posted on 25 Jan 2023

A Spectacular Pop-Up Book: The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe illustrated by Chris Wormell and engineered by David Pelham

Every now and again a new pop-up book targeted at the children’s market comes along and you immediately know that plenty of your adult friends would treasure it if it turned up in a Christmas stocking or on a birthday list. One such treasure that I found a little while ago is Edgar Allan Poe’s gloomily atmospheric The Raven, a Gothic poem of loss and obsession which has been realised as a superb pop-up book by the paper engineer, David Pelham and illustrator and artist, Chris Wormell.

Here at The Letterpress Project we’re big fans of moveable books and the work we do with schoolchildren always attests to the enduring ability of the pop-up to amaze and enthuse an audience that might otherwise think books are a bit boring in comparison with their interactive computer screens. We try and buy the best of the new pop-ups as they come along but we’ve noticed that, in recent years, there has been a tendency for pop-up engineering to become more and more ingenious and complex and that this has, in turn, led to pages becoming over-stuffed with content. So, you get pop-ups within pop-ups, flaps that fold out, tabs to pull – and all on one page! 

What’s so great about Pelham and Wormell’s version of The Raven is that it is fresh and gloriously uncluttered. All the emphasis remains on creating the powerful Gothic atmosphere and in allowing the text of the poem to be showcased in a way that can be studied but doesn’t encumber the outstanding illustration and the always impressive paper engineering. Reviewing the book on The Best Pop-Up Books website (https://www.bestpopupbooks.com/the-raven-a-pop-up-book/), they rightly note of the paper engineering skills:

“The way pop-up’s merge with the backgrounds is almost seamless. Every spread is solid and pop’s in-and-out perfectly. The final page, that displays the mansion surrounded by waves, is spectacular and already one of our favorite pop-up spreads we’ve ever seen. Hidden behind the artwork, the story literally unfolds when you lift and read the flaps.”

But, of course, the greatest paper engineers can only work their magic to its best effect when they are working with truly outstanding artwork and Chris Wormell has certainly produced that. The choice of colour palette is spot-on – lots of deep blacks and inky-blues cut across with muted, candle-lit colours – and the focus seems to always be on the inner turmoil and horror of the poem’s narrator.

In truth, we’ve come to this wonderful book rather late – it was first released in 2016 – but better late than nevermore……

I don’t think the book is still in print because – startlingly – second hand copies now sell for over £100. You might not want to dig that deep for a copy (brilliant though it is) and so I suggest you keep a keen eye open for it in charity or second-hand stores and if you see one – grab it.

 

Terry Potter

January 2023