Private Press
The Right Eye of the Commander: A New Year's Legend of Spanish California
Berkeley: Wilder & Ellen Bentley (Archetype Press), 1937. Hardcover. An unnumbered limited edition of 350 copies, this copy lacking the colophon / limitation page. A story about the Commander of San Carlos, who lost an eye during a conflict with Native Americans. Locals believe that the eye, which appears to be restored, possesses magical powers. This copy is in a design binding, 1 of 2 copies created by Pamela S. Wood at her bindery, Rarehare Creations in 2019. The second copy is in the collection of the Wilder Bentley Archive at the San Francisco Public Library.
It is bound in black cloth with grey pastepaper covered boards and hand decorated pastedowns created by the binder. Casebound with exposed white thread tackets secured with metal grommets on spine. Paper title, author, and publisher labels as well as black textured paper pieces are inlaid in both boards. Clean and bright with grey endpapers. Slight bow to front board. Housed in an off white cloth covered clamshell box with black trays. Inlaid title, author, publisher, and decorative papers to front and spine panels. The binding, box, pastepapers, and pastedowns were all designed and created by Pamela Wood. The book was finely hand printed at the Archetype Press by Wilder and Ellen Bentley with woodcut illustrations throughout. Unpaginated. [24 pages.] Book Size: quarto, about 10.25 x 6.75 inches.
Academically trained in fine art, Pamela received a BFA in Printmaking from Kent State University and did post-graduate studies in graphic design at Cleveland Institute of Art. Pamela works primarily in paper and book arts and continues to exhibit her one-of-a-kind books at various art centers and museums, both nationally and internationally. Many of her artist's books have been acquired by different local, national, and international libraries and museums for their permanent collections. She has been the recipient of several professional development grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and was the recipient of a fellowship from the Women's Studio Workshop in New York. Pamela has studied at The American Academy of Bookbinding and with numerous master binders, including Helene Jolis, Don Glaister, and Monique Lallier. She produces fine bindings and artist’s books full time in her Tempe, AZ studio, Rarehare Creations. ARTB/071725. Fine. More
The Case of the Wolf-Man
San Francisco: Arion Press, 1993. Hardcover. Number 126 of 250 numbered copies, signed by the artist on his artist's statement preceding the text. There were also 26 lettered copies for private distribution. This was the forty-first publication of the Press. The text of this book is "From the History of an Infantile Neurosis" that was reprinted in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVII, pages 7-122, translated from the German under the editorship of James Strachey. The Wolf-Man was the pseudonym given by Freud to his patient, a young Russian man named Sergei Pankejeff. Freud's analysis of the Wolf-Man became his most famous case, centering on the interpretation of dreams and childhood sexuality. In addition to the text of Freud's study, this book includes an erudite and detailed discussion of Freud's work and influence by Richard Wollheim. Wollheim was a British philosopher noted for original work on mind and emotions, especially as related to the visual arts, specifically, painting.
The striking woodcuts and etchings illustrating the book were done by Jim Dine (b. 1935). He is a well-known American artist who rose to prominence in late-1950’s New York. He was closely associated with the Pop Art movement. An innovator throughout his long career, Dine’s extensive output includes paintings, assemblages, sculptures, drawings, prints, and over twelve books of poetry. He has been the subject of more than 300 solo exhibitions around the world, including eleven major surveys and retrospectives since 1970. The book was designed, printed and bound at the Arion Press under the direction of Andrew Hoyem.
