Denis Glover and I worked for the same advertising agency, Carlton-Carruthers du Chateau, but at different times. I never met him. But, coincidentally, Albion Wright, the managing director of Pegasus Press - with whom I was well acquainted - asked me to design a dust wrapper for Glover's new book of poems: 'Enter Without Knocking'.
I could see no immediate graphic symbolism so I decided simply to hand-letter the title and to add a pair of drawn swelled rules.
Now, aged 79, I look back at the work, published in 1964, and boggle that I not only hand-lettered the characters but did so at the actual size that they were reproduced. I must have had steady eyes and hands in those days; I certainly don't have them now!
Denis, Albion told me, was delighted, and that was great praise from a typographer of his eminence.
© DON DONOVAN