A Commonplace Book of Papermaking, Printing, & Publishing History

[Bird & Bull Press]
Morris, Henry.
Pepper Pot.
North Hilla, PA: Bird & Bull Press, 1977.

Number 168 of approximately 250 copies. The Bird & Bull Press was one of America’s oldest private presses, started in 1958 by Henry Morris – who describes a private press as “someone who prints books or ephemera related to his personal interests…” By starting the press Morris was hoping to “make use of the product of a new hobby – hand paper-making.” Many of the books published by Bird & Bull dealt with book related subjects, such as paper-making, printing, illustration, book binding, and typography. Henry Morris and his press thus played an important role in the study, preservation, and dissemination of printing history.

This handsome work by Morris is something of a commonplace book. In the accompanying prospectus he compares the writing of this book with making the Philadelphia pepper pot dish. He says "since I have put this book together in much the same way as the soup was made - bit by bit and over a period of time - I think my title is appropriate. I hope you will read it with the same pleasure I had in making it." He gathers here what he calls choice bits of uncommon papermaking, publishing and printing history...prepared with a zestful variety of type faces..." The included pieces include "The Adventures of a Boy Printer," "To Err is Human," and "Jacob Christian Schaeffer", the papermaker among others. Included is an errata slip inserted between pages 22 and 27, noting that the number should have been 23. Bound in Green's handmade B&B paper. The lovely green paste papers for the covers were made at the press and the half Oasis leather covers were done by Gray Parrot. In fine condition. Measures 9 x 11.25 inches. 84 pages. (#37378)

Price: $165

Stories from Printers

[Bird & Bull Press]
Morris, Henry, compiler and editor; Lili Wronker, illustrator.
The Private Press-Man's Tale.
Newtown, PA: Bird & Bull Press, 1990.

There were 230 copies of this book. This copy is unnumbered with a pencil note saying "Binder's sample - r'cd 3/16/90." In his acknowledgments, Morris writes that one's best-told tales are drawn from personal experience, and he thought it would be good to compile some relevant bookish perceptions "taken from outside my particular environment." He thanks Sidney Berger for his enjoyable contributions. The book is a humorous and sometimes satirical take on the book trade and those who ply this profession. Morris states that although satirical, he tried to write without malice, and he thanks Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales "provided the inspiration for this Biblio-Typographic Pilgrimage." He also thanks the illustrator, Lili Wronker, for what he calls the roguish illustrations that he thinks are vital to the book.

Bound in lovely orange and gilt paper covers with a design adapted from the earliest known (1509) wallpaper. Maroon cloth spine with titling to spine label and front cover. Printed in Van Dijck types on Arches mouldmade paper. Bound by Barbara Blumenthal. Missing the prospectus and broadside that originally accompanied the book. In fine condition. Measures 9 x 12 inches. 61 pages.  (#37383)

Price: $200 

Miniature Book Keepsake from MBS Conclave 2013 - Vancouver
Includes real postage stamps from the U.S.A. and Canada

[Bo Press]
Pat Sweet, book artist.
Friendship Forever - Keepsake.
Riverdale CA: Bo Press, 2013.

Limited Edition (not numbered as issued) and signed by the book artist. Designed, printed, and bound by Pat Sweet. A Keepsake for the Miniature Book Society Conclave XXI held in Vancouver Canada. A joint effort between Pat Sweet, Jim and Elaine Brogan of the Red Dog Press, and Margaret Challenger, a lettering artist. It includes facts about Vancouver; although, most of the book focuses on Canada's wildflower stamps, with full color reproductions of the stamps and brief descriptions of each of the flowers. Includes two tipped in stamps - one from the USA and one from Canada, both featuring flags. Bound in white and gold decorative paper covered boards with title label and stamp illustration to front board. A belly band of paper vellum with a title label slides around the book. Book size: about 2.25 x 1.75 inches. Fine / Fine. (#37421)

Price: $75 

Doves Press - The Ideal Book

[Doves Press]
Cobden-Sanderson, T.J.
The Ideal Book or Book Beautiful. A Tract on Calligraphy Printing and Illustration & On the Book Beautiful as a Whole.
Hammersmith: The Doves Press, 1900.

