Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.5 x 15cm, 4pp, black on brown card with a text:

Emblem

A boat carrying a much-patched sail, the patches of varied sizes, shapes and colours. The blade of the rudder, where it is visible is also patched."
Variety in unity.

Finlay enjoys the way something is constructed in components to make the whole more than the sum of the parts. VG+.

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Eindhoven: October, 1999
20 x 55cm, full colour offset-lithograph with a reproduced painting by Janet Boulton of a bramble branch. Peter Foolen notes: "This beautiful watercolour is in contrast with the painful thorns of the bramble branch which resembles the long poles with hooks used to catch tunny (the boat used to fish tunny is named Thonier)". One of 125 unsigned copies. VG+.
This work was given by Finlay to Paul Robertson as a gestural gift during a visit to Little Sparta when the poet asked Robertson to proofread a small pamphlet by Finlay that had been translated into English by Finlay's assistant.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.5 x 15cm, 4pp, black on blue card with a text:

Emblem

After the bow, (a very long way after) and after the mast and the tabernacle, and the hatch, and the wheelhouse, and the thwart, and the sternpost, comes finally the rudder, which (all else being in order), gives direction to the boat."
First and last

The rudder is both first and last - first because of its importance to the boat's passage, and last physically. VG+.

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Paris: Yvon Lambert/Monk, 1999
4.5 x 8cm, 74pp plus covers. Artist's book which acts as a flip book with the 74 colour images taken from the 16mm film loop "Cartoon 1999". Now hard to find. Slight wear to edges else 1,000 copies printed. VG.

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Glasgow: WAX366, 1999
200 x 1cm, original measuring rule with rivets to allow the rule to open and close. Silkscreened on the first part of the measure is the text "ASSESSMENT OF EXTENT DEPRIVES US OF THE INFINITE". An object multiple released in a small but unknown number. VG+ although slight tear to the printed paper closing wrapper....

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.5 x 15cm, 1pp, black on bright red artist's card with an appropriated drawing of a Japanese suicide aircraft, and a text:

Many, many things
They bring to mind -
Cherry blossoms

A translation of a poem from the Japanese by Donald Keene which here Finlay associates with the Japanese MXY7 Ohka (Cherry Blossom) rocket-propelled suicide aircraft used near the end of the war in the Pacific. In Japan cherry blossoms are an enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life - which of course is more true of kamikaze pilots than most. VG+.

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Little Sparta: s.p. Finlay, n.d. (c. 1990s)
21 x 30cm, 11 pages all original xerox printed one side only and stapled three times on left to create a document. The letter (annotated later with short remarks by Finlay) was sent originally in 1962/1963 to Cid Corman who edited Origin (one of the first publications to put Finlay in print) where he praises the magazine, talks about how he writes and feels isolated in doing that and unsure of what he is doing is good and discusses his own mental health (he complains about anxiety). Attached are a number of poems in traditional form from The Dancers Inherit The Party. AN insightful document indeed.
This was sent to Janet Boulton in July 1999.
JOINT:
KNOWING THE LAND WHERE NEON BLOOMS: IAN HAMILTON FINLAY'S INSTALLATION IN ERFURT. n.p.: s.p., 1999 30 x 21cm, 3pp (recto only) stapled. An essay by Harry Gilonis about Finlay's installation of neon works. JOINT:
XEROX COPY OF ARTICLE IN JOURNAL OF GARDEN HISTORY BY STEPHEN BANN. 1981. 30 x 21cm, 13pp (recto only) stapled. An essay by Bann about Little Sparta with lots of phtographs. JOINT:
31 x 21.5cm, original mailing envelope with handwritten notes of the contents by Finlay. Torn badly when opened at top.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1999) 10 1 x 14cm, 1pp. Artist's postcard black on blue with a text taken from Mixed fragments by Novalis in which the post sees similarities between metaphysical romance and the adoption of a pen name. VG+. . ...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1999) 8.2 x 9.5 cm, 2pp artist's card black on blue with a text that Finlay has used on several occasions on the front: FOR "HARVESTER" READ "GLEANER" on the reverse the two boat numbers PD98 and CN 444 are reproduced along with the title EU Erratum. The original boat's name was changed from Harvester to Gleaner when Britain joined the European Union. VG+. ...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
6.5 x 10cm, 4pp, black on white artist's card on opening one sees a drawing by Jennie Spiers of an upturned boat in a forest and opposite there is a Finlay haiku;

The upturned boat's
snowdrift
soldiers on.

The shape of the boat the wrong way up clearly reminds Finlay of how snow clumps in heaps. And what is more, Finlay knows how to write a classical format of Haiku with the middle word "cutting" the meaning of the scene. VG+.

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