The Vampire & the Seventh Daughter

Larry Thompson of Greyweathers Press sends word of his latest publication (be sure to visit Larry’s blog for further information, including in-depth descriptions of the production process for this book):

On Saturday, April 26, Greyweathers Press launched its latest letterpress work, an original short story by Larry Thompson titled The Vampire and the Seventh Daughter. This gothic trifle is hand printed with cold type, using our house font, Italian Oldstyle, for the text and the blackface type, Goudy Text, for the cover, title page and opening lines of the story. It is illustrated with five linoleum cut illustrations, and it has been printed in a limited edition of 75 on Arches Text Wove paper from France, with black Mohawk Ultrafine for covers. Cover label hand painted by Holly Dean. Every book is protected from vampires by a tiny cross bound into the front cover.

The Vampire and the Seventh Daughter is pamphlet bound, 8 pages long, 12″ tall x 6.5″ wide. $60 per copy plus GST in Canada and shipping. To purchase email Larry Thompson at studio@greyweathers.com or call (613) 269-3714.

Gaylord Schanilec’s Sylvae

I realized this morning that I never posted about Sylvae, Gaylord Schanilec’s latest effort which came out more than a few months ago. Working with Ben Verhoeven, Gaylord has created a fascinating history of his farm as seen through the trees on the property. Here are the details:

Standard Edition
8 x 12 inches. 192 pp. 120 numbered copies.
Text and images printed on Zerkall book laid.
Quarter leather bare wooden board lapped case binding. In a slipcase.
Copies will be available December 2007 / January 2008.
Retail: $1200

Large Paper Edition
10 x 15 inches. 192 pp. 26 lettered copies.
Text pages printed on handmade paper. Images printed on a special making of Zerkall no. 7625.
Quarter leather Medieval style laced wooden board binding. Contained in an
enclosure along with a separate box of 25 specimens (one for each species represented.)
Copies will be available 2008.
Retail: $7500

Even if you can’t buy a copy, try to find an opportunity to see this book - it’s one of my favorites. You can see a number of images from the book online: http://www.midnightpapersales.com/sylva/index.html .

Five Poems by Charles Simic

Goshen Editions, associated with the artist Brooke Schnabel, has recently published Five Poems by Charles Simic accompanied by Mr. Schnabel’s etchings. Details:

Goshen Editions is pleased to announce the publication of Five Poems, our new book by U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic, with hand-colored etchings by Brooke Schnabel. Presented as loose sheets in the tradition of the French livre d’artiste, this new edition was composed in the 14-point Monotype cutting of Giovanni Mardersteig’s Dante by Michael & Winifred Bixler in Skaneateles, New York. The typography and letterpress printing on sheets of Arches Cover were carried out by Michael Russem at the Florence Offices of Kat Ran Press. Each of Mr Simic’s poems is accompanied by a hand-colored etching by Brooke Schnabel. The five etchings were printed and hand-colored by the artist at his studios in Florence and Goshen, Massachusetts. The folded sheets—measuring 11 x 15 inches—were gathered into a cloth-covered clamshell box made by Sarah Creighton at her Easthampton, Massachusetts, bindery. The edition is strictly limited to thirty copies signed by the poet and artist, and is available for $650.

Advertising in the Next Issue of Parenthesis

From the good folks at Fine Press Books Association:

There is still time to place an ad in the upcoming Parenthesis 15 — publication of the Fine Press Book Association. Get the word out to publishers and letterpress devotees worldwide. Contact Michael Barnes for layout, placement, and rates: mjbarnes@telus.net or 604-833-0612.

10th Anniversary Book from Heavenly Monkey

Heavenly Monkey is celebrating their 10th Anniversary this month by reissuing an old favorite. The details:

EL AUTOBUS AZUL - HANDMADE PAPERS FROM COSTA

February, 2008 marks the tenth anniversary of HM publisher Rollin Milroy’s first letterpress book, El Autobus Azul - Handmade Papers from Costa Rica. In the decade since then Milroy has published 24 more titles, but El Autobus Azul remains one his most requested, and least seen books. To celebrate the anniversary - and get rid of the leftover scraps of samples that have been kicking around the studio for a decade - Heavenly Monkey is issuing a special revised edition of El Autobus Azul. Like the original, the anniversary edition is a miniature (50 copies, 41 pp, cased in printed paper over boards). It contains four tipped-in samples (each about 1 x 2 inches), a new preface, and two relief prints not in the original.

