THE SWEET, GREEN FRUIT OF WHIMSY IS RIPE FOR HARVEST AT LAST! Lord Whimsy and Bloomsbury are pleased and proud to announce the US/UK release of the long-awaited hardcover edition of: NOW AVAILABLE IN THE US AND UK! Like a butterfly captured in a flower's glistening raiment of morning dew, so the thoughts of Lord Whimsy are found in The Affected Provincial's Companion, Volume One. Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com are now shipping and awaiting your orders and reviews. "A Bounteous Selection of Essays, Philosophical Diagrams, Poetry, and Other Such Arcadian Follies Concerning the Art of Curious Living and the Reintroduction of Ancient Charm into This Vale of Mud and Tears Known Heretofore as the Modern Life" ...one of the more charming treatises to come along in years... —The New York Times ...one of the most entertaining—and certainly weirdest—non-fiction titles of the summer...the Companion is a lifestyle battlecry, both quaint and radical, lighthearted and dead serious...it feels good to know that a book this quirky can still get published. —The Associated Press OVERVIEW: In his attempt to live as beautifully as his modest means will allow, Lord Whimsy has lived in a former army barracks in a small rural town in the New Jersey Pine Barrens for twelve years. There he has created for himself a garden-choked naturalist/aesthete's outpost filled with books, animals, and artwork. He regularly posts his dispatches on an online journal, where he discusses topics as diverse as carnivorous plants, moustache grooming, French nineteenth-century cameo glass vases, and the great Wallace Shawn. Written, designed and illustrated by the author, The Affected Provincial’s Companion, Volume One is an artifact of the life he has led. Brimming with hyperbolic essays and meticulous philosophical diagrams, the Companion is both funny and profound. One reviewer summed it up thusly: "Whimsy’s well-turned phrases (to say nothing of his illustrative graphs) are, though distanced and quaintly arcane, sweetly smart and modern." HEAR YE, HEAR YE! LORD BREAULOVE SWELLS WHIMSY proudly presents to the public a book of uncommon impishness; wherein Whimsy, as befitting his station as Mammal of Paradise, dons the vestments of his office to summon his inner brilliance, the likes of which has never before been seen in this, our benighted age! The reader shall bear witness to: FEATS OF SARTORIAL CUNNING! JAUNTY VERSE! DEFTLY RENDERED TURNS OF PHRASE! WITTICISMS! UNBRIDLED PEDANTRY! DUST MOTES! ICY HAUTEUR! WELL-MUSCLED HINDQUARTERS! Do you seek to cultivate blooms of refinement and joy in your life's garden? Whimsy, as befitting his office as “Affected Provincial,” humbly offers himself as a guide to those who wish to transcend the banalities of modern existence. A diverse and humorous collection of treatises, insightful essays, philosophical diagrams, saucy poetry and other amusing trifles, The Affected Provincial's Companion, Volume One will inspire you to transform yourself into a walking sonnet, thus setting you upon a course towards that misty, faraway shore known to the ancients as Enchantment. The perils of sportswear, diaphanism, self-defense for sissies, tramp aestheticism, the proper grooming of facial hair, and how to become a bon vivant—all this and much more may be found between the shimmering covers of this sleek and utterly beguiling volume. Take to your breast this artifact of grace and beauty! The leaf-green hardcover is stamped with a silver foil botanical design. The book itself is intended to faintly suggest a Venus flytrap, as the reader is greeted with a vibrant magenta/plum endpaper design upon opening the shimmering cover. This color scheme is meant to evoke some of the beautiful creatures found near Whimsy's home in the New Jersey Pine Barrens—luna moths, pine barrens tree frogs, sundews, pink lady slipper orchids, carnivorous pitcher plants and gemlike bog orchids, etc. An eggshell paper stock was selected to harmonize with the warm colors in the book's cover design. For similar reasons, the book's text was set in Garamond, which was selected for its relatively soft, organic letterforms and graceful contours. The intent behind such considerations is to soothe the reader's eye, but is