Bound in gray cloth with a black cloth spine with titling in silver. The front cover has an image by Dine of a young boy confronting a wolf. Printed in Century Old Style type for the text, with Century Expanded italic and Miller & Richard Old Style capitals for display. The text paper is Johannot mouldmade in France. The etchings and woodcuts are on T.H. Saunders Drawing paper, mouldmade in England. The intaglio prints were editions by Pace Editions in New York. The book is housed slipcase covered in black paper with gray cloth trim with a black title label to spine. Accompanied by prospectus. Book is in fine condition in a near fine slipcase. Measures 10 x 12.5 inches. 114 pages plus illustrations. PRI/103024. Fine. More
A Delicate Balance
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2011. Hardcover. Number 152 of 300 numbered copies for sale, of which 50 copies were reserved for the Aurora Theatre Company, and 26 lettered copies for complimentary distribution. Signed by the playwright and the illustrator on the colophon. This edition was published by the Arion Press on the occasion of the opening of the Aurora Theatre Company's season in September 2011, its 20th anniversary, with a new production of this play by Edward Albee. It was issued as the 7th work work in the Press's drama series, honoring America's great contemporary playwrights. Edward Albee (1928 - 2016) was a major American playwright who won three Pulitzer Prizes for drama, and a Tony Award for Best Play. In his perceptive introduction theater critic David Littlejohn asks, "By what verbal and imaginative magic does Albee manage to transform stories as mean and vicious as these, relationships so full of contentiousness and spite, into profound and moving theatrical experiences?" [from the prospectus] Tom Holland (1936 - ) is a well known artist based in Berkeley, California. He was a friend of Albee, who suggested him as the artist for this book. There are three illustrations in the book and one on the front cover. They are reproductions of watercolors, printed digitally and tipped into and onto the book. Littlejohn wrote that drinking, as Tom Holland's illustrations suggest, played a large part in this play, as it did in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. This handsome volume is bound in lavender cloth over boards, with an inset on the front cover containing a Holland illustration. It has a purple goatskin spine, with the title stamped in silver foil. Letterpress printed on Revere, an Italian mouldmade paper using American Garamond and Univers types. Accompanied by the prospectus that includes a special invitation inviting the recipient to a publication party for this edition at which the playwright, writer of the introduction, and artist were present. There is also a copy of a letter sent to press subscribers with information about this publication and the forthcoming publication of the Press for that year, Poetry of Sappho. In fine condition with the slightest sunning to the spine. Measures 6.25 x 9.25 inches. 172 pages. PRI/110424. Fine. More
Trout Fishing in America
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2003. Hardcover. Number 316 of 400 copies. Of the edition, 200 copies have a color lithograph by Wayne Theibaud signed by the artist. This copy is the standard edition and does not have the lithograph. Brautigan's early book, published in 1967 became an instant cult classic. Richard Brautigan was a literary idol of the 1960s and '70s who came of age during the heyday of Haight-Ashbury and whose comic genius and iconoclastic vision of American life caught the imaginations of young people everywhere. Called “the last of the Beats,” his early books became required reading for the hip generation, and on its publication Trout Fishing in America became an international bestseller. The book was designed and produced by the Press under the direction of Andrew Hoyem. In the prospectus, Hoyem describes is long friendship with Brautigan and how this book came to be published by his press. It is bound in gray cloth with a blue cloth backing with title in black to spine. The title and author name along with a whimsical illustration of a fish are on the front cover. Printed in Bookman type on Mohawk Superfine paper. The photographic portrait of the author was printed by Watermark Graphics in San Francisco. Accompanied by the prospectus. In fine condition. Measures 7.25 x 10 inches. 124 pages. PRI/103024. Fine. More
The Moonstone
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2012. Hardcover. Number 101 of 300 numbered copies signed by the illustrator. There were 26 lettered copies for complimentary distribution. Designed and produced by Andrew Hoyem. This is the ninety-fifth publication of the Press. This is an elegant edition of the famed novel by Wilkie Collins, first published in 1868. Collins (1824-1889) is perhaps best known for this early work, which established many of the ground rules of the modern detective novel and is also perhaps the earliest clear example of the police procedural genre. [Wikipedia] It was serialized in" All the Year Round" from January to August 1868. Bound in dark blue cloth with titling in yellow to spine. The black and white illustrations throughout the book are by the well known artist Stan Washburn. Printed on Mohawk Letterpress paper using Inland Caslon, Caslon Bold Condensed, and Mediaeval types. The illustrations were printed from photopolymer plates. Housed in a slipcase covered with yellow paper and dark blue cloth with yellow titling to spine. Affixed to the spine is a yellow Swarovski crystal symbolizing the moonstone of the novel. In fine condition. Measures 6.25 x 9.5 inches. 458 pages plus colophon. Fine. More
Mrs. Bridge