One of 300 copies. This was the second book of the press. In this short essay, Cobden-Sanderson, founder of the press, expounds on the artistic treatment of the means of expression in books - calligraphy, printing, and illustration. He ends the tract with a paean to the Book Beautiful as a dream or symbol in which all things of beauty rest and ultimately merge. This book is his beautifully printed declaration of the philosophy behind the Doves Press. Printed by Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker in the Doves font on Batchelor paper.

The book is bound in the original full limp vellum by the Doves bindery, with “The Doves Bindery” stamped on the rear pastedown and the title in gilt to the spine. A beautiful copy with a clean vellum binding showing only light aging to rear cover. Interior pages are fine save for light spotting to fore-edges and to the margins of a few interior pages. There is evidence of a bookplate having been removed from the front pastedown, with a slight darkening to the paper and light residue in a rectangular shape. Laid into the book is a lovely wood engraved bookplate of S. Van Houten, a Dutch collector. This does not appear to have been the one previously removed though, as the shape and size differ from the shadow remaining on the front pastedown. 9 pages plus colophon. Near Fine. (#37466)

Price: $1,500 

Politics, Language, & Psychology of Homeland Security (from 1984)
A Limited Edition Artists' Book

[Nexus Press]
McCarney, Scott.
In Case of Emergency.
Atlanta: Nexus Press, 1984.

Scott McCarney is an artist and educator based in Rochester NY who has made artists books since 1980. VisualBooks is the moniker for his small edition and DIY production projects. His work incorporates frequently overlooked details of day-to-day life that reflect our human condition. He uses photography and the computer to realize Mallarmé’s aphorism, “Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book,” while employing his hand and wit to accentuate the books inherent materiality.

One of 500 copies. This inventive work is in a triangular shaped folder with red paper covers and three bold yellow and black striped triangular tabs that hold the folder closed. Inside is the triangular shaped book that unfolds as a pinwheel structure with various ominous images and scary words. Produced at a time of MAD (mutual assured destruction), IN CASE OF EMERGENCY: combines text from a 1954 US government booklet with images drawn from the artist’s youth in duck-and-cover America. A veritable last entertainment for ground zero. From the "Are We Ready Yet?" series of books that addressed the shifting landscape, language, psychology, and politics of national homeland security. The title references a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) publication titled "Are You Ready? A Guide to Citizen Preparedness." This booklet was eerily reminiscent of "What to Do in Case of a Nuclear Disaster," published by the US government in 1954, which inspired IN CASE OF EMERGENCY: Am I surprised the tone, manner, and type of information the government is willing to share with the general pop has changed little in fifty years? The book is an offset edition of 500 with a die-cut cover. In very good plus condition. It measures 6 x 6 x 6 inches. Unpaginated [32 pages] (#37452)

Price: $60 

Calligraphic & Sculptural Interpretation of Francesca's Story from Dante's Inferno

Ingmire, Thomas.
Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter.
San Francisco: Thomas Ingmire, n.d.

This is a striking unique work by calligrapher Thomas Ingmire that tells Francesca's story from Dante's fifth Canto of his Inferno. Her story is written on strips of calfskin parchment cut for left-over (abandoned scraps of vellum. The pieces of background text are in type, also from Canto V, and are remnants from another project done in the early 1990s. The container for the text is paper pulp with wooden sticks. The pulp covers have swaths of black sumi ink and gold leaf, with paper collage pieces of text in the background.

Ingmire writes of this work: "The idea for this 'book' originates with the book-like covers which were the result of a paper making experiment that was deemed a failure. The object was passed along to me as packing material with a paper order that I received from Cave Paper Handmade Papermakers. I always connected the word 'abandoned' with the object. The structure also looked a bit like a moth. As a symbol one is remined of Palatino's motto 'And though I know it well, I go towards what burns me up' with an image of a moth flying into a candle flame."

