Solomon Grundy; A Pop-Up Rhyme

Los Angeles: Intervisual Communications, Inc, 1992. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus. Hardcover. As new. Nick Bantock. Ten pages plus covers. 5.75 inches by 4.75 inches. Color Illustrations. Pop-up illustrations. Removed from shrinkwrap for cataloguing. Solomon Grundy" is a poem and traditional nursery rhyme dating back to the 19th century England. The lyrics were first recorded in 1842 by nursery rhyme and fairy-tale collector James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps. The song was translated in different languages like French, German and Italian and it is also used as an educational tool to teach children the days of the weeks in English, as Solomon Grundy is very easy to memorize. The song is telling the story of Solomon Grundy, a man who, metaphorically, lives and dies his entire life in one single week. Born on Monday, each day of the week he is growing older facing a different stage of his life, and his life ends on Saturday. There are many suggestions that Solomon Grundy phonetically derived from the food with the same name which is a pickled fish pâté, with salad and eggs. The word for the English dish comes from the Salmagundi, an ingredient used in Solomon Grundy, originally a Jamaican mix of meat and salad, adapted into French Cuisine around the 17th century and then English cuisine around the 18th century. Nick Bantock (born 14 July 1949) is a British artist and author based in Saltspring Island, British Columbia, known for his series, The Griffin and Sabine Trilogy. His books are published by Raincoast Books in Canada and Chronicle Books in the United States, and are known for their elaborate designs featuring faux postage stamps, handwritten documents, passports, postcards and other ephemera. Bantock attended schools in the northeast suburbs of London, and later an art college in Maidstone, Kent. He began a career as a freelance artist at the age of 23, producing 300 book covers in the ensuing 16 years. In 1988 he moved to Vancouver, and soon after to the nearby Bowen Island, where he had the idea that became the Griffin and Sabine series. In 1993, he won the Bill Duthie Bookseller's Choice Award for Sabine's Notebook. In 2006, he adapted the Griffin and Sabine series into a play, also called "Griffin and Sabine", which premiered in Vancouver at the Granville Island Stage and ran from October 5-November 4, 2006. In 2007, he resumed painting full-time, and opened a studio-gallery, 'The Forgetting Room', on Saltspring Island. Between 2007 and 2010, Bantock was one of the twelve committee members responsible for selecting Canada's postage stamps.