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Book of the Week — Queen Moo’s Talisman

22 Monday Oct 2018

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Africa, Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal, archaeologist, Asiatic, Atlantic, Augustus Le Plongeon, Brahma, British Isles, brooch, Buddha, cataclysms, Chichén Itzá, Cloverland Magazine, Codex Cortesianus, copperplate, cultural, Daily Mining Journal, dance, earthquake, Egypt, English, Flood, frescos, gold, Greece, Henry Dixon, Ida Simmons, immortality, India, inscriptions, island, jadeite, John Olof Viking, Khans, linguistic, macaw, manuscripts, Maya, Mayan, maypole, Mediterranean, Mexico, Michigan, mural, musci, New York, ocean, pastedown, Peru, Peter Eckler, photographer, Prince Chaacol, printer, prospectus, Queen Moo, Ramayana, rare books, reincarnation, serpent, Siam, songs, Swedish, talisman, The Word, Theosophical Publishing Company, Troano Codex, Uxmal, vocabulary, Yucatan


When grief shall rend thy heart, seek thine own soul;
Shut out life’s din, and find that sacred goal.

Queen Moo’s Talisman: The Fall of the Maya Empire
Alice Dixon Le Plongeon (1851-1910)
New York: Peter Eckler, Publisher, 1902
First edition

Alice Dixon Le Plongeon was an English photographer, amateur archaeologist, traveler, and author. She was the daughter of Henry Dixon, a copperplate printer and photographer.

She travelled with her husband, Augustus Le Plongeon, to Mexico in 1873. They were early excavators of the ancient Mayan sites of Chichén Itzá and Uxmal.

While studying the artifacts at Chichén Itzá, the Le Plongeon’s pieced together a narrative of Queen Moo (the Mayan word for “macaw”), an ancient Mayan ruler, and her brother and consort Prince Chaacmol (“powerful warrior”). In November 1875, they unearthed a large statue and other artifacts near the Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars at Chichén Itzá, including a piece of jadeite that Augustus had set in a gold brooch. Alice wore the talisman for the rest of her life.

A talisman I give thee — jadeite green,
‘Twill ever lend thee intuition keen,
Its wearer may with love herself surround,
For with attractive force it doth abound.
Would one deceive, and traitor prove to thee,
His mind with this thou wilt quite plainly see.
Thro’ centuries this talisman can bind
Two souls — desiring this, the way thou ‘lt find.
But keep it sacredly for thee alone;
If thou lose this a foe will seize thy throne.

Even though the archaeological community was not receptive to the Le Plongeons’ theories about Queen Moo, Alice publisher her epic poem. In the introduction, the author discusses the connections, linguistic and cultural, her husband, made between the Maya empire, Egypt, India, Buddha, Brahma, the Ramayana, the Mediterranean, Africa, Greece, Peru, Siam; and the maypole dance — practiced in the Yucatan and the British Isles.

Referring to the Troano Codex and the Codex Cortesianus, he connected the word “CAN,” “the generic word for serpent,” found inscribed in ancient Yucatan ruins with the Khans of Asiatic nations. Dr. Plongeon interpreted inscriptions in both manuscripts as the story of a great flood caused by an earthquake, submerging a “great island in the Atlantic ocean,” suggesting that the Troano Codex dates the disappearance of the island 8,060 years before the writing of the manuscript. “Judging from Egyptian records, the cataclysms must have occurred between ten and eleven thousand years ago.”

The publisher’s prospectus described the work as “a dramatic…account of events which caused the dismemberment of the Maya empire, according to Maya [manuscripts], mural inscriptions and frescos at Chichén in Yucatan. Interesting data are also given concerning ancient rites and religious ideas of the Mayas, their belief in the immortality of the soul, its reincarnation in human form, and its power to manifest, while disembodied, to those in the flesh.”

At the back of the book is included several songs with music, words by Alice Le Plongeon and accompaniment by Ida Simmons.

Rare Books copy is inscribed by John O. Viking, a correspondent of Alice Le Plongeon’s, on the front free flyleaf, “From/John O. Viking/Ishpeming, Mich./April 30th 08/To Sister Benediction/ 8/28, 1950.”