Thomas Ingmire wrote in a brief biography that he has "been hanging out in the San Francisco North Beach Cafes since 1972...which coincides with his interests in calligraphy, drawing, painting, and bookmaking. Since 2002 he has concentrated on the making of artist's books. He has embarked on a number of collaborative projects, including a series of books with Manuel Neri; work as an illuminator on the famous St. John's Bible; and the creation of original books in collaboration with poets from the UK, Singapore, the Republic of the Philippines, and the United States. In a review by Bruce Nixon for a 2013 exhibition held at Columbia College Center for Book and Paper Arts on Ingmire's calligraphy in collaboration with poets and artists, he writes: "back in the 1980s, a period when Thomas Ingmire was already beginning to establish himself as a calligrapher of note, much of his work drew upon poetry by Blake, Rimbaud, Eliot, Stevens, and Levertov - exactly the kind of text we typically associate with the strategies of modern calligraphy...with the traditional, rule-bound duties of elegant lettering and decoration. To look at that work now, after more than two decades we can see that Ingmire was never interested only in the beautifully composed page, or in the well trodden avenues of visualization and interpretation that preoccupy calligraphy at its most straightforward. Even then, he was fascinated by the pictorial possibilities of language, the word{s) as image, the immersion of language in an exhilarating atmosphere of visual invention....The entire basis of his [current ] enterprise can be enclosed, perhaps, in the idea that (our) written language...related to drawing through line, can still partake freely in the protean, originative energies of drawing, while its bases in orthography and the alphabet insure as well that the calligrapher is free to look every which way across an endlessly negotiable territory between text, functionality, and art."

Book is 11 x 28 inches when open. In fine condition. Accompanied by a sheet with the description of the structure and its inspiration. (#37449)

Price: $3,200

Unique Calligraphic Work

Ingmire, Thomas, calligrapher and artist; Geraldine Monk, poet.
Cedar Trees on a Hill at Dusk.
San Francisco: Thomas Ingmire, 2016.

A beautiful and evocative unique book by the acclaimed calligrapher and book artist Thomas Ingmire. It is signed and dated by him. For this book, Ingmire collaborated with Geraldine Monk. Monk (born 1952) is a prolific and well-established British poet. Since the late 1970s, she has published many collections of poetry and has recorded her poetry in collaboration with musicians. From the start, and throughout her career, the importance of performance, and the sound of the spoken word has been a major part of Monk's poetry. She chose the poem "Colours" specifically for Ingmire's project. Ingmire then asked her, if possible to connect her poem to a piece of music. She chose Henry Purcell's "Winter Song" as performed by Nanette Scriba. She wrote the poem while living on the north coast of England. In it she recalls the starkness and beauty of the silhouettes of cedar trees on the hills. Ingmire's images and calligraphy draw inspiration from this setting and the somber beauty of the music and words of the poem. The images were created in black gouache and Japanese sumi with gold leaf on off-white fine paper. In a black paper folder binding with a gilt and black design on the cover. In fine condition. Measures 8 x 9.5 inches. Unpaginated [28 pages]. Fine. (#37434)

Price: $3,400 

Humorous Altered Book About God

Kokin, Lisa, book artist.
Tell me about God.
New York: Rand McNally, (1967).

This is a unique altered book by Lisa Kokin,and signed by her. She is a noted book artist who also creates art with sewing and alterations, as well as with button work and assemblage. She also is known for acting as a mentor and coach to people in the arts. With this provocative work, Lisa has used a children's book titled Tell Me About God, written by Mary Alice Jones, and published by Rand McNally in 1967. In the book, young Mary and Bobby learn through worship, personal relations, nature, and play the factors that make God seem real. Lisa has altered both the illustrations and text by adding seemingly discrepant images to the illustrations and by affixing text in various fonts and sizes to alter the meaning of the text sentences. For example, on one page his mother now says to Bobby "Father knows best...Will God keep them from hurting us? Look Bobby, What people don't know helps them, you can judge for yourself, do you want to put your hand in the fire? It would hurt. But I feel a little restless...." and so forth, creating a completely different meaning to the messages of the book.

Bound in the original blue cloth covers with gilt titling to spine and front cover, which also has the outlined image of a little boy. Illustrated pastedowns and free endpapers. Measures 8 x 10.25 inches. Some pages numbered, about 70 pages with many full page illustrations. Very Good. (#37441)

Price: $3,750 

A Charming Cookbook of America with Historic Recipes and Notes

Nathan, Joan.
An American Folklife Cookbook.
New York: Schocken Books, 1984.

In this book, Joan Nathan tells the story of American food through its people, giving slices of life as she sees it in kitchens throughout the country. Nathan's interviews are valuable social history...and the recipes are temptingly delicious [from the dust jacket].

Bound in blue cloth with titling in white to spine. Dust jacket is blue with a decorative design in orange. Jacket has small tear to spine and light soiling. Interior pages are clean and bright. In very good condition. Octavo. 336 pages including bibliography and index.  (#37395)

Price: $25 

Unique Calligraphic Book - featuring love poems

Owen, Jan, poem, book artist and calligrapher; Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh.
My Love.
Belfast, ME: Jan Owen, 2024.

