[For all you Concerned Readers who are interested in the latest Absent Classic book, the following is an exciting update from Dr. Phyllis deMorne, who has been editing Selected Works of JE Echwell since last fall. Apparently things are looking good!]

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Few people know that in addition to his massive output of fiction (31 novels, 177 short stories[1]), Mr. Echwell had a hobby – he was a dedicated, if not particularly talented, amateur engraver. Here is his self-portrait, circa 1890, which will appear as the frontispiece in Selected Work:

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Towards the end of his life Echwell began making stipple engravings, where dots instead of lines are used to produce an image. Although he made many illustrations for his own work, they appear to have been drawn mainly for his own amusement or reference, as very few were published[2]. Unfortunately, most of his plates and prints were lost forever in 1902, when his personal papers were burned following his death. Therefore it has been extremely difficult to find illustrations for the new book.

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After several weeks of research in Canada and the UK, I have been able to locate and secure reproduction rights to three additional Echwell prints: Lucinda, or Waiting For A Letter (1889), The Mighty Caveside Waterfall, as described by Captain Bunting (1865), and The Haunted Ruins, or Muirmoor Castle from the road (1861). The first and last have never appeared in print, but the second engraving was used as an illustration when Captain Bunting’s Adventures appeared in a penny magazine called Young Albion; since an excerpt from Captain Bunting appears in Part II of Selected Works, it was quite a coup to find a reproducible image tucked away in the archives of Fairfield Memorial Library in Essex Hills, Nova Scotia[3].

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Echwell fans will be pleased to hear that work on the manuscript for Selected Works is proceeding rapidly now that the illustrations are finalized, and Mr. Bishop of The Absent Classic assures me that, “barring earthquake, fire, avalanche, blizzard, or any other disaster, the book will be finished by the end of March.”

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[1] As noted before, those are only the known works; scholars have suggested that the total number is much higher, but since it is not known how many pen names Echwell used, the rest is unproven speculation.

[2] The exception, of course, being A Sad Thin Girl Dressed In Grey (1889), which was published with a dozen Echwell engravings.

[3] the town where Echwell’s cousin Vera Echwell Mahler died in 1911, leaving several Echwell-related items to the library.

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