England on Fire: A Visual Journey through Albion's Psychic Landscape. Shortlisted for the 2022 British Book Design and Production Awards

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TM: Tell us about the themes running through England on Fire, Magic and Rebellion being two of them. How did you come up with them?

I pay tribute to the professionalism and skill of our fire services, who are working in difficult conditions to protect lives and communities. Two more people were confirmed to have died after getting into difficulty in water in separate incidents, bringing the total in recent days to five. Four were teenage boys and a fifth was a man aged 20The hottest day in history in Britain has seen major wildfires spring up across the land, with homes, buildings, fields and wildlife engulfed in infernos accelerated by the intense heat. His new book, England On Fire, is a genuine feast for the eyes and the imagination. Here Stephen has selected hundreds of incredible images that take the reader on a journey through England’s psychic landscape, featuring a diverse collection of artists from William Blake and Samuel Palmer, to many previously lesser known contemporary painters, sculptors and photographers. Alongside these images sits perfect poetic prose from author and bassist of indie band Suede, Mat Osman, whose words help us explore this unique look at Albion from the supernatural to standing stones and water to wilderness. Riminta saw the devastation unfold on the TV, watching images shot from a helicopter. She says their neighbours' homes have burnt down, but it appears their home is saved. Over 34 locations exceeded the UK's previous temperature record of 38.7C from 2019, according to the Met Office I haven't even seen the exceptional category being used in the times I've looked at the Wildfire Index before," Kathryn Brown, The Wildlife Trust's director for climate action, told PA news agency.

But not everything is about ‘greatness’. While art may tell a story, Ruskin is telling his story about art, and as with any story, the narrative unfolds according to who gets to do the telling. England On Fire: A Visual Journey Through Albion’s Psychic Landscape tells a different tale, or rather the same one through different voices. He still uses that as it was what he first started painting with. It gives all his paintings a weird spin. They’re of the wastelands and playgrounds of Coventry. These are the most humble places, suffering from austerity. Some of the paintings are like William Blake’s. I doubt he’s religious, but they’re visually intense. That kind of tradition of artists like Blake or Turner who would have these luminous landscapes with angels and gods, that continues with a lot of modern art. George Shaw. Scenes from the Passion A Few Days Before Christmas (Tile Hill, Coventry). Credit: Cincinnati Art Museum London Fire Brigade earlier declared a major incident with blazes in at least 10 locations; a fire on a farm in Nottingham has also been declared a major incident and there have been blazes in Leeds, Norfolk and other parts of the country.TM: Many of the images clearly have an esoteric meaning behind them – are you someone who looks into decoding those things? Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Tuesday night: "I have just been updated on the national fire situation. With dangerous fires burning across the country, I continue to urge the public to follow all safety advice from their local fire service, and stay safe.

According to the Met Office, most of England is at "exceptional" risk of wildfires, aside from the South West and patches of the North.

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The London Fire Brigade declared a major incident after a number of fires broke out in and around the capital TM: What do you hope people take from the book? I guess one reason must be bringing some of these images to the fore and also keeping them alive … The fire service is also made a desperate plea to the public not to have barbeques or bonfires on Tuesday. Basically all the rules of witchcraft were invented in there about a hundred years ago. It’s a bit like The Royal Family. Everyone thinks these are ancient rituals, but The Royal Family reinvented themselves after the First World War. And with modern witchcraft that came out of a basement at around the same time.

A major blaze in the village of Wennington in east London ripped through fields and homes, with the full extent of the damage - and any casualties - yet to be determined Please take care during the heatwave as all emergency services are facing unprecedented challenges.” TM: We’re currently living through interesting times – do you see this being reflected in contemporary English art? SE: Because I’ve done this for so long, well ten years. Previously I was a musician for a while and managed to blag a career in that for a few years before it all ended disastrously. Then I got a job working in a bookshop, near where I lived. Via that I was in publishing, for distributors specialising in art and illustrated books. Thats where I got to know the world of art.Officers will also be patrolling open spaces in the coming hours to ensure that Londoners are following the LFB advice to keep us all safe." SE: Definitely, yes. There were things that surprised me that we came across. It was serendipity with some of the images we found, many weren’t in display in galleries anywhere, so there’s nowhere else to see them. It was about looking beyond the obvious stuff people have been spoon fed and also to introduce new artists that people may not have been aware of. Forget the tired rogues’ gallery of lords and ladies, forget the tall ships and haywains. These images cut to the heart of England’s psychic landscapes to portray an Albion unhinged, where magic and rebellion and destruction are the horses to which the country is hitched. On these fabled shores we are all castaways, whether our family has lived here for four thousand years or for four. TM: There’s one great picture in the book of the cow jumping over the moon in the book by Paula Rego … The English are obsessed with the world behind the real world. I’m quite fascinated by why in Victorian era there was this huge Vogue for fairy paintings. Victorian fairy painting is really weird. Some of the people involved like Arthur Conan Doyle’s father, Charles Altamont Doyle, who I didn’t include because he’s Scottish, was the most extraordinary character. He ended up in an asylum. The Cottingley Fairy photographs, which Conan Doyle was convinced by, were amazing in how they essentially conned a nation. People wanted to believe in them. I think it was partly due to the trauma after WW1, they wanted something to believe in.