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Brian Roylance

Publisher of limited-edition Beatles books

Spencer Leigh
Monday 03 October 2005 00:00 BST
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There have long been hand-crafted, beautifully printed art books, sold in limited editions at high prices, but it was Brian Roylance who realised that the same techniques could be applied to photographs and memorabilia relating to rock stars. His leather-bound, gilt-edged collection of George Harrison's handwritten lyrics, I Me Mine (1980), printed on antique-laid paper with each copy signed by the author, quickly sold out of its limited edition of 2,000 and has become a valuable investment for its purchasers. Copies are now worth 10 times the purchase price of £116.

Roylance was born in Newcastle Emlyn, South Wales, in 1945 and brought up in London. He left school at 15 and, by working in the photographic section of a newspaper, acquired a passion for the subject. He attended the London College of Printing, and after studying maritime documents he published reproductions of William Bligh's log-book from the Bounty in a limited edition of 500 (The Log of HMS Bounty, 1787-1789, 1975). He then reproduced Charles Darwin's Journal of a Voyage in HMS Beagle (1979), with a foreword by the Prince of Wales, and James Cook's Journal of HMS Resolution 1772-1775 (1981), with a foreword by Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

In 1977, Roylance met the Beatles' former press officer, Derek Taylor, and, after showing him his publications, he suggested that documents and photographs relating to the Beatles should be approached in the same manner. Taylor agreed and they went to see George Harrison, who could not believe that anyone would "seriously consider having these trivial bits of paper dignified in this way". I Me Mine, which also contained autobiographical material, was an immense success - except with John Lennon who could not credit that he only merited 11 references. In an interview with Playboy, Lennon admitted that he was hurt:

He put a book out privately on his life that, by glaring omission, says that my influence on his life is absolutely zilch and nil. In his book, which is purportedly this clarity of vision of his influence on each song he wrote, he remembers every two-bit sax player or guitarist he met in subsequent years. I'm not in the book.

Whether by accident or design, Roylance had found a new market for books on popular culture. Many of his books centred on the Beatles, such as Bob Gruen's photographs of John Lennon Sometime in New York City (1995), and the stark black and white photographs of the Beatles in Hamburg from Astrid Kirchherr, Jürgen Vollmer and Max Scheler. His books on the paintings of the fifth Beatle, Stu Sutcliffe, have included complete reproductions of his sketchbooks.

"Brian was a dear friend to me," says Ulf Krüger, who worked with him on several projects involving German photographers:

I had never seen anything like them before and I have loved them all. He created a market for limited edition books of rock'n'roll photographs and unquestionably his books are the leader in the field.

The Beatles' biographer Mark Lewisohn says:

I don't really know of anyone who has produced similar books of the same standard, and, when I open one now, I will think of his friendship. He was a most affable, amiable man and had time for everyone. Obviously, he must have been a keen businessman as these books involved huge injections of capital, but he never gave that impression and he had a real relish for what he did.

Roylance's imprint Genesis also published music autobiographies, including Derek Taylor's Fifty Years Adrift (1984) and George Martin's Playback (2003) as well as Ringo Starr's collection of correspondence from the other Beatles, Postcards from the Boys (2003). In 1993 it published a lavish Live in Japan! book and record set as an expensive souvenir of George Harrison and Eric Clapton's joint tour of 1991. Roylance took similar care with projects on Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Queen, The Who, Pink Floyd and Ravi Shankar. Outside the music world, he published a book on Liverpool Football Club, This is Anfield (2002), and on the British Lions, The Lions (2005).

In many ways, Roylance's mailing list was as important as his celebrity contacts. His books occupied a niche market and were never seen in the shops. I know from personal experience that libraries were unwilling to buy them. This exclusivity is unfortunate as the historical information and previously unpublished photographs are seen by relatively few people, that is, just the purchasers and their friends. There were standard, popular editions of I Me Mine and Postcards from the Boys, but this only happened rarely. Oddly, when Roylance did design a book for the mass market - The Beatles Anthology (2000) - it did not look as good as it should have done.

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