in April 1946. Gibbings's life at the time was complicated by his relationship with Patience Empson, Elisabeth's sister. The relationship had started when Patience typed up the manuscript for Coming Down the Wye and had since developed to the extent that she flew out to join him in Fiji in May 1946. She went mostly to help him with his writing, and partly at Elisabeth's suggestion. When Gibbings returned to England late in 1947 she stayed in New Zealand and then went to South Africa as Mrs. Empson felt that it would be improper for her to return with Gibbings. By April 1951 Elisabeth and Gibbings were divorced, and his relationship with Patience became more relaxed. In September 1955 Patience and Gibbings bought Footbridge Cottage, a tiny beehive of a cottage in Gibbings's words, in Long Wittenham on the banks of the Thames. Life there suited Gibbings, and he had a period of tranquility that he had not known previously. They lived there until Gibbings died of cancer in hospital at Oxford on 19 January 1958. He is buried in the churchyard at Long Wittenham. The grave is marked by a simple headstone featuring his device of a crossed quill and graver, carved by Michael Black, a young sculptor who was a friend of Gibbings. An overview of his life and work Gibbings dominates the period of the modern wood engraving revival in Britain, both by the longevity of his artistic career, and its significance. His is the most cited name in Joanna Selborne's monumental survey. He was at the centre of all the developments in wood engraving, from the cubist engravings of his vanishing line period to the traditional landscape based engravings of the river books. He ran the Golden Cockerel Press at the period when it shaped the concept of the wood engraved book. He was gripped by the possibilities of wood engravings, by the possibilities of expression within the very formal constraints of the medium: "But slowly a love of the wood came upon me. I began to enjoy the crisp purr of the graver as it furrowed the polished surface. I began to appreciate the cleanness of the white line that it incised: even the simplest silhouettes had an austere quality, a dignity, that could not be achieved by other means. Clear, precise statement, that was what it amounted to. Near enough wouldn't do: it had