A display of brilliant fireworks is called to mind in Paperblanks Fire Flowers design in this journal.

This cover reproduces a 20th-century binding of Claude J. Dorats La Dclamation Thtrale, which was originally published in 1766 in Paris. Our cover edition, crafted by the bookbinder P.A. Savoldelli at the Hampstead Bindery, is currently held in the British Librarys magnificent collection of antique bindings.

The scion of a wealthy French family, Claude Dorat (17431780) turned away from an expected career in law for a life in the arts. Also known as le Chevalier Dorat, he was renowned as a musketeer, a bon vivant and a petit matre (minor master) by his contemporaries. La Dclamation, edited by Sbastien Jorry, is written in the style of Boileau and has become the defining work of Dorats prolific career. It is a didactic (instructional) poem comprising four songs about the rules governing tragedy, comedy, opera and dancing.

Dorat was frequently scorned by critics but persisted in producing an explosion of madrigals, odes, epistles, poems and erotic stories. He was rumoured to have ensured the success of his plays by buying up all the seats with his own money and he died, penniless, in 1780 after squandering his family fortune. Though his legacy is not that of a major master, one cannot help but admire his incandescent desire to create.

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