Harpers Woods, MI: The Adagio Press, 1969. Hardcover. INTERESTING ASSOCIATION COPY WITH RELATED MATERIAL LAID IN.  This beautiful copy is inscribed by author John Dreyfus to noted Chicago book collector and philanthropist Samuel R. Rosenthal, "for Sam R Rosenthal after a splendid evening John Dreyfus 16 December 1978 Chicago."  Rosenthal and his wife, Marie-Louise, had a pre-eminent book collection that concentrated on livres d'artistes, illustrated books, and private press. This is 39 of 75 folio copies issued with one vellum leaf and one handmade paper leaf laid in from books printed at the Doves Press. There were 329 copies originally printed of this Adagio Press edition (although fewer than 180 were offered for sale), each with two Doves Press leaves: 12 with  both Doves Press leaves printed on vellum; 75 with one leaf on vellum and the second on handmade paper; and 242 with both leaves printed on handmade paper. This copy has an octavo vellum leaf from Goethe's "Faust," issued in 1906, and a folio double leaf on paper with Leviticus 16-22 from the famed Dove's Bible. The Adagio Press was founded in the late 1950s by Leonard Bahr, who signed the colophon.  In Roderick Cave's The Private Press, second edition, he cites the Bible as the most substantial title printed by the press.  In 1970, Strouse had sent two letters to Rosenthal, included with this copy, offering C-S The Master Craftsman. Strouse said that he would make Rosenthal's copy "a little special" by putting in a double leaf from the Bible. Two letters dated 1978 are laid in from Dreyfus to Rosenthal and his wife. These letters and the 1978 inscription indicate that he got to know Rosenthal around this time.  In one letter, Dreyfus expresses his appreciation for their expressions of sympathy over the tragic death of his son. There are a few handwritten additions to the text of Dreyfus's essay in this copy, which may have added when he inscribed the book, but this is conjecture. The book is hand sewn and bound in quarter vellum with Cockerell marbled paper covered boards and gilt title to spine.  It is printed in red and black Palatino Roman and Pascal types on handmade Tovil paper.  In addition to the Doves Press leaves, laid in are the prospectus, a mounted photograph of Cobden-Sanderson with Emery Walker developed from the original negative, a smaller copy of the photo, and a pamphlet issued in 1971 titled "A Letter from Stella."  This pamphlet reprints the text of the last letter written by Cobden-Sanderson to his daughter, Stella, a few hours before he died, with an introduction by Strouse. [54 pages.]  PRI/042309. Fine. More

University Park, TX: Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University, 1983. Hardcover. One of 275 copies (250 for sale) printed for the Bridwell Library by the famed Bird & Bull Press. An inscription in ink on the colophon states that this copy is "one of two printer's copies in a trial binding that was not used for the edition." This interesting book explores the famous feud between C.H. Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker over the ownership of the type of the renowned Doves Press. It offers a new perspective through the discovery by Michael Hornby, son of St John Hornby, of previously unknown correspondence between Cobden-Sanderson and St John Hornby, Sidney Cockerell, and Walker. The letters, mostly dated from 1906 to 1908, shed new light upon the controversy and provide fresh insight into the intensity of Cobden-Sanderson's preoccupation with the type. The unsigned inscription on the colophon was possibly written by Henry Morris, founder of the Bird & Bull Press. Morris founded his press in 1958 and continued to print their highly regarded letterpress books until his retirement in 2014. From Princeton University “…Morris’s publishing program has been a boon to the historian of the book. He is correct when he writes, ‘It pleases me to know that without the Bird & Bull, many books on worthwhile, albeit esoteric subjects would probably never have been published.’ And all these works have been printed by letterpress from metal type on either Henry’s own handmade or on imported mould-made papers.” The inscription is written to Abe Lerner and Kit Currie "on the occasion of their visit here on Oct. 8/1983." Abe Lerner and his wife, Kit Currie, were both important figures in the world of books in the twentieth century. Abe Lerner (1908-2002) was a highly respected and talented typographer/book designer with links to the likes of the great Bruce Rogers. With a meticulous eye for detail and clean design, he was constantly working on new projects. With a career that landed him as the Director of Design and Production at Macmillan, President of the Typophiles, and lecturer at the Grolier Club in New York, Abe Lerner was certainly one of the finest typographic designers of the 20th century. Kit Currie began her career in the antiquarian book trade as the personal assistant for London bookdealer Bertram Rota. She moved to California in 1964 and began working at Dawson’s Book Shop in Los Angeles, where she stayed for 14 years. She moved to New York City in 1977 with her husband, noted typographer and graphic designer Abe Lerner. Unable to find work initially, Currie ventured to start her own bookselling business, and issued her first and only catalog in the winter of 1977-1978. Soon afterward, however, she was offered a position with H. P. Kraus. Bound in brown paper covered boards with brown cloth spine. Title debossed in blind to front cover. Minimal wear to corners. Text pages are clean and bright. Printed in Centaur types on Bugra Bütten paper. Folded prospectus is inserted. In fine condition. Octavo. 31 pages. PRI/102423. Fine. More

Gainesville, FL: Crooked Letter Press, 2014-2015. Hardcover. Number 35 of 50 copies signed and numbered by the book artist. Crooked Letter Press is the imprint of book artist and graphic designer, Ellen Knudson. Ellen is currently Associate in Book Arts at The University of Florida. She holds an MFA in Book Arts from The University of Alabama. Ellen has been a book artist for 17 years and a professional graphic designer for 20+ years . She has taught letterpress printing and Book Arts at The University of Florida, The University of Alabama, and graphic design at Mississippi State University and Wayne State University. Her work is in the collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Yale University, The Library of Congress, and many other national and international collections. Ellen Knudson describes her perceptive and imaginative book as composed of mysterious structures, imagined genomes, and fictitious chemistry - that are "ALL TRUE." She explains that Made Up is a non-scientific science book about the imaginary cellular composition of the human body. The artist, who wrote, designed, and letterpress printed this work has identified both positive and negative human attributes such as anger, curiosity, fear, joy, knowledge, and trust among others. She has then created colorful replicas of the cells that host these attributes to show their composition and their effects on the host body. There is also an often witty description of each type of cell, its qualities, and its effect on other cells. Bound in brown paper covered boards with a cell-like design and a tan linen spine. Titling in gilt to spine. Bright yellow endpapers. The book is printed on Mohawk Superfine 100# text weight paper. The typefaces used are Spectrum and Franklin Gothic Condensed printed from photopolymer plates. The cell images are multi-block and reduction linoleum prints. The structure is a drum-leaf binding. It is housed in a brown cloth clamshell box with an opening cut into the front cover that reveals part of a cell's image. In fine condition. Measures 6 x 12 inches. Unpaginated. PRI/030923. Fine. More

Wales: Gwasg Gregynog, 2007. Hardcover. Number 193 of 300 copies. This book collects twelve writings commissioned to celebrate the life and work of the artist Sir Kyffin Williams, R.A. Among the contributors are Nigel Williams, Jan Morris, Anthony Jones, and the Marquess of Anglesey. Illustrated with a selection of the artist’s linocuts, some previously unpublished. The endpaper design is from Sir Kyffin’s original drawing for the covers of the special binding of Two Old Men. Printed in Monotype Bembo type on Zerkall mould-made paper. Bound in black quarter leather with blue cloth covers, blocked in black on the front cover and titled in gold on the spine. Presented in a blue linen slipcase. In fine condition. 84 pages. PRI/120811. Fine. More

Philadelphia: The Janus Press, 1962-63. Softcover. Number 34 of 45 numbered copies, with an additional 7 proof copies. Signed by Jerome Kaplan the creator of the striking black and white woodcuts. The book is also inscribed by Kaplan on the title page in pencil "For Margaret and Perino - 12-64 Jerry." Claire Van Vliet is the renowned book artist who founded the Janus Press in 1955 and has produced groundbreaking innovations in the book arts field for more than six decades. She is also a prolific painter and printmaker. In 1989 Van Vliet was honored with a MacArthur fellowship, the first ever awarded to a book artist. In 2017 Van Vliet was recognized with the Frederic W. Goudy Award for typographic excellence. The press is known particularly for its limited editions of mainly contemporary poets with original images in paper and all the printmaking media. The press focuses on the form of the book being dictated by the content and that has led to the development of innovative book structures. Van Vliet donated her collection and archives to the Library of Congress in 1991. A very scarce copy of this early work issued by the Janus Press. A later version was printed in 1974 in an edition of 300 copies. This is handsomely produced, with Kaplan's nine woodcuts, except for the frontispiece, facing the text pages where the Spanish text is printed in black and the English translation immediately below in gray. Bound in brown paper covers with a stab binding. Minor spotting to half title and the margins of a couple of pages. Printed in Monotype Bembo on cream Okawara paper. Near fine condition. Measures 7 x 11.75 inches. Unpaginated [18 pages] PRI/102523. Near Fine. More

