101. [Maret, Russell.] Dispatches from the lizard brain. A descriptive bibliography of the Ninja Press ... Foreword by Harry Reese. Afterword by Russell Maret. Photography by Annie Schlecter. Russell Maret, 2022.
$4,200
Edition limited to 102 copies, this, no. 34 and one of 77 with numerous tip-ins of original material; folio, pp. [6], 11-129, [3]; tipped-in frontispiece portrait, title page in brown, gilt, and black; 20 illustrations and tip-ins (7 folding), 38 color photographic illustrations in one 4-leaf gathering; 61 color photographic illustrations in one 2-leaf gathering; illustrations in the text; signed by all 7 "authors and craftspeople involved in making the book." Original green goat-backed pastepaper boards, lettered in gilt on spine, by Amy Borezo. Laid in, as issued, is "An Argument for Lying Fallow / The Habit of Risk," two essays by Carolee Campbell, narrow folio, pp. 8, original printed wrappers. The whole in a copper Japanese cloth chemise, printed paper label on spine.
A detailed bibliography of the works produced by Carolee Campbell at the Ninja Press, including books, broadsides, commissions and collaborations, ephemera, as well as writing, reviews, and criticism. The annotations include commentary by Campbell on the making of each book or broadside; a section on the Ninja Press type collection; and, a comprehensive index.
102. Three Constitutions. Russell Maret, 2021].
$5,000
"Over the past five years, the content of my printing has steadily changed. Despite my past aversion to overtly political artists' books, the social and political upheavals that have riven this country into splinters have slowly seeped into my work. The outrage that has been building inside of me for decades has attained a level of urgency that I can no longer ignore - from the criminal policies of Bush's war on terror, to Obama's enthusiastic embrace of drone assassinations, to the Republican Party's use of Congress for minority rule..."
Edition limited to 90 copies numbered 1-87 and 3 unnumbered proofs; 3 volumes (1 folio, 2 octavos) in a gray cloth clamshell box.
"The book was inspired by the increasingly contentious conflict between 'originalists,' those who view the Constitution as a prescriptive cultural artifact delineating American 'civilization,' and those who view the Constitution as a flexible instrument conceived to adapt to the evolving political, social, and racial realities of American 'nationhood'."
1) Folio: The full text of the Constitution and its 27 Amendments, "set in a typeface that, though difficult to read, is legible once one becomes accustomed to its forms ... It is housed in a vitrine as if it were an immutable relic, rather than a living adaptable document."
Designed by Russell Maret and printed by him and Sarah Moody between November 2020 and February 2021. All of the typefaces were designed by Russell Maret. The papers are Zerkall Book and Twinrocker Homemade. Amy Borezo designed and executed the binding at Shelter Bookworks.
2) Octavo 1: Constitution United States. The full text of the Constitution arrived at "by feeding the Constitution and its amendments through Google Translate ... first translated from English into Esperanto, then from Esperanto into Russian, Russian into Chinese, and Chinese back into English. Esperanto was chosen to represent the Utopian ideals of America's founders; Russian and Chinese to reference two of the primary disseminators of the internet-borne disinformation which has taken such firm root among Trump loyalists ... This process mimics the subtle but meaningful content-skewing that proliferates on the Internet and is subsequently echoed on certain more traditional media platforms."
"These things, and so many more, have gradually changed my understanding of what I want to make and why I want to make it."
3) Octavo 2: Constitution. This volume is set in metal type and subsequently redacted by physically turning key words and phrases over and printing the underside of the type. The resulting text is not the hopeful re-write I would conceive; it is intended to reflect the cynical, ineffectual state of political discourse in the United States."
"Three Constitutions is my response to these events and the culture that bred them."
103. The anxiety alphabet. Naughty Dog Press, 1998.
$325
Standard edition limited to 25 numbered copies (this, no. 14) signed by Martin; oblong 12mo (approx. 4" x 7"), pp. [20]; fine in original blue printed paper-covered boards; fine. "A Coptic bound alphabet book with text relating to anxiety and its resolution." Sewing needles and dressmakers' pins are attached to the covers by piercing in and out of the paper. There was also a deluxe edition of ten copies.
104. Provisions. Lost prose by... Edited and introduced by Sebastian Matthews and with original artwork by Cris Cristofaro . Winona, Minn.: Sutton Hoo Press, 2003.
$250
Edition limited to "approximately" 200 copies; 8vo, pp. [8], 7-79, [11]; 14 abstract illustrations by Cristofaro; original black cloth with pictorial onlay, printed paper label on spine; fine. From the library of Kim Merker.
A letter from the printer to his subscribers regarding Sutton Hoo's next book, Naming by Philip Levine, is laid in.
105. Artist's Proof: brief history, type specimen and checklist of the Meadow Press. Meadow Press, 1990.
$850
Edition limited to 100 copies (this, no. 15) signed by McLellan; consisting of 24 broadsides contained in a folding portfolio tied with a cord-and-button fastener, and with a printed paper label on the front; fine copy, from the library of Kim Merker
Original prospectus and invoice to Kim Merker laid in, the latter with a note to Merker: "Kim, the press is sold, Meadow Press is done, and I am content. New horizons, ho! Hope all is well with you. Leigh."
This is the last Meadow Press publication. Contains a title page, introduction & disclaimer, a history of the Meadow Press, various type specimens, a Meadow Press checklist, colophon, and errata.
106. Feathers from the hill. Iowa City: Windhover Press, 1978.
$1,500
Edition limited to 270 copies signed by Merwin (complete signature - see below), slim 8vo, pp. 70, [2]; 4-color frontispiece by Kim Merker; original black cloth, printed paper label on spine; fine. From the library of Kim Merker.
This copy additionally inscribed by Merwin on the colophon: "For Kim / one more / feather / with affection and congratulations / finding you and the book, both, in Iowa City / December 14 1978."
Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker, 69: "This is the only illustration I have ever done in my life, though the skyline on the Sinsabaugh book cover might be considered another one ... When I sent the unfolded sheets to Merwin to sign he signed them under the colophon. The pages were then folded and trimmed, and his signature got pretty large in places and got partially cut off in some copies..."
107. Andalusian poems translated by Christopher Middleton & Leticia Garza-Falcon from Spanish versions of the original Arabic. W. Thomas Taylor, [1992].
$250
Edition limited to 100 copies, 8vo, pp. xxii, 86, [4]; fine copy in original terracotta wrappers by Timothy Barrett, Iowa Center for the Book, gilt-stamped spine. From the library of Kim Merker.
108. [Midnight Paper Sales.] Ink on the elbow. Conversations between David Esslemont & Gaylord Schanilec. [Stockholm]: Midnight Paper Sales & Solmentes Press, 2003.
$500
Edition limited to 200 copies, folio, pp. 153, [2]; this is one of 100 copies bound in America in half cloth, with paste paper covered boards, paper spine label; beautifully illustrated throughout with wood engravings by Schanilec, including a magnificent foldout panorama of the Welsh countryside, and color linocuts by David Esslemont; also tipped in are original leaves from books produced by each press.
A record of email correspondence between David Esslemont and Gaylord Schanilec with additional notes and illustrations. With introductions by J. Andrew Armacost and David Chambers.
"In one way, the correspondence of Gaylord and David is a daybook chronicling the seasons of the year in Wisconsin and Wales. In another way, it is a diary, with production notes, of editing, printing, and producing some important books. It is also a log of two personal journeys, a record of the writers struggles to manage personal lives and professional lives in the midst of children, book fairs, accolades, and calamities. Still another important story is Gaylord and David's continuing dialogue about their current printing projects and the implications of their individual printing decisions. These conversations raise a number of interesting issues," (introduction).
Quarter to Midnight A.225.c.
109. [Midnight Paper Sales.] It's come to this. Midnight Paper Sales, 2023.
$1,500
Edition limited to 70 signed and numbered copies (with an additional 5 hors commerce), 4to (9" x 11"), pp. 36; the text was composition-cast in Monotype Menhart designed by Oldrich Menhart in Prague in 1933, and printed on vintage handmade paper at the Velké Losiny mill in the Czech Republic in the mid-20th century; bound by Matthew Zimmerman at Studio Alcyon.
"In 1982, while wearing the hat of a 'small press illustrator' I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to illustrate a long prose poem by Patricia Hampl, who had recently become famous with the publication of her memoir A Romantic Education (Houghton Mifflin, 1981). The resulting book, Resort (Bookslinger Editions, 1982) was pivotal for me, and I began angling for a manuscript from Patricia I might publish myself. It only took 40 years for one to materialize." It’s Come to This ... a bookend [of sorts] for Resort ... contains drawings by Gaylord Schanilec of a wild rose and a stark sunrise over Lake Superior, [and] color wood engravings by him of a blooming Amaryllis and a panoramic sunset over the riverfront of Saint Paul, along with a cover lithograph drawn on and printed from the stone by Lila Shull. In the text Hampl contemplates her mortality as she walks her dog along the Saint Paul riverfront through that first dark year of the pandemic.
110. [Midnight Paper Sales.] A house in the country. Stockholm, [WI] & Minneapolis: Midnight Paper Sales, 1994.
$250
Edition limited to 250 copies, this no. 109 of 200 bound in cloth and signed by the author and the printer; 8vo, pp. [5]-62, [3]; vignette title page printed in gray, black and red; 4 colored wood engravings by Schanilec, the whole designed and hand-printed by him; fine throughout in original gray cloth-backed floral boards, paper label on spine.
Quarter to Midnight A.130.b: "Four essays by Mary Logue documenting the trials of renovating her old Swedish farmhouse, and her observations on small-town life in rural America."
111. [Midnight Paper Sales.] A house in the country. Midnight Paper Sales, 1994.
$750
First edition limited to 250 copies, this one of 50 specially bound and with an extra suite of plates (this, copy 25); 8vo, pp. 62, [4]; illustrated with wood engravings by Gaylord Schanilec; maroon quarter leather and marbled boards, housed in a gray cloth clamshell box, leather label on spine; a fine copy. Signed on the colophon by both the author and the printer-illustrator.
Quarter to Midnight A.130.b: "Four essays by Mary Logue documenting the trials of renovating her old Swedish farmhouse, and her observations on small-town life in rural America."