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2009. Hardcover. Number 5 of 300 numbered copies for sale and 26 lettered copies for complimentary distribution. Evan Connell has signed, in pencil on the last page of text. Laurie Simmons has signed below her photograph on the last page. This was the eighty-fifth publication of the press, issued on the fiftieth anniversary of the novel's publication in 1959. The prospectus calls this a quiet masterpiece of mid-twentieth century fiction....Evan Connell (1924-2013) has long been considered the overlooked master of the American novel, with Mrs. Bridge and its companion, Mr. Bridge among the notable achievements of his early career. They go on to say that Connell's reputation has been a puzzle to his legions of admirers. A writer of talent and dedication who has published twenty books yet is nevertheless absent from the literary pantheon of his generation. According to Mark Oppenheimer, author of the introduction, this novel "is probably the great feminist novel written by a man." Of the 68 photographs in this book by well known photographer, Laurie Simmons, 34 are in black and white and 34 are in color. The illustrations are unexpectedly and creatively of domestic scenes with miniature furniture and small dolls representing Mrs. Bridge. Bound in full yellow Iris cloth with color photographs by Simmons on the front and back covers and black title on the spine. Printed on Mohawk Superfine paper in Binny type. Designed and produced by Andrew Hoyem. Accompanied by the prospectus. In fine condition. Measures 8 x 10.5 inches. 274 numbered pages and 68 unnumbered pages for the photographs. PRI/112024. Fine. More
The Waste Land
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2007. Hardcover. Number 297 of 300 numbered copies of this deluxe edition of Eliot's seminal poem. There were also 26 lettered copies for complimentary distribution. This is the 79th publication from the acclaimed Arion Press. In the prospectus the book is described as the first illustrated edition of Thomas Stearns Eliot's most important work. This is a complex and elegant presentation of Eliot's literary masterpiece that he wrote in the aftermath of the carnage and violence of the first world war and the devastation of a global pandemic. The book is in sections described by the publisher as partitions. There first is an essay on the poem by noted poetry scholar, Helen Vendler. The poem is interspersed with, in detail and entire, the painting "If Not, Not" by R.B. Kitaj. Kitaj ( 1932 – 2007) was an American artist who spent much of his life in England. He had a significant influence on British pop art, with his figurative paintings featuring areas of bright color, economic use of line and overlapping planes which made them resemble collages, but eschewing most abstraction and modernism. Allusions to political history, art, literature and Jewish identity often recur in his work, mixed together on one canvas to produce a collage effect. [Wikipedia] In an essay by Marco Livingstone describing the poem, written by Kitaj in 1975-76 as an ambitious, mysterious and haunting work that occupies a key position in his history as The Waste Land does in Eliot's. Kitaj in fact took inspiration from Eliot's poem and stated that his picture bears a certain allegiance to it.
The Waste Land was edited, designed, and produced by Andrew Hoyem at his Arion Press. The types are handset 18 point Bauer Bodoni for the poem with larger sizes for display and 12 point Bodoni Book for subsidiary text. Printed on Somerset Book for the text, with Mohawk Superfine for the pictorial pages, printed by color offset lithography. Bound in gray cloth with the title in brown on the front cover and the title, author, and artist on the spine. The binding and the text and pictorial pages are all in fine condition. Accompanied by the prospectus. Measures 12 x 12.5 inches. 68 pages. PRI/092024. Fine. More
The Maltese Falcon
San Francisco: Arion Press, 1983. Hardcover. One of 400 copies printed under the direction of Andrew Hoyem, the press proprietor. It was the eleventh publication of the press. This copy is inscribed on the colophon: "To Joe Costello/29 VIII 83/Andrew Hoyem." This is a magnificent book from the Arion Press that more than does justice to this Hammett's novel. The preface describes this book as the apex of his work. The publishers write in a preface that "this edition is a tribute to Hammett's achievement. The design of the book reflect the spirit of the period in which it was written while giving its format an enduring presence. The forty-six illustrations are photographs of San Francisco Bay Area locations named or established by Hammett in the narrative. Most pictures were shot around the time of the actual setting of the story, five days during 1928." There are notes at the end of the book identifying each photo and its reference in the text." A few of the photographs are more recent and were provided by California photographer Edmund Shea. Bound by the Schuberth Bookbindery in gray cloth with a quarter leather black spine with silver titling. On the front and back covers are a striking and stylized image of a falcon done in black leather with silver trim and a red eye. Printed on Byron-Weston Linen Record paper using Bodoni semi-bold and Corvinus medium types. The photo-lithography was by Phelps-Schaefer. Housed in a gray cloth covered slipcase with a black leather spine label with silver titling. In fine condition. Measures 8.25 x 10.25 inches. 291 pages plus photographs. PRI/103124. Fine. More
A Day in the Bleachers
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2006. Number 284 of 400 numbered copies with additional lettered copies for private distribution. Signed by the author and the illustrator. This is a delightful book by Arnold Hano, who attended the 1954 World Series between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians. The book was published with great delight by the proprietor of the Arion Press, who was a devoted season ticket-holder at the San Francisco Giants stadium. It was originally published in 1955 by Thomas Y. Crowell. It was soon recognized as a classic of the genre and has been in print continuously since then. Arnold Hano (1922 – 2021) was an American editor, novelist, biographer and journalist, best known for his non-fiction work A Day in the Bleachers, a critically acclaimed eyewitness account of Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, that centered on its pivotal play, Willie Mays' famous catch and throw. The Catch was a baseball play made by New York Giants center fielder Willie Mays on September 29, 1954, during Game 1 of the 1954 World Series. In the eighth inning, with the score tied 2–2, Cleveland Indians batter Vic Wertz hit a deep fly ball to center field that had the runners on base poised to score. However, Mays made an over-the-shoulder catch while on the run to record the out, and his throw back to the infield prevented one of the runners from advancing. The Giants won the game 5–2 in extra innings, and eventually the World Series. The Catch is regarded as one of the greatest plays in baseball history.