A lovely unique work from renowned calligrapher Jan Owen that celebrates love and connection. Signed and dated by her. On her website she states: "I was born in New York City, grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York and loved to draw and read as a child. Now I live in Belfast on the coast of Maine with long winters to write and beautiful summers. I walk to the beach to watch the sun rise and the tide come in. My day begins with brushstrokes to music, on to lettering and then to the words. My first books were long, hanging accordion fold books, large pieces that could be seen all at once and then folded away. I played string bass with a symphony orchestra for many years and the music always kept moving forward. I wanted my art to be still and include brush strokes and layers of words all visible at once. Now I like planning the pacing and arrangement of pages, words and images."

Jan writes about this book: "My Love features Marlowe’s, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” Raleigh’s later response, “The Nymph’s Reply,” and I wrote an updated, “Hey” about modern love, social media and new customs. This was fun to make. The papers were made by Kate FairChild. She and I took paper making classes at Haystack on Deer Isle, Maine. Working on the back deck of the graphics studio, her bright, funky papers sometimes got sprinkled with spruce needles and raindrops. She gave me her paper when she moved and for years I had no idea what to do with it. Now I love the challenge of the wrinkles and especially her colors. This beautifully crafted book with the three poems about love by Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, and by Jan Owen herself. The stanzas of the poems were each hand written in Jan's elegant calligraphy along with small illustrations on the FairChild handmade paper in various colors as described by Jan above. Created using gouache and acrylic. The pages are in a coptic binding using colorful linen thread, with vivid decorated boards and title on front cover. A separate pamphlet also in handmade paper covers has the texts of the three poems. There is a separate printing of the poems without covers. All three are housed in a clamshell case covered in cream cloth with a multicolored title label to front cover and to the spine and thin tie of woven string. In fine condition. Measures 8.5 x 5.5 x .75 inches. Unpaginated [48 pages].  (#37397)

Price: $1,800 

Jimbo - a comic from the 1980s

Panter, Gary; Greil Marcus, introduction.
Jimbo: A Raw One-Shot.
New York: Raw Books & Graphics, (1982).

This entire issue of a Raw One-Shot is dedicated to the Gary Panter's famous punk character Jimbo, with several stories published over time, mainly from Slash. Gary Panter (1950 - ) is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, designer and part-time musician. Panter's work is representative of the post-underground, new wave comics movement that began with the end of Arcade: The Comics Revue and the initiation of RAW, one of the main instigators of American alternative comics. The Comics Journal has called Panter the "Greatest Living Cartoonist." Panter has published his work in various magazines and newspapers, including Time and Rolling Stone, and in notable comics anthologies such as Raw, BLAB!, Zero Zero, Anarchy Comics, Weirdo, Kramers Ergot, and Young Lust. He has exhibited widely, and won two Daytime Emmy Awards for his set designs for Pee-wee's Playhouse. His most notable works include Jimbo: Adventures in Paradise, Jimbo's Inferno, and Facetasm, the latter of which was created together with Charles Burns (and which won a Firecracker Alternative Book Award). Panter was still a student at East Texas State University in the early 1970s when Jimbo first popped up unbidden in a comic story he was writing. A few years later, creator and creation met their moment in the Los Angeles punk scene. “Adventures in Paradise” was a decade in the making (1978-88), with parts originally appearing in the magazine Slash, The L.A. Reader and the seminal New York-based comics anthology “Raw.”

This issue is bound in brown cardboard covers with a black spine and an illustrated red, white, and black title label. The magazine's interior covers are in color but the comic story pages are black and white. The last page has an ad for Raw subscriptions and an ad for Gary Panter posters. Creasing and light bumping to the front cardboard otherwise very good condition. Measures 11 x 14.5 inches. Irregularly paginated as each comic was published separately. About 38 pages. Very Good. (#37459)

Price: $125 

Fine Press Poetry Collection

[Perishable Press]
Hamady, Walter.
In Sight of Blue Mounds.
Mt. Horeb, WI: Perishable Press, 1972.