An autographed letter from the author to Viking dated June 22nd in the original mailing envelope and regarding the purchasing of copies of Queen Moo, some Mayan vocabulary, and a few printer’s errors in her book, A Dream of Atlantis, mounted on front pastedown; a typed letter signed by the author to John O. Viking dated May 6th, 1908 regarding the possible publication of A Dream of Atlantis in the magazine The Word also laid in at rear; typed letter signed by an associate of the Theosophical Publishing Company of New York dated August 25th, 1910 addressed to Viking and informing him of Alice Le Plongeon’s death in original mailing envelope affixed to the rear pastedown.

John Olof Viking (b. 1874) was a Swedish-born writer who settled in Michigan with his family in 1882. He worked as a staff writer for the American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal. His articles also appeared in other publications, including Cloverland Magazine and Daily Mining Journal.  

Frontispiece of the author with tissue guard captioned in red. Further illustrated with thirteen black-and-white numbered drawings and three headpieces. Title-page printed in red and black. Bound in publisher’s gray cloth lettered in gilt on front board and spine. Top edge gilt.

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Book of the Week — Opuscula mathematica

14 Monday May 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Charles II, Duke of Parma, engraver, fonts, geometry, Giambattista Bodoni, Greek, hydraulics, Isaac Newton, Italy, mathemathics, matrices, musical notation, ornamental devices, Parma, Piedmont, Pietro Giannini, printer, printshop, publisher, punchcutter, punches, Roman, Russian, Saluzzo, Seville, Spain, type designer, type foundry, typographer, Vincenzo Riccati


“…the function of our Art is to put before our eyes…representation of anything which the human mind can split up and divide into a definite number of different parts, not infinitesimally small, which frequently recur in exactly the same form to play a part in that representation.” — Giambattista Bodoni, Manuale tipographica (1818)

Opuscula mathematica
Pietro Giannini (1740-1810)
Parma: Ex Typographia Regia, 1773
First edition
QA3 G43 1773

This scarce mathematical work on hydraulics and geometry was printed by Giambattista Bodoni. Bodoni was born in Saluzzo, Piedmont, Italy in 1740. He died in Parma, Italy in 1813. An engraver, type designer, printer and publisher, Bodoni was invited by the Duke of Parma to set up and run a printshop. In 1779, Bodoni opened his own type foundry. In 1782 Charles II of Spain named Bodoni his court typographer.

Bodoni is still recognized for his roman, Greek, Gothic, Asian and Russian fonts, and lines, borders, symbols, numbers and musical notation. He was the most prolific punchcutter in the history of printing: an inventory of his shop, compiled by his widow, revealed 25,491 punches and 50,283 matrices, each cut by hand. He was friend to kings, ministers and others in power, dubbed by them as “Re dei tipografi, tipografo dei re” (king of typographers, typographer of kings). He basked in popularity, receiving numerous high honors.

This plain edition, with simple yet gracious chapter-heading ornamental devices, is a great example of the beginnings of Bodoni’s signature style: wide margins; clear, solid type; and exquisitely designed and printed mathematical figures all point to Bodoni’s typographical genius.

Oh, yeah. And then there’s the math. Pietro Giannini was a student of Vincenzo Riccati (1707-1775) who urged Giannini to publish Opuscula Mathematica (1773). Opuscula is divided into three parts. In the first part, Giannini studied water falling through a hole. Isaac Newton had addressed this in his Principia, but Giannini’s work is less experimental, more mathematical. Giannini was appointed a professor of mathematics in Seville, Spain.

This edition contains ten engraved folding copper-engraved plates, each with multiple diagrams. It is illustrated with a woodcut device on title-page. Our copy is bound in original wrappers with an old manuscript spine label.

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An Impression of Spring

20 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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Bertram Rota, British, cardboard, commercial, gesso, Gogmagog Press, Hosho, Japanese, landscape, leaves, London, Morris Cox, panorama, plywood, poetry, printer, private press, Prose, seasons, seeds, spring, twigs, varnish


“Now sprigs are pricked by bursting buds,
and threading the trees the wind’s weft
skittles, drops and spurts again,
rubbing along the ground to tease old leafings
of skittering litter, scratching swirl…

Between bettling sky and buxom earth —
a mazed and frilling lightning flash!
The eye bleaches and goes black.
A far-off tracking thunder rolls
and tight, hard raindrops teem and patter,
hiss an sheen in rimplin rods…
till overhead the ragging cloud thins off
in clean-washed grin, and sun-bowl tips
over the giggling earth its molten gold.”

