Extollagy!

How can I get hold of your books?
Three ways.
1) Use your favoured online retailer. This is the cheapest.

2) Use your local bookshop. Less cost-effective but keeps an endangered species of great value to civilisation alive.

3) Buy direct from me. Even less cost-effective as I have to add postage, but keeps my family alive! This way you get a signed copy — including any message you request (ideal for present-giving) — and the warm glow of knowing the bubblewrap and sellotape came from the author’s own hands.

How much do you charge to speak?

Depends on who’s asking, how much prep is involved, how far away it is, how busy I am, etc. Cover of travel expenses is essential; if no fee, there’d better be a pretty good reason! But good reasons are considered seriously…

Are you going to write more books/make more TV programmes?

Yes, please! My Stones of Britain: Geology and History in the British landscape will be published by Constable in 2021.

What is ‘Extollagy’?

In the 1820s, a small group of young artists relocated to then then-rural village of Shoreham in the north Downs; today it is in the green belt, but very close to the edge of suburbia.

These artists- – of whom the most important were Samuel Palmer and Edward Calvert — were followers of the then-ageing William Blake. For several years they created visionary, spiritually-charged visions of a kind of rural utopia. Images so passionately enthused that they ignored conventional rules of representation to an extent that would not be seen again until the end of the century. Bemused by their odd behaviour, the locals of Shoreham are said to have called them ‘Extollagers’, a wonderful word suggestive at once of deep, careful study and rapturous, instinctual communication thereof. That’s me.

How can I contact you?

E-mail me at jon_cannonATSIGNhotmail.com