The New Arcadian Press
Publishes the New Arcadian Journal.
Published the 70 New Arcadian Broadsheets that accompanied the NAJs, 1981 – 2011.
Published, between 2012 and 2018, the proceedings of the 2010 and 2012 Wentworth Castle conferences, as well as the 2018 bicentennial book of Humphry Repton’s Yorkshire Red Books.
Produced, between 1981 and 1986, many other publications; notably small books, cards, prints, posters and ephemera (some post 1986).
The New Arcadian Journal
“The feisty, visually distinctive and intellectually robust New Arcadian Journal … is refreshingly original” (Times Literary Supplement).
“The New Arcadian Journals have been teaching us pleasantly provocative lessons for many years” (Country Life).
“With their gorgeous coloured covers and unique combination of artist-illustrations and scholarly texts, the journals are unique in garden publishing” (Garden History Journal).
“Particular praise must go to the artists whose line drawings ~ original, usually informative, sometimes evocative, occasionally just odd ~ help to give the volume its distinctive feel” (Follies Journal).
The NAJ is the fine press book that is a treasury of drawing as artists join writers to explore the landscape garden. In particular, the NAJ:-
- Investigates the cultural politics of historical landscapes through engaging with the vestigial presences of architecture, gardens, monuments, sculpture and inscriptions.
- Explores the resonance of garden works by contemporary artists such as Derek Jarman and James Pierce, and especially Ian Hamilton Finlay at Little Sparta and elsewhere.
- Revels in the poetics of place and the breezy terrain of the upland walker.
By championing the study of political gardening and by promoting restoration of place and meaning, the NAJ has shed new light on historical landscapes and has also been the catalyst to contemporary re-interpretation and conservation.
Published since 1981, ISSN 0262‑558X, each A5 book (portrait format) is an edition of 300, unless otherwise stated on title page.
The New Arcadian Journal was initially titled New Arcadians (1981-1983), then New Arcadians’ Journal (1984-1986) and, from 1987, the New Arcadian Journal. First a quarterly (1981‑1986), then a bi‑annual (1987), the NAJ became an annual in 1988, and from 1990 each edition was an annual double‑issue. Since 2014 the NAJ has been an occasional periodical.
The New Arcadian Broadsheets
The New Arcadian Broadsheets were published as numbered companions to the NAJ. All seventy NABs were published as serial pages of a Book-in-Progress. They comprise pithy comments on the cultural and political environment, and are commemorative, lyric, satirical or polemic.
Published from 1981 to 2011 and overprinted onto A4 letterhead paper. The pressmark, by Chris Broughton (NAB 35 onwards, and on every website page), integrates the creative and bucolic spirit of the New Arcadian Press. Ian Gardner drew the earlier pressmark (NAB 21-34) as well as the initial motif for the letterheads (NAB 1-20).
The final edition, NAJ 83/84 (c.2027) Panegyrics & Pasquinades, will reproduce and catalogue all seventy broadsheets, thus completing the Book-in-Progress.
