The Enchanted Assassin

David Rathman's provocative artist's book is based on Kenneth Patchen's celebrated experimental novel The Journal of Albion Moonlight (1941), a chronicle of humanity's moral failure. An uncompromising pacifist, Patchen wrote the unorthodox, stream-of-consciousness vision-poem during the early years of the Second World War (1939-45). In the 1960s, the novel became a symbol of protest among students and anti-war activists. Rathman renews the bold warnings of Albion Moonlight through a series of graphic lithographs that echo the novel's passionate anti-war sentiment.