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~ News from the Rare Books Department of Special Collections at the J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah

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Tag Archives: printing

Rare Books Exhibition — Paper is Fundamental

13 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Physical Exhibitions

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acid bisulfite, Arches, Asia, Barcham Green Hayle Mill, Cai Lun, cellulose, Charter Oak, China, England, Europe, France, Han dynasty, J. Willard Marriott Library, Jon Bingham, lignin, mouldmade, paper, pH neutral, printing, rare books, Special Collections Gallery, sulfite, The University of Utah, William Everson

“The most fundamental thing about a book is to find the right paper, because it’s the whole ground of the being of a book, and the quality of the paper is in some ways the most elusive…Critics of the book generally focus on the type and when people get into printing, the first thing they get into is type. They learn to recognize the different faces, and become pre-occupied with them. But the paper is more fundamental, because that is where the beauty begins, and in the end, that is all that beauty comes back to — the substance of the paper, the field on which the whole thing can act.” –William Everson (1912-1994), On Printing

Most people see and touch paper every day. Most of us know little about where the paper we use comes from.

Resuscitatio… (1670)
The paper for this book was made in Morlaix, south of Paris. The watermark is made up of a plain and simple monogram, “P.Huet.” Because of cheap labor, Morlaix paper was quite inexpensive and was imported from Brittany to England beginning about 1629 for many years with great regularity. The Huet’s, an astute family of papermakers, outlasted virtually all of their seventeenth-century competitors and continue to make paper today at Pontrieux (Cotes du Nord), east of Morlaix.

Paper is produced by pressing together the moist cellulose fibers of plant material, which is achieved through drawing sheets of the fibers from vats of pulp before pressing and drying them.


Love is Enough (1897)
At Kelmscott Press, William Morris used paper made by Joseph Batchelor. The paper cost two shillings per pound, which was about five or six times the cost of machine-made paper. Morris wrote, “I…considered it necessary that the paper should be hand-made, both for the sake of durability and appearance…the paper must be wholly of linen and must be quite ‘hard’, i.e. thoroughly well sized; and…though it must be ‘laid’ and not ‘wove’, the lines caused by the wires of the mould must not be too strong, so as to give a ribbed appearance. I found that on these points I was at one with the…papermakers of the fifteenth century; so I took as my model a Bolognese paper of about 1473. My friend Mr. Batchelor, of Little Chart, Kent, carried out my views very satisfactorily.” Batchelor made three types of papers for the Kelmscott Press, each named for their watermarks: “Flower” (also called “Primrose”), “Perch,” and “Apple.” Morris designed each of these watermarks.

Developed in China during the Han dynasty by a court official named Cai Lun, the invention of paper was a world-changing event that only seems magnificent in retrospect.


The Prologue to the Tales of Caunterbury (1898):
At the Ashendene Press, C. St. John Hornby, like William Morris, used paper made by Joseph Batchelor.

The use of paper spread slowly from Asia and did not reach Europe until the thirteenth century. Even after its arrival in Europe its use there caught on slowly.

The Nonnes Preestes Tale of the Cok and Hen (1902)
James Whatman the Elder (1702-1759), was an English papermaker who made revolutionary advances to the craft. He is noted as the inventor of wove paper. The earliest example of wove paper, bearing his watermark, appeared after 1740. The technique continued to be developed by his son, James Whatman the Younger (1741-1798). At a time when the craft was based in smaller paper mills, his innovations led to the large scale and widespread industrialization of paper manufacturing. The Whatmans held a part interest in the establishment at Turkey Mill, near Maidstone, after 1740, which was acquired through the elder Whatman’s marriage to Ann Harris. Paper bearing the Whatman’s mark was produced for fine press and artists’ books until 2002. The company later specialized in producing filter papers and is now owned by GE Healthcare. The last production at Maidstone was in 2014.

It was only with the development of printing with moveable type in the mid-fifteenth century that the collaboration of ink and paper launched European culture into modernity.

Paper is Fundamental
A Rare Books Exhibition
Special Collections Gallery, Level 4
J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah
July 13 through September 23

For more information, please contact Jon Bingham or Luise Poulton at 801-585-6168

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking (1988)
This paper is handmade Charter Oak from the Barcham Green Hayle Mill in England. The paper mill closed in 1987.

