SKU: 24276413714

PHILLIPS, Tom. A Humument. Volume I[–X, with two volumes of additional material].

Sale price$4500.00 Regular price$5000.00
Save 10%

Pay in installments of $1250.00 with ShopPay, AfterPay and Klarna

Shipping Estimate
USA
  • USA
  • CAN

Ships within 48 hours · Estimated delivery Aug 1 - Aug 6

Promo Codes Available:

For Your Every Summer RSVP, with Code: SUMMER15

Description

PHILLIPS, Tom. A Humument. Volume I[–X, with two volumes of additional material].A New Hypnerotomachia Poliphili PHILLIPS, Tom. A Humument. Volume I[X, with two volumes of additional material]. London: Tetrad Press. 1970. Twelve volumes, loose in sheets as issued (largely initialled by Phillips in pencil, see below), printed by lithography, silkscreen, and letterpress. Each housed in its original coloured card box (c. 190. 5 x 139. 7 mm), vols IX with publishers printed spine label and the stamp (or sticker in the last instance)

A New Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

PHILLIPS, Tom. A Humument. Volume I[–X, with two volumes of additional material]. London: Tetrad Press. 1970.

Twelve volumes, loose in sheets as issued (largely initialled by Phillips in pencil, see below), printed by lithography, silkscreen, and letterpress. Each housed in its original coloured card box (c. 190.5 x 139.7 mm), vols I–X with publisher’s printed spine label and the stamp (or sticker in the last instance) of the Croydon College of Design and Technology Library to inside of lid; comprising ff. [428]; some wear to boxes, spine labels somewhat worn and frayed, boxes for vol. I and ‘misc. Spares’ sunned; contents in fine condition, with occasional light wear; a very well-preserved set; limitation leaflets to vols I–IX numbered in pencil; leaflet to vol. XI inscribed ‘for Andrew Crozier’ by the author.

First limited edition, signed by the artist, one of one hundred sets, of Tom Phillips’s Humument (1937–2022), his experimental modification and adaptation – through painting, collage, and cut-outs – of his copy of the 1892 novel A Human Doc-ument which he had bought for three pence in 1966, from the library of Phillips’s collaborator, the British Revival poet Andrew Crozier.

This so-called ‘treated work’ is the culmination of Phillips’s page-by-page metamorphosis of the text of Mallock’s Victorian novel, excavating its text ‘for new ambiguities of character and situation and new ironies and paradoxes of utterance [...] The version has its own characters who mingle with the protagonists of the original in a non sequential plot-structure within which the elements of music, philosophy, poetry and painting are fused together to make a true gesamtkunstwerk’ (prospectus). Using techniques suggest-ed by William Burroughs in a 1965 Paris Review article, Phillips used the book to draw out new meanings, commentary and suggestions.

Of the process of adapting Mallock’s text, Phillips writes: ‘Many rules have grown up in the course of the work. Although Mallock’s original hero (Grenville) and heroine (Irma) have their parts to play, the central figure of this version is Bill Toge (pronounced ‘toe-dj’). His adventures can only (and must) occur on pages which originally contained the words ‘together’ and ‘altogether’ (the only words from which his name can be extracted). He also has his own recurrent iconography; his insignia include a carpet and a window looking out onto a forest and his amoeba-like ever-changing shape is always constructed from the rivers in the type. His story, the Progress of Love, is a favourite neo-platonic topos and there are deliberate parallels with the Hypnerotomachia Polophili, the most beautiful of printed books, published in Venice in 1499.’

The bibliography of this first edition is complicated so that it is unclear what the exact con-tents of each box should have been; the possibility of confusion is hinted at by Phillips, who refers to having produced over twenty different versions of page 89 alone. As a leaflet for the project (included here in vols I to III) states, each fascicle ‘will consist of a selection of loose pages varying in number and chosen for their appropriateness to the printing medium used for that particular set’. Vols I, II, and IV here also have a sheet specifying the number of leaves and the method of printing, and vol. VI has a tipped-in slip of uncertain origin, where perhaps each box might originally have had one. In addition, every volume has a leaflet acting as a colophon, with volumes I to IX signed by Phillips and (except for vol. III) numbered out of 100 (the numbers mostly varying, and the eleventh volume, which was evidently a gift of the assorted additional pages, has been signed by Phillips with an inscription to the poet Andrew Crozier. Every page is initialled by Phillips except for those in the eleventh volume, the two coloured examples of page 209, and a third of the ‘misc. spares’ (of which a few are uncoloured, whether or not as intended, and one of which appears to have been overprinted in error). Some of those spares are signed rather than initialled.