also to suggest that while it is indeed being released by a major publisher, this little book has been painstakingly designed, illustrated and typeset by its author, and remains very much a labor of love. (Laura Pedrick, NY Times) (Frequently asked questions about Whimsy can be found here, although some scrolling my be involved, so prepare yourself for a carpal odyssey.) "Once, sissies were mistaken for gentlemen; alas, now gentlemen are mistaken for sissies." —Lord Whimsy LORD BREAULOVE SWELLS WHIMSY (or "Whimsy" for short) is a gentleman who defies easy description; and as such, has been said to be both a noted dandy and a “glassgazing meacock”; a doyen of culture and a “jack-a-pudding”; a renowned lepidopterist and a “mere grammaticaster”; a Parnassian man-childe and a “finical dapperling”; an exemplar of male splendor and a “chutney-bottomed ninnyroger”—and of course, he has also been dubbed an Affected Provincial. But most importantly, he is the milky gnome who has conjured into being the collection of treatises and epistles entitled THE AFFECTED PROVINCIAL'S COMPANION, VOLUME ONE. Whimsy delights with his jaunty prose and fanciful theories that leave in their wake a shimmering cloud of visions and ideas upon which the enchanted reader may ponder. The book is a distillation of Whimsy’s daily life: a sort of “personal folklore”, if you will. And like all folklore, it has roots in fact: Whimsy does indeed live near farms, raise moths and ride his highwheel bicycle through the rural town in which he resides. Whimsy has earned a loyal following through his regularly published articles in the Philadelphia Independent; readers have been known to give him handmade quince candies, love letters, and shouts of recognition as he strolls by. In return for these kindnesses, Lord Whimsy makes himself available to those in need, as he did when he once conducted a wedding for a couple of his readers. To quote a gentleman attending the event: “Dude, Whimsy’s real!” He occasionally resumes his “You Lack My Refinement” tour, performing readings at packed cafes, bookstores and universities, illuminating the Former Colonies with the Light of Whimsy. Oh yes, gentle reader: somewhere out there tonight stands a small man in velvet, warning the youth of the perils of sportswear. Who is this buzzing midge of Arcady? It is he, Whimsy. Those who know the good works of Whimsy are surprised to find the possessor of such Promethean gifts to be in person a shy, retiring creature who delights in night-fancy and crushes entire meadows of delicate buttercup blooms against his boyish chin; however, despite his gentle nature, Whimsy can often be found in the cultural fray, where he rails against the leveling effects of the blind egalitarianism presently mowing down all flowers that dare peek above the crabgrass. His aim is to reintroduce ancient charms to the den of ubiquity that is modern life, thus transforming it from an assembly line of mediocrity into an engine of beauty. Whimsy is a perfumer of curls and a forger of aphorisms who wishes to reawaken the poetry of the human soul—the light of which may not last much longer in this world of mud and tears. Time and again he has mounted the ramparts with nosegay in hand so that the Flower of Civilization might be spared the indignities of bruised petals and puffy pistils. He is, in short, a Mammal of Paradise and an Ambassador of Heaven. He lives the life of a country squire in a leafy, rural hamlet in Central New Jersey. Rest assured, gentle reader: Whimsy loves you all. Humor AUGUST 2006 (US) OCTOBER 2006 (EUROPE) Hardcover $14.95 176 pages 5.0625" x 7 3/4" Black & white line drawings throughout ISBN 1-59691-141-7 ISBN-13 978-1-59691-141-3 PUBLISHER (UK): Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 36 Soho Square London W1D 3QY England Tel: +44 (0)20 7494 2111 Fax: +44 (0)20 7434 0151 www.bloomsbury.com PUBLISHER (US): Bloomsbury USA Flatiron Bldg. 175 Fifth Avenue Suite 300 New York, NY 10010 Fax: 212 780 0115 www.bloomsburyusa.com BOOK RELATED PUBLICITY QUERIES (US): Yelena Gitlin Publicity Manager Bloomsbury Tel: 646 307 5063 yelena.gitlin@bloomsburyusa.com BOOK RELATED PUBLICITY QUERIES (UK): Colin Midson Publicity Manager Bloomsbury colin_midson@bloomsbury.com