112. [Midnight Paper Sales.] Emerson G. Wulling printer for pleasure. Midnight Paper Sales, 2000].
$1,750
First edition limited to 166 copies, this one of 26 lettered copies (this, the letter 'C'), signed by Schanilec on the limitation page, and specially bound in quarter leather, spine gilt, in a clamshell box along with a portfolio containing 45 additional ephemeral pieces printed by Mr. Wulling; folio, pp. 71, [4]; illustrated throughout with 24 facsimiles, woodcuts, ink-jet reproductions, ephemera, and 7 color wood-engravings by the artist-printer, Gaylord Schanilec.
Introduction by Rob Rulon-Miller and with a check-list by him of better than 270 books, chapbooks, broadsides, etc. printed by Emerson Wulling at his Sumac Press in both Minneapolis and La Crosse, Wisconsin. The text proper consists of a 2-part interview conducted by Schanilec and Rulon-Miller with Emerson Wulling in 1995 and 1999. Wulling, who began printing in 1916 and continued to print into the 21st century, printed longer than any printer before him - 87 years in all - a record, of sorts, which quite probably will never be broken.
Quarter to Midnight A.199.a.
113. [Midnight Paper Sales.] My mighty journey: a waterfall's story. Words by John Coy and pictures by Gaylord Schanilec. Midnight Paper Sales, 2018.
$12,500
Edition limited to 40 copies (actually 41), large oblong folio, 36 leaves, 16 color illustrations mounted on handmade paper, with text printed on verso, and interleaved with protective translucent blank sheets; printed colophon sheet mounted to final leaf of handmade paper; bound in suminagashi paper over boards, sewn on 10 cords, with uncovered spine, revealing sewing structure.
The images were printed using blocks made from material collected along the banks of the Mississippi River where the waterfall traveled up the river gorge. The blocks also include wood cuts, wood engravings, and the occasional photo polymer plate. Images were printed on Mohawk Superfine paper, and text on handmade Cave paper from handset ATF Bernhard Gothic foundry type. The suminagashi cover art was created by Amanda Degener. Issued in a cloth-covered clamshell box (61 x 71 x 6 cm).
A text for children, but not a children's book, about the 12,000-year journey of Saint Anthony Falls, the only major waterfall on the entire Mississippi River, from Saint Paul to its current home in Minneapolis.
114. [Midnight Paper Sales.] Farmers. Wood engravings - Interviews. Stockholm: Midnight Paper Sales Press, 1989.
$1,500
Edition limited to 200 copies, this no. 98 of 174 numbered copies (there were also 26 deluxe copies, bound in full leather and with an extra suite of plates), 8vo, pp. 56, [3]; 4 double-page colored wood-engravings, the whole designed and hand-printed by Schanilec.
The text is derived from recorded interviews with farmers conducted by Schanilec, and edited by his brother, Clayton. Previous owner's signature on front free endpaper, else fine throughout in original sienna cloth, paper labels on spine and upper cover.
Quarter to Midnight A.90.b.
115. [Midnight Paper Sales.] A little book of birds. Midnight Paper Sales, 2017.
$650
Edition limited to 100 copies numbered and signed by Schanilec, 8vo, pp. [48]; uncut and unopened, as issued; 9 three- and four-color wood engravings by Schanilec, and a final one by Thomas Bewick, all printed from the original blocks; text sewn into original Degener Black and O'Malley Crackle papers, in tribute to the Ladies of the Cave, printed wraparound paper label on spine, publisher's slipcase by Craig Jensen; fine.
Emblematic of two years in the life of Mr. Schanilec, this is a single haiku punctuated with muted engravings of birds trapped by the bolts. For the record these blocks were mostly cut in my kitchen many early mornings 2015-16.
116. [Midnight Paper Sales.] Ernest Morgan. Printer of principle. [Stockholm, Wisconsin]: Midnight Paper Sales, [2001].
$650
First edition limited to 226 copies signed by the printer-wood-engraver, this being one of 26 special copies lettered A-Z (this is copy 'R'); folio, pp. 44, [5]; 4 color wood engravings by Schanilec, plus 14 inkjet facsimiles, ornaments, and 2 tipped-in examples of Morgan's printing, bound by Schanilec in gray niger over black patterned cloth-covered boards; plus, a separately bound volume in black cloth-backed gray printed paper-covered boards containing 8 leaves of images of Morgan (photograph, drawings, key block, color blocks, and a color wood engraving); together in a black cloth clamshell box, brown leather label on spine. In each volume there are two bookplates of Morgan's designed laid in. Fine.
The text is an interview conducted by Schanilec at Ernest Morgan's Yancy, North Carolina home in 1997. The introduction and afterword are by the late Will Powers.
Quarter to Midnight A.208.a.
117. [Midnight Paper Sales.] Farmers. Wood engravings - Interviews. Midnight Paper Sales, [1989].
$4,000
Edition limited to 200 copies, this one of 26 lettered copies (letter 'U') signed by Schanilec on the colophon with his chop mark; 8vo, pp. [3]-56, [4]; vignette wood engraving on title page, 4 double-page colored wood engravings, plus an extra suite of the engravings in a tan paper chemise with a printed paper label on the front; full natural goatskin by the Campbell-Logan Bindery, embossed in the lower outer corner with Schanilec's chop mark; beige cloth clamshell box, leather label on spine. The whole designed and hand-printed by Schanilec.
The text is derived from recorded interviews with farmers in the wake of the farm crisis in the mid-1980s, conducted by Schanilec near his home in Stockholm, Wisconsin, and edited by his brother, Clayton.
Quarter to Midnight A.90.a.
118. [Midnight Paper Sales.] Refugee. [Saint Paul]: Midnight Paper Sales Press, 1981.
$375
Edition limited to 15 copies, 274 mm. Bifolium, with a wrap-around band on which is printed “Refugee,” and with a printed leaf beginning “White feathers swept…” mounted on the verso of the first leaf. Linoleum cut, numbered and signed by GS on the recto of the second leaf.
Gaylord was unhappy with this effort, and he recollects now that he destroyed most of the edition.
Quarter to Midnight A-42.
119. [Midnight Paper Sales.] Emerson G. Wulling. Printer for pleasure. [Stockholm]: Midnight Paper Sales, [2000].
$450
First edition limited to 166 copies, this one of 140 of the regular edition; folio, pp. 71, [4]; orig. tan cloth-backed blue paper-covered boards showing the repeated design of the Sumac pressmark, leather label on spine; as new in publisher's slipcase.
Illustrated throughout with 24 facsimiles, woodcuts, ink-jet reproductions, ephemera, and 7 color wood-engravings by the artist-printer, Gaylord Schanilec.
Introduction by Rob Rulon-Miller and with a check-list by him of better than 270 books, chapbooks, broadsides, etc. printed by Emerson Wulling at his Sumac Press in both Minneapolis and La Crosse, Wisconsin.
The text proper consists of a two-part interview conducted by Gaylord Schanilec and Rob Rulon-Miller with Emerson Wulling in 1995 and 1999.
Wulling, who began printing in 1916 and continued to print into the 21st century, printed longer than any printer before him - 87 years in all - a record, of sorts, which will quite probably never be broken.
Quarter to Midnight A.199.b.
120. Jacob's ladder. Oakland: Rebis Press / Eucalyptus Press, 1977.
$325
Scroll, on 5 conjoined sheets, the whole measuring approx. 48" x 11½", edition limited to 150 copies on Honsho, designed by Betsy Davis and Jim Petrillo, hand-set in Spectrum and Libra at the Eucalyptus Press, Mills College, and printed by Betsy Davis on the Rebis Vandercook, with the help of members of the Bookmaking & Publishing class, Mills College; printed in black and green on Hosho paper within floral ladder border, and contained in the original tube with paper label also printed in green and black; generally fine.
From the library of Allan Kornblum, poet, fine press printer, and publisher who founded Coffee House Press.
121. From a housewife's diary with eraser stamps by Jerome Kaplan. Janus Press, 1978.
$275
Edition limited to 250 copies (this, no. 188); 8vo, pp. [20]; stamp illustrations hand-colored "39 times by Victoria Fraser," original red-checked dishrag cloth over boards, printed paper label on spine. From the library of Allan Kornblum, poet, fine press printer, and publisher who founded Coffee House Press.
This copy inscribed on the colophon: "For Allan Kornblum with all good wishes Claire Van Vliet."
122. [Olender-Papurt, Jeanette.] From the Revelations of Saint Birgitta of Sweden. Doom of the kings. Translation by Patrick O. Moore with illustrations by Jeanette Olender-Papurt. The Clarino Press, 1982.
$950
Edition limited to 40 copies (this being copy no. 1); folio, pp. [6], 26, [4]; printed in blue and black; 6 copperplate etchings by Olender-Papurt who has also designed and printed the book; text paper is Arches Cover with Barcham Greens Turner Grey as endsheets; typefaces are 16-point Centaur & Arrighi; printing of the text was done at the Logan Elm Press; original black cloth, green lettering on spine. Fine. From the library of Kim Merker.
"'Doom of the kings' is our title for this modern English version of a chapter (p. 63-87) of the fifteenth-century Middle English text published in The Revelations of Saint Birgitta, edited by William Patterson Cumming (London: Oxford University Press, 1929)" (Afterword). The work known as Revelationes Sanctae Birgittae was partly dictated by Birgitta, partly written by her in Swedish, to her confessors, who rendered her words into the Latin text from which the Middle English version, and all others, are derived.
123. A collection of objects. Tente, 2010.
$250
Edition limited to 100 copies (this, no. 72); square 12mo, approx. 6" x 6½", pp. [30]; 3 illustrations from photographs; fine in original white wrappers printed in black. From the library of Allan Kornblum, fine press printer, poet, and founder of the Coffee House Press.
Inscribed on the title page: "For A. K. - thank you, from A. O." A thank you for the Coffee House edition of A Toast in the House of Friends, most likely (see below).
