To a Certain Gentleman [2018]
hard bound book with hand painted marbling paper, 13 x 18cm, edition of 10
Commissioned by the Portico Library, Manchester 

To a Certain Gentleman is a book composed from apologias [pre-emptive defences for the author’s position] and genuine apologies, the majority of which have been taken from prefaces and introductions found within the collection at the Portico Library, Manchester. All of the texts that comprise To a Certain Gentleman were written by male authors; many by, and for, so-called “gentlemen” of the Victorian age, though others range from Biblical times to the early 20th century. The book fuses dissonant authorial voices, alternately revealing pomposity, vulnerability and self preservation, to form a single self-indulgent preface, referring continually to a text that never arrives.

Read a digital version of the book here.

Examples of source material at The Portico Library used in To a Certain Gentleman