Curated by Jon Bingham, Rare Books Curator, with help from Luise Poulton, Managing Curator, and the Rare Books Department staff – without whose help this exhibition would not have been possible. Jon is also grateful to Emily Tipps and Crane Giamo for teaching him how to make paper in their Book Arts papermaking class.

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Exhibition — Travelers ~~ In Celebration of Peter and Donna Thomas ~~ Forty Years of Books to Go

24 Thursday May 2018

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artists' books, book artists, exhibition, fine press, hand-lettering, J. Willard Marriott Library, letterpress, miniature, papermaking, personal computer, Peter & Donna Thomas, printing, Rare Books Department, Santa Cruz, Song of the Open Road, technology, The University of Utah, travelers, Walt Whitman, Wandering Book Artists

N7433.3-W36-2011-Cover

TRAVELERS
~~~~~~~~~~
IN CELEBRATION OF PETER AND DONNA THOMAS
~~~~~~~~~~
FORTY YEARS OF BOOKS TO GO

Peter and Donna Thomas are book artists from Santa Cruz, CA. They work collaboratively and individually letterpress printing, hand-lettering and illustrating texts, making paper, and hand binding both fine press and artists’ books. Inspired by a quest for beauty and perfection, and by the potential of word, image, shape and texture to create an illuminating experience, their initial aim was to create limited edition fine press books made of the finest materials and produced to the highest standards of quality, in both full size and miniature format. This aesthetic continues to guide them as they work in new formats made possible by personal computer technology, exploring non-traditional book structures and shaped book objects as both limited editions and one-of-a-kind books. They travel the USA as the “Wandering Book Artists” giving talks, workshops and demonstrations to both academic and community-based audiences.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
— Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Rare Books Department
May 24 through September 1, 2018
Level 1 lobby, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah

Gallery talk
Thursday, June 21, 5:30pm
Level 1
Cosponsored by the Book Arts Program

 

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We recommend — The Book Restructured: Wire-Edge Binding

17 Thursday May 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Workshop

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Arthur Larson, Book Arts Program, Book Arts Studio, collage, Daniel Kelm, Easthampton, Garage Annex School for Book Arts, gouache, Granary Books, Greta Sibley, Horton Tank Graphics, J. Willard Marriott Library, Jane Sherry, Jill Jevne, Jospeh A. Osina, Korea, New York City, Philip Gallo, photographs, printing, rare books, Rives BFK, rubber stamps, Small Offering Press, Sonam Temple, South Cholla Province, Terence K. McKenna, The Hermetic Press, Timothy Ely, typography, Wide Awake Garage, wire-edge binding


“Everything corresponds. Sweet is easy: happiness. Tanginess is trickier: people going the wrong way and calling it right; the tendency not to complain while harboring envious and covetous feelings. Sourness is things you like and don’t like — woven together. Smokiness is slow vision, seeing gradually the good things in life. What we find distasteful? That’s bitterness.”

Tea: Time in Korea
Greta Sibley
Easthampton, MA: Small Offering Press, 1994
DS904 S53 1994

Text and photographs based on three trips to Sonam Temple, South Cholla Province, Korea. Binding and box designed and produced by Daniel Kelm, Wide Awake Garage. Edition of twenty-five copies. Rare Books copy no. 14, signed by the author and the binder.


“The Book Restructured: Wire-Edge Binding”
A Book Arts Program workshop by Daniel Kelm

June 1 & 2, 2018
Friday & Saturday, 10:00 – 5:00
Book Arts Studio, J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 4

$215, register here

Wire-edge binding utilizes a thin metal wire along the hinging edge of each page. The metal wire is exposed at regular intervals, creating knotting stations where thread attaches one page to the next. The result is a binding that opens exceptionally well and provides the option of producing unusual shapes. This workshop presents various wire-edge structures useful for books, enclosures, and articulated sculpture. Participants produce both a simple codex and an accordion model that forms a tetrahedron. All levels of experience are welcome.

Daniel E. Kelm is a book artist who enjoys expanding the concept of the book. He is known for his innovative structures as well as his traditional work. In the mid-1980s, Daniel invented a style of bookbinding called wire-edge binding in order to explore the nature of the book as articulated sculpture. His expression as an artist emerges from the integration of work in science and the arts. Alchemy is a common theme in his bookwork. Daniel received formal training in chemistry and taught at the University of Minnesota and is known for his extensive knowledge of materials. Daniel teaches widely, and founded the Garage Annex School for Book Arts (GAS) in 1990. Most recently, with long-time collaborator Timothy Ely, Daniel co-delivered a lecture on The Alchemy of the Handmade Book at the Getty Center as a complement to the exhibition The Alchemy of Color in Medieval Manuscripts.

Rare Books is pleased to support the Book Arts Program with its collections.



“Decadence is sophistication severed from genuine feeling.”

Synesthesia
Terence K. McKenna (1946-2000)
New York City: Granary Books, 1992
N7433.4 M4285 S95 1992

Drawn and painted images by Timothy Ely. Typography and printing by Philip Gallo at The Hermetic Press. Paper is Rives BFK. Bookbinding by Daniel Kelm and staff, Wide Awake Garage. Edition of seventy five copies, twenty hors commerce. Rare Books copy is no. 47, signed by the author, printer and binder.



“I decide to go down the mountain to get a jar of fig sugar. The houses below feel very flimsy. I am greeted in one, by a cat that chases me barking like a dog back up the hill with an empty peanut butter jar.”

Venus Unbound
Jane Sherry
New York City: Granary Books, 1993
N7433.4 S418 V46 1993

The writer dreams. From the colophon: “The images were printed from metal plates made from the artist’s original paintings then treated with extensive hand-work: gouache, pen & ink, rubber stamps and collage…” Typography and printing by Philip Gallo at The Hermetic Press. Binding designed by Daniel Kelm. Box made by Jill Jevne. Edition of forty-one copies, eleven lettered. Rare Books copy is “A/P 2/2, signed by the author.



“The moon empties of light and is called new.”

Four Chambers, Five Nights
Greta Sibley
Easthampton, MA: Small Offerings Press, 1999
N7433.4 S5453 F68 1999

Text designed and composed by the author. Imagery created by Joseph A. Osina. Letterpress printed by Arthur Larson of Horton Tank Graphics. Binding and folders designed by Daniel E. Kelm at The Wide Awake Garage. Edition of twenty copies. Rare Books copy is no. 14.

— Photographs by Scott Beadles

 

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Book of the Week — Collotype

28 Monday Aug 2017

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Alphonse Poitevin, Anachronic Editions, books, chemist, collotype, engineer, French, Meryl Chayt, Pasadena, photographer, poetry, printing, Steven Chayt

TR930-C48-1983-Portrait
“Get rid of that row of bottles & secret dopes at the back of your press. Synchronize your temperature, humidity, ink supply & speed of running, then your prints will be uniform, plentiful, clean & juicy.” — from Collotype

Collotype: Being a History-Practium-Bibliography
Steven Chayt and Meryl Chayt
Winter Haven, FL: Anachronic Editions, 1983

Collotype is devoted completely and exclusively to the photographic and printing process of collotype, invented in 1856 by the French photographer, chemist and engineer Alphonse Poitevin.

Steven and Meryl Chayt began their devotion to the book at a young age. Both of them attended CalArts. They published poetry under their imprint, Kenmore Press. When they moved from Los Angeles to Pasadena, they spent most of their time and energy, however, on the work of the book, including letterpress printing; casting and setting metal type; papermaking; and alternative illustration processes printed in small editions, under the Anachronic Editions imprint.

After a move to Florida, they closed the press, began teaching, and continue to make art.

Edition of eighty-five copies. Bound in green cloth boards with natural linen spine. Rare Books copy has original prospectus laid in.

