Sketches from the Dream Island of Birds

VAN SANDWYK, Charles

Sketches from the Dream Island of Birds

Vancouver: Charles van Sandwyk Fine Arts, 2005

Oblong 8vo., red sewn card wraps with integral purple and gold sparkle dustwrapper, lettered in black and decorated with onlaid image reproducing a watercolour of the ‘Dream Island’; bordered with plants and birds in gold and bronze;  decorated red and gold endpapers; [unpaginated]; proliferated throughout with watercolour plates (one folding); and decorative borders in brown and gold; printed on a variety of different coloured paper stocks; some colour images and maps flat to page; fine. 

First edition, in the blue variant covers. 

A tale of adventure. “Once, in a dream” Van Sandwyk begins, “I traded my soft pillow for third class passage to the island of birds…”. Through a series of fantastical sketches, the reader is transported with the author, aboard a boat made of the pages of a book and steered by a heron, to the island, where we are introduced to wong trees (who have feet instead of roots), land-fish, birds who can complete mathematical problems with ease, weapons which ward off frightening thoughts, and much more. 

A sumptuous work, which encourages each and every one of us to follow our dreams.