The illustrator, Mark Ulriksen, is a highly regarded artist, perhaps best known for the witty covers he created for the New Yorker magazine. The book includes 14 illustrations in egg tempura, with one in color and the others in shades of white, gray, and black. They are printed as single page to triple spread foldouts. Bound in blue cloth with black titling to spine and a black and white inset reproduction of the book's illustration titled "seventh-inning stretch" on the front cover. Printed on Zerkall Book Laid paper using Cushing Old Style and Stationers Gothic Bold types. The endpapers show the game's box score for September 29, 1954. A handsome copy in fine condition. Accompanied by the prospectus. Measures 7.5 x 11 inches. 172 pages plus 14 sewn in leaves for the illustrations. PRI/110724. Fine. More
Selected Poems
San Francisco: Arion Press, 1995. Number 200 of 250 numbered copies, with 26 lettered copies hors de commerce. It is the forty-seventh publication of the Arion Press and rather scarce with no copies in commerce. The book shares characteristics with the sixth publication of the press, Moby-Dick, by the same author, of 1979, in that the same typeface is used, Goudy Modern ... it is printed on the same paper, which was made for that edition by hand to the specifications of the press at the Barcham Green Mill in England and bears watermarks of the mill, the press, and of a sperm whale; and the same artist, Barry Moser, has engraved a new portrait of Herman Melville on Resingrave for the frontispiece. The text type was composed and cast on the Monotype by Mackenzie & Harris. The display type is Goudy Open and was set by hand. The book was designed and produced by Andrew Hoyem and conceived in many ways as a companion to the 1979 Moby Dick, one of the most important press books of the twentieth century." [from the Prospectus]. This book was suggested to Hoyem by the renowned scholar of poetry, Helen Vendler. She regarded Melville as among the greatest American poets of the 19th century and was eager to make a selection that would show the variety of his best poetry. Despite the importance attached to his poems today by scholars and critics, seldom did readers have any appreciation for Melville the poet.
Bound in bright blue cloth with darker blue dyed leather goatrskin bands left over from the earlier Moby Dick. The bands run across the top and bottom edges of the book with title and author in silver foil. Printed on octavo sized paper of 6.75 x 9 7/8 inches using Goudy Modern type in a smaller point size than the 1979 volume. Top page edges trimmed, while the fore-edge and bottom edges are untrimmed. The signatures were folded by hand and each copy was sewn by hand with linen thread over linen tapes. Housed in a blue cloth slipcase with blue goatskin title label to spine. Accompanied by the prospectus. In fine condition. Measures 7 x 10 inches. 156 numbered pages. PRI/110424. Fine. More
The Nachman Stories
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2009. Hardcover. Number 48 of 300 numbered copies for sale and 26 lettered copies for complimentary distribution. This was the first collected edition of The Nachman Stories, the author's stories with Los Angeles mathematician Raphael Nachman as their hero. Written at the end of the author's life between 1997 and 2003. Leonard Michaels (1933-2003) was a prolific writer who received a Ph.D in English in 1967 and in 1969 became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from which he retired in 1994. This book contains nine photographic portraits of Michaels, They were taken over the course of his career as a writer between 1962 and 1995 and are arranged in chronological order with the exception of the frontispiece. This is a large octavo bound in full blue cloth, Iris Wisteria, with a titling band of Japanese Yatsuo handmade mustard colored paper running diagonally across the cover. The endpapers are gray mouldmade Italian Tiziano. Printed in Janson type with Caslon figures for the text and Univers for display, on gray Basingwerk paper. Accompanied by the prospectus. In fine condition. Measures 6.5 x 9 7/8 inches. 164 pages. Fine. More
The Price: A Play
San Francisco: Arion Press, 1999. Hardcover. Number 280 of 300 numbered copies with 26 lettered copies hors de commerce. Signed by Arthur Miller on the half title page and by the illustrator on the colophon. This is a handsome edition of Miller's well known play. The Price is a two-act play written in 1967 by Arthur Miller. It is about family dynamics, the price of furniture and the price of one's decisions. The play premiered on Broadway in 1968, and has been revived four times on Broadway. It was nominated for two 1968 Tony Awards. [Wikipedia] According to the prospectus, the NYT drama critic wrote following a new production in 1999 that The Price is one of the great Miller works. It ranks alongside Death of a Salesman. The eight black and white illustrations by Stan Washburn (1943 - ) all depict furniture found in an attic. He is a painter, printmaker, and, more recently, a writer. His art is in the collections of the Achenbach Foundation, the Brooklyn Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Portland Art Museum, among others. He has illustrated a number of Arion Press editions. Bound in a golden brown cloth with an additional illustration by Washburn of a clock that is inset on the front cover. A cream title label to spine. The type is Goudy Old Style and letterpress printed on Zerkall mouldmade paper from Germany. Housed in a slipcase with cloth edges and paper sides with a design of Dollar signs. Accompanied by the prospectus. In fine condition. Measures 7 x 10 inches. 112 numbered pages plus 16 unnumbered pages for the illustrations. PRI/111624. Fine. More
Paradise Lost: A Poem in Twelve Books
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2002. Hardcover. Number 174 of 400 numbered copies for sale, with 26 lettered copies printed for complimentary distribution. This is a beautiful production of Milton's immortal work. The printer Andrew Hoyem writes that this edition pays typographic tribute to two earlier editions of Milton's epic poem: the second edition of 1674, the year of Milton's death, and the second Baskerville edition of 1759, which Hoyem owned and long admired. This edition is presented without explanatory footnotes and omits the Barrow and Marvell poems. However, the earlier examples of textual scholarship prompted the press to obtain a new textual version and to provide an introduction written especially for this edition by the renowned scholar Helen Vendler that offers a fresh perspective on the work. Miltonist John T. Shawcross developed a modernized text. Bound in black cloth with a brown leather spine label with titling in gilt. Light sunning to spine and label. Printed Goudy Text and Baskerville types on special wove paper made for the press by the Zerkall mill in Germany. The arrangement of pages emulates those of the Baskerville edition but with significant differences as described in the colophon. Housed in a black cloth slipcase with a purple leather title label to spine. With a fleur de lis design on the front cover in light purple. Slipcase has evidence of handling and a shallow bump to the top edge. Overall in about fine condition in a very good slipcase. Does not include prospectus or portfolio. Measures 6 7/8 inches by 10 inches. 397 pages including colophon. PRI/111324. Fine in very good slipcase. More
Tartuffe: Comedy in Five Acts, 1669
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2004. Hardcover. Number 283 of 300 numbered copies for sale with 26 lettered copies hors de commerce. Signed by the translator and the illustrator on the colophon. In the prospectus, the Arion Press publisher, Andrew Hoyem, describes how he came to select Tartuffe to be published by his press. He wrote to the noted poet and translator, Richard Wilbur, to ask him whether the press could use his translation of this play. Wilbur wrote a newly revised introduction for this edition. Richard Wilbur (1921 - 2017)was an American poet and literary translator. One of the foremost poets of his generation, Wilbur's work, often employing rhyme, and composed primarily in traditional forms, was marked by its wit, charm, and gentlemanly elegance. Horem ran into William Hamilton at a party in Napa and thought that he might be an unusual but apt choice to do the illustrations. Hamilton (1939 - 2916) was an American cartoonist and playwright. He was most closely associated with the magazine The New Yorker. His drawing style was instantly recognizable and inimitable. Wikipedia] Bound in a burgundy moiré satin and stamped in gold with titling on the front cover and spine. Printed in Van Dijck type on Arches French mouldmade paper. With a protective acetate cover. Accompanied by the prospectus that unfolds to reveal a sample page of text and a Hamilton cartoon. In fine condition. Measures 11 x 14 7/8 inches. 120 pages. PRI/112224. Fine. More
Call It Sleep
San Francisco: Arion Press, 1995. Hardcover. Number 264 of 326 copies of which three hundred numbered copies signed by the author in pencil. Henry Roth (1905-1995) wrote this momentous novel in 1934. It was a first novel, completed at the age of twenty-seven. Reviews were mixed and the novel slipped quietly into obscurity. After marrying in 1939, Roth moved to Maine where he worked as a woodsman, a schoolteacher, a psychiatric attendant in the state mental hospital, a waterfowl farmer, and a Latin and math tutor. Little changed until 1964 when the book was issued in paperback. Overnight it shot to the top of the bestseller lists and was reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. It was praised by Alfred Kazin as "the most profound novel of Jewish life by an American."