Chicago: Sherwin Beach Press, 1992. Hardcover. Number 163 of 200 copies. "The Essence of Beeing" is an account by Michael Lenehan of two beekeepers: one who has hives on the roof of his apartment building in the city, and one who keeps bees on his farm in the country. In the process of describing the beekeepers and their work, the book tells a great deal of what is known about bees and honey. It was written by Michael Lenehan, executive editor of the Chicago Reader, where it appeared originally in 1977. Mr. Lenehan has contributed many pieces to the Reader during his more than 30-year association with it; he has also published elsewhere, notably in the Atlantic Monthly. Here, Alice Brown-Wagner has illustrated the text with drawings of the tools of beekeeping. "The laid-back style of the narrative belies well-packed information....It is a delightful essay....Binding and type were well and sensibly chosen. Any beekeeper would enjoy this for a generous present—as has, indeed, this reviewer. Others may find it tempts them toward one of the world’s absorbing occupations." —Colin Franklin, Bookways. The book was designed by Bob McCamant, hand set in 12 and 14 point Cooper Oldstyle by Alice Brown-Wagner, Kate Friedman, and Bob McCamant, and printed on Fabriano Roma Michelangelo by Bob McCamant. It was casebound, cloth over boards, by Ann Repp, and has a dust jacket of blind-embossed Roma Raffaello. 45 pages, 9 1/4 x 12 inches. Published in 1992, numbered but not signed. PRI/031620. Fine. More

Bennington, VT: The Bird Press, 2000. Since 1997, The Bird Press has been an artist-run publishing project that has focused on hand printed artists’ books. All projects utilize some inherent aspect of the book and often take the form of open-ended collaborations with writers. Each project is a response to the last, both in form and content, in order for the work to continually evolve. Poetry, broadly defined, is a major inspiration for most of the work. Editions between 15-40 utilize various print media including: flatbed offset lithography, stone lithography, etching, letterpress, wood blocks, and digital pigment printing. Book artist Thorsten Dennerline creates paintings, drawings, and prints in addition to artists’ books. He has exhibited work across the U.S. as well as in Chile and Denmark. His work is represented in numerous collections including Yale University Library, the Library of Congress, UCLA, Stanford University, and the Kunstindustri Musset (Denmark). Number 26 of 40 copies in the regular edition. There are also 10 special bindings and 5 unique artists proof bindings. Signed and numbered by the book artist. A collection of eight poems by Danish poet, typographer, art critic, and translator Peter Laugesen (1942 - ). He was awarded the Danish Critics Prize for Literature in 2003. These poems were written in Denmark in 1999 specifically for this collaborative project with artist Thorsten Dennerline. He describes his eight etchings in this book: “[They] are meant to be an accompaniment to the text that functions as a collaboration similar to the way musicians might play together.” Bound in quarter vellum over blue cloth boards, which are laced into a vellum covered spine with five strips of alum-tawed thongs. The endbands are buttonhole stitched with waxed yellow thread. The front cover is titled in black and the rear cover has a black star printed near the bottom edge. The text is in both Danish and English. The Danish text is printed on translucent Seikishu Japanese paper and the English translation is printed on a thicker stock. This allows the reader to view the poems in both languages mirroring each other through the transparent paper. Unpaginated. [50 pages.] Size: 9.75 x 10 inches. In fine condition. ARTB/032417. Fine. More