There should be two parts to volume X; this set comes with an eleventh volume in a red card box without a spine label, holding 54 additional pages otherwise found across half of the regular boxes plus one page not found elsewhere. Excluding that eleventh volume, the set at that point included 309 pages of the book out of 368 (which total includes the end-piece, doubling as a dedication). Two pages appear twice across volumes I to X (although the page 173 in volume VI is different from the page 173 in volume VII) and three pages appear more than once within a box (with the two extra copies of page 209 being different from the third). Added to this initial set is an additional green box, annotated by the artist as ‘misc. spares etc’, which contains all of the remaining pages bar one (page 324) which is provided as a scanned copy).

Phillips was apparently unenthusiastic about the boxes, which he likely bought from a stationer’s, and which were not designed to provide a permanent home for the book. He hoped that people would have their copies bound, as some did, contributing to the rarity of this original presentation.

Provenance: Presented by the author to the British poet Andrew Crozier (1943–2008), Professor of Prose at the University of Sussex, winner of the 1976 Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize (awarded jointly to Lee Harwood), and co-editor of the highly influential British Revival anthology A Various Art.

It appears Crozier may have acquired the first ten volumes and was gifted the eleventh separately. In 1970 – the same year A Humument was published – Crozier’s Ferry Press published In One Side & Out the Other, a volume of poetry by Crozier and John James with wrappers and twenty-one illustrations by Phillips.

Contents:

Vol. I: in publisher’s green card box with printed spine label; ff. [10], screenprinted, initialled by the artist in pencil; with contents leaf and limitation statement (bifolium, printed on cream paper, numbered ‘vol. 1’ in pencil), numbered 74/100 and signed by the artist; spine and upper lid of box sunned, short split at foot of box, some wear to spine label.

Vol. II: in publisher’s red card box with printed spine label; ff. [20], printed letterpress, initialled by the artist in pencil; with contents leaf and limitation statement (bifolium, printed on mauve paper, numbered ‘vol. 2’ in pencil), numbered 38/100 and signed by the artist, with an additional two copies of the prospectus (bifolium) for the project loosely inserted; spine of box lightly sunned, slight wear to spine label; ink stamp of the Croydon College of Design and Technology Library to inside of lid.

Vol. III: in publisher’s yellow card box with printed spine label; ff. [9], initialled by the artist in pencil; with a copy of the prospectus (bifolium) and limitation statement (bifolium, printed on orange paper, numbered ‘vol. 3’ in pencil) signed by the artist but not numbered; slight discolouration to spine and soiling to box, spine label worn and peeling slightly; ink stamp of the Croydon College of Design and Technology Library to inside of lid.

Vol. IV: in publisher’s pale pink card box, printed spine label; ff. [20], initialled by the artist in pencil, printed by offset lithography; with contents leaf (printed on orange pa-per) and limitation statement (bifolium, printed on pale blue paper, numbered 12/100 and signed by the artist, front cover numbered ‘vol. 4’ in pencil); slight wear to spine label; ink stamp of the Croydon College of Design and Technology Library to inside of lid.

Vol. V: in publisher’s pale blue card box, printed spine label; ff. [20], initialled by the artist in pencil; with prospectus (bifolium, numbered ‘vol. 5’ in pencil) numbered 12/100 and signed by the artist; some spotting to interior of box; ink stamp of the Croydon College of Design and Technology Library to inside of lid.

Vol. VI: in publisher’s white card box, printed spine label; ff. [40], initialled by the artist in pencil; limitation statement (bifolium, printed on yellow-green paper, numbered ‘vol. 6’ in pencil) signed and numbered 27/100 by the artist with pasted-in (now loosely inserted) typescript note ‘this Volume contains 39 pages’; slight soiling to spine label; ink stamp of the Croydon College of Design and Technology Library to inside of lid.

Vol. VII: in publisher’s cream card box, printed spine label; ff. [50], initialled by the artist in pencil; with limitation statement (bifolium, printed on orange paper, numbered ‘vol. 7’ in pencil) signed and numbered 25/100 by the artist; slight wear to spine label; ink stamp of the Croydon College of Design and Technology Library to inside of lid.

Vol. VIII: in publisher’s cream card box, printed spine label; ff. [49]; with limitation statement (bifolium, printed on pale green paper, front cover numbered ‘vol. 8’ in pencil), signed and numbered 26/100 by the artist.