An Impression of Spring: A Landscape Panorama
Morris Cox (1903-1998)
London: Gogmagog Press: Dist. by Bertram Rota, 1966
ND497 C748 A43 1966

Gogmagog Press was a one man operation: for more than forty years Morris Cox — artist, writer, and printer — worked alone, using simple tools and creating one of the most important of British post-war private presses. Cox experimented with various aspects of his craft,  always paying meticulous attention to detail.

Morris Cox’s poetry and prose rarely found commercial publication. For this reason, in middle-age, Cox began Gogmagog Press, in order to distribute his work. It was only then that his poetry began to be championed, for the poetry was as good as the press production. Word and image are so intertwined that one divorced from the other leaves only half an experience.

The texture of the prints derives from the unusual printing blocks used to create them. Cox mounted sheets of cardboard onto plywood and layered them with gesso, next adding materials from nature like seeds, leaves, and twigs. These elements were varnished to strengthen them.

Impressions is one of four works on the seasons, all considered to be the peak of Cox’s achievement as a printer. Printed on Japanese ‘Hosho’ paper. Edition of one hundred numbered and signed copies. Rare Books copy is no. 23.

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A Donation Makes a Difference in Denmark

25 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Donations

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20th century, article, Brooklyn, commercial, communication, composing, Compugraphic, Compugraphic Universal V, Dad, Danish Association for Communication, Denmark, Design & Media, Don Gale, donation, electrical, electronics, ephemera, Fotosetter, Garamond, GRAKOM, gravure, Henning Impgaard Madsen, industry magazine, Intertype, Intertype Corporation, KSL, letterpress, lithographic plates, machine, manuals, marketing, media production, museum, offset, Outcome, paper, photographic, platemaking, plates, printer, rare books, Royal Danish Library, Special Collections, technology, type specimens, typographers, UDKOM, United States, Viborg, Vingaard Officinet


“These showings of Intertype “Fotosetter” Garamond mark an important event in the history of Intertype Corporation. All of the composition was produced on an Intertype Fotosetter photographic line-composing machine. The original film positives were used to make deep-etch lithographic plates, from which this booklet was printed. Quite appropriately for such an occasion Garamond, considered among leading typographers to be one of the most successful type faces ever introduced, was selected for these introductory specimens of Fotosetter technique.”

Fotosetter Garamond
Brooklyn: Intertype Corp., 1949
Z250 F75 1949


Any one of a certain age living in Utah knows who Don Gale is. Three times a day, in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, KSL aired Don’s short, stern, fair editorials. Don was the Vice President for Public Affairs and Editorial Director at KSL.

Over the years, Don has donated personal papers, videos of his editorials and other material to Special Collections. In 2006, Rare Books was the happy recipient of a collection of books and printed ephemera concerning twentieth century commercial printing technologies, including manuals and type specimen books.

Don’s dad was a printer.

In late November we received an email from Henning Impgaard Madsen in Denmark, who had discovered through the internet that we had “some information about the first Fotosetter in the world.” The Royal Danish Library did not have “any information.” Mr. Madsen said that he was helping a museum get an Intertype Fotosetter working but that he needed “some details about the electrical parts and how to work it.”

Thanks to Don’s donation, we were able to provide Mr. Madsen with all the details he needed.

Like Mr. Gale, Mr. Madsen is “retired,” although neither one of them is spending much time retiring. He studied electronics in school. Among other things, he worked with Fotosetters, “mainly Compugraphic from US.”
After he retired, Mr. Madsen and his wife visited museums featuring typesetting, but never ran across a Fotosetter. Then, in a museum in Viborg, the Vingaards Officinet, he found an Intertype Fotosetter. “I had no idea that the first Fotosetter looked like this.

“I talked to the people at the museum and asked why they did not have a Compugraphic, the one I knew from the 1970[s]. They answered, ‘If you can find one we would very much like to have one.’ Mr. Madsen thought to himself, no problem, easy job. “I started to call around, but all the machines or my old customers [had] disappeared. [Someone] gave me the idea” to contact, GRAKOM, the Danish  Association for Communication, Design & Media. That contact led to an article about Mr. Mardsen in UDKOM (Outcome), an industry magazine covering issues and news for companies straddling design, media production, communication and marketing.