TR930-C48-1983-titlespread

TR930-C48-1983-Oven

TR930-C48-1983-Density

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Book of the Week — Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ kamā kataba Mār Mattay waḥid min ithnay ‘ashar min talāmīdhihi

19 Monday Jun 2017

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Accademia del Disgno, Aleppo, Alessio dra Saggeto, Antonio Tempesta, Antonius Sionita, arabesque, Arabic, Armenian, Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ, bi-lingual, Book of Hours, borders, Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, Christian, College of Sapienza, colophon, Eastern Orthodox Church, Europe, European, Flemish, Florence, font, French, frescoes, gilt, Giorgio Vasari, Giovanni Battista Raimondi, Gospels, Hebrew, Hungarian, Ibrahim Muteferrika, illustrations, Islam, Islamic, Istanbul, Joannes Stradanus, Latin, Leonardo Parasole, mathematics, Matthew, Medici, military, Mohamedan, morocco, movable type, Muslim, Near East, Orientalist, Ottomon Empire, Palazzo Vecchio, peace, Persian, political, Pope Gregory XIII, printing, religious, Robert Granjon, Romae, Roman Catholic Church, Roman type, Rome, Santi di Tito, science, scripture, sprinkled calf, stamps, Sultan Ahmed III, sword, Syrian, translation, typographer, Typographia Medicea, Vatican, Villa Farnese, Waqf, woodcuts

BS315-A66-1591-title
“Ne arbitremini quod ego uenetim ut mitterem super terram pacem; non ueni ut mitterem pacem, sed gladium (“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.)” — Matthew 10:34

Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ kamā kataba Mār Mattay waḥid min ithnay ‘ashar min talāmīdhihi
Romae: in Typographia Medicea, MDXCI
Edicio princeps
BS315 A66 1591

Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ, the first printed edition of the Gospels in Arabic, is the first production by the Typographia Medicea press, a printing house established by Pope Gregory XIII and Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici in order to promote and distribute Christian scripture to the Near East. Two issues of this work were printed, apparently simultaneously. One had Arabic-only text and was printed in an edition of 4,000 copies. The other, here, was printed in Arabic with interlinear Latin, in an edition of 3,000 copies. The Arabic-only edition has the date 1590 on the title-page, but 1591 in the colophon. Allegedly, a few of the bi-lingual copies were published with a preliminary leaf stating, “Sanctum Dei evangelium arab.-lat.” No known copies of this half-title are known to exist and this leaf may never have existed.

With a Latin translation ascribed to one Antonius Sionita, the book was edited by Giovanni Battista Raimondi (1540-ca. 1614), an esteemed Orientalist and professor of mathematics at the College of Sapienza in Rome. Raimondi travelled extensively in the Near East and was knowledgeable, if not fluent, in Arabic, Armenian, Syrian and Hebrew. His fame rests with the editorship of the Typographica Medicea. He and French typographer Robert Granjon, who created the Arabic font used in this work, were both recognized then and now for the earliest and best attempts to print Arabic in Europe.

Illustrated with 149 woodcuts, printed from 68 blocks, engraved by Leonardo Parasole (ca. 1587-ca. 1630). The artist, Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630), studied under Santi di Tito and Flemish artist Joannes Stradanus at the Accademia del Disgno. Tempesta later worked with Stradanus and Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) on the interior decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Tempesta then travelled to Rome, where he fulfilled several commissions, including frescoes for Pope Gregory XIII in the Vatican and panel paintings for the Villa Farnese. Many of the woodcuts are signed with the initials “AT” (Antonio Tempesta) and “LP” (Leonardo Parasole). The illustrations in Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ are excellent examples of Tempesta’s work, noteworthy for their clear composition and narrative of the episodes depicted.

Be that as it may, the illustrations may have played a part in the failure of this book to reach, let alone convince, its intended Islamic audience. Islam forbade religious illustration and these may have made the Gospels appear less than sacred, if not sacrilegious, to Arab Muslim readers.

To be fair, the Christian church had a long tradition of presenting their message with religious illustrations. As far back as the sixth century, Pope Gregory defended the value of such imagery, arguing that pictures were useful for teaching the faith to the unconverted and for conveying sacred stories to the illiterate. According to Bede, St. Augustine introduced Christianity to the heathen King Ethelbert of Kent, upon landing on the British Isles, by presenting a picture of Christ painted on a wooden panel. He then began to preach.

