EVEN SWEETER GWEN: Panel from the Bélier Press Sweet Gwendoline book, now reduced to $40. BANNER: The man himself (right) plays darts and, inset, Possibilities and Gwendoline covers
John Willie book price cuts on Possibilities and Gwendoline.
John Willie book publisher Bélier Press has substantially reduced the cover prices of its two seminal volumes on Willie’s fetish photography and cartoon work: Possibilities and Sweet Gwendoline.
Similarly voluminous and expensive (originally), The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline (second edition), published in 1999, has been reduced in price to $40 (£29/€32).
These are the new prices of the standard (trade) editions of each John Willie book when purchased direct from Bélier’s website, but not including shipping from the NYC-based publisher.
US customers can obtain copies of either book for as little as $10 postage.
However, for customers outside the USA, shipping (including postal insurance) can add as much as $50 (£36/€40) more for Gwendoline and $80 (£58/€64) more for Possibilities — charges which are unfortunately beyond the publisher’s control.
Nevertheless this means the total cost of each John Willie book for UK and European customers still comes down — to $90 (£65/€73) for Gwendoline and $130 (£94/€105) for Possibilities.
A better deal on new copies is very unlikely to become available. So act now if you’re serious about having these two massive collections of pioneering fetish imagery in your library.
Each John Willie book includes exhaustively-researched texts by Bélier chief JB Rund, the world’s foremost expert on the artist.
In the case of Possibilities, copies of the limited-run Deluxe edition are also available at the original cover price of $150 (£108/€122 ) plus up to $85 (£61/€69) shipping. A Deluxe edition of the Gwendoline book was also produced, but has sold out.
So to conclude this article we thought you might appreciate a bit more information and visual content from the Gwendoline tome, which was itself a much-expanded second edition of a volume Bélier first published in the 1970s.
Weighing in at 1.6kg in its hard covers and measuring 220 x 286 x 321mm (approx), The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline (second edition) runs to some 368 pages.
This John Willie book collects together six cartoon adventure serials (including one previously unpublished) and a selection of illustrations Willie produced for Robert Harrison’s magazines (Wink, Flirt etc).
There are 36 black & white drawings and paintings plus 31 full colour paintings, all from original artwork and many previously unpublish- ed, along with what is believed to be the first ever John Willie illustration, which appeared in London Life in 1935.
Texts include three illustrated letters from the artist plus an expanded biographical intro by Rund with four previously unpublished photographs of the artist.
It really is the perfect companion to the more recent John Willie book, and shows the extent to which the artist based his famous comic characters on photographic studies that you’ll find in Possibilities.
The Fetishistas Dec 2016: Possibilities cover
Bélier Press: order Possibilities & Gwendoline
ABOVE: Click any thumbnail to start slideshow of selected plates from the Sweet Gwendoline book
BELOW: Willie’s famous Australian model (and sometime wife) Holly — an image from Possibilities
Published January 17, 2018
Tags: Artists, Bondage, Books, Discounts and Sales, Vintage Style
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