The article eventually led to a phone call from a man who had a Compugraphic Universal V. It wasn’t working, but Mr. Mardsen found some parts, did what he could and donated it to Vingaards Officinet.

The museum staff then asked Mr. Madsen to get their Intertype Fotosetter running.

And that is how Don Gale’s donation made a difference in Denmark. We supplied Mr. Madsen scans of a manual for operating the first Intertype Fotosetter, from Mr. Gale’s collection. And Mr. Madsen got the mid-century Fotosetter running. A generation made to last.

Thank you, Don Gale and good work, Mr. Madsen!

###


“The Fotosetter is an automatic, photographic line composing machine. It produces justified composition in galley form directly on film or photographic paper in one operation. This composition can be reproduced on offset-lithographic, gravure and letterpress plates, using standard platemaking methods in each case.”

Introducing the Fotosetter: the photographic line composing machine
Brooklyn, NY: Intertype Corp., 1950
TR1010 I58 1950



“The greater party of this manual is devoted to suppplying the Fotosetter operator with the information which he must have to set up, operate, and maintain his machine, and to understand the principles of its operation.”

Operators manual for the Intertype Fotosetter photographic typesetting machine
Brooklyn, NY: Intertype Corporation, 1955
Z249 O643 1955

Rare Books copy is a gift from Don Gale.



“Following a three year period of field testing in the U. S. Government Printing Office in Washington the first commercial installation was made in 1949. Since then Fotosetter photographic line composing machines have been installed and proven highly successful in all types of printing and composition plants throughout the United States and the world.”

Fotosetter type faces
Brooklyn: Intertype Corporation, ca. 1950
Z250 I58 F6

Rare Books copy is a gift from Don Gale.

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Book of the Week — Von er Lenhard Keiser ynn Byern vmb des euangelij…

06 Monday Nov 2017

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Bible, Bishop of Passau, cherubim, clemency, confession, consolation, doctrine, Elector John of Saxony, execution, garlands, Georg Lemberger, Hans Lufft, heresies, Leonhard Kaiser, letter, Lutheran, Martin Luther, martyrdom, papacy, printer, purgatory, Raab, sacraments, saints, Wittenberg, woodcut


“Also mein allerliebster bruder, sterck dich ynn dem Hern und sey gestrost ynn seiner mechtigen krafft, auff das du erkennest, tragest, liebest, und lobest aus gutwilligem hertzen, den veterlichen willen Gottes. Du werdest ledig odder nicht. Das du aber solches vermogest zu ehren seines heyligen Evangelii, das wolle ynn dir wircken der Vater unsers Herrn Jhesu Christi, nach dem reichtumb seiner herlichen gnaden, der ein Vater ist der barmhertzickeit und ein Gott alles trosts.” — Martin Luther

So, my beloved brother, strengthen yourself in the Lord and be confident in His mighty strength so that you recognize, carry, love, and praise with a glad heart the fatherly will of God. You will be free or not. Because you had the ability to honor his holy gospel, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will produce in you, after the wealth of his glorious grace, the understanding that He is a merciful Father and a God of consolation. — Loose translation by Jon Bingham

Von er Lenhard Keiser ynn Byern vmb des Euangelij…
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Wittemberg: Hans Lufft, 1528
First edition

Leonhard Kaiser (1480-1527) studied at Wittenberg. He spread Martin Luther’s message through letters and books that he sent to friends. While visiting his dying father in Raab (Upper Austria), in 1527, he was arrested, imprisoned and interrogated. Kaiser had been openly preaching Lutheran doctrine. Charges against him included teaching justification through faith alone and other heresies; including his disapproval of confession and other sacraments, freedom of will, purgatory, the invocation of saints and the power of the papacy.

While Kaiser was in prison, Luther sent him a letter of consolation. Kaiser was burned at the stake in Bavaria on August 16, 1527.

This volume contains Luther’s letter to Kaiser, and a preface and conclusion by Luther; and a letter from Elector John of Saxony to the Bishop of Passau appealing for clemency on Kaiser’s behalf. The author of the account of the martyrdom itself is unknown. Kaiser’s execution quickly became infamous. This text was reprinted nine times in quick succession.

The printer, Hans Lufft, printed the first complete edition of Luther’s Bible.

A woodcut title border by Georg Lemberger contains architectural elements, garlands, and cherubim.