The Pope seems also to have denied the fact that more Christians lived in the Ottoman Empire than in any other European state. The first printed book in Arabic was a Book of Hours, probably intended for export to Syrian Christians. But these Christians were adherents to the Eastern Orthodox Church, not the Pope’s Roman Catholic Church. Christianity was hardly unknown in the predominantly Muslim Ottoman and Persian Empires. The Ottomans were, however, Christian Europe’s major military and political concern.

In addition to printing the Gospels in Arabic, Ferdinando de’ Medici charged Raimondi with printing “all available Arabic books on permissable human science which had no religious content in order to introduce the art of printing to the Mohamedan community.” Despite the superb quality — textually, typographically, and artistically — of its work, the Medici press was an economic failure and went bankrupt in 1610. The fact is that Raimondi displayed little understanding of Islamic culture. Although Raimondi’s selection of publications was not aimed at European scholars, his choices stimulated a study of the Near East in Europe.

It would be more than a century after the Medici Press closed that Ibrahim Muteferrika, a Hungarian convert to Islam, was given permission by Sultan Ahmed III (1673-1736) to open his printing house in Istanbul, in 1729. This was not the first printing press established in the Near East, but it was the first Eastern press to print in Arabic using movable type.

Arabic and small roman type text within double-ruled borders. Colophon and printer’s note to reader in Latin. Colophon decorated with large woodcut arabesque.

Rare Books copy bound in full, eighteenth century, sprinkled calf, with a gilt spine containing two burgundy morocco labels, and decorative gilt borders on the covers. The first leaf is shaved and reinserted on contemporary paper. This leaf contains four Waqf stamps, indicating the authentication of the Arabic translation. As in most copies, our copy lacks a title page. A former owner’s penciled inscription, “Alessio Dra Saggeto/en Aleppo 1871,” is on the free front end paper. Another signature, in ink, is at the top of the back free end paper.

For more on the woodcuts, see Field, Richard S. Antonio Tempesta’s Blocks and Woodcuts for the Medicean 1591 Arabic Gospels, NE662 T45 F54 2001, in the rare book collections.

BS315-A66-1591-colophon

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Book of the Week — An Essay Towards a Real Character…

18 Tuesday Apr 2017

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animals, Bishop of Chester, cryptography, engravings, Gellibrand, grammar, Great Fire of London, John Ray, John Wilkins, Joseph Moxon, language, Latin, letterforms, London, music, Oliver Cromwell, paneled calf, phonetics, plants, printing, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, Royal Society, space travel, symbols, theology, Trinity College, typography, University of Utah, vowels, William Harvey, William Lloyd

P101-W4-1668-pg311
“…Letters, the Invention of which was a thing of so great Art and exquisiteness, that…doth from hence inferr the divinity and spirituality of the humane soul, and that it must needs be of a farr more excellent and abstracted Essence that mere Matter or Body…” — John Wilkins

An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language
John Wilkins (1616-1672)
London: Printed for S. Gellibrand, 1668
First edition

John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, was the chief founder of the Royal Society and its first secretary. He was Master of Trinity College. Wilkins was acquainted with many of the great minds of his day: William Harvey, Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke. He married the younger sister of Oliver Cromwell. In 1662, he lost all of his library and scientific instruments to the Great Fire of London. He was interested in just about everything — from theology to cryptography, music to space travel. He worked on creating an artificial universal language to replace Latin as a means of clearer communication between scholars and philosophers.

In this book Wilkins discussed the origin of language and letterforms, as well as a theory of grammar and phonetics. He classified words by their meanings and assigned each class a set of typographical characters, in an attempt to create a rationally ordered language and system of symbols.

P101-W4-1668-pg186

He divided the universe into forty classes, or categories, and subdivided these, and then subdivided these. To each class he assigned a monosyllable of two letters; to each subdivision he added a consonant; to each further subdivision, or species, he added a vowel. Each letter, or symbol, had meaning.

P101-W4-1668-Faces

John Ray drew up systematic tables of plants and animals for the book. An index was created by Dr. William Lloyd. Joseph Moxon (1627-1691) cut the typographical characters Wilkins proposed for his language. Moxon was the author of Mechanick Exercises, the first comprehensive manual of printing and letter-founding in any language.