The Poetry Foundation notes that Akilah Oliver "was born in St. Louis, Missouri and grew up in Los Angeles, California. She was the author of two books of poetry: A Toast in the House of Friends [published by Coffee House Press in 2009] and the she said dialogues: flesh memory (1999), which received a PEN Beyond Margins award. Her chapbooks include A Collection of Objects (2010), a(A)ugust (2007), The Putterer’s Notebook (2006), and An Arriving Guard of Angels, Thusly Coming to Greet (2004). Oliver collaborated with a range of artists and musicians, such Tyler Burba, Anne Waldman, and Rasul Siddik; a notable performer, Oliver founded the feminist performance collective Sacred Naked Nature Girls in the 1990s. She was a member of the Belladonna* collaborative and a PhD candidate at the European Graduate School."
124. Moving. A collection of thirty-five wood engravings ... With a preface by Max Porter. [Whittington Village]: Nomad Letterpress, 2024.
$650
Edition limited to 164 copies, this one of 130 of the regular edition (there were 26 lettered copies in quarter leather, and 8 copies in full leather); signed and numbered (this, no. 54) by Hilary Paynter; folio (approx. 14" x 11¼"), pp. [6], ix-xiv, [74]; wood-engraved title page, 34 full-page wood engravings, plus a wood-engraved initial and 3 vignette wood engravings on the colophon, all printed in blue; fine copy in original blue cloth-backed white paper-covered boards printed with a small wood-engraving by Paynter, printed paper label on spine, publisher's slipcase. Fine throughout. All wood engravings are printed from the original blocks.
"Moving is arranged around five themes that are central to Hilary’s work; from sweeping dramatic landscapes to social injustice and the abuse of power, there is a constant creative tension in her engraving, often offset by humour and humanity. Hilary’s confident mark-making and draftsmanship skills can be seen too have developed from her early blocks to the present day, but the interplay of tone and light on the page are always central, alongside and uncompromising response the natural world an out often brutal mistreatment of it, as well as of each other.
"Each engraving, selected and introduced by Hilary, is accompanied by a text that explains the thought process behind how each image, from drawing to engraving, was developed. The blocks have been printed by Helen Hillman and Pat Randle and the book provides a lasting tribute to five decades of wood engravings by one of the masters of this craft" (publisher's blurb).
125. Carroll Coleman and the Prairie Press ... With an introduction by Harry Duncan. Parallel Editions / University of Alabama, 1991.
$750
Edition limited to 175 copies, of which 15 were specially bound and numbered; 8vo, pp. [4], 27, [1]; wood-engraved frontispiece by Frank Utpatel; original printed gray wrappers; near fine. From the library of Kim Merker.
The book is dedicated to Kim Merker, and there is a long inscription from Peich to Merker on the dedication page: "Kimber - This is the least I could do for you, since you've been the motivator behind this for years. If it had not been for you, I don't think I ever would have fully appreciated Carroll's genius. Thank you for your encouragement and friendship. Love, Mike. 7.x.91."
Also laid in is a short note from Peich to Merker: "Although I'm pleased to have this in print, the design is flawed. The important thing, though, is that you have a copy..."
126. The Red Ozier: a literary fine press. History and bibliography, 1976-1987. New York Public Library and Yellow Barn Press, [1993].
$750
Edition limited to 170 copies, this being one of 144 bound in quarter red cloth over pastepaper boards by Claire Maziarczyk (this, copy no. 128); large 8vo, pp. xxxii, [2], 85, [3]; printed in red and black on on dampened Rives paper; 16 facsimile illustrations, 1 folding plate; fine in publisher's slipcase.
Kim Merker's copy with a long inscription on the colophon from Michael Peich to Merker: "Kim - Even though you are thanked in the front, no one will appreciate as much as I the important help you provided for the introduction. Once again your clear thoughts and uncanny editorial skills helped save the day ... More than the help you so willingly gave, thank you for the years of friendship and support. You have been friend and brother. / Mike / 20. x. 93."
Walsdorf A-23.
127. Divided touch divided color: XII poems. Woodcuts by Peggy Fitzgerald. Iowa City: Windhover Press, 1995.
$750
Edition limited to 200 copies, small, thin folio, pp. xx, [2]; fine copy of an attractive book, designed by Kim Merker and printed by Don Howell, and in a blue paper-backed paste-paper binding by Pamela Spitzmueller. From the library of Kim Merker.
Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker, 104: "What had started out to be a very simple, undecorated book ... turned into a wonderful production on the part of everyone concerned."
This copy is accompanied by approximately 80 proof pages (mostly 11½" x 15" but a dozen or so half-page and quarter-page strips) by the illustrator, Peggy Fitzgerald, almost all of them with her notes in pencil regarding inking, placement, coloring, and the like.
128. [Pentagram Press.] The Pentagram Press commonplace book: a selection of typographic interpretations. Pentagram Press, 1988.
$375
Edition limited to 176 copies signed by the printer, this being one of 26 lettered copies "signed by many of the contributors" (this, copy U); 8vo, pp. [42]; bound in quarter black morocco over cream paper-covered boards, gilt-lettered spine; printed in various colors, tipped-in photograph, tipped-in sample of marbled paper, and numerous typographical oraments throughout; fine.
With the signatures of all those who have participated in the book on the half-title, 16 in all, including Phil Gallo, Will Powers, Clifford Burke, Harry Duncan, Leonard Bahr, Paul Hayden Duensing, Bradbury Thompson, Merce Dostale, Will Cheney, Emerson Wulling, and Greg Campbell himself who was the binder of the book as well as Tarachow's landlord. Laid in are a keepsake printed by Michael Tarachow of the Pentagram Press for the Minnesota Festival of the Book, Spetember 1988; and, a circular letter signed by Michael Tarachow to the Commonplace Book contributors.
129. [Plough Press.] John Paas & James Cook: provincial bookbinding in the Eighteen Thirties. Plough Press, 1979.
$250
Edition limited to 25 copies (this, no. 18), 8vo, pp. 25, [7]; 10 plates plus other illustrations; original quarter purple morocco over marbled paper-covered boards, gilt-lettered spine; fine.
Recounting the murder of the binding tool producer, John Pass by the bookbinder, James Cook in 1830, and the "sudden publicity which suddenly illuminated an obscure craftsman and his trade." There was also a regular edition of 200 copies.
130. [Plough Press.] Functional developments in bookbinding. Plough Press, [1993].
$425
Edition limited to 180 copies (this, no. 19), small 4to, pp. 94, [2]; 2 mounted plates, 29 photo-reproductive plates in 3 pockets at the back, 6 tipped-in hand-made facsimiles of binding samples, plus 3 other illustrations printed in blue; in the deluxe binding of three-quarter brown morocco over marbled boards, gilt-lettered spine; fine.
Oak Knoll reports that only 25 copies were so bound. Original prospectus laid in.
131. [Plough Press.] George W. Jones printer laureate. Plough Press, Mark Batty, publisher, [2004].
$350
"Special Limited Edition," limited to 15 copies (this, no. 4), with a printed label mounted on the front pastedown giving the information about this special edition. which is hand-numbered and signed by the author; 8vo, pp. 128; frontispiece portrait, 30 illustrations in the text of Jones's printing and other illustrations; original half black morocco over marbled boards, gilt-lettered spine, hand-bound at The Fine Bindery of Wellingborough.
Accompanied by a small folio portfolio containing 8 examples of printing by Jones, including The Linotype and Printing Machinery Record (July 1926), 20pp. plus wrappers, with Lawrence Wallis's bookplate; 6 bifolia from assorted works, and an 8-p. gathering from The Canterbury Tales; both volumes contained in a specially made slipcase of gray paper-covered boards and black cloth sides; fine. Two printed dust jackets for the trade edition also laid in.
132. [Poltroon Press.] A packet of ephemera. Poltroon Press, primarily 1970s and 80s.
$250
From folio size to business cards, including Poltroon catalogues, prospectuses, invitations, announcements, advertising material, etc., in broadside, broadsheet, bifoliate, and chapbook formats. Forty-one pieces in all, as collected by Allan Kornblum, poet, fine press printer, and publisher who founded Coffee House Press.
133. [Press at Colorado College.] Ecclesiastes. The preacher. The Press at Colorado College, 1992.
$500
Edition limited to 40 numbered copies and 10 unnumbered proofs, signed by the printer James Trissel (this, copy no. 9); folio, pp. [16]; original black niger morocco over gray cloth stamped in gilt on upper cover and spine; fine copy. From the library of Kim Merker.
"This book is our effort to set this most curious and enigmatic work in a form which will encourage its reading. We have taken away the verse numbers and the egregiously short lines of the King James Version and we have given the new line a generous format and a modest ornamentation. The text is set in Bembo (that most readable of all romans): the paper is Johannot" (colophon). The binding is by Greg Campbell at Campbell-Logan Bindery, Minneapolis.
134. [Press at Colorado College.] Marianne Moore at the Dial: commissions an article on the movies: six letters to Ralph Block and his article. The Press at Colorado College, 1988?.
$250
Edition limited to 100 copies (this, no. 45), 4to, pp. [44]; bound leporello style, original quarter black moulded paper over marbled paper-covered boards; fine. Errata and original prospectus laid in. Includes the letters to Block soliciting his article "Not Theatre, Not Literature, Not Painting?," the article itself, and a few letters looking back on its influence.
135. [Press in Tuscany Alley.] Adrian Wilson July 1, 1923 - February 3, 1988. The Press in Tuscany Alley, 1988].
$250
8vo, pp. [22]; printed in blue and black; mounted frontispiece photograph of Wilson by Ansel Adams; fine in original blue wrappers, printed paper label on upper cover. From the library of Kim Merker.
Remarks by William Eshelman, James D. Hart, Ward Ritchie, and Sandra Kirshenbaum at a memorial for Wilson in San Francisco on Feb. 13, 1988. Prologue by Joyce Lancaster Wilson with Melissa & Craig Marshall, "designed and printed by Margery Cantor, William Eshelman, Deanna LaBonge, and Zahid Sardar at the Press in Tuscany Alley, San Francisco. Calligraphy by Christopher Stinehour" (colophon).
The Ansel Adams portrait is not in all copies.
136. [Price, Robin.] The journey of the guitar: a portrait of Pepe Romero, in his own words. Selected and edited by Robin Price. Robin Price, 1999.
$400
Edition limited to 200 copies (this, no. 11) signed by Pepe Romero; oblong 8vo, pp. 57, [11]; die-cut title page revealing a small palladium print of a guitar by James W. Pitts, signed by him; long-stitch binding, hand-sewn into black paper covers co-designed by Daniel Kelm; original plastic chemise. Fine.
Bifoliate prospectus laid in, as is a typed letter to subscribers from Robin Price, this with a manuscript note by Price at the bottom addressed to Greg Campbell, Campbell-Logan Bindery regarding a plough-card and the making of holiday cards. Also laid in is a letterpress invitation to Price's studio for a meeting of the Letterpress Guild of New England which meeting is referred to in the typed letter. "World-renowned Pepe Romero reflects on his work...Includes transcriptions from private lessons and master classes, interviews, and film" (prospectus).
137. Unfamiliar quotations or On a spring evening Guillem IX sits down to revise "Farai un vers de dreyt nien." With lithographs by Harold Garde. College of the Arts, University of Florida, 2015.]
$250
Edition limited to 80 copies, large 8vo, pp. 78, [2]; 17 lithograph prints by Harold Garde tipped in, including frontispiece; title printed in red and black; signed by author and artist on colophon; original gold linen cloth, black leather label on spine, fine.
Five short stories. Set in Zapf Renaissance type. Text printed letterpress on Lettra paper by Bradley Hutchinson, Austin, Texas. Lithographs printed on Mohawk paper by GHP, West Haven, Connecticut. Design and typography by Jerry Kelly.
138. Submarine bells. A selection of nine poems ... with etchings by David Rathman. Red Egypt Press, [1994].
$3,500
Edition limited to 20 copies plus 3 artist's proofs (this, copy no. 19), signed by David Rathman; 4to; 13 double leaves, illustrated with 9 three-color "intaglios printed from relief plates and lift-ground etchings with aquatint created and printed by Rathman; typography and letterpress printing by Philip Gallo at the Hermetic Press; the text is set in Studio and printed on Rives BFK; bound in grey cloth boards in exposed wire-binding by Jill Jevne after the wire-binding structure devised by Daniel Kelm; mounted color illustration on the upper cover; grey cloth clam shell box with printed paper label on spine. Fine.
This is a remarkable collaboration between two of the Twin Cities' greatest book artists at work during the last quarter of the 20th century, and into the 21st: the printmaker David Rathman and the letterpress printer, Philip Gallo. The book was sold out immediately and even though these guys are my friends, this is the first time I've been able to offer a copy for sale in 25 years.
139. Adventures in the burning bush adapted from Amos Tutuola's The palm-wine drunkard. Vermillion Editions, 1987.
$2,000
Edition limited to 40 copies consisting of 5 printer's proofs and 35 in the edition (this, copy no. 11); 4to, [10] unbound sheets printed on rectos only, and contained in a black cloth-covered portfolio with printed paper label on spine and pictorial pastedown on upper cover; fine.
Rathman's first book printed at Vermillion Editions under the guidance of Steve Anderson. Gerald Lange of the Bieler Press and Norman Fritzberg of the Hansestadt Letterfoundry were responsible for the typographic design and composition. The portfolios were constructed by the Campbell-Logan Bindery.
"Mythological in conception and Nigerian in origin...the linocut illumination that accompanies the text exhibits such regimented verve that it almost seems as if a scourge has been placed upon each page. The jags, curves, and swirls of the elemental, naturalistic borders take on pantheistic qualities as they move organically into the inner sanctum ... harbors dangerous, disorderly creatures, alongside humans with their primitive and fantastic accoutrements. Gesture, posture, and facial expressions of beasts, trees, and humans...exhibit a stunning force of feeling and an atavistic quality that illuminates meaning and emotion..." (Pamela Sund, in Artscape, Volume 2, no. 4).
140. Enchanted assassin ... based on Kenneth Patchen's "The Journal of Albion Moonlight". Vermillion Editions, [1991].
$3,500
Edition limited to 30 copies, plus 7 artist's/printer's proofs, and 6 "unfolded deluxe copies" for a total edition of 43; this is printer's proof no. 3 (of 4) signed by David Rathman; oblong 4to; 9 double-page spreads, each approx. 14" x 34½", "hand-printed in lithography and silkscreen by Steve Andersen, Philip Barber, and Todd Norsten on BFK Rives paper," and contained in the original hinged wooden box with a branded title burned into the cover over acid stains, as issued; fine.
This copy obtained directly from Rathman himself. Most of the edition was not boxed. Rathman tells me only "ten or so" boxes were ever made, and not more than a dozen of the edition were ever sold. What wasn't sold was lost in a bankruptcy case, and the sheets are now ostensibly resting in a warehouse in Milwaukee where they have been for nearly 30 years.
OCLC locates 4 copies only: Minnesota Historical, Phoenix Public Library, University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the Getty, to which we add the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and Columbia.
141. Sprie: Duane Caryl Spriestersbach. Dean of the Graduate College, 1965-1989, Vice-President for Research, 1966-1970, Vice-President for Educational Development & Research 1970-1989, Acting President, 1981-82. [Iowa City]: University of Iowa [printed by Kim Merker at the University of Iowa Center for the Book, 1989].
$1,800
Edition limited to 1 copy only, with 14 proof copies (of which this is one); 8vo, pp. [36]; title page "with a green turtle drawn by hand" by Glen Epstein; printed in green and black throughout on paper made by Timothy Barrett, and bound into stiff wrappers also made by Barrett; fine. From the library of the printer, Kim Merker.
On the colophon Merker has crossed out "The binding is by William Anthony," and has written in underneath, in ink, "The binding is by Larry Yerkes. The turtle on the title page is by Glen Epstein." The 14 proof copies were "for the people involved with the book" (Merker, in Berger's Printing and the Mind of Merker).
This copy inscribed by Spriestersbach in December, 1989: "To Kim / I will treasure this personalized evidence of the quality of the artisans associated with the Center for the Book and wish you all Godspeed. / Sprie." Also, with a one-page autograph letter signed from Sprie laid in: "I am delighted to have the copies and, as usual, they are printed in a form and style that I find overwhelming - and undeserved..."
Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker, 93: "D. C. Spriestersbach was my 'godfather' from the very beginning of my career at Iowa. Without him there would have been no Windhover Press or Center for the Book. He supported me, protected me, and helped me in hundreds of ways over the years."
Princeton, Utah, and Iowa only in OCLC.
142. Sprie: Duane Caryl Spriestersbach. Dean of the Graduate College, 1965-1989, Vice-President for Research, 1966-1970, Vice-President for Educational Development & Research 1970-1989, Acting President, 1981-82. University of Iowa [printed by Kim Merker at the University of Iowa Center for the Book, 1989].
$750
Edition limited to 1 copy only, with 14 proof copies (of which this is one); 8vo, pp. [36]; title page "with a green turtle drawn by hand" by Glen Epstein; printed in green and black throughout on paper made by Timothy Barrett, and bound into stiff wrappers made by Barrett; fine. From the library of the printer, Kim Merker.
On the colophon Merker has crossed out "The binding is by William Anthony," and has written in underneath, in ink, "The binding is by Larry Yerkes. The turtle on the title page is by Glen Epstein." The 14 proof copies were "for the people involved with the book" (Merker, in Berger's Printing and the Mind of Merker).
Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker, 93: "D. C. Spriestersbach was my 'godfather' from the very beginning of my career at Iowa. Without him there would have been no Windhover Press or Center for the Book. He supported me, protected me, and helped me in hundreds of ways over the years."
Princeton, Utah, and Iowa only in OCLC.
143. Paul Landacre. Book Club of California, 1982.
$375
Edition limited to 650 copies, 12mo; pp. 52, [8]; incipient initial printed in green; illustrated throughout with wood engravings by Landacre; fine in black cloth-backed pictorial boards lettered in gilt on spine. From the library of Kim Merker.
Designed and printed by Ward Ritchie. This copy inscribed by Ritchie on the half-title "For Kim Merker / in admiration / Ward Ritchie."
144. [Rocket Press.] Nineteenth century trade binding. Plough Press, 1983.
$575
Edition limited to 150 copies (this, no. 65), 2 volumes, 8vo, pp. [3]-46, [2]; 27 illustrations in the text; the second volume a portfolio, with a sample brass type, 2 sheets onto which are mounted 16 cloth samples, plus 2 leaves of 71 reproductions of Winterbottom rubbings of cloth samples; original full linen over boards, paper spine labels, t.e.g., together in matching slipcase. Hand-printed by Jonathan Stevenson at the Rocket Press.
145. Convergence. 2008.
$250
Edition limited to 20 signed and numbered copies (this, no. 2); oblong 8vo, (approx. 5" x 8½"), pp. [16] on conjoined leaves; fine in original paper-covered boards with applied illustration on the front; contained in the original cloth-covered clamshell box.
"Through dual narratives and visual abstractions paired with altered photographs, this book speaks to the deep and elusive connections between past and present and how this can shape our sense of time and place.
"Letterpress text and images, ink jet printed photographs on Lana Aquarelle, drum leaf binding; cover is Hahnemuhle Ingres over bookboard, Japanese bookcloth wrapped spine; modified clamshell box, Japanese bookcloth over bookboard" (artist's website).
146. A troubled heart & other waka. Translated from the Japanese by Sam Hamill. Pointed Press, 1999].
$250
Edition limited to 100 copies hand printed and bound by Tricia Treacy and signed by Hamill; oblong 8vo, pp. [42]; Hiragana printed in brown; printer's slip laid in at colophon; original maroon cloth, stab-sewn, black paper label on upper cover printed in blind; near fine copy. From the library of Kim Merker.
"These poems originally appeared in Only Companion: Japanese Poems of Love and Longing, by Sam Hamill, Shambhala Publications, 1997, and in the Virginia Quarterly Review ... The Japanese version was handwritten from Romaji into Hiragana by Eriko Takahashi, and printed on a Vandercook press just as the type, composed by Michael and Winifred Bixler in Monotype Van Dijck. Calligraphic images were printed in relief from ink drawings. The paper is Kozuke, Japanese Mulberry and the cover paper is hand-dyed Fabriano."