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A fine piece of early Americana and a very fine gift

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

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almanac, American, American Antiquarian Society, American Revolution, Americana, battles, Benjamin Franklin, bibles, bindery, books, bookstores, Boston, broadsides, Caleb Alexander, Charles River, collector, Concord, dictionaries, Dr. Ronald Rubin, English, Greek, Greek New Testament, history, independence, Isaiah Thomas, John Mill, Lexington, literature, London, Maryland, Massachusetts, medicine, music, Newburyport, newspaper, Nova Scotia, Oxford, pamphlets, paper mill, printer, printing history, rare books, Ronald Rubin, sedition, Vermont, Virgil, war, Worcester, Yale University

title

HE KAINE DIATHEKE, NOVUM TESTAMENTUM
Wigorniae, Massachusettensi: excudebat Isaias Thomas, Jun, 1800
Editio Prima Americana

This is the first American printing of the Greek New Testament, considered a milestone in American printing history.

Isaiah Thomas’ printing shop was dubbed “the sedition factory,” during the American Revolution. Thomas moved his press from Boston across the Charles River to Worcester in order to avoid confiscation by British troupes. His press reassembled, Thomas remained in Worcester for the rest of his life, printing the first reports of the battles of Lexington and Concord (“Americans! – – – Liberty or Death! – – – Join or Die!”) and continuing to print until he sold his business in 1802.

Isaiah Thomas was born in Boston in 1749. Thomas was apprenticed to a printer, at the age of six, after the death of his father. He stayed for ten years, then broke his bond and headed to London, much as Benjamin Franklin had done earlier. Thomas got as far as Nova Scotia, where he stayed to print a newspaper. After six months, he was sent packing because of his anti-Stamp Act actions. After another foray, this time to the south, Thomas returned to Boston to set up his own newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy. At the same time, he began what would become a lucrative printing business, which included an almanac and the Royal American Magazine, in 1774.

After the war for independence was won, Thomas built his press into an enterprise that included a bindery, a paper mill and bookstores from Vermont to Maryland. In 1773, he established the first press in Newburyport, Massachusetts, at the request of some of its citizens. He printed books on medicine, music, history, and literature; and printed spellers, dictionaries, and bibles. Caleb Alexander (1755-1828), a graduate of Yale University, worked with Thomas as editor for his first American editions of Virgil and other works in Greek, including He kaine diatheke. Alexander based his edition on a 1707 Oxford edition by English scholar John Mill (1645-1707).

Thomas retired around 1802, about two years after his printing of He kaine diatheke. He spent the rest of his life collecting printed American works – books, pamphlets, broadsides, almanacs, and newspapers. He used these as primary sources for his History of Printing in America, published in 1810. He donated his collection to the American Antiquarian Society, an institution he organized in order to provide a home for print material from early American history.


This is the most recent of numerous gifts throughout the years from Dr. Ronald Rubin, a collector, like Isaiah Thomas, of early Americana and a very fine friend of Rare Books. Thank you, Dr. Rubin!

238-239spread

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Book of the week — The Next Word: Red Square

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Alan Loney, Albion press, Arthur C. Danto, Australia, Barcham Green India Office, Bill Stewart, Dante, Dutch, Electio Editions, English, Groningen, Harvard University Press, Hendrik Werkman, Holland, letterpress, Lewis Allen, Malvern East, philosopher, printer, Ruscombe India Office, typography, University of Utah, Vamp & Tramp, wood type

PR9639.3-L6-N49-2012-(cover)

THE NEXT WORD: RED SQUARE
Alan Loney (b. 1940)
Malvern East VIC, Australia: Electio Editions, 2012
PR9639.3 L6 N49 2012

From the artist’s statement: “This book derives from putting two small obsessions together and seeing what happens. The first is with the typographical wonder of Hendrik Werkman (1882-1945), and his remarkable periodical ‘The Next Call,’ printed from 1923 to 1926. Each issue was 8 pages long, in approximately 40 copies, and designed and printed entirely from the materials of his print shop in Groningen, Holland…

My second obsession is the imaginary exhibition outlined by Arthur C Danto in his now famous book The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (Harvard University Press, 1981) where he poses the thorny set of intellectual problems around the question of the wording one attaches to paintings. Simply, Danto’s exhibition was a series of red rectangles, all looking the same, but all painted by different artists, and each with a different title. This apparently simple proposition created for Danto one of the knottiest philosophical speculations in contemporary criticism.