The first issue of the first edition appeared without any of the engraved plates. This copy, apparently a second issue, contains all of the plates, although two folded leaves of tables and diagrams that are in other copies are missing. Bound with Wilkins’ An alphabetical dictionary, wherin all English Words According to their various significations, are either referred to their Places in the Philosophical Tables, Or explained by such words as are in those tables. The second work functions as an index to the first.

University of Utah copy bound in contemporary paneled calf with covers ruled in blind.

P101-W4-1668-NoahsArk

“From what hath been said it may appear, that the measure and capacity of the Ark, which some Atheistical irreligious men make use of, as an argument against the Scripture, ought rather to be esteemed a most rational confirmation of the truth and divine authority of it. Especially if it be well considered, that in those first and ruder ages of the World… men were less versed in Arts and Philosophy, and therefore probably more obnoxious to vulgar prejudices than now they are… — John Wilkins

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Love is enough

14 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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Hammersmith, handmade paper, industrial, Kelmscott Press, letterpress, Pharamond, printing, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, vellum, William Morris, woodcut

woodcut
Woodcut2

“Love is enough:
though the World be a-waning
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, & the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.”

LOVE IS ENOUGH, OR THE FREEING OF PHARAMOND…
William Morris (1834-1896)
Hammersmith: The Kelmscott Press, 1897

William Morris worked with prominent artists of his time to develop collaborations that redefined the artist’s relationship to the studio and the factory. Morris acheived this through a mastery of craft techniques, such as lettepress printing, and a rejection of industrial processes.

Two-page decorative woodcut border and numerous partial-page borders throughout. Two full-page illustrations by Sir Edward Burne-Jones: the frontispiece and an illustration opposite p. 90. According to the colophon this last was „…not designed for this edition…but for an edition projected about twenty-five years ago, which was never carried out.“

Love is Enough is one of only two Kelmscott Press books printed in three colors – blue, red, and black. Bound in full limp vellum with gilt spine, green silk ties. Edition of three hundred copies on handmade paper.

Pg17

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Book of the Week — A Grammar of Color

12 Monday Dec 2016

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advertising, Alfred H. Munsell, Arthur S. Allen, balance, behaviour, color, color system, dimension, Fortune Magazine, grammar, Massachusetts, mathematics, Mittineague, Munsell System of Color, paper trade, printing, proportion, quality, Rudolph Ruzicka, Strathmore Paper Company, Thomas M. Cleland

qc495-c7-1921-title

“The sense of comfort is the outcome of balance, while marked unbalance immediately urges a corrective. That this approximate balance is desirable may be shown by reference to our behavior, as to temperatures, quality of smoothness and roughness, degrees of light and dark, proportion of work and rest. One special application of this quality is balance which underlies beautiful color.”
— A. H. Munsell

“The three dimensions of color are not involved in the mysteries of higher mathematics. There is nothing about them which should not be as readily comprehended by the average reader as the three dimensions of a box, or any other form which can be felt or seen. We have been unaccustomed to regarding color with any sense of order and it is this fact, rather than any complexity inherent in the idea itself, which will be the source of whatever difficulty may be encountered by the reader, who faces this conception of color for the first time.”
— T. M. Cleland


A GRAMMAR OF COLOR. ARRANGEMENTS OF…
Thomas Maitland Cleland (1880-1964)
Mittineague, MA: The Strathmore Paper Co., 1921
QC495 C7 1921

Thomas Cleland wrote and designed this manual of color, funded by the Strathmore Paper Company. He suggested nearly endless options, good and bad, for printing various colored inks onto colored papers. Twenty-six paper samples from Strathmore were provided in a separate envelope at the back of the book for experimentation. Soon after publication of this book Cleland became the art director for Fortune Magazine. Cleland’s text, with diagrams, explains the dynamics of the color system developed by theorist Alfred H. Munsell, who introduces Cleland’s essay. Munsell died just before the publication of the book.

