Poems selected from A Child's Garden of Verses, Songs of Travel, Ballads and Underwoods with wood engravings by Robin Mackenzie  

Graham Moss on Robert Louis Stevenson:
I met Robert Louis Stevenson three times when I was a boy.
The first time I was nearly six years old. During a prolonged hospital stay, A Child's Garden of Verses was read to me, the book kept at home awaiting my return. From that time, I retain a familiarity, even a love of those poems. The next time I was nine, and taken to the first stage play that I can remember experiencing. Treasure Island captivated me on that dark and cold night. The book was my Christmas gift that year. Five years later, armed with the winning book token from a school activity of which I have no recollection, I purchased an edition of The Strange Case of Dr Jeykell and Mr Hyde. Over fifty years later, I still remember the gilt edges, the rexine cover with rounded corners, the turn of the india-paper pages.
Stevenson remains an unforgettable author, and I have never lost track of him. More recently, in around 1996, I made his acquaintance again, through the singing of bass-baritone Bryn Terfel. Among the tracks of his Deutsche Grammophon CD The Vagabond, is the suite of nine Stevenson poems set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. These songs, which often accompany the song of the press here at Incline,  form the core of this book, with a few others chosen to complete the narrative of the long journey.

This book has been turning around my head for the past twenty years,  but I knew these poems needed illustration, and I was content to wait until the right ones came along. Last year they did in the form of seven wood engravings, the first book work of print maker Robin Mackenzie. They capture and hold fast the tenor of the poems with a strong sense of black line, enhanced by some tint and a judicious use of colour. We are pleased with his work and hope to see him at Incline again.