The Notebook of Nancy Lea: 1932–1936. Published by The Tom Lea Institute & 4-o Publishing, 2016. 6 x 9 inches, 260 pages. Designed and bound by Jace Graf at Cloverleaf Studio, Austin, Texas.
Nancy Lea (1906–1936) was the first wife of noted Southwest artist Tom Lea. She died young from complications after surgery and, as noted in J.P. Bryan's foreword to this book “her devastated husband, artist Tom Lea, determined to publish her diary as a lasting memorial to her burgeoning literary talent. He enlisted his friend, book designer Carl Hertzog, to help him with this important cathartic creation.”
That small edition of 25 copies was printed for close friends and some 80 years later a larger audience can appreciate the writings of a woman whose attitudes were ahead of her time. “She was a woman with very progressive thoughts about the world about her,” according to Kayle Mullins, at the University of Texas at El Paso. “She wrote about things that were not being said at that time.”