Vol. IX: in publisher’s blue card box, printed spine label; ff. [36]; with limitation statement (bifolium, printed on pink paper, front cover numbered ‘vol. 9’ in pencil), signed and numbered 21/100 by the artist; slight staining to interior and exterior of box, spine label lightly soiled; ink stamp of the Croydon College of Design and Technology Library to in-side of lid.

Vol. X: in publisher’s black card box, printed spine label; ff. [61]; with limitation statement (bifolium, printed on pink paper) not numbered or signed by the artist; paper label with ink stamp of the Croydon College of Design and Technology Library adhered to inside of lid.

Vol. [XI]: in publisher’s red card box; ff. [55]; with limitation statement (bifolium, printed on pink paper) signed and inscribed by the artist ‘for andrew crozier’; very slight sunning to exterior of box, lower edges slightly rubbed.

Vol. [XII]: in publisher’s green card box, lid lettered ‘numbered A–P | numbered 51/100’ in pencil, spine lettered ‘misc. Spares etc’ in ink; ff. [58]; with limitation statement (bifolium, printed on coral paper); exterior of box sunned.

SKU: 2125254

Shipping Notes
  • Free Standard Shipping on $100+ Orders to the USA.
  • Except Preorder products are shipped in 48 hours.
  • Delivery to the USA:
  1. Standard Shipping : 3-10 business days
  • If time is of the essence, please consider selecting expedited delivery for faster service.
Exchange/Return Notes
  • We offer a 30-day return/exchange service after receiving.
  • Final sale items are not eligible for returns or exchanges.
  • To process your return/exchange, please contact us at [email protected]
  • Please click here for more details>>> Return & Exchange Policy
SKU: 24276413714

Discover Niche Categories That Outsell

Top-Converting Item to Boost Your Average Order

4.1 ★★★★★
Based on 6 reviews
Sort
Highest Rating
Newest First
Oldest First
Product Reviews
V
Verified Purchase
Vincent Smith
San Leandro, US
★★★★★ 5
Perfect Shoes Work & Happy Hour!
Size: 13 Wide, Color: Blue, Size: 13 Wide, Color: Blue
Working downtown again and occasionally someone will invite me out for Happy Hour after work. So I needed nice shoes for Summer that could take me from my law office to the speakeasy. These are comfy. The little air holes are great for letting out the heat of everyday walking to and from work without being noticeable. My feet can breathe! I'm a size 13 wide and they feel nice, light, with room to spare if I wanted to wear little thicker dress socks or some crew type socks w them. They tie up easy, wipe off fine if I get them a bit muddy in the backyard before work taking out the garbage and they look darn good w out breaking the bank!
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2026
C
Verified Purchase
Chris
Grantham, US
★★★★★ 4
9-5 go to Shoe
Size: 9, Color: Black
Shoes arrived today. My knocks on them are the laces and the warmth (my feet soaked only after 4 hours of wear.) but for the price and discount that's currently being offered, no one can beat it. I was in desperate need of new shoes for my office job because my current ones were torn and color faded due to wear and tear, the two pairs that I bought are very stylish, comfortable, and the bottoms are durable and slip resistant. I was also surprised that they're true to size. I wear sneakers and these in size nine.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2026
M
Verified Purchase
Michael Bruns
Natrona Heights, US
★★★★★ 5
Comfort and excellent bang for your buck
Size: 10 Wide, Color: Brown
These are incredibly comfortable. I bought them for work, and as someone who works in IT, I'm on my feet a lot, and often crouching down or leaning in awkward positions, and these have been awesome for me. I've never felt they were uncomfortable. They seem to be pretty good quality too, though I am seeing slight creases where I do end up bending my feet while doing my job, but I have already considered buying another pair (and not because of that, just to have another color). I even had a teenage kid say 'nice shoes' to me the other day, and I've had other positive comments from coworkers as well.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2026
P
Verified Purchase
Paulie G
Draper, US
★★★★★ 5
Nice looking Shoes
Size: 9, Color: Brown
These shoes are very nice. I never heard of the name Bruno Marc before, but I will say the shoes are extremely comfortable, and they look like similar high end shoes at the fraction off the cost. Very light and durable.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2026
W
Verified Purchase
Wallace Jurkiewicz
Birmingham, US
★★★★★ 5
Comfortable casual dress shoes that look good too
Size: 13, Color: Black
Needed a nice pair of casual dress shoes. These turned out perfect for me. Comfortable and looks good.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2026

recommand products