Lucina Prestige obituary

The Guardian

a day ago

My sister Lucina Prestige, who has died aged 80, was a founder of Renaissance Press, which published the work of such poets as George Bruce and Alan Spence, with illustrations by Elizabeth Blackadder and John Bellany.
Bruce was significant in Lucina's life. The first publication they made together – Lucina as editor – was Pursuit: Poems by George Bruce 1986-98 (1999), winner of the Saltire Society Scottish book of the year. This led to Polygon commissioning Lucina to edit Today Tomorrow: The Collected Poems of George Bruce 1933-2000 (2001), with a preface by Edwin Morgan and illustrated by Bellany. Two limited edition portfolios of Bruce's poems and Bellany's etchings followed: Woman of the North Sea and The Sacred Sea.
Born in London, Lucina was the daughter of Frederica Grundy, a radiographer, and Brian Hackett, a landscape architect who played a significant part in the development of the discipline. Her secondary schooling included a spell at Urbana high school, Illinois, when our father was on a two-year sabbatical at the University of Illinois. She studied for a diploma in education at Kenton Lodge College of Education, Newcastle, which was converted into an honours degree by the University of Newcastle.
Her first editorial post was at Oriel Press, Newcastle, in 1967, after which she moved to Edinburgh for a senior editorial post at Holmes McDougall in 1970. There she met Martin Prestige, a neuroscientist at Edinburgh University. They married in 1972.
While editing Today Tomorrow, Lucina discovered short poems in Bruce's wastepaper basket. She recognised them as haikus. Her instinct as an editor was that they should be published, and she rescued them; further haikus were posted through her letterbox. The resulting publication, Through the Letterbox: Haikus by George Bruce, illustrated by Blackadder (a mutual friend) became the first publication of Renaissance Press in 2003, which Lucina developed into a significant poet- and artist-led publisher.
Following Bruce's death in 2002, Lucina and Spence made Thirteen Ways of Looking at Tulips: Haikus, with illustrations by Blackadder (2022). For this last of Lucina's publications, she was also the designer, working closely with the poet and the artist.
Renaissance Press's website credits Lucina as a collector and editor, but she was much more than that. Scotland has lost a gifted member of its publishing community; one whose passion was to make beautiful books.
Martin died in 1979. Of Lucina's immediate family, I am her only survivor.