"Tranquility," Southern MD: The Prototype Press, 2023. Hardcover. One of 28 copies. This is a handsome and inventive edition of Kipling's famous short story from The Jungle Book about a mongoose, Rikki-Tikki, who bravely battles two large cobras that threaten the family who adopted him. After a devastating flood separates Rikki-Tikki from his parents, a family finds the mongoose and nurses him back to health.  Mark Sarigianis writes: My first introduction to Kipling’s Rikki-tikki-tavi was through the Chuck Jones animated film. Although it was made before my time, a home-recorded VHS from a network rerun was in my childhood home. Even at an early age, I knew there was something serious and cared for in the art direction and style, especially when compared to the standard Saturday morning cartoons of the day. When my oldest child fell in love with the cartoon last year, printing an edition of the original story seemed like an easy choice for the press. It was not until reaching out to the Chuck Jones estate that the project took on an unusual direction for a fine press edition. The estate did a fantastic job archiving early sketches that Chuck made for the movie, and as I looked through them, I was drawn to a series focused specifically on the evolution of the titular character and his movements. This is the series that made it into the book, printed from photopolymer plates made from high resolution scans of the sketches. The artwork focuses on Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, while the book's design elements are meant to evoke the stories king cobra villains, Nag and Nagaina.  He continues to write about Chuck Jones: "In a career spanning over 70 years, American animator-director Charles Martin Jones (1912-2002), more famously known as Chuck Jones, forged a legacy during the Golden Age of Animation, creating some of the most acclaimed and brilliantly designed cartoons and films during his lifetime. He made more than 300 animated films, winning three Oscars as director and in 1996 an honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement. Jones's animation mastery was unparalleled. His character creations, such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, have possibly inspired more laughter across the globe over six generations than any other film maker."  The typeface used for the text is handset Italian Old Style, designed by Frederic Goudy. The gold-foiled typeface in various sizes is Libra, designed by Sjoerd Henrik de Roos, which was chosen to reference the use of an Uncial typeface in the movie. The pages were printed damp on custom handmade cotton paper from The Saint-Armand paper mill with a cobra watermark (which is a bit difficult to see). It is half-bound in black goat leather with green paper covers. A copy of the 1975 animated film is included on a USB drive and the book is housed in a slipcase. In fine condition. It measures 11x15 inches. 25 pages + colophon. With prospectus. The Prototype Press is operated by Mark Sarigianis and is based in Southern Maryland. It was originally founded by David Johnston in 2011 as Sharp Teeth Press in San Francisco. Mark and David rebranded as The Prototype Press in 2014 in Oakland shortly before David tragically passed away in 2015. By producing fine press books, the press aims at fulfilling its primary mission of preserving the traditions of typecasting, letterpress printing and hand bookbinding. Fine. PRI/091223. Fine. More

Toronto: George Walker, 2008. Hardcover. Number 9 of 11 copies in this special second edition, limited and signed. The Book of Hours pays tribute in a series of 99 engraved prints to those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center on 9/11. “Although international politics is often central to discussions of 9/11, Book of Hours focus on innocent life lost adds emotional urgency to the issue of who and what is responsible ... [It] is called Book of Hours because it is an exploration, condemnation, and celebration of our culture’s devotion to time, and the way our regimented routines can reassure and also stifle us” (George Walker, preface). The visual narrative begins several hours before the attack - capturing the normal routines of American life. The timeline continues through the fall of the towers up to several days after the attacks, showing disruption to routines and the emotional impact on everyone as life went on.  The book is printed on Yuki Gampi paper from the original wood blocks. Bound in handmade bright orange paper wrappers with paper label to front wrapper. Housed in a custom made wooden box with paper title label to front panel. The box comes with a folding wooden display stand. Clean and bright in fine condition. Engraved, printed, and bound by George A. Walker. 189 pages.  PRI/071122. Fine. More

Risbury, England: Whittington Press, 2007. Hardcover. Number 21 of 70 copies of the deluxe edition. There were 750 total copies printed including 680 copies of the regular edition. This is one of the special copies of the annual publication of Matrix, one of the foremost publications on the book arts during its 36 year existence. Sadly, Matrix 36, published in 2020, was the last annual edition of the Matrix series. After 36 years, Whittington Press owners, John and Rose Randle, decided to discontinue producing this fine annual on the book arts for printers and bibliophiles that compiled articles, illustrations, paper and typography samples and book reviews. This issue includes a number of articles by such well-known bibliophiles and book artists as Gaylord Schanilec, Abigail Rorer, John Randle, Sebastian Carter, and William Peterson. Interspersed throughout are photographs, printing samples, and illustrations. Inserted in a back pocket is the prospectus for this volume. Quarter bound in yellow Oasis leather with black, gray, and orange marbled boards. Letterpress printed in a number of types including Joanna, Goudy Modern, Times Roman and Poliphilus, and Centaur types on Somerville Laid and Hahnemühle papers. The deluxe copy includes a separate mauve paper covered folder holding two large linocuts by John Smith and Andrew Anderson. Both volume and folder are housed in a mauve stiff board slipcase. In fine condition. Volumes measure 8 x 11 inches. BOB/102621. Fine. More