In the mid-1960s, Tom Phillips took a forgotten nineteenth-century novel, W. H. Mallock's A Human Document, and began cutting and pasting the extant text to create something new. The artist writes, 'I plundered, mined and undermined its text to make it yield the ghosts of other possible stories, scenes, poems, erotic incidents and surrealist catastrophes which seemed to lurk within its wall of words. As I worked on it, I replaced the text I'd stripped away with visual images of all kinds. I began to tell and depict, among other memories, dreams and reflections, the sad story of Bill Toge, one of love's casualties.' After its first publication in book form in 1980, A Humument rapidly became a cult classic. This new fourth edition follows its predecessors by incorporating revisions and re-workings -- over half the pages in the 1980 edition are replaced by new versions -- and celebrates an artistic enterprise that is nearly forty years old and still actively a work in progress.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
A visual adventure, a peculiar space where the reader-spectator is invited to speculate on the meaning of words and images. -- ARTnews
A wonderful entertainment...full of humor, visual invention, and the peculiar poignancy of unnoticed meanings. -- San Francisco Chronicle
It may be the closest a paperback book has come to being an art object. -- New York
One of the more winning and witty artistic experiments of recent times. -- Washington Post
Outbursts of words that find themselves in an altogether new syntactical space; there, like notes, they sing a painted music. -- William A. Gass, Artforum
A wonderful entertainment...full of humor, visual invention, and the peculiar poignancy of unnoticed meanings. -- San Francisco Chronicle
It may be the closest a paperback book has come to being an art object. -- New York
One of the more winning and witty artistic experiments of recent times. -- Washington Post
Outbursts of words that find themselves in an altogether new syntactical space; there, like notes, they sing a painted music. -- William A. Gass, Artforum
About the Author
Tom Phillips RA has worked widely in many media. Among his previous books is The Postcard Century, published by Thames & Hudson in 2000.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I own multiple copies and give them away to worthy friends. Visually, artistically, and intellectually stunning, this masterpiece is unique in the world of art/literature. The author/artist Tom Phillips began this work in the 1960s, and first published it in book form in the 1980s. He called the result of his decades of effort The Humument and it is a completely illustrated version of W. H. Mallock's 19th Century novel A Human Document. Each page is a well conceived and compelling work of art. On each page the author leaves only a few of the original words revealed. These surviving phrases tell, in prose and poetry, the pathetic love story of Bill Toge. Symbiotically linked to the art itself, the preserved text, and its tale of Toge, reveal a story Phillips found submerged within the original text, a story which Mallock neither wrote nor intended. Phillips calls his work `mining for meaning'. Everyone who has received this book from me has had great difficulty putting it down until they had read/absorbed/experienced/lived/studied it from cover to cover. If there is such a thing as a priceless book, The Humument would be a good candidate for the category.
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I expected this to be arty rubbish, but I was greatly surprised. It's a unique and strangely beautiful experience -- and not only that, but the picture-per-page structure makes it ideal to dip into during spare moments. Whether it actually has any deep meaning is open to debate, but each page has something on it to provoke thought. I love this thing.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Incredible treatment of a victorian novel using techniques of modern illumination to create a autobiographical love story. All written from within the context of an existing novel. Great graphics by one of England's best living artists. Surely unlike any other piece of literature you'll buy this year. See the Tom Phillips web page.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Test of Creativity
Tom Phillips' A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel is a unique work-in-progress focused on the idea that one can create art out of found texts. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Marysia
5.0 out of 5 stars
new surprises everytime
I had been introduced to this book years ago by one of my peers. I had always remembered it, but never really had a need to buy it. Read more
Published on June 30, 2008 by Jean Barnett
5.0 out of 5 stars
Image (con)Textual
Truly an elegant, messy piece of work.
Tom Phillips' Humument is one of the most affecting marriages of image and text that I have viewed/read. Read more
Tom Phillips' Humument is one of the most affecting marriages of image and text that I have viewed/read. Read more
Published on October 1, 2006 by fnord77
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing gift
I received this book as a gift about 10 years ago and have yet to tire of it. It is beautiful and funny, surreal, creepy and profound.
Published on December 18, 2001 by R. Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars
A highly original work
I love this book. I first learnt of Tom Phillips when he recently did the cover of an album by a band called Dark Star, and then was introduced to his work whilst on work... Read more
Published on July 26, 2001 by Stephen Waller
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elegant, eloquent, many-leveled masterpiece
As a poet and artist, I am interested in the automatic art practiced here, and it's ability to reveal the unconscious issues of importance in our lives. Read more
Published on May 7, 1999 by Steffan Ziegler
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