Wild Pilgrimage

Wild Pilgrimage is a 1932 wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward (1905–1985). It was executed in wood engravings, and was the third of Ward's six wordless novels.

Synopsis

A factory worker leaves his place of work to live a free life. He travels deep into the woods, where he witnesses a lynching. Deeper in the woods, he finds farm work, but it does not last long—when discovered attempting to enact his sexual fantasies on the farmer's wife, the man is forced off the farm. He finds refuge with a hermit, who allows him to stay in his cottage and teaches the man to grow fruits and vegetables. The man educates himself with the hermits books. He finds himself in a reverie in which he and the hermit battle a slave-owning capitalist. The man returns to his former place of employment and rouses a workers' rebellion. During the fray, he fantasizes that he decapitates his employer's head; when he raises it, he discovers the head to be his own. Awakening from the fantasy, he is felled in the midst of the battle.^[1]

Production and publication history

Ward used larger prints for Wild Pilgrimage than he had with his previous two books; the original printing of the book itself measured 10 by 7 inches (25 cm × 18 cm). The "reality" portions are printed in black ink, and the "fantasy" segments in orange.^[1]

References

Works cited

Books