Bound in gray-green cloth with a dark green goatskin spine with titling in gilt to spine. Letterpress printed in Bulmer type on Zerkall paper. There are 48 black and white photographs that were printed in duotone offset lithography. The photographs were taken in New York City at the approximate period in which the novel is set, 1907-1913. Housed in a slipcase printed in green, with images of brickwork, windows, and the door of a tenement building, emblematic of the windows the protagonist, David Schearl, looks in and out of. The box has two faint brown marks on the top. Accompanied by the prospectus. Other than the marks on the box, this is in about fine condition. Measures 7 x 10.25 inches. 434 numbered pages plus 48 unnumbered pages for the photographs. PRI/100124. Fine. More
A Lie of the Mind: A Play in Three Acts
San Francisco: Arion Press, 1993. Hardcover. Number 270 of 300 numbered copies with 26 lettered copies hors de commerce. Signed by the playwright and artist on the colophon. The prospectus describes the playwright Sam Shepard as a master of the American vernacular whose distinctive voice has galvanized American theater. He speaks a peculiar revelatory language; exact meanings may sometimes eludes, and we can become emotionally transfixed without understanding just why. It writes of Stan Washburn as a noted Bay Area artist. His fifteen illustrations for this edition were done with the technique that combines drawing in black ink and scratchboard for white lines. Bound with red paper over boards, sillkscreened with titling and an image by the artist. With a black leather spine with white titling. It was printed with Ehrhardt, Janson and De Vinne types on Lana Royal French mouldmade paper. In fine condition with an acetate wrapper. Accompanied by the prospectus but does not include the CD recording of music played for the first production of the play that was issued to accompany this edition. In fine condition. Measures 10 x 13 inches. 144 pages. Fine. More
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Three Volumes
San Francisco: Arion Press, 1988. Hardcover. One of four hundred copies. This is an adventuresome and inventive offering by the famed Arion Press. It is the 26th publication of the Press and is presented to the reader in three volumes. The first volume contains the complete text of the novel. The second volume is an essay of 42 pages by Sterne scholar Dr. Melvyn New of the University of Florida. Dr. New discusses Sterne's life and elucidates the complexities of Tristram Shandy for the first-time readers as well for those familiar with the book. The third volume is bound as an accordion fold and contains 39 photo-collages by the artist John Baldessari and each copy is signed by him. Baldessari (1931-2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. Initially a painter, Baldessari began to incorporate texts and photography into his canvases in the mid-1960s. In 1970 he began working in printmaking, film, video, installation, sculpture and photography.e created thousands of works which demonstrate—and, in many cases, combine—the narrative potential of images and the associative power of language within the boundaries of the work of art. [Wikipedia]
Volume I with the text is bound with threee quarter green leather with green and white marbled paper boards. The paper was marbled by hand by Eileen Canning of Dancing Inks in Olympia, Washington, who used a style reminiscent of the marbling done for the first edition in 1760 - 1767. Printed on all-cotton Curtis Ruysdael paper using Caslon Old Style type for the text. It is 620 pages. The second and third volumes are bound in green Curtis Brightwater Cover. All three volumes are unified by a 6.75 x 10.25 inches format and are contained in a single slipcase covered in green cloth with gilt titling to spine. Near fine with wear and sunning to the spine of Volume I. The two other volumes are in fine condition. Slipcase is fine overall with light sunning to spine. Accompanied by the prospectus. A stunning achievement by the Arion Press. PRI/100424. Near Fine. More
Williwaw
San Francisco: Arion Press, 1996. Hardcover. Number 92 of 250 numbered copies and 26 lettered copies, signed by the author. This edition of the author's first novel, published in 1946 when Vidal was 21 years old, was issued in its fiftieth anniversary year. The novel was based on his war-time service on an Army freighter in the Aleutians. Bound in black cloth with title label to spine. Printed in Hess Bold type on Schiller German mouldmade paper. A very nice copy in near fine condition, missing the dust jacket. Measures 8.5 x 11.5 inches. 119 pages plus colophon. PRI/111524. Near Fine. More
The Day of the Locust
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2913. Hardcover. Number 84 of 400 numbered copies signed by the photographer, Lucy Gray. There were also 26 lettered copies for complimentary distribution. The author of this pivotal work died at the age of 37 along with his wife in a car crash in 1940, a year after this book was published. It took years for the book to become recognized as an American classic and for critics to agree now that it is the best novel ever written about Hollywood. In his introduction, the film critic and historian David Thomson discusses the novel and its relationship to Hollywood and the movies in the Golden Age of the late thirties and its importance to American fiction. The twenty photographs were taken by Lucy Gray, an award winning photographer and film maker. She and David Thomson, writer of the introduction, are married.
