Rachel Owen: Illustrations for Dante’s 'Inferno'

Among all the new Dante commentaries, conferences, festivals, and translations of 2021, one publication in particular stands out as truly momentous: Rachel Owen’s Illustrations for Dante’s “Inferno.” Not since Salvador Dalí’s one hundred watercolors of The Divine Comedy. . . has an artwork reimagined Dante’s netherworld with such novelty and originality. – The New York Review of Books

For seven hundred years artists armed with pens, needles and brushes have been eager to accompany Dante into hell. Rachel Owen decided to take her camera as well, and returned with images which she mixed with found materials and bold markers plus a few dashes of colour to create what seem like daring stills from a film noir of Dante's journey. - Tom Phillips

More than ‘illustrations’, Rachel Owen’s images work powerfully on the viewer, who is invited to become the pilgrim/Dante and so to experience the Divine Comedy with an unprecedented directness. Her bold incorporation of personal imagery is faithful to the spirit of the poem, to which she sends us back with a renewed sense of Dante’s universal appeal. This beautiful tribute from poets and Dante specialists to one who was herself both a scholar and an artist is a significant contribution to all of these fields. - Gervase Rosser, Professor of the History of Art, University of Oxford

Rachel Owen’s hauntingly beautiful illustrations for Dante’s Inferno take a radically new approach to representing the world of Dante’s famous poem. The images combine the artist’s deep cultural and historical understanding of The Divine Comedy and its artistic legacy with her unique talent for collage and printmaking. These illustrations, casting the viewer as a first-person pilgrim through the underworld, prompt us to rethink Dante’s poem through their novel perspective and visual language.

Owen’s work, held in the Bodleian Library and published here for the first time, illustrates the complete cycle of thirty-four cantos of the Inferno with one image per canto. The illustrations are accompanied by essays contextualising Owen’s work and supplemented by six illustrations intended for the unfinished Purgatorio series. Fiona Whitehouse provides details of the techniques employed by the artist, Peter Hainsworth situates Owen’s work in the field of modern Dante illustration and David Bowe offers a commentary on the illustrations as gateways to Dante’s poem. Jamie McKendrick and Bernard O’Donoghue’s translations of episodes from the Inferno provide complementary artistic interpretations of Dante’s poem, while reflections from colleagues and friends commemorate Owen’s life and work as an artist, scholar and teacher. This stunning collection is an important contribution to both Dante scholarship and illustration.

Rachel Owen (1968-2016) was a visual artist and scholar who specialised in the works of Dante. She taught Italian Literature at Pembroke College and at other colleges within the University of Oxford. 

David Bowe is an Irish Research Council postdoctoral fellow in the Italian Department of University College Cork and co-director of the Centre for Dante Studies in Ireland.

Contributors: Guido Bonsaver, David Bowe, Peter Hainsworth, Jamie McKendrick, Bernard O’Donoghue, Rachel Owen, Fiona Whitehouse

• Hardback
• 128 pages, 259 x 237 mm
  
• 52 colour illustrations
• ISBN: 9781851245703
• Publication September 2021
  

IMPORTANT UPDATE REGARDING USA ORDERS:

We have resumed shipments to the USA. Parcels will be sent DDP (delivered duty paid), duties and taxes will be calculated at checkout and added to the value of your order.

GENERAL

We aim to dispatch your purchases within 3-5 working days. Your order will, wherever possible, be sent to you in one delivery. Occasionally we may have to send your order in separate shipments. If this is the case, you will only be charged the delivery amount quoted to you at the time you placed your order.

Delivery in the UK is made by first class post via Royal Mail or DHL. International delivery is made either by first class post or via courier (DHL), some international locations will take up to 4-6 weeks for delivery.

All delivery prices include handling, packing and insurance where appropriate. All prices quoted are for delivery to one address only.

Prices shown include all applicable UK taxes. Please note that international orders (including the EU) may be subject to local customs duties, taxes and delivery charges, which are levied once a shipment reaches your country. The customer is responsible for any additional duty, taxes or fees applicable in their country. Customs policies vary widely from country to country and we advise you to contact your local customs office for further information.

PICKUP

Our Pickup service is a convenient way for you to order online and collect your purchase in person at the Library. We aim to have your order ready for collection within 72 hours. You will be notified when your order is ready for collection. Please don't come to the library to collect until you have received the email notification. 

Our standard delivery charges (exclusions apply*) are:

*excluding alcohol, artist work, furniture, heavy items and custom prints that will be courier delivered. Please see below and item pages for more details.

Age Restricted Items

Please note that age restricted products are available to be shipped in the UK only and will incur an additional shipping fee.

Heavy Items - Standard delivery charges do not apply to the following heavy items due to weight and volume:

• The Bodleian Curators' Chair
• The 'Baby Bod' Curators' Chair
• Bodleian Readers' Chair
• Radcliffe Camera Model
• Radcliffe Camera Bookends

These items will be shipped via courier and the shipping charges include relevant insurance. Please contact customerservice@bodleian.ox.ac.uk for more information and for a shipping quote.

Custom Prints

Please note that a separate, additional delivery charge applies for Custom Print orders. Custom Prints are made and dispatched by a third party (Museoteca) on behalf of the Bodleian Libraries. Custom prints are dispatched separately from other products from the Bodleian Libraries Shop.

How to Cancel 

To cancel an order with us, please contact us as soon as possible after placing the order. If your order has already been dispatched, you will need to await its receipt and then return the goods to us (should you still wish to cancel) unopened and in a re-saleable condition in order to receive a full refund of the purchase price. We will refund the standard cost of outbound delivery, but please note that you must arrange for and pay the costs of returning the goods to us. 

For more information about cancelling your order, including your statutory right to cancel and what to do if your goods are damaged or faulty, see: https://www.bodleianshop.co.uk/pages/terms-conditions

Our "Goodwill" Refund Policy 

In addition to your statutory right to cancel, we offer a "goodwill" refund policy. This does not affect your legal rights.

Under our "goodwill" refund policy, we will refund or exchange any goods purchased from us when they are returned in a re-saleable condition and accompanied by proof of purchase within 28 days of purchase. We will also refund the standard cost of outbound delivery. Return delivery charges are non-refundable unless your order is faulty or incorrect. Please note that pierced earrings, personalised items including bespoke prints, artist works and any item with a security seal where the seal has been broken, are excluded from our "goodwill" refund policy. The refund will be paid as soon as possible, but in any event within 14 days, following receipt of the returned goods. We recommend that you use a recorded delivery service to return any goods to us, as we will not be able to refund any goods that have been lost or damaged in transit.

If you wish to discuss returning an item please email customerservice@bodleian.ox.ac.uk with your order number and item details and we will respond as soon as possible. 

Our returns address is: