman rings his bell

The Butcher's algebraic formula, an illustration by JVL in Lewis Carroll's 

The Hunting of the Snark, Artists' Choice Editions, 2006.

The Text:

 90

So engrossed was the Butcher, he heeded them not,

 As he wrote with a pen in each hand,

 And explained all the while in a popular style

 Which the Beaver could well understand.

 91

"Taking Three as the subject to reason about--

 A convenient number to state--

 We add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out

 By One Thousand diminished by Eight.

 92

"The result we proceed to divide, as you see,

 By Nine Hundred and Ninety Two:

 Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be

 Exactly and perfectly true.

 93

"The method employed I would gladly explain,

 While I have it so clear in my head,

 If I had but the time and you had but the brain--

 But much yet remains to be said.

The Bellman rings his bell, an illustration by JVL in Lewis Carroll's 

The Hunting of the Snark, Artists' Choice Editions, 2006.

Flag signals

FLAG SIGNALS

The Bellman's speech - 'For England expects...', an illustration by John Vernon Lord in 

Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, Artists' Choice Editions, 2006.

The text:

 67

"For England expects--I forbear to proceed:

 'Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite:

 And you'd best be unpacking the things that you need

 To rig yourselves out for the fight."

The flag signals read: "England expects every man to do his duty"

The Bellman's speech hints at the flag signal - "England expects every man to do his duty" - that Horatio Nelson ordered to his fleet just before he was killed by a gunshot at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. 

 This flag signal spells 'SNARK' - an illustration by John Vernon Lord in 

Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, Artists' Choice Editions, 2006.

 This flag signal spells 'BOOJUM' - an illustration by John Vernon Lord in 

Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, Artists' Choice Editions, 2006.

Bridecake and an Ocean Plait

Bridecake, an illustration by JVL in Lewis Carroll's 

The Hunting of the Snark, Artists' Choice Editions, 2006.

The Text:

 13

He came as a Baker: but owned, when too late--

 And it drove the poor Bellman half-mad--

 He could only bake Bridecake--for which, I may state,

 No materials were to be had.

An ocean plait, an illustration by JVL in Lewis Carroll's 

The Hunting of the Snark, Artists' Choice Editions, 2006.

This is placed as a preliminary illustration in the book, something that might have been useful to the Snark Hunters on board ship, to avoid slipping on deck.

The Pig's grave and two sets of dice

The Pig's grave and two sets of dice, an illustration by JVL in Lewis Carroll's 

The Hunting of the Snark,  Artists' Choice Edition, 2006.

The Text:

 120

But their wild exultation was suddenly checked

 When the jailer informed them, with tears,

 Such a sentence would have not the slightest effect,

 As the pig had been dead for some years.

Carroll was aged 42 when he first embarked upon writing The Hunting of the Snark. If you add up the eight numbers in the two year dates when he worked on the book (1874-1876) you will soon realise that they add up to 42. Thus the reader will note that I have registered these dates on the grave of the pig that had been charged at Court, in the Barrister’s dream, for deserting its sty. 

If the throw of two sets of six dice results in each set showing all the numbers from one to six face up, the sum of the twelve dice will add up to total of 42. 

The number 42 reminds us of the forty-two boxes, that the Baker had carefully packed for the Snark voyage and the bell relating to the Bellman’s bell.

The number forty-two became well known in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was a number that was put forward as representing “the meaning of life, the universe, and everything”. This was calculated by a computer called Deep Thought, which had been asked to calculate the ‘Ultimate Answer’.

Enthusiasts of the number forty-two can be found declaring its significance in various websites, discovering scores of the most obscure connections with the number. It is a fanciful obsession for those with anorak tendencies. I have to curb the impulse myself! For instance Revelations (13:5) in the Bible tells us that ‘The beast was given a mouth uttering proud boasts and blasphemies, and it was given authority to act for forty-two months’. The ‘number of the beast’ is said to be 666 and we find that 6 x 6+6=42. The binary number of 42 is 101010, which fluctuates alternately between ones and zeros. 

The well-known phrase – to be ‘at sixes and sevens’ means to be in a state of confusion or disagreement over something. In the poem there is a wonderful remark made by the Bellman about the confusion of the vessel when ‘the bowsprit got mixed up with the rudder sometimes’ causing it to be ‘snarked’. The Bellman’s navigational orders to the crew would be bound to place them all at sixes and sevens but there was little they could do about it. Six times seven equals forty-two of course. Carroll refers to this bewilderment and Rule 42 of the Bellman’s Naval Code in the original preface of The Hunting of the Snark, saying:

‘The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished; and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it- he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand- so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman [the Boots] used to stand by with tears in his eyes: he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, “No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm,” had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words “and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one.” So remonstrance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.’

The number 42 also appears in Chapter 12 during Alice’s evidence in the trial of ‘who stole the tarts?’ in Carroll’s earlier book Alice In Wonderland. At one point the King of Hearts, ‘called out, “Silence!” and read out from his book, “Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high must leave the court.”’ There were, of course, forty-two illustrations by Tenniel in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The number 42 seems to have  resonance of Carroll. At this point we must leave the number 42 alone, tempting though it is to look at umpteen incidences of the number 42 in works of such authors as Shakespeare, Milne, and Dahl, to the word ‘fish’ and the name of ‘Bach’.