My book is designed to honor both these men, the material printer who said, ‘I produce designs during the course of printing,’ and the intellectual who wrote, “I am speaking as a philosopher, construing the gesture as a philosophical act.’ The pages for the ‘exhibition’ appear on the rectos only. The texts on the versos are constructed solely from all the Dutch words that in their spelling are also English words in Werkman’s texts through out the nine issues of ‘The Next Call.’”

Designed, printed, and bound by Alan Loney. Letterpress printed with Dante and wood types in red, blue, yellow, and gold on vintage Barcham Green India Office or Ruscombe India Office paper using a copy of Lewis Allen’s Albion press.* Bound with Ruscombe paper over boards. Issued in slipcase. Edition of forty-five copies, numbered, five copies hors de commerce. University of Utah copy is number 36, signed by the author.

*Thanks to Bill Stewart, Vamp & Tramp, for his knowledge, friendship and inspiration.

PR9639.3-L6-N49-2012-titlePR9639.3-L6-N49-2012-warspread

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Book of the week — Biblia sacra

11 Monday Jul 2016

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Apostles, Bible, brass clasps, classical scholar, decorative headbands, engravings, Exodus, France, Franciscus Stephanus, François Estienne, François Perrin, French, Geneva, Geneva Bible, Greek, Henri Estienne, horseback, initials, John Calvin, Kings, Latin, linguist, Lyon, maps, Margaret Cave, New Testament, Normandy, Paris, Petrum Santandreanum, Pierre Saint-André, pigskin, printer, Protestant, Robert Estienne, roll-tooled, Tabernacle, tail pieces, University of Utah, woodcuts

Biblia-Sacra-title

BIBLIA SACRA VETERIS ET NOUI TESTAMENTI…
Geneuae: Apud Petrum Santandreanum, MDLXXXIII. 1583
BS75 1583

A reissue, with a different title page, of an edition of François Estienne, Geneva, 1567. The title page of the New Testament bears the imprint: Ex Officina Francisci Stephanii, 1567. This edition was printed by Pierre Saint-André (1555-1624).

François Estienne was the third son of Robert Estienne (1503-1559), a French printer, linguist and classical scholar. In his father’s footsteps, François left France for Geneva as a follower of the Protestant movement. He was active as a printer between 1562 and 1582 in partnership with François Perrin, an associate of John Calvin. François Estienne issued a number of editions of the Bible in Latin and French, as well as works by Calvin. Some scholars believe that François emigrated to Normandy in 1582, where he married Margaret Cave. They had several children, none of whom survived to adulthood.

Robert Estienne’s fourth edition (1551) of the Bible is notable for being the first Latin Bible to be printed with verse numeration. Estienne designed the divisions to help the reader compare the two Latin translations and the Greek translation found in this edition. The fourth edition became the basis for the Geneva Bible. Estienne’s son Henri wrote that his father numbered the divisions while traveling “inter equitandum” from Paris to Lyon. Questionable verse divisions were later ascribed to the jolting of a ride on horseback. Although it is unlikely that Estienne was working while riding, the divisions appear to be hasty and distracted, a situation we can well imagine if Estienne was working on this project while traveling.

Text in double columns, with references, variants and section letters in the margins. Illustrated with two engraved folding maps, one in the New Old Testament and one in the New Testament; two full-page engraved maps; woodcuts of the Tabernacle and other images in Exodus and Kings, with occasional figures elsewhere; decorative headbands, tail-pieces and initial letters. The title-page for the New Testament has the woodcut device of Franciscus Stephanus. University of Utah copy bound in contemporary pigskin over wooden boards, covers with roll-tooled decoration, featuring portraits of the Apostles; brass clasps and catches; old paper spine labels.

Bibla-Sacra-EgyptMap

Bibla-Sacra-Mediterraneanseamap

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We recommend — Book Arts Program workshop, “Letterpress Printing: Text + Image”

07 Tuesday Jun 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Workshop

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acrylic, artists' books, book arts, Book Arts Program, Book Arts Studio, bookbinder, collographs, Colorado State University, Crane Giamo, creative writing, Delete Press, design, edition, hand-painted, handbound, image, imprint, ink, iron oxide pigment, J. Willard Marriott Library, Japanese stab-stitch, letterpress, linoleum blocks, metal type, paper, papermaker, photopolymer plates, Pocalypstic Editions, poetry, pressure prints, printer, printing, prints, publishing, Red Butte Press, relief, text, Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama, University of Buffalo, University of Utah, Vandercook #4, wood type, zinc cuts

Letterpress Printing: Text + Image
Crane Giamo, Instructor

June 14—August 2
Tuesdays, 5:00—8:00
Book Arts Studio, J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 4
$340, register here.