A. H. Munsell devoted his life perfecting his Munsell System of Color. This is the first presentation of his system to the printing, advertising and paper trade. Nineteen folding color-printed specimens demonstrate color combinations.

qc495-c7-1921-3dcolor

Arthur S. Allen selected and arranged the color sheets.

Two plates engraved by artist and type designer Rudolph Ruzicka (1883-1978) depict balanced and unbalanced color schemes. Born in the Czech Republic, Ruzicka worked as a consultant to Mergenthaler Linotype Company for fifty years. He contributed illustrations to books published by the Grolier Club, Lakeside Press, and Overbrook Press. He collaborated with D. B. Updike on the design of several books for Merrymount Press.

qc495-c7-1921-balancespread

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Book of the Week — Faust

14 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week — Faust

Tags

Antiqua, Bremer Press, Faust, font, Frankfurt, German, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Louis Hoell, printing, Tolz, twentieth century, type, typecutter, University of Utah, Willy Wiegand

pt1916-a1-1920-title

He only earns both freedom and existence
Who must reconquer them each day.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

FAUST
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Tolz: Bremer Press, 1920
PT1916 A1 1920

Printed using a proprietary type (an Antiqua) designed for Bremer Press by the director of the press, Dr. Willy Wiegand. The font was cut in Frankfurt by Louis Hoell (a typecutter who cut many types for designers in the heyday of German printing in the early twentieth century). The two sat side by side for days, cutting, filing, and proofing the font. Edition of two hundred and seventy copies. University of Utah copy is no. 8.

pt1916-a1-1920-pg6-7spread

“I hope we shall get on together, you and I;
I’ve come to cheer you up – That’s why
I’m dressed up like an aristocrat
In a fine red coat with golden stitches,
A stiff silk cape on top of that,
A long sharp dagger in my breeches,
And a cockerel’s feather in my hat.
Take my advice – if I were you,
I’d get an outfit like this too;
Then you’d be well equipped to see
Just how exciting life can be.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

pt1916-a1-1920-faust

 

 

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Banned! — Лолита

27 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

American, banned, British Customs, British Isles, English, France, Gone With the Wind, Graham Greene, Lolita, London, Margaret Mitchell, Minister of the Interior, Modern Library, New York, novel, Paris, Phaedra, pornography, postscript, printing, publisher, Putnam, revolution, Russia, Russian, smuggled, Soviet Union, Sunday Times, translation, University of Utah, Vladimir Nabokov

«Лолита , свет моей жизни , огонь моих чресел . Грех mой , душа моя . Ло -ли –та…”

 

Lolita-cover Lolita-back Lolita-spine

Лолита
Владимир Набоков (1899-1977)
New York: Phaedra, Inc., Publishers, 1967
First hardcover edition in Russian

First published in Paris in 1955, then in New York City in 1958 and London in 1959, Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Lolita, is a controversial masterpiece of English literature.

Originally published as a paperback by a relatively unknown publisher, the first printing of 5,000 copies sold out before year’s end. Graham Greene wrote in London’s Sunday Times that it was one of the three best books of the year. Other early reviews were hardly so generous. Many considered it pornographic. British Customs was ordered to seize copies coming into the British Isles. A year later, France’s Minister of the Interior also banned it.

Times change. In 1998, Lolita was included by Modern Library in its list of 100 best novels of the 20th century.

This is the first edition in Russian, translated by Nabokov, whose mother-tongue was Russian. He added a postscript that appears only in this edition, describing his ambivalence toward his translation. Nabokov’s American publisher, Putnam, chose not to publish the Russian edition, concerned that it would not be a commercial success. Perhaps they were satisfied enough with the response to their American edition, which went into a third printing within days and sold one hundred thousand copies within three weeks. Up until that time, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936), was the only other American novel to have done so well.

All of Nabokov’s writings had been banned in the Soviet Union, although copies of his work were smuggled in. Nabokov was, after all, the son of aristocratic Russians who fled the country during the Revolution. The first printing in Russia was not until 1989. The work, by the once-outlawed, un-favored son of the Soviet state was a stunning success. The first edition in the Russian language was first issued in wrappers. This is “issue b,” in pink cloth, with gilt title stamp along spine and with dust jacket. University of Utah copy donated by Anonymous.

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