Craig Dworkin Reads at King’s English: CHAP. XXIV
Thursday, October 29, 7:00pm to 9:00pm
King’s English Bookshop/1511 South 1500 East/Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.kingsenglish.com/event/craig-dworkin-alkali-and-chapter-xxiv

Craig Dworkin reads from the Red Butte Press publication CHAP. XXIV, at the King’s English Bookshop. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.

In 1761, Laurence Sterne published The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy. Chapter XXV of the fourth volume begins, “No doubt, Sir, – there is a whole chapter wanting here – and a chasm of ten pages made in the book by it.”

A jump in pagination confirms that Chapter XXIV is missing.

Coinciding with the 300th anniversary of Sterne’s birth, Craig Dworkin and the Red Butte Press provided the absent chapter – a single signature designed to fit neatly into the first edition. Dworkin’s interpolated text uses historic English words in which the letters “f” and “s” can be interchanged and remain legitimate. Each sentence is based on grammatical constructions found elsewhere in Sterne’s novel.

The type, ITC Founders Caslon, includes seven pre-existing ligatures and seven bespoke long-s ligatures created by the book designer, David Wolske. The book was letterpress printed from photopolymer plates on handmade paper with a Red Butte Press watermark. A typographically illustrated cover used the placement of each dash that appears in the text and externalizes the 18th century typesetters’ practice of using any available foundry dashes. The varying dash length and humorous interplay of the letters “f” and “s” call attention to potentialities of punctuation, spelling, and meaning.

CHAP. XXIV
Craig Dworkin
Salt Lake City, UT: Red Butte Press, 2013
N7433.4 D95 C43 2010z

Illustrations by David Wolske. Handmade papers by Robert Buchert, Tryst Press. Edition of three hundred and twenty-five numbered copies; twenty-six lettered copies hors de commerce; fourteen deluxe copies individually letterpress-printed with one of the ligatures that appear in the text, housed in custom enclosures.