Saigyō Hosho (1118-1190) took Buddhist vows and became "one of Japan's most renown mountain hermits and a predominate figure in establishing Japan's long tradition of Buddhist nature poetry, a model and inspiration for Basho, Issa, Ryokan, and many others. These poems are translated from his 'waka,' short poems, in lines of 5-7-5-7-7, precursor to the Japanese tanka" (p. 7).
147. [Salvage Press / Distillers Press.] The works of Master Poldy. Edited by Stephen Cole. The Salvage Press, 2013.
$500
Edition limited to 120 copies, this copy is an artist's proof, marked "handling copy." Folio, pp. [35]; title page printed in green and black; wood types printed in a variety of colors; quarter-bound in orange cloth over boards; fine in publisher's slipcase.
A typographic homage to James Joyce's Leopold Bloom. "An imaginative response to Ulysses, distilling its central character with scattered utterances and reflections - deriving from Molly Bloom's comment that if she 'could only remember half the things' that her husband said, she 'would write a book out of it the works of Master Poldy'."
"Designed & letterpress printed by Jamie Murphy with guidance and advice from Sean Sills at Distillers Press, NCAD, Dublin. The woodtypes shown are from the Distillers Press collection ... This is the first book printed under the imprint of the Salvage Press."
148. Man before a mirror. 2022.
$18,000
Edition limited to 13 copies, only 10 of which are for sale*. This composite and multi-faceted artwork, printed in blue, red, yellow, and black, consists of three scrolls, the first (approx. 18 inches by 8 feet) consisting of Schanilec's poem, "Man Before a Mirror," with extracts from Pablo Picasso, Wilder Bentley, Alice B. Tolkas, and Emerson Wulling, with other elements, and printed on Toro Gampi. The second and third scrolls (approx. 6 feet by 38 inches) are a pair of reduction-cut specimen prints printed on Gampi, printed directly from the eastern red cedar pulled from the ground during COVID, in the spring of 2020.
"I pulled a dead cedar tree from the earth. It leaned against a post for a year or so. Consider the tree turned upside down, roots to the sky, trunk to the ground. It was about my height, about my weight, and the more I thought about it, the more it became ... me.
"I sliced the cedar tree in two. I received a printmaking fellowship, giving me access to a large etching press, and printed the cedar tree. When I did there was no 28-gram Gampi paper available, so I went with 20-gram Gampi. Registration of two colors on a single sheet was clearly impossible. It was like printing on clouds. The two colors were printed on separate sheets: one layer, the color of skin, and behind it a second layer, the color of blood. Because of the translucency of the paper, the image read equally well from front and back, so the reflection was simply the print viewed from the other side of the two sheets.
"'Man Before a Mirror was printed in an edition of 13. It became clear that without a text, the edition would be exiled to a cardboard box. So I printed a textual scroll to go along with the image. Besides my own writing I indulged, as I often do, in appropriated text:
"'From this evening, I am giving up painting, sculpture, engraving, and poetry so as to consecrate myself entirely to singing'. Pablo Picasso to Paul Sabartes, April 26, 1936.
"'The trouble with Picasso was that he allowed himself to be flattered into believing he was a poet too'. Alice B. Tolkas, 1949.
"'You will never be T. S. Eliot'. Robert Rulon-Miller to Gaylord Schanilec, 2022" (from Schanilec's talk at the Grolier Club, November 4, 2002)."
All three scrolls contained in a hand-made wooden casket by Schanilec himself, with sides of black walnut, a hinged lid of white oak, and hard maple handles; the finials are of Eastern red cedar and the dowels of hard maple. All the wood comes from Schanilec's Woods in Stockholm. Casket measurements are 56 inches in length (plus 3" for each of the handles), by 5 inches. The hardware for the casket comes from Casket Builders' Supply in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.
*The entire edition is sold exclusively by Rulon-Miller Books.
149. Take the A train ... from It Has Not Always Been This Way. [West Branch, Iowa]: Toothpaste Press for Bookslinger Editions, 1982.
$250
Letterpress broadside, edition limited to 90 numbered copies (this, marked 'os'), 10½" x 14¼", printed in blue and black; printed on the occasion of the author's reading at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, February 17, 1982. This copy boldly signed by Shange.
Only 5 in OCLC: Cornell, Delaware, Lafayette, University of South Carolina, and Washington University. Also included in the Bookslinger Twenty Broadsides portfolio, 1981-82.
150. Words against the shifting seasons: women speak of breast cancer. A collection of writings by women with breast cancer. Edited by Whitney Scott. Original art by Hollis Sigler. Calhoun Press, Columbia College, 1994.
$250
First edition, limited to an unspecified number of copies, oblong 8vo, pp. 114, [4]; printed in purple and black; text in double column; 12 tipped-in color illustrations by Hollis Sigler, gilt-stamped purple cloth spine, green cloth over gilt-stamped boards; fine. Designed by Marlene Lipinski. This is the bookbinder Greg Campbell's copy, Campbell-Logan Bindery, and out-of-series.
151. Thistles and thorns. Abraham and Sarah at Bethel ... With wood engravings by Barry Moser. Omaha: Abattoir Editions / University of Nebraska, 1977.
$400
Edition limited to 253 copies (this, no. 0); large 8vo, pp. 100; printed in red and black; 13 wood engravings by Moser; fine copy in original natural linen with printed red wrap-around label, original plain dust jacket slightly worn at extremities; all else fine. From the library of Kim Merker.
Copy no. zero is likely a review copy or possibly a proof. Hence, without the red paper slip with title and authors' names tipped onto blank facing dedication page.
152. The white boat and some other poems. Lithographs by Jeff Abshear. Kalamazoo: Buckner Press, 1994.
$250
"Four copies were printed as artist's proofs of which this is number 1." 8vo, pp. 84, [4]; 6 lithographs; original full natural linen, printed paper label on spine; fine.
An edition of 100 copies was printed the following year (25 in wrappers and 75 casebound) but with different pagination.
153. The continuous life. Eighteen poems. With two woodcuts by Neil Welliver. Iowa City: Windhover Press, 1990.
$1,250
First edition limited to 251 copies, this being one of 26 lettered copies signed by the poet and the illustrator (this being copy 'Y'); folio, pp. [60], printed on Umbria paper on rectos only in black and blue, title page in black, gray and blue; 2 woodcuts in the text, repeated on 2 separate prints in pocket at the back, as issued; light wrinkle to the tops of the first half dozen leaves, else fine copy in original plain gray wrappers made by Tim Barrett, Japanese-style thong-and-loop clasps.
The printer Kim Merker's copy. Bifoliate prospectus laid in.
Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker 97: "those twenty-six copies ... sold out instantly."
154. The continuous life. Eighteen poems. With two woodcuts by Neil Welliver. Iowa City: Windhover Press, 1990.
$1,500
First edition limited to 251 copies, (this being copy no. 1) inscribed by Strand to the printer, Kim Merker. Folio, pp. [60], printed on Umbria paper on rectos only in black and blue, title page in black, gray and blue; 2 woodcuts in the text; a fine copy in original plain gray wrappers made by Tim Barrett.
Inscribed by Strand on the half-title: "To Kim / Whose book this is from one whose book this is too - with continuous affection / Mark." Merker published Strand's first book, Sleeping With One Eye Open in 1964 at the Stone Wall Press.
Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker 97.
155. [Sutton Hoo Press.] Walking in the footsteps of the dead man ... Image by Lisa Schoenfielder. [La Crosse, Wisconsin]: Sutton Hoo Press, 2000.
$250
Edition limited to "about 100 copies printed from handset Lutetia and Romulus Open types by C. Mikal Oness in the spring of 2000. Lee Hemmersbach and Toni Vanderboom assisted" (colophon); square 4to, pp. [20]; fine in original brown cloth, printed paper label on spine. Signed by the poet Marvin Bell. From the library of Kim Merker whom Oness assisted at the Windhover Press at Iowa City.
Laid in is a broadside poem/prospectus for Charles Wright's North American Bear as printed by the Sutton Hoo Press.
Marvin Bell (b. 1937) is an American poet and teacher who was Poet Laureate of the State of Iowa. He taught for many years at the Iowa Writers' Workshop as the Flannery O'Connor Professor of Letters.
156. Believe Mary. Carolyn Swiszcz, September, 1992.
$375
Edition limited to 12 signed and numbered copies (this, no. 8); approx. 5½" x 7¾", pp. [16]; illustrations by Swiszcz; original blue velvet over boards, printed paper label on upper cover; some fading at the extremities of the binding, and the stitching a little loose; all else near fine.
This is Swiszcz's second book, completed while she was still a student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design where she earned her BFA in 1994. Says Swiszcz, a transplant from New Bedford, Mass.: "As a result of The Storm [her first book completed in 1991] I had an internship with Gaylord Schanilec who taught me to set and print type properly. I worked with him the summer of 1992 on his book The Bread of This World, and I used his studio, in trade for more production work, to print another one of my books [Believe Mary]." From the colophon: "The book was written, illustrated and printed by Carolyn Swiszcz. It couldn't have been made without the help of Gaylord Schanilec."
Not in OCLC.
157. The storm. 1991.
$500
Edition limited to 16 signed and numbered copies (this, no. 12); oblong 4to, pp. [16]; 10 linocut illustrations by Swiszcz; near fine in original coarse blue buckram.
This is Swiszcz's first book, completed when she was just 19 in her first printmaking class at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design where she earned her BFA in 1994. Says Swiszcz, a transplant from New Bedford, Mass.: "As a result of The Storm book I had an internship with Gaylord Schanilec who taught me to set and print type properly. I worked with him the summer of 1992 on his book The Bread of This World, and I used his studio, in trade for more production work, to print another one of my books in the 90s" (i.e. Believe Mary).
Not in OCLC.
158. [Taylor, W. Thomas.] My war story. Paul Gervais Bell, Jr. 01825802 Captain, Cavalry, Army of the United States. privately printed, 1999.