Six copies of the anniversary edition of El Autobus Azul are being specially bound, and issued in a dustjacket featuring an original painting of a butterfly on the front cover by renowned calligrapher Martin Jackson, who will also render the title along the spine. Proceeds from the sale of these copies are being donated to a fine arts elementary school in Vancouver which both Milroy’s daughter and Martin’s grandson attend. Given their shared connection to the school, Martin’s reputation as a lepidopterist, and Costa Rica being a major migration center for the creatures, the anniversary edition of El Autobus Azul seemed a tailor-made opportunity to once again collaborate.

Further details and images can be seen on the HM News page.

Coincidental Pleasures

The Warwick Press has recently published Coincidental Pleasures: Printing & Farming, an essay by Bob Baris that was originally published in Matrix 24. Coincidental Pleasures consists of Bob’s reflections on his life as a printer and as a farmer and is a great read. The details:

Seventy-five copies of Bob Baris’s book were designed, illustrated, letterpress printed and hand bound by Carol J. Blinn. The text paper is Zerkall Book and the typefaces are Adobe Jenson Pro with Zapfino for display. Fifty copies are bound using Carol’s decorative paste papers; twenty-five copies are bound using dyed limp sheep vellum in a variety of beautiful, earth colored tones.

75 copies; 6 by 8 ½ inches high; 32 pages;
8 hand colored line drawings; signed by Bob and Carol

$ 375.00 paste paper binding
$ 575.00 sheep vellum binding

Greyweathers Press Blog

Larry Thompson of Greyweathers Press has started a blog: http://greyweathers.wordpress.com. As readers of Bibliographica may recall, Larry is an excellent writer, so his blog is a particularly welcome addition to the fine press blogosphere.

[Credit where credit is due: I learned about the Greyweathers blog from Richard Coxford]

Two New Books from David Esslemont

David Esslemont has recently completed two books:

The Prelude
William Wordsworth
Edited by Robert Woof with an Introduction by Stephen Gill
Watercolours by David Esslemont
Published by The Wordsworth Trust

Designed and printed in Minneapolis by David Esslemont. Set in Adobe Bembo and printed from photopolymer plates on Zerkall mould-made acid-free paper in an edition of 200 copies:
10 copies in a special binding by David Esslemont, with an extra set of illustrations, including one not printed in the book – £2,500
190 copies bound by Ludlow Bookbinders in full grey cloth, in a cloth-covered slipcase – £400 (only 170 copies for sale).
380 pp., 290 x 185 mm. (11.4 x 7.3 inches).
For further details and to order copies please contact:
The Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage, Grasmere, Cumbria, LA22 9SH, UK
Telephone: 015394 35544

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All in Good Time by George Daniels

This revised edition of George Daniels’ autobiography is published by Peoples Archive Ltd. It includes a new section about motor cars, an index and is illustrated with colour plates of six watches and six motorcars, together with eleven drawings of escapements.

Each of the watches is illustrated with two colour plates printed back-to-back showing the face on one side and the back or escapement on the other side. There are two wrist-watches: a one-minute tourbillon and a four-minute tourbillon both with the Daniels coaxial escapement. The four pocket-watches include a one-minute tourbillon with Earnshaw spring-detent escapement; a one-minute tourbillon with fifteen-second remontoir; a one-minute tourbillon with Daniels coaxial escapement; and a solar and sidereal watch with Chronograph.

The book is designed, printed and bound by David Esslemont a distinguished maker of fine books whose honours include the Premio Felice Feliciano award for book design.

The text is printed ‘letterpress’ from photopolymer plates while the illustrations are printed using the latest archival inkjet process. The paper chosen for the book is a mould-made, acid-free paper from the Zerkall mill in Germany.

