cover image As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

Laurie Lee. R.S. Means Company, $22.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-393-02233-9

Originally published in 1969, Lee's charming account of his travels in Spain in 1935 became almost as popular as his delightful Cider with Rosie. This fussily illustrated edition is an insult to an enjoyable prose work by a distinguished poet. Rather than eliciting the Spain that Lee visited, these old-fashioned illustrations from a variety of sources detract from a text that is rendered unreadable by a 34-pica measure, surmounted by running headlines (finically set in caps and italic initial caps), topped by a double line that serves as ""walking'' surface for a little man with stick (presumably representing the author) who promenades remorselessly across the page, pica by pica, as the reader progresses with the story. Each color illustration is surrounded by a white mat-like area enclosed, in turn, by a triple-rule frame set against a tan backgrounda tacky effect. The paperback reprint of the original edition is available for those who prefer unencumbered reading. October 28