$275
Edition limited to 50 copies, 8vo, pp. [3]-141, [3]; 16 illustrations on rectos and versos of 8 plates; original quarter black cloth over decorative paper-covered boards, red morocco label on spine; fine.
Bell, from Texas, served over 3 years in WW-II and was the great-great nephew of Stephen F. Austin. An uncommon W. Thomas Taylor production. "Printed by Bradley Hutchinson at Digital Letterpress to a design by W. Thomas Taylor."
159. [Toothpaste Press.] Nothing is lost save honor...two essays. Nouveau Press for the Mississippi Civil Liberties Union, 1984.
$750
First edition limited to 300 copies signed by the author (this, no. 144); small 8vo, pp. [44]; frontispiece portrait of Vonnegut by David Levine; fine. From the library of Kim Merker.
The two essays are "Worse Addiction of Them All" and "Fates Worse Than Death." Designed and printed by Allan Kornblum at the Toothpaste Press.
"This little book to which I have donated materials copyrighted in my name, came into being as an object which might be sold for a profit by the Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, whose work I ardently support. It is like a cake at a cake sale. In the same spirit, David Levine has donated his excellent caricature of me." (postscript).
160. Daedalus. [Parallel title in Greek]. The Press at Colorado College, 1993.
$1,500
Edition limited to 35 numbered copies signed by the printer James Trissel (this, copy no. 11); square folio, pp. [30]; illustrated throughout; original 3-toned blue cloth stamped in silver on the upper cover; fine copy. Letterpress from polymer plates. From the library of Kim Merker.
"This book began as a personal investigation into the flight of birds and slipped into a meditation on our friend Daedalus for equally personal reasons ... He was the appropriate conveyance for my own obsession with flight ... print[ed] with the help of Sally Hegarty and Travis Jordan. David Curnutt made the countless negatives for plates and Charles Walters let us use his splendid photographs of skies ... The type is computer-generated copperplate thirty-one BC and the paper is Magnani Pescia Incisioni" (colophon).
The binding is by Greg Campbell at Campbell-Logan Bindery, Minneapolis. Drawings and some hand lettering; copier-printed materials (landscapes, diagrams and some calligraphic notation together with some handwritten remarks) from Lucite sheets. 23 halftones of photos and xeroxed images. Color printing of skies from Lucite sheets, and split-font color printing. Printed in black, blue, silver, red, yellow & gold.
161. [Typographeum Press.] A selection of 14 titles from the Typographeum Press of R. T. Risk, as listed below. . Typographeum, 1978-89.
$500
All are octavos in original bindings of full cloth or cloth backed paper-covered boards, unless noted, and in fine condition, as published. Each is from an edition limited to between 60 and 200 copies.
1) Aldington, Richard. The Dearest Friend: A Selection from the Letters of Richard Aldington to John Cournos, 1978.
2) Likenesses: Translations by Frances Golffing, 1979. Marbled paper wraps.
3) Risk, R. T. Why Potocki? 1981. Accompanied by a copy of Potocki's The Right Review, Summer 1973.
4) Kershaw, Alistair. Adrian Lawlor: A Memoir, 1981.
5) Mason, Roger Burford. Up at the BIg House, 1981.
6) Risk, R.T. Erhard Ratdolt, Master Printer, 1982.
7) Potocka, Theodora Gay. Potocki: A Dorset Worthy? 1983.
8) Campbell, Roy. 'Mass at Dawn' A Poem Set to Music by Christopher Connelly, 1984. Natural wrappers.
9) Gribble, George Dunning. Scarecrows: A Dialogue, 1985.
10) Mosley, Diana. The Writing of Rebecca West, with a New Afterword, 1986.
11) Barlow, Adrian. Answers for My Murdered Self, 1987.
12) Keller, Dean H., editor. 'Bubb Booklets' Letters of Richard Aldington to Charles Clinch Bubb, 1988.
13) White, Claire Nicolas. River Boy, 1988.
14) Boborowski, Johannes. Boehlendorff: A Short Story and Seven Poems, 1989.
162. [Warwick Press.] Picnic stream. Warwick Press, 2014.
$250
Edition limited to 27 copies signed by Blinn, 8vo, pp. [8]; text digitally printed on Asuka White, with handpainted Fabriano Watercolor paper for the covers; dragonfly and Monarch butterfly scanned from original specimens; fine.
163. [Warwick Press.] Warwick Press: a personal view. A lecture with slides ... A demonstration and workshop on making decorative paste papers ... at the King Library Press, University of Kentucky. Warwick Press], 2001.
$275
Broadside (approx. 15" x 9½"), edition limited to 200 (which is crossed out and in its place Blinn has penciled in 100) copies signed by Blinn (this, no. 6); with 2 hand-colored illustrations by Blinn of ducks with a composing stick, and ducks watching paste paper being made; fine.
164. [Warwick Press.] On becoming three & thirty: being a brief history & description of Warwick Press from inception to its three year anniversary & also a celebration of Carol J. Blinn's thirtieth year of life. Warwick Press, 1976.
$250
Edition limited to 150 copies (this, no. 142), 8vo, pp. [16]; title-page self-portrait with a dab of hand-coloring, hand-colored colophon vignette; original green paste paper wrappers, printed paper label on upper cover; fine.
An interesting copy. Laid in is a note from Carol Blinn to Greg Campbell: "This copy was owned by an old friend who moved to Mexico and asked me to sell it. The two copies from Hugh's archives are gone..." On the colophon Blinn wrote in 1976: "For Edward from Carol with affection." And in 2009 she writes again underneath the first inscription: "and now it goes into the hands of Greg Campbell, my binding hero! All good wishes & affection, Carol." Also laid in is the original postcard prospectus.
165. [Warwick Press.] One woman's work. A lecture by Carol J. Blinn, a.k.a. The Duck Lady ... about her life's work as a typographic designer, letterpress printer, book-artist and publisher ... Lucy Scribner Library ... Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York. Warwick Press], 2001.
$250
Broadside (approx. 15" x 9½"), signed by Blinn, illustrated with a hand-colored collage caricature of Blinn as a duck, using green, orange, red and yellow; slight wrinkle in the collage due to glue, otherwise fine.
166. [Warwick Press.] Duck poultry poetry (or, once upon a time, book eight). Illustrated and proofread by Carol J.Blinn. Warwick Press, 2003.
$450
Edition limited to 45 copies signed by the author, the illustrator, and the printer in different hands, using her real name and her pseudonym, Frieda Fitzenmeyer; 12mo, pp. [20]; 11 hand-colored illustrations by Blinn; hand sewn into paper wrappers using vellum tapes, spine stamped in green, front cover illustration of an egg; fine. Original prospectus and hand-written invoice laid in.
167. [Warwick Press.] Once upon a time, book six. Text by Frieda Fitzenmeyer. Illustrations by Carol J. Blinn. Easthampton: Warwick Press, 1992.
$250
Edition limited to 125 copies signed by the author and the illustrator (one in the same), 8vo, pp. [24]; hand-colored vignette title page and 11 hand-colored text illustrations by Carol Blinn; white paper-covered boards, hand-colored label on upper cover and spine, fine.
A duck develops a passion for piloting small aircraft. Written (under her alias), designed, illustrated, colored, and bound by Carol J. Blinn.
168. [Whittington Press.] The Whittington Press: a bibliography 1971-1981...with an introduction and notes by John Randle. Whittington Press, 1982.
$375
Edition limited to 320 copies, this being one of 200 copies bound in quarter buckram over marbled boards (this, no. 183), gilt-stamped spine; folio, pp. [12], 83, [3]; mounted photographic frontispiece; folding broadside printed in red and black, sketch map of the Hogarth Press, 4 photographic reproductions mounted on recto and verso of a single plate, numerous illustrations in the text printed from the original blocks, prospectus for books still available laid in, as issued; generally fine.
169. [Whittington Press.] Cornwall an interior vision. Copper engravings & texts by Brian Hanscomb. The Whittington Press, 1992.]
$950
Edition limited to 135 copies, this one of 35 with an extra set of the engravings, this copy marked "press copy" on the colophon, and signed by Hanscomb; folio, 12 frenchfold leaves (the first blank), 8 copper engravings, each signed in pencil, each with an accompanying poem on the facing page; original gray paper wrappers, printed paper label on the upper cover, stab-sewn with blue cord; fine.
Accompanied by a gray paper-covered board portfolio containing each of the above 8 engravings, in this (unique?) case each marked "A.P." and signed in pencil by the artist; book and portfolio together in the publisher's gray paper-covered board slipcase. A muted but beautiful book, like so many made at Whittington.
170. [Whittington Press.] The locks of the Oxford canal. A journey from Oxford to Coventry. With fifty wood engravings by John Craig. Whittington Press, [1984].
$325
Edition limited to 350 copies signed by Craig (this, no. 274), 8vo, pp. [12], x, [54]; title page printed in red and black, 50 wood engravings, one folding plate; pictorial endpapers; original full linen boards, spine and front cover paper labels, fine. Contact card for the press laid in.
171. [Whittington Press.] The Phoenix. Copper-engravings & haiku. The Whittington Press, [2005].
$275
Edition limited to 100 copies, this being no. XXII of 40 special copies containing 2 extra images, titled and signed in pencil by Hanscomb, and an extra haiku, "proofed on Batchelor's Otter hand-made, & signed by the artist," large 8vo, pp. [42] frenchfold; one full-page and 8 smaller copper engravings; accompanied by the separate portfolio which is laid in; fine in publisher's slipcase.
172. [Whittington Press.] Further interiors. The Whittington Press, [1992].
$250
Edition limited to 300 copies, this being marked "Press Copy" and signed by Phipps; large 8vo, pp. [38] frenchfold; 16 wood engravings, 4 in color, printed from the original blocks (colors mostly from linocuts); original gray wrappers with a printed paper label on the upper cover; fine in publisher's slipcase.
173. [Whittington Press.] A book of posters printed at Whittington [With:] Posters from Whittington, 1996-2013. Whittington Press, 1995, 2013.