The book is hand-sewn on linen tapes with hand-sewn endbands and leather-jointed endleaves. The boards are covered with light brown Nigerian goatskin leather with a ‘watch spring’ spiral in gold extending across the front, back and spine. At the centre of the spiral is a recessed panel covered by a watch glass containing a wheel made by George Daniels himself. The book is presented in a felt-lined, cloth-covered, drop-back box.

Published in a limited edition of twenty-seven copies for sale by Peoples Archive Ltd to celebrate George Daniels’ eightieth birthday.
277 pp., 19 coloured plates, 320 x 220 mm (12.6 x 8.7 inches)
Price $6000
For further information contact:
GD Book, Peoples Archive Ltd, Middlesex House,
34-42 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4LB
Telephone +44(0)20 7631 9922 email gdbook@peoplesarchive.com

“Hung out to dry”

Incline Press has recently published another celebration of the broadsheet and other ephemera:

Hung out to Dry
A typographic extravaganza
83 pages, 14 x 10 inches, the book has a cloth spine and marbled paper over boards, and is housed in a cloth-covered slipcase.

Single-sheet printing feeds the creative energy at Incline Press like nothing else. While we take much serious pleasure in seeing a book through from its manuscript beginnings to its completion in the bindery, printing ephemera sets us free to play.

Hung Out to Dry is a scrapbook of the last seven years of printers’ play. Sixty-seven examples of such ephemera include broadsheets, slip songs, handbills, keepsakes, bookmarks, bookplates, and small posters displaying more than 60 typefaces from Arrighi to Weiss. A wide variety of rare borders, stock blocks, wood engravings and linocuts decorate them. Texts include classic poetry, bookish extracts and amusing quotations.

A descriptive text, set in 12 point Garamond, puts each piece into context, describing the type and ornaments used and the occasion for which it was printed.

The Special edition has sold out, but copies of the standard edition are still available, bound by Chris Hicks with a cloth spine and marbled paper boards . The prospectus advertises this book without a slipcase, but once it was bound we realised that it needed casing, and have set the price accordingly at £175 post paid.

FPBA Announcements

Bob McCamant sent along this notice from the most recent FPBA E-Newsletter:

Fall is the active season for book fairs, and 2007 was no exception.

Oak Knoll Fest, October 6 and 7, included Johanna Drucker speaking on her history with letterpress printing, and then a panel about education in the fine press field chaired by Tim Murray, Head of Special Collections at the University of Delaware, and including Kathy Walkup, Ashley Pigford, David Comberg, and Katherine McCanless Ruffin. More than 40 presses (including several academic ones) participated in the book fair. We also held our annual meeting, and I assumed the chair of the North American branch, and Jim Beall and Mark McMurray joined the board.

November 3 and 4, 2007 brought the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair in Oxford, England, cosponsored by the UK Branch of FPBA along with the Provincial Booksellers Association there. More than 60 presses participated, and speakers included Walter Bachinski, Rigby Graham, Dave Farey, Carolyn Trant, and Nigel Bents.

Parenthesis 13 has now been distributed in North America (UK to follow shortly) and Parenthesis 14 is expected in early winter. Odd-numbered journals are edited by Paul Razell (inferno_press@mac.com) and published by the North American branch. Even-numbered journals are edited by Sebastian Carter (sebastianc@waitrose.com) and published by UK branch.

If you are a press (and a member) we can include a short note about your new books in this e-newsletter. Just fill in the online registration form. The form also allows you to request an entry in the next issue of Parenthesis, and in the Private Libraries Association’s periodical Private Press Books.

You might like to offer a copy for review in Parenthesis. The online registration form also allows you to make the offer. A member of the Parenthesis team will contact you to arrange it. If necessary, we can also arrange the book’s return after review.
Tell your friends interested in membership from North America that they should contact Morva Gowans (FPBA_Morva@shaw.ca) and those from elsewhere in the world Maggie Walker (margaretjudithwalker@btinternet.com).

Our common web site is about to physically move from the UK to North America, but it’s address will remain www.fpba.com. Only minor changes are expected with the change. However, a totally new web site is now in the works. Martyn Ould has located a college class which will undertake a complete redesign of the site, following guidelines gleaned from board members and others on both sides of the Atlantic. If all goes according to schedule, the new web site should appear in June.