The book was designed and produced by the Press under the direction of Andrew Hoyem. It is bound in a chartreuse cloth with green titling to the spine, and the word "Locust" on the cover with what appear to be a swarm of locusts. It is letterpress printed in Monotype Bodoni Book type on Italian Mouldmade Magnani Velata paper, lighter for the text and heavier for the photographs that are tipped into die-stamped recesses. The photographs are done in the manner of stills as if taken at night. They were printed in duotone over a metallic silver ground, overlaid with varnish. Housed in a green paper covered slipcase, edged in the chartreuse cloth. Accompanied by two copies of the prospectus, one of which has a slip stating that it is a revised prospectus. The first prospectus has a sample photograph from the book. In fine condition. Measures 7 x 9.75 inches. 180 numbered pages plus twenty unnumbered pages for the photographs. Fine. More
Leaves of Grass
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2014. Hardcover. Number 85 of 250 deluxe copies numbered in Arabic, with fifteen copies numbered in Roman for complimentary distribution. This was the 100th publication of the Arion Press. It is one of the most elegant and collectible books issued by the Press. The origins of Arion Press reach back to 1919, when the brothers Edwin and Robert Grabhorn came to San Francisco from Indianapolis. The brothers established the Grabhorn Press, which became one of the foremost fine printing establishments in the United States from the early 1920s to the mid-1960s. They were proponents of what the great bookmaker Bruce Rogers called “allusive printing,” in which the selection of type, decoration, and page layout alluded to aspects of the books’ contents. When the Grabhorn Press closed in 1965, Robert Grabhorn partnered with Andrew Hoyem. Together, Grabhorn-Hoyem preserved and utilized the Grabhorn Press's vast and distinctive holdings of type and equipment. In 1974, Arion Press was officially formed and launched a series of limited-edition books, printed by letterpress and bound by hand. Many of them were illustrated by prominent artists; some were accompanied by separate editions of original prints. To this day, the list of Arion publications is characterized by its diversity, with titles that range from ancient literature to modern classics [From the Arion Press website].
The text for this exceptional book was taken from the 1855 first edition, which contained just a dozen poems, the first, later titled "Song of Myself," was so long that it took up half the pages. The introduction to this edition was written by noted poetry scholar Helen Vendler (who died earlier in 2024). The volume includes the preface to the 1855 edition, plus the text of a letter of praise of his poetry from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Whitman in 1855. There is also a reproduction of a well known image of Whitman at the age of 34, the year before the first edition was published. Bound in light brown wood boards with a green leather spine with gilt titling. The binding design is a tribute to the Grabhorn edition of 1978-79 in that the boards are wooden, with oak veneer stained yellow-tan, and the spine is goatskin, green for this volume. The types are Goudy Californian (designed for the University of California Press in 1938) for the text, and Trajan capitals, also by Frederic Goudy for initial letters and titling. The paper is handmade Langley, from the Barcham Green Mill in England with watermarks of the Press and the Mill. Accompanied by the prospectus, which includes a sample page from the volume. Housed in a green cloth covered slipcase. In fine condition. Measures 10 x 14 inches. 155 pages plus colophon. PRI/092524. Fine. More
Godot: An imaginary staging by William T. Wiley of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2006. Hardcover. Number 286 of 300 numbered copies for sale with 26 lettered copies for complimentary distribution. Signed by William T. Wiley on the colophon. This exuberant and mordantly witty edition of this book was published on the hundredth anniversary of Beckett's most famous work. William T. Wiley (1937 - 2021) was an influential artist and educator who helped found the funk art movement and establish the San Francisco Bay Area art scene as an unfiltered alternative to what he saw as the flagrant commercialism of New York, The funk art movement took its name from “Funk,” a seminal exhibition organized by the curator Peter Selz in Berkeley in 1967. It included, among others, Mr. Wiley, the painter Joan Brown, the sculptor Robert Hudson and the ceramist Robert Arneson. None, it seemed, could ever fully agree on what funk art was, only on what it was not [from the NYT obituary of Wiley]
For this Arion Press publication, Wiley made fifty-two cartoon-like drawings. In his program note, Hoyem writes that the audience should remember that this is not the play Godot. It is a book about the play with a critic's appreciation and an artist's comments. It is an artist's book by Wiley inspired by Waiting for Godot. The synopsis is only a guide. This book was designed by Andrew Hoyem, who provided the program note that appears before the curtain rises, and a synopsis that runs in five-line segments beneath the Wiley illustrations. The binding of the book and its slipcase have yellow paper sides and blue cloth spines and labels, imprinted with the titling and images by Wiley. Printed on mouldmade Hahnemüle paper using Century Expanded type. The wordplay on the slipcase includes the palindrome "To Dog Godot" and is surrounded by a field of Irish potatoes. [from the accompanying prospectus] This Arion Press edition was provided for free to purchasers of the bilingual Grove Press edition of Waiting for Godot. It is present here. In fine condition. Measures 10 x 15 inches. 68 pages. PRI/112524. Fine. More
The Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin
San Francisco: Arion Press, 2006. Hardcover. Number 293 of 400 numbered copies for sale, with 26 lettered copies printed for complimentary distribution. This title was printed in celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin. The work was more commonly known as the Autobiography, but it was published here under the title Franklin himself used in referring to his manuscript. Unpublished at the time of his death, it has since become the most widely read memoir of all time. The prospectus continues to describe the mysterious path of the memoirs. considered lost for several decades after Franklin's death, and not published from his original manuscript until it was discovered by John Bigelow, the American minister to France in that country in 1867. Despite his many achievements during his illustrious life, Franklin asked to be remembered as a printer. The inscription he wrote for his tombstone reads: "B. Franklin, Printer." He believed in the trade of printing as indispensable to the spread of knowledge and self-governance. It seemed fitting to the Arion Press proprietor, Andrew Hoyem, that an American printer celebrates the three hundredth anniversary of Franklin's birth with a new design and printing of the Memoirs.
