The Tragic History of Hamlet

Santa Barbara, CA: Simplemente Maria Press, 2008. Heebner, Mary. Small oblong folio. 42 + 13ff., + 20 plates. One of twenty copies. With twenty pigment prints in triptych format by Mary Heebner. According to the artist, these prints began as collage paintings, created as an emotional response to the characters of Gertrude and Ophelia in Hamlet. Each triptych incorporates an image of the female form to the left, followed by images of covered text that has been partly scraped back to reveal linguistic fragments. The process of revealing and concealing dovetails with the nature of the play itself, in which, as Heebner notes, "fragments of vital information are lost, manipulated, or misinterpreted." The phenomenon is most potent, and disastrous, for Gertrude and Ophelia, who time and again are trampled by their male counterparts, who themselves contend for power at any cost. The railroading of women and manipulation for the sake of political caché remains a frustration for the contemporary reader as much as it surely would have been for the play's female Elizabethan audience. Each illustration is contained within a bifolium with a corresponding passage from the play letterpress-printed on kozo paper. The semi-opaque quality of the paper allows the reader to partially view the illustration beneath, and the arrangement of the text fits into the center panel of the triptych, adding further texture to the experience of engaging with the work. The suite is contained within a handmade paper chemise. An "actor's copy" of the full text of the play, which includes an index to the plates, is housed in a folder underneath. A visually appealing, challenging, and carefully conceived artist's book. In a handsome red morocco-backed clamshell box with a skull and flower device inspired by the honeysuckle motif from the Second Folio debossed on upper cover. This device appears as the header on each of the excerpted passages.