A Grand Tour of wet Wales

Pennant should have been a publishing sensation, yet how many of you have heard of a book of which within weeks of its appearance all but 12 copies were sold? Not only that, its de luxe version in inlaid leather (at £2,750 a copy) had been sold before it even came out. There will, of course, be no second edition of either, for we are not in the world of conventional publishing.

We are in the world of fine art publishing, of hand-made paper and limited editions, where men never read upon the po but put on white gloves just to open the covers of a book, which, given its price, you will not see reviewed elsewhere. But it is still a book. So what do you get for your £750, apart from a thing of beauty in its purple box with the gold lettering?

To begin with, you get a classic of dry comedy.