‘Nadezhda Mandelstam’s Last Letter to Osip Mandelstam’

22 page manuscript book, written out in black Chinese ink with gouache illustrations on Zerkall paper, orange Japanese endpapers, bound in millboard with a Khadi paper cover. Completed in 2018

The text for this very moving letter to her husband, Osip, after he was arrested in 1938 is taken from Nadezhda’s memoir, Hope Abandoned, translated by Max Hayward. It is likely that Osip had died before the letter was delivered – an outcome tragically anticipated by Nadezhda in her letter.

I have made several treatments of this text – this one was made after another version was stolen (!) from an exhibition in Oxford. I can only hope that whoever stole the original is as moved as I am by the text. In a curious way, I am rather flattered by this particular kind of attention.

This book is now held in the Crafts Study Centre collection.