The Arion Press opted for a straightforward typographic presentation of Franklin's text without introduction, illustrations, or notes. However, the Press made its own distinctive contribution to the history of printing in the United States. Hoyem took advantage of 21st century technologies to revive what is believed the first type family cut and cast in America in 1800. The type was used by Jane Aitken, daughter of Robert Aitken, the famous printer of the American revolution, for the first printing of the first American translation of the Bible in 1808. Bound in full brown goatskin, with titling on the spine and an oval silhouette of Franklin in profile stamped in gold, adapted from a postage stamp. Printed on Somerset Book, an English mouldmade paper. There is a frontispiece portrait of Franklin, taken from the one-hundred dollar bill. Accompanied by the prospectus, but does not include the Press keepsake "Franklin's Memoirs Lost and Found. In fine condition. Measures 6.5 x 9 inches. 188 pages. PRI/110424. Fine. More
A Descriptive Bibliography of the Books Printed at The Ashendene Press MDCCCXCV - MCMXXXV
Shelley House, Chelsea: Ashendene Press, 1935. Hardcover. Number 134 of 390 copies, numbered and signed by St J. Hornby. This magnificent bibliography of one of the greatest British private presses, along with Kelmscott and Doves, was the last book to be to be issued by the press. It was finished in February, 1935, forty years after the first book printed at the Press. This first title was The Journal of Joseph Hornby, published in February 1895. Joseph Hornby was the printer's grandfather. The printer and proprietor of the press, the businessman C.H. St John Hornby (1867 - 1946), wrote an interesting foreword to the bibliography. He describes the beginnings of his Press, noting that the Press was the hobby of his leisure hours, where he worked entirely alone for many years. This, he explains, is why the output of the Press was so small in comparison with the Kelmscott and Doves Presses. He notes that William Morris greatly influenced him, and that he treasured the memory of spending an afternoon with him at Hammersmith in 1895.
Hornby discusses in detail his efforts to use the finest papers, inks, and types. He finishes with a note saying that while he did not collate the volumes, he wrote all of the detailed descriptions. He also noted that the many specimen pages are not actual facsimiles, but accurate resettings of the originals. For each book in the bibliography there is a copy of the colophon, the collation, and the description giving the type of paper, the colors of ink, the presence of large initials designed by Graily Hewitt, and the number of copies printed and for what price they were for sale. Following the bibliographic listings of the books, there is a section with images of wood engravings done for the press from drawings by Charles M. Gere, Margaret Gere, R.Catterson Smith, Gwendolen Raverat and Noel Rooke. This section is followed by a section with specimens of initial letters designed for the press by Graily Hewitt, Eric Gill and Louise Powell, that includes printer's marks, water marks, and examples of title-pages. There is also a section with illustrations of some of the bindings of the press including both special bindings and the bindings of issue. Finally, there is a section showing specimens of the founts of type used by the press and a chronological list of the books printed at the press, the number of copies printed, and the prices of those offered for subscription. After the colophon, two sheets of errata are present, one bound in and one loosely inserted.
Bound in brown leather with gilt titling to the spine with five raised bands and the mark of the press in gold on the front cover. Some rubbing to the spine and corners of the covers, and a few light marks to both front and back covers. There is light browning to the fore-edges of the free endpapers in the front and rear, and offsetting to the free endpapers and pastedowns. Text pages are in fine condition. No slipcase. Measures 9.25 x 13.25 inches. 172 pages. PRI/092124. Fine in very good binding. More
Examen
La Haye: A.A.M. Stols, 1925. Paperback. Number 23 of 100 copies. Signed by the author and printer. This was the 7th book printed by A.A.M. Stols for his friends. This copy was printed for Eugene Keuchenius. Claude Aveline was the pen name of Evgen Avtsine (1901 - 1992). He was a French author, publisher, and member of the French Resistance. Bound in light grayish paper wrappers with black title to front panel. Browning to spine and edges of wrappers. Printed in black with red initials. Offsetting to endpapers, else clean and bright. IN FRENCH. In original glassine. Creasing and browning to glassine. 16 pages. PRI/022823. Very Good. More