Vertigo: A Novel in Woodcuts (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

First published in 1937, Ward's Vertigo paints a triptych of Depression-era images - the kind with a new urgency in the 2008-9 economic downturn. The first of these stories, The Girl, traces years of a young woman's life from childhood, through high school graduation, and into the promise of a happy and fulfilling adulthood. The promise isn't kept, however, when personal tragedy strikes, followed by a long, slow slide into poverty. As happens so often in life, this sad story ends with a minor, almost trivial moment that captures the bitter irony of that broken promise. The second story, The Elderly Man, examines months in the life of a captain of industry. That captain is sinking, however, as his health fails, his business collapses, and his lieutenants launch a brutal union-busting campaign that seems to horrify him. In this book's third story, The Boy, time compresses even further, to just a few days. After leaving an abusive home, his decline on the streets comes even faster.Of course, the ambiguity of these wordless stories and complex images means that other readers will see things very differently than I do. These images and narratives practically beg readers to impose their own vision onto the story. Each reader and perhaps each reading can be a unique experience.I enjoy this book at many levels. The woodcut artwork alone deserves attention, irrespective of the stories it tells, partly because of the way it evokes the WPA style of the later Depression years. Then, modern readers might find interest in this grandfather of the modern graphic novel, showing how complex and mature the medium has been and can be again. The stories in these "pictorial narratives" explain this book's 70+ years of popularity, however, putting human faces to a few of the Depression's many tragedies.-- wiredweird

I highly recommend all the great titles by modern woodcut masters reproduced so beautifully by Dover Publications (Firefly Press and Abrams deserve mention as well)!! This type of art does not exist anymore. Just go and buy all these wonderful books by Lynd Ward, Frans Masereel, Otto Nuckel, James Reid, et al., which are now available at such great prices! Many Thanks to David A. Berona and the people at these fine publishing companies for continuing to bring such great works of art back to us! Is Ward's "Song Without Words" on the horizon?(!)

This book had some great stories in it, and reading without words is a very new experience. I enjoyed it a lot. If you to are interested in this book I suggest researching the wood carving techniques that were used as well as the stories, as they can be hard to interpret.

awesome book!

Absolutely beautiful novel. Story takes a little work to decipher, but definitely worth the effort.

Love it!

Really interesting concept.I'm excited to get into it.It came really quickly from Amazon LLC themselves supposedly new; unfortunate that my copy came water damaged though.

Lynd Ward hits his stride in this masterpiece! All graphic novel artists owe a debt of gratitude to Ward, particularly the work done in Vertigo.

Acutezza, precisione, incisione, forza all'insegna di un vortice narrativo ed emotivo. La concretezza dell'immagine trasformata in un flusso cerebrale senza soluzione di continuità tra realtà e immaginazione. Che si tratti di un capolavoro è cosa ormai ovvia; bello sarebbe se si ripresentassero in libreria con più frequenza questi esempi di efficace e riuscita narrazione per immagini. non tanto un'imitazione o un palliativo alla letteratura, ma letteratura specifica essi stessi.