Get a handle on what it takes to crank out an edition of gorgeous letterpress prints. This active, eight-week class introduces the fundamentals of letterpress, from paper selection and cutting to mixing ink and printing. Guided by Crane Giamo, participants design and produce several individual projects using a variety of relief techniques and tools including metal and wood type, zinc cuts, linoleum blocks, pressure prints, photopolymer plates, and collagraphs.
– – – – –
Crane Giamo is the studio manager and faculty instructor in the Book Arts Program at the University of Utah, and the lead printer for Red Butte Press. He is the co-founder of Delete Press, a poetry publishing outfit for which he works as letterpress printer, bookbinder, and papermaker. Crane’s own artists’ books can be located under the imprint Pocalypstic Editions. He holds an MFA in Book Arts from the University of Alabama, an MFA in Creative Writing from Colorado State University, and an MA in Poetics from the University at Buffalo.

N7433.4-G474-P73-2014-coverN7433.4-G474-P73-2014-image

Psalm 13-20
Crane Giamo
Tuscaloosa, AL: Pocalypstic Editions, 2014
N7433.4 G474 P73 2014

Text printed from photopolymer plates on a Vandercook #4 letterpress. Red paint slashing across the book is hand-painted using iron oxide pigment mixed with acrylic medium. Handbound in Japanese stab-stitch structure. Edition of twenty-five. University of Utah copy is no. 8.

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Book of the week — Traitte Des Diuertissemens, Inclinations, & Perfections Royales

16 Monday May 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ Comments Off on Book of the week — Traitte Des Diuertissemens, Inclinations, & Perfections Royales

Tags

aristocracy, army, booksellers, calligraphy, combat, comedy, Communaute des Libraires, cursive, damsels in distress, Dom Castagne, education, fowl, French, friendships, handwriting, hare, hunting, Imprimeurs et Relieurs, Italian, kidnappings, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, love, novel, Orient, Paris, Pierre Moreau, poacher, Potier de Morais, printer, script, stag, tennis, type, typography, writing master

DC133.3-P64-1644-pg83

DC133.3-P64-1644-pg142-143spread

TRAITTE DES DIUERTISSEMENS, INCLINATIONS, &…
Potier de Morais (fl. 1644-1670)
Paris: Pierre Moreau, 1644
Only edition
DC133.32 P64 1644

Set in the exotic Orient, this novel on the education of a prince was written for and dedicated to six-year-old Louis XIV. Potier de Morais added pedagogy on the art of being king amid attempted kidnappings, fierce combat, reversals of fortune, damsels in distress, faithful friendships, love, and, naturally, tennis. Skills such as how to conduct an army in the field are presented as the same skills needed by an absolute ruler to sponsor a grand fete.

One character is an amiable poacher, Dom Castagne, who describes his idyllic life in woods belonging to someone else, hunting hare, stag and fowl. Morais developed Dom Castagne into the lead character of an unpublished comedy.

This book was printed in Pierre Moreau’s ‘script types,’ copied from the Italian cursive calligraphy considered most polite of the time. There was a strong interest in the seventeenth century, especially among French aristocracy, in script over type. Moreau, a writing master, wrote several books on the art of handwriting. As a printer, he was the first to develop calligraphic hands into type.

By securing his privilege directly from Louis XIII in 1642 to use his “nouveau caractheres,” Moreau (ca. 1600-ca. 1649) became Imprimeur ordinaire du Roy without joining the powerful printers’ guild. This did not please the master printers of Paris. Moreau was harassed by printers, booksellers, and writing-masters alike. In 1648, the Communaute des Libraires, Imprimeurs et Relieurs secured an injunction forbidding him to print. Moreau consequently abandoned typography and died soon after.

No other copy of the present work is in the United States. University of Utah copy bound in 19th-century glazed purple boards with gilt spine title and date, red edges.

alluNeedSingleLine

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