Description
CHUBB, Ralph N. (1892-1960). The Child of Dawn, or The Book of the Manchild. Newbury: Published by the Author, 1948. Large 4° (318 x 250mm), 98 printed leaves paginated in pencil, lithographed handwritten text with ornamental initials, pictorial title-page, two preliminary titles plus sectional title all with vignettes, 29 plates, one printed in colour, with smaller illustrations and vignettes within the text (lacks 151 pages and 46 plates, occasional short tears skillfully repaired). Half buckram binding with leather spine label. OUT-OF-SERIES PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed on a slip of paper taped to an endpaper: 'To Patricia, his spiritual Foster Mother & fellow worker in the Vineyard of Christ, with blessing from "Rafi". 1955.'
With 23 AUTOGRAPH LETTERS/POSTCARDS SIGNED, dating from July 1954 to 8 January 1956, from Chubb to the recipient of this book, Patricia Foster; as well as 8 sheets of SKETCHES (unsigned), letters to Foster from other correspondents, and a scrapbook relating to a 'Middle East Air Cruise' undertaken by Foster in 1961.
A UNIQUE COPY OF ONE OF CHUBB'S MOST IMPORTANT PROPHETIC BOOKS, WITH AN ARCHIVE OF LETTERS RELATING TO THE BOOK AND TO THE AUTHOR'S VISIONARY BELIEFS. With its successor, Flames of Sunrise (1953), The Child of Dawn is Chubb's masterpiece, 'Design'd, Letter'd, Illustrated, Hand-Printed & Publish'd by the Author' in the manner of his idol, William Blake. The letters suggest that Foster first contacted Chubb as a result of her admiration for The Child of Dawn. The earliest letter (undated, but apparently written during the second week in July 1954) begins: 'Thank you for your letter, with its interesting information about your personal experience and its bearing on the doctrine of my book The Child of Dawn. (I began it in 1940, with the German bombers going over twice nightly.)' The book seems to have affected Foster profoundly: in a letter dated 9 September 1954, Chubb speaks of Foster having a 'vision' on first seeing it.
The Child of Dawn was issued in an edition of 30 copies in two states: 1) 24 copies with 66 black-and-white and nine colour plates; 2) 6 copies as above but with six of the plates hand-coloured. By the time of their acquaintance, Chubb had only one copy remaining, which -- bizarrely -- he seems to have offered to the Royal Collection: 'The Royal Librarian,' Chubb writes in a letter dated 6 August 1954, 'after carefully reading the last (except my own) copy of the C. of D., declined it courteously.' Three days later, he writes to Foster: 'I think the idea of your having that copy of the C. of D. a good one -- it had already occurred to me as a possibility, since no one is more suitable than yourself... I still have my own personal copy which I might perhaps give you -- for there is really no need for me to keep a copy, is there?... Besides I could have the incomplete "extra" copy made up by the binder for myself. I do feel that you ought to have a copy of your own.'
Chubb finally decided to keep the remaining complete copy, and to make up this 'extra' copy for Foster: 'An extra copy of The Child of Dawn could be made up out of spare prints,' he writes in a letter from St Alban's dated 24 July 1954, 'This I would gladly give you, if you feel able to bear the cost of the binding which would probably be about £2-10- to £3.'
The numbered copies were bound in half vellum, but Patricia Foster's copy is in half buckram. This is a light beige so as to retain the symbolism of the bindings on the numbered copies: 'The black [of the board cloth] is for the holy unfathomable darkness; the white [of the vellum/buckram] for the virgin light; the gold [of the spine lettering] is for the arrowy will, which is the Manchild.' As Roderick Cave notes in his 'Memoir of Ralph Chubb' in Book Design and Production ('Blake's Mantle', 3[2], p24-8), whatever its mystical associations, this remains 'an excellent binding'.
The letters chart the swiftly developing friendship between Chubb and Patricia Foster: in the earliest, written in the first week in July, he addresses her as 'Mrs Foster', but by 15 July he is writing 'Dear Sister Patricia (If I may use that form of address?)', then 'Sister Pat', and by the middle of August 'Beloved Foster-Mother'. '"Rafi is a tender little child,' he writes in a letter dated 6 August 1954, '& needs a foster mother.' As well as The Child of Dawn, the letters discuss a visit to St Alban's which Chubb made in early July 1954 ('I haunted the Abbey, of course; as I love that ancient building with an inexpressible love'), his attempts to place copies of his prophetic books in public collections ('I want to do all I can to secure the survival of copies for posterity, & libraries seem best for this object'), and his future projects ('My next book will be some imaginative tales which I wrote over 40 years ago as an undergraduate [presumably Treasure Trove (1957)].')
The letters also provide insights into Chubb's very idiosyncratic spirituality, based on revelation through art, and manifesting itself in a unique mix of Christian, Arthurian and homo-erotic imagery. 'I am first & last a poet and artist,' he writes in the earliest of these letters. 'My inspiration comes to me entirely through that medium... My art is the message, just as it was with Beethoven & Michelangelo & Blake.'
A passage in this same letter offers a succint summary of Chubb's beliefs, and of the philosophy behind The Child of Dawn: 'Edward Maitland & Anna Kingsford, those wonderful prophets, in their vision of Adonai (the manifest personal Godhead)... fell short -- to me -- of the full mystery & glory of His being. They omitted the third Person of the Trinity -- the Child; & gave us the Father & Mother only. This, to me, is like the Divine Essence and Substance without the Spirit. But the Child is the key to the whole mystery. The doctrine of The Perfect Way therefore seemed to me to be incomplete -- without The Child of Dawn to complete it.'