Number 112 of 125 copies. This is a beautiful production from Walter Hamady's Perishable Press. He describes the work as having twenty poem pieces arranged by season, taken from a journal kept south of the Blue Mounds and supplemented with a few pieces left over from the place in Springdale township. The pages are loose and are laid in a bound folder with a multi-colored cloth binding with a brown backing with the title and author in gilt on the spine. The beautiful different papers used for this work came from Hamady's Shadwell Papermill, and he states the press was trying to reduce its supply of old towels, ties, jeans, sheets and shirts [from the colophon]. The type used is Sabon.

Walter Hamady (1940 - 2019) was an American artist, book designer, papermaker, poet and teacher. He is especially known for his innovative efforts in letterpress printing, bookbinding, and papermaking. In the mid-1960s, he founded The Perishable Press Limited and the Shadwell Papermill, and soon after joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he taught for more than thirty years. Noted for its fine handmade paper, distinguished typography and unique colophons, Hamady's Perishable Press challenged traditional notions of the book. Over the years, his press produced a body of work highly sought after by collectors -- books prized for their meticulous and complex physical structures, quirkiness and inventive collaborations between typesetter, binder and illustrator. [Wikipedia]

Housed in a brown cloth covered slipcase. In fine condition. Measures 6.25 x 8 inches. With 20 numbered pages plus colophon, with preliminary illustration by Ellen Lanyon, title page, and dedication page "for Paul." Fine. (#37453)

Price: $725

An Explosion Book - with eco prints

Schiffman, Ellen, book artist.
On the Wooded Path.
Weston, CT: Ellen Schiffman.

A unique artist's book. Ellen Schiffman has worked as a professional artist for over 30 years in her Connecticut studio. She is a multimedia artist working in a range of modalities including fiber art, collage, sculpture, photography, printing, cyanotype, eco printing and, most recently, book art. She often combines multiple media in a single piece. Throughout her career, she has been an avid explorer of both material and technique, often including found objects and everyday humble items in her pieces. Serendipity and surprise are hallmarks of her singular work. She has exhibited her work nationwide, including numerous museum shows and solo exhibits. She has received multiple awards for her work and has been featured in online and print publications, including several books. Her work reflects a fascination with texture, pattern, color, organic shapes, sculptural forms, the majesty of nature, and the beauty of imperfection.  

The pandemic shut-down provided Ellen with an abundance of time to explore and experiment with some media that were new to her. She started making books during this time. She felt an immediate connection with the materials and the techniques of this compelling art form and found the process of making books a meditative balm for stressful times. Books have allowed her the opportunity to present her work in new and exciting ways. She celebrates the fact, unlike most other forms of art, the viewer gets to touch and interact with a book, thereby becoming an active participant in the process of the book becoming a meaningful piece of art. She frequently uses her books to present a body of related art work, while just as often she uses them as vehicles to capture the essence of memorable places, issues and moments in time. As the worst of the pandemic has subsided, Ellen has continued her book making journey, exhibiting her books in notable book art exhibits nationwide.

This delightful book is an Explosion Book structure. Explosion Books which fold up small, unfold into dramatic sculptural wall pieces. This structure features an "explosion" of inward and outward folds that give the structure its engaging and dramatic 3-dimensional profile. The Explosion book is whimsical and surprising, while being sophisticated and elegant at the same time. The images in this book are striking eco-prints created by the artist from plants collected in her garden and in the CT woods around her home during the pandemic. Eco Printing is a process in which plants, tightly rolled in watercolor paper, are boiled and steamed in such away that the plant images are beautifully transferred to the paper. Bound in a blue, green and white designed paper over boards. With title label affixed to front cover. A ribbon hanger is attached which allows the book to be displayed on a wall. In fine condition. Measures 7.5 inches square when folded, 50x15 when open. Unpaginated. (#37370)

Price: $675

Papermaking

[Silver Buckle Press]
Barrett, Timothy; Richard Flavin, illustrator.
Early vs. Modern Handmade Papers: Observations of a 20th C. Papermaker.
Madison, WI: Silver Buckle Press, 1989.

Number 7 of 150 copies, of which 75 were provided to the University Center for the Book in return for the paper on which this book was printed. Signed by the author. Timothy Barrett. Barrett is a renowned scholar on the history of papermaking, from early European papermaking to current trends and developments. He considers papermaking as the elemental basis of civilization. He is also celebrated as a papermaker himself. He has had many prestigious positions and was the recipient in 2009 of the coveted MacArthur Foundation grant. This essay was taken from Pat I of Barrett's extensive research report on Early European Papers. In it, