The Keepsake Poems

A Series by the Keepsake Press

We were passed the baton — including our senior editor Shirley Toulson — on this series by Roy Lewis's Keepsake Press. The Keepsake Poems, which originally began in 1972, evolved into our own ‘Dragon Poems in Translation’.

As well as the booklets listed, Roy printed more than 80 other books, representing an output and sheer hard work far beyond almost any other private press you care to mention.

You'll notice a lot of the names (both artists and poets) here re-occur in our own catalogue.

1. ‘Incident at West Bay’ by Vernon Scannell
    Line and wash drawing by Vana Haggerty
2. ‘The Wake’ by Kevin Crossley-Holland
    Wood engraving by Angela Lemaire
3. ‘The Thrush’ by Anne Tibble
    Wood engravings by Thomas Bewick and school
4. ‘The Select Party’ by Gavin Ewart
    Drawing by Arthur Merrick Boyd
5. ‘Crag of Craving’ by Thomas Blackburn
    Drawing by Margaret Macguire
6. ‘Illness’ by Boris Pasternak. In Russian with the
    English verse translation by Lydia Pasternak Slater
    Drawing by Gordon Bradshaw
7. ‘WHAT’, written and designed by Christopher Logue
8. ‘Two Confessions’ by Edward Lowbury
    Colour lino-cut design by Elizabeth Lewis
9. ‘The Fox and the Pig’ by George Wightman
    Colour lino-cut by Paul Peisch
10. ‘Highgate by Owen Hickey’
     Drawing by Lorna Low
11. ‘A Lunar Event’ : a poem and a drawing by Alan Bold
12. ‘The Breast’ by Glyn Hughes
     Line and wash drawing by Ric Hyde
13. ‘For Lofthouse’ : a poem and a drawing by Robert Morgan
14. ‘Six Women’ by Charles Causley
     Colour lino-cut by Stanley Simmons
15. ‘Tankosaurus’ by Michael McCallion
     Drawing by Anna McCallion
16. ‘Roman Wall’ by John Cotton
     Lithography by Rigby Graham
17. ‘The Rehousing of Scaffardi’ by Barry Cole
     Drawing by Geoff Stear.
18. ‘First Meeting’ by Karen Gershon
    Drawing by Stella Tripp
19. ‘Spring at St Clair’ by John Press
     Drawing by Barry Hirst
20. ‘Symphony in Moscow’ by D M Thomas
     Screenprint by Geoff Stear
21. ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ by Roy Fuller
     Drawing by Barry Hirst
22. ‘Two Prayers’ by Robert Nye
     Line and wash drawing by Aileen Campbell Nye
23. ‘The Kiss’ by Paul Roche
     Line illustration by Duncan Grant
24. ‘Visual Aids’ by Norman Hidden
     Lithograph by Louise Chance
25. ‘No Man's Land’ by Wes Magee
     Drawing by Peter Barnfield
26. ‘Four Ways With a Ruin’ by Shirley Toulson
     Linocut by Anthea Lawrence
27. ‘The Line of the Morning’ by Robin Munro
    Wood engravings by Julius B. Stafford-Baker
28. ‘Two Images of Continuing Trouble’ by Jon Silkin
     Drawing by Alison Dalwood
29. ‘Rider and Horse’ by Martin Booth
     Colour wood engraving by Warwick Hutton
30. ‘Cliff Walk’ by Anne Stevenson
     Drawing by Ann Newnham
31. ‘Buying a Sweater’ by Daniel Stokes
     Five colour lino-cut by Daphne Lord
32. ‘After Rowlandson’ by Gordon Symes
     With litho of a sketch by Thomas Rowlandson.
33. ‘The Saddled Man’ by George Macbeth
     Drawing by Katherine Kadish
34. ‘The Ill Match’ by Alan Tucker
     Litho of a drawing by Helen Gleadow
35. ‘On the Set’ by John Mole
     Litho of a drawing by George Szirtes
36. ‘Les Tres Riches Heures’ by Peter Porter
     Litho of a drawing by John Piper
37. ‘At the Sink’ by George Szirtes
     Two color lino-cut by Clarissa Upchurch
38. ‘Scrolls’ by Lotte Kramer
     Line-block of a drawing by Trevor Covey
39. ‘Walking in the Harz Mountains’ by D J Enwright
     Litho of a drawing by Madeline Enwright

The Happy Dragons’ Press was involved with many of the titles above, for instance providing the colour work for ‘Visual Aids’. Shirley Toulson, author of ‘Four Ways with a Ruin’, is now our senior editor.

These limited editions (usually around 180 copies of each title) are long since out of print. Try a specialist book-dealer, eBay or Amazon Marketplace. The latter has a useful function that allows you to request a copy (you can specify conditon and the price you're willing to pay) of anything that's listed in their catalogue but currently unavailable. If someone adds a copy (of the right condition/price range), it's yours.

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See Also

• Shop Online: View all available titles in our Poetry Shop
• ‘Dragon Poems in Translation’ Series
• The ‘New Garland’ Series
• What is letterpress?