$7,500
Both first editions limited to 125 and 140 copies respectively, the first being no. 20, the second no. 3, both editions "A" with additional posters laid in accompanying chemises; 2 volumes, large folios; 10 loose posters accompanying the first volume, 19 (instead of the usual 12) in the second; with 35 and 34 tipped-in posters respectively; the first volume in half brown cloth-backed pictorial boards with matching portfolio, together in cloth clamshell box, brown morocco gilt spine label; the second volume in tan cloth-backed pictorial boards with matching portfolio in tan cloth clamshell box, salmon gilt morocco spine label. The box of the first volume a bit rubbed, else a fine set of a stunning collection.
The first volume signed by John Randle on limitation page, the second with a brief A.L.s. from him. The second also with the "binder's guide for posters from Whittington (2013) ... with binder's notes" (in pencil on the front), 9 gatherings sewn, but without covers, a folio in 6s, with 33 (of 34) posters (broadsides) tipped or bound in, the whole with numerous binder's and printer's marks in pencil.
174. [Whittington Press.] Vance Gerry and the Weather Bird Press. With contributions by Vance Gerry, Simon Lawrence, David Butcher, Patrick Reagh, James Lorson, and John Randle. With a checklist of publications compiled by David Butcher. [Risby, Herefordshire]: The Whittington Press, [2018].
$375
Edition limited to 235 copies, this being one of 155 'C' copies half-bound in orange cloth over one of Vance's pattern papers, printed paper label on spine, and in a full cloth slipcase. Folio, pp. pp. [10], 86, [4]; mounted color frontispiece portrait after a watercolor of Mary, Vance's wife, plus 69 other illustrations in all, from various sources, including line drawings, linocuts, wood engravings, a bifoliate tip-in of Fair Wind, and 12 pages of 26 color reproductions of Vance's pochoir illustrations. Also, two facsimile letters in a pocket at the rear.
With 3 exceptions "the engravings and linocuts are printed from the original blocks, and the line blocks are from Vance Gerry's workshop."
In addition to his fine press work, Vance Gerry was an "'animation storyman, layout artist and visual development artist' at Disney in Los Angeles. Vance's name appears on the credits for 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, The Rescuers, The Great Mouse Detective, The Lion King, and so on – many of the major successes of the Disney company during his working life, which began there in 1955" (preface by Simon Lawrence).
The text of this volume is based on interviews Vance Gerry gave at the University of California in 1989, together with a selection of his letters from then until his death in 2005 to fellow printers and booksellers, and a few personal reminiscences from those who knew him well. Also included is a checklist of Vance Gerry's publications produced over a period of more than forty years compiled by David Butcher.
175. [Whittington Press.] Vance Gerry and the Weather Bird Press. With contributions by Vance Gerry, Simon Lawrence, David Butcher, Patrick Reagh, James Lorson, and John Randle. With a checklist of publications compiled by David Butcher. The Whittington Press, [2018].
$4,500
Edition limited to 235 copies, this being one of 40 'A' copies bound in full Oasis by the Fine Book Bindery, accompanied by 22 items (in this case, 26) of Weather Bird ephemera found in Vance's workshop after his death, "and mostly bound up in his simple style by the Fine Book Bindery;" also, a facsimile edition of Jazz Instruments, plus a portfolio of 13 facsimiles of Vance's letters (in this case, 16), all contained in a leather-backed solander case; small folio, pp. [10], 86, [4]; mounted color frontispiece portrait after a watercolor of Mary, Vance's wife, plus 70 other illustrations in all, from various sources, including line drawings, linocuts, wood engravings, and 12 pages of 26 color reproductions of Vance's pochoir illustrations.
With 3 exceptions "the engravings and linocuts are printed from the original blocks, and the line blocks are from Vance Gerry's workshop." The deluxe 'A' version is now out-of-print, all being subscribed for prior to publication.
In addition to his fine press work, Vance Gerry was an "'animation storyman, layout artist and visual development artist' at Disney in Los Angeles. Vance's name appears on the credits for 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, The Rescuers, The Great Mouse Detective, The Lion King, and so on – many of the major successes of the Disney company during his working life, which began there in 1955" (preface by Simon Lawrence).
The text of this volume is based on interviews Vance Gerry gave at the University of California in 1989, together with a selection of his letters from then until his death in 2005 to fellow printers and booksellers, and a few personal reminiscences from those who knew him well. Also included is a checklist of Vance Gerry's publications produced over a period of more than forty years compiled by David Butcher.
176. [Whittington Press.] A miscellany of type. Compiled at Whittington. Whittington Press, 1990.
$350
Edition limited to 530 copies (this, no. 375), being one of 460 copies quarter-bound; folio, pp. [8], iv, [4], 125, [7]; 3 tipped-in broadsides, illustrated throughout with wood engravings, (largely by Ardizzone, Eric Gill, Robert Gibbings, Gwenda Morgan, Richard Kennedy, Miriam Macgregor, Peter Forster, John Craig, and Hellmuth Weissenborn), line drawings, and a plethora of type styles and ornaments, from 72pt to 12pt; quarter buckram over decorative paper-covered boards, gilt-stamped spine; fine in fine slipcase.
177. [Whittington Press.] A slow ride to India. 128 photographs taken during an overland journey to India in 1968 via Romania, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and Ceylon. [Risbury, Herefordshire]: Whittington Press, [2017].
$450
Edition limited to 275 copies, this copy 114 of 230 copies bound in cloth-backed decorative paper-covered boards with a stencil-pochoir design by Peter Allen, printed paper label on spine; square 4to, pp. [4], 16, [4]; mounted photographic frontispiece and 128 photographic plates; press notice and list of photographs on cream and terracotta paper respectively laid in, as issued; fine in publisher's slipcase.
A photographic account of an overland journey from England to India, featuring 128 photographs taken along the way (out of over 3,000 taken), including in Romania, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, and Ceylon in 1968. Randle describes his photographs as having been taken at what Henri Cartier-Bresson terms "The Decisive Moment."
178. [Whittington Press.] A talent for friendship. Mavis Lowndes 1912-2008. Whittington Press, [2011].
$500
Edition limited to 100 copies "for family & friends," this being no. 38 of 50 bound in full gray-blue Oasis (there was another issue of 50 bound in wrappers); 8vo, pp. [4], 9, [3]; 2 tipped-in photographs; signed by John Randle; fine in publisher's slipcase. Comprises John Randle's remarks at his mother's funeral (Feb. 14, 2008) and "Memories of Maeve and Manor Road," by Jean Arrindell (Tinne).
179. [Whittington Press.] One rainy day. The Whittington Press, 2000.
$250
Edition limited to 100 copies "for the Oxford Guild of Printers on Zerkall Rosa paper. A further 150 are printed in a slightly larger format" (colophon); 8vo, pp. [2], 6, [2]; 9-line wood engraving by Miriam Macgregor plus one wood-engraved tail-piece by her; fine copy in original brown printed wrappers and card slipcase. From the library of Kim Merker.
This copy inscribed by one great printer to another. "Kim - with best wishes from John."
180. Flowers of August ... Drawings by Keith Achepohl. Iowa City: Windhover Press, University of Iowa, 1983.
$850
Edition limited to 260 copies, square 8vo, pp. [28]; illustrated throughout with floral drawings by Keith Achepohl; fine copy in original green cloth, gilt lettering on spine. From the library of Kim Merker.
These seven poems appeared as a numbered sequence in Others for 1919: An Anthology of the New Verse, edited by Alfred Kreymborg. Williams included three of them individually in Sour Grapes and later again in The Collected Earlier Poems. The complete sequence is reprinted here for the first time.
This copy is accompanied by a series of 23 artist's proofs on sheets approx. 18" x 11½", 2 smaller, 3 with sections cut out, and 13 with 16 small post-it notes with instructions and/or titles by Achepohl.
Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker, 82.
181. [Wilson, Adrian.] Three stories of the Raj...Illustrations by Zhid Sardar. Scolar Press, 1986.
$1,500
Small archive pertaining to the binding of Mehta's Three Stories of the Raj, detailing the 10-month process of binding the book by Greg Campbell, Campbell-Logan Bindery, for the printer, Adrian Wilson, beginning with specification worksheets, cost estimates, and working through the design of the binding, the selection and ordering of materials, progress reports, chatty social matters (during the process Wilson came to Minneapolis to lecture at the University of Minnesota and Campbell was his chauffer and guide), and shipment, as contained in the back-and-forth correspondence, approx. 45 pages in all between Campbell-Logan and Adrian Wilson.
Included are the binder's dummy, designs and drawings, bookbinder's samples of cloth, paper, and leathers, invoices from both suppliers and Campbell-Logan, etc., a prospectus and order form, as well as two copies of the finished book, both the trade edition and the deluxe, the latter without signatures or hand-coloring, the former in full curry-colored cloth, and the latter in quarter leather. All contained in a quarter curry-colored goat clamshell box lettered in gilt on spine. Campbell's letters are photocopies of his originals, and Wilson's (9 in all, plus 2 others from the illustrator, Zhid Sardar) are largely, but not entirely, typed letters signed on his letterhead.
182. The work and play of Adrian Wilson. A bibliography with commentary. Edited by Joyce Lancaster Wilson. W. Thomas Taylor, 1983.
$450
Edition ltd. to 325 copies, folio, pp.[3]-158, [1]; printed in red and black throughout, mounted photographic frontispiece portrait by Ansel Adams, 2 other mounted photographs in the text, 14 facsimiles of Wilson's design work inserted, some in color, some multi-paged, woodcut decorations and illustrations throughout; printed on Barcham Green hand-made paper in Centaur, Arrighi, and Palatino types; designed by Adrian Wilson and printed at the Press in Tuscany Alley; fine copy in original quarter Niger morocco over tan linen sides, gilt lettering direct on spine.
Full descriptions of 196 books printed and/or designed by Wilson, with author's commentary.
183. [Windhover Press.] Tale of the Caliph Stork. Mark Twain, translator. Illustrated by Eleanor Simmons. Windhover Press, 1976.
$650
Edition limited to 100 numbered copies (this, no. 4); 8vo, pp. [30]; original terracotta cloth, printed paper label on upper cover; fine. From the library of Kim Merker.
A previously unpublished translation by Clemens of a portion of a popular German story by Wilhelm Hauff. With an Afterword by Paul Baender.
Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker, 65: "This was an unpublished Mark Twain fragment which the Twain estate allowed me to print in 100 copies if I wouldn't sell it ... The flyer accompanying the book (not present) explains that the volume was an 'almost-free gift' for standing order customers who were asked to pay $5 to cover binding and shipping."
184. [Windhover Press.] For Will Carter on his eightieth birthday.... The Windhover Press, n.d., [1992].
$250
Broadside (approx. 8¼" x 11¾), printed in blue and black; fine. From the library of Kim Merker.
A collection of aphorisms from a printer's commonplace book. "He may never have read these, but he has known the gist of them all his life."
Will Carter, printer, typographer, and calligrapher was the founder of the Rampant Lions Press in Cambridge, U.K.
Not in Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker. Not in OCLC.
185. [Windhover Press.] Mottetti / Motets. Charles Wright, translator. Windhover Press at the University of Iowa, 1981.
$750
Edition limited to 220 copies, square 12mo, pp. [46]; English and Italian text on facing pages; title page printed in black with yellow hand-coloring; contemporary full niger morocco, tear-drop onlay of marbled paper bisected with thin strip of dark morocco, terracotta endpapers, paper chemise with niger edges, the whole within a slipcase also with niger edges; fine. From the library of Kim Merker.
Born in Waterford, Ireland, William Anthony (1926-1989) "was known throughout the United States and internationally as one of the foremost conservators and master bookbinders. He began his career in the United States as studio director for The Cuneo Press, Chicago. From 1973 to 1980 he was senior partner in the firm of Kner & Anthony Bookbinders, and in 1980 became president of his own company, Anthony & Associates. In 1984 Mr. Anthony was appointed University Conservator at the University of Iowa. In this position Mr. Anthony developed the Conservation Laboratory in the University Libraries. He was also a participant in activities of the University of Iowa Center for the Book" (obituary at culturalheritage[dot]org).
Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker, 75: "The translations are superb."
186. North American bear ... Woodcuts by Gary Young. Sutton Hoo Press, [1999].
$500
Edition limited to "approximately 136 copies," signed by Wright and Gary Young, 8vo, pp. [30]; woodcuts printed in blue throughout, displaying an array of stars, shooting stars, Saturn, etc.; fine copy in original navy blue cloth, printed paper label on spine. Fine copy. From the library of Kim Merker.
"Printed from hand-set Bembo types on dampened Johannot & Somerset papers by C. Mikal Oness and Gary Young with help from Brad Naragon and Betsy Wheeler" (colophon).
187. Selections from the Yellow Emperor's inner classic translated from the ancient Chinese with a preface by J. N. Wu. The Taoist Center / Press in the Trees, 1992.
$450
Edition limited to 200 copies designed and printed by Chad Oness at Sutton Hoo Press, 8vo, pp. [12], 3-29, [3]; title page printed in yellow and black; Chinese characters by Fang Neng-Yu, "a practicing medical doctor in China for thirty years and persecuted by the government as a dissident," original yellow cloth, printed paper label on spine; fine copy. From the library of Kim Merker.
"In keeping with an ancient Chinse custom which honors spirit and the continuation of life, one copy of this edition has remained unnumbered and been given away to avoid the completion of the series. This copy has been given to Kim Merker. 1-25 have been signed by the translator and the artist" (colophon). This copy thus inscribed "For Kim, This, and all others..., Chad."
The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic (Huangdi Neijing, 黃帝內經) is the most important ancient text in Chinese medicine as well as a major book of Daoist theory and lifestyle. It has been treated as a fundamental doctrinal source for Chinese medicine for more than two millennia.
188. [Yellow Barn Press.] John Anderson and the Pickering Press. An autobiography. Edited with an introduction by James Fraser. With a Pickering Press bibliography by John Anderson, James Fraser and Eleanor Friedl. Yellow Barn Press and Florham-Madison [N.J.] Campus Library, Fairleigh Dickinson University Library, [1995].
$275
Edition limited to 150 copies (this is copy 50), 4to, pp. x, 76, [1]; title printed in red and black, mounted photo portrait frontispiece, 21 color facsimiles; as new in publisher's slipcase. Prospectus and order form laid in.
Bibliography of the Philadelphia printer, 1947-1987. The presswork is by Neil Shaver on Rives paper. Prospectus and order form laid in. From the order form: "John Anderson's Pickering Press was a 'public press' that worked in the Philadelphia area from the 1940s into the 1980s... [He] was perhaps the last of the great commercial letterpress printers working on the East Coast."
189. [Yellow Barn Press.] John DePol: a celebration of his work, by many hands. Yellow Barn Press, 1994.
$400
Edition limited to 150 copies (only 90 for sale and this, no. 4), 8vo, unpaginated; title page printed in red and black; printed in sections by 23 different printers and assembled at the Yellow Barn Press and bound in Minneapolis by the Campbell-Logan Bindery; over 120 illustrations throughout, primarily wood engravings and printed in a variety of colors; original gray cloth-backed DePol patterned paper-covered boards, green morocco label lettered in gilt on spine; publisher's slipcase; fine.
Original prospectus laid in. Among the contributing printers and/or presses are the Allen Press, Barbarian Press, Hammer Creek Press, Indiana Kid, Pickering Press, Red Ozier Press, and many others.
190. [Yellow Barn Press.] Situations / sets. [Council Bluffs: Yellow Barn Press, 1983.]
$250
Edition limited to 50 copies (this, no. 25); tall 8vo, pp. [14]; 4 linocuts; original pictorial white wrappers with a large linocut on the front; fine. Printed by Marc Faré at the Yellow Barn Press.
No mention of this in the Yellow Barn Press bibliography. Not found in OCLC. Thanks to technology I tracked Vicky down in California. She confirms the text was part of her graduate thesis in Toronto. "A very poetic approach!" she writes. "The book was a wonderful project with Marc Faré, who wanted practice with the letterpress."
191. [Yellow Barn Press.] Metanoia. Poems by.... Council Bluffs: Yellow Barn Press, 1979.
$600
Printed in a limited edition of an unspecified number but Walsdorf notes the number in the edition is 64; 8vo, pp. 24; title-page portrait by Sue Pospeschil Olson; fine in original maroon cloth, printed paper label on spine. From the library of Kim Merker.
Hand-printed by Neil Shaver at his Yellow Barn Press on a Washington hand-press, text set in Baskerville, and printed on Rives paper.
Walsdorf, A1: "I printed this first book in Harry Duncan's class at the University of Nebraska at Omaha ... At this time I knew nothing about what it took to produce a book" (Neil Shaver).
Only 5 in OCLC: Cal State-Sacramento, LC, Council Bluffs Public Library, Nebraska, and U. Penn.
192. [Yellow Barn Press.] The Red Ozier: a literary fine press. History and bibliography, 1976-1987. New York Public Library and Yellow Barn Press, [1993].
$650
Edition limited to 170 copies, this being one of 26 in half red Oasis over pastepaper-covered boards by Claire Maziarczyk, this being the bookbinder Greg Campbell's copy, Campbell-Logan Bindery, marked in pencil on the colophon "Aa - binder's copy," large 8vo, pp. xxxii, [2], 85, [3]; printed in red and black on on dampened Rives paper; 16 facsimile illustrations, 1 folding plate; fine in publisher's slipcase. Original prospectus laid in.
193. [Yellow Barn Press.] The Red Ozier: a literary fine press. History and bibliography, 1976-1987. New York Public Library and Yellow Barn Press, [1993].
$250
Edition limited to 170 copies, this being one of 144 bound in quarter red cloth over pastepaper boards by Claire Maziarczyk (this, copy no. 21); large 8vo, pp. xxxii, [2], 85, [3]; printed in red and black on on dampened Rives paper; 16 facsimile illustrations, 1 folding plate; fine in publisher's slipcase. Original prospectus laid in.
Walsdorf A-23.
194. [Yellow Barn Press.] Elbert Hubbard: William Morris's greatest imitator. Yellow Barn Press, 1999.
$450
Edition limited to 150 copies (this, no. 46), 8vo, pp. vii, [5], 24, [2]; 2 portraits, 2 specimen pages tipped in (one a leaf - the title leaf- of Morris's Gothic Architecture, and another from Hubbard's Rip Van Winkle); original Japanese cloth over boards, paper labels on spine and upper cover; fine. Original prospectus laid in.
This being the binder Greg Campbell's copy, he has sophisticated it with the specimen leaves. The colophon notes that only copies 1-35 contain the leaves. The leaves in this case are unique.
Walsdorf A33.
195. [Yellow Barn Press.] The Yellow Barn Press: a history and bibliography. Yellow Barn Press, 2001.
$500
First edition, one of 175 copies (this, no. 40); folio, pp. 140; 22 color plates, 58 illustrations, many of them John DePol's wood engravings, text in 14-point Perpetua, an Eric Gill design; quarter black Oasis goat skin with a DePol pattern paper over boards, leather spine label, cloth clamshell box; fine. Original bifoliate prospectus with 2 tipped-in photographs laid in.
Neil Shaver began his Yellow Barn Press in Council Bluffs, Iowa in the 1960s, but it wasn't until 1979, after having studied printing with Harry Duncan, that the press produced its first book. Throughout the eighties and nineties, the press continued to publish titles noted for their quality of design and high craftsmanship in production, in particular, books of poetry and books about books or books about printing such as the successful Elbert Hubbard: William Morris's Greatest Imitator, American Iron Hand Presses, and John DePol: A Celebration. Included are a history and comments by Neil Shaver.
196. Manuale Zapficum: typographic arrangements of words by and about the work of Hermann Zapf & Gudrun Zapf von Hesse set in typefaces by both; in honor of their ninetieth birthdays. Cary Graphic Arts Press, 2008.
$250
Edition limited to 100 copies, small folio, pp. [52]; title and introduction leaves followed by 24 leaves with specimens of different Zapf typefaces printed in red and black on rectos, versos blank; original parchment-backed terracotta paper-covered boards, gilt-lettered spine; fine.
A tribute to the Zapfs, utilizing the same criteria for producing sample sheets as the original Manuales of 1954 and 1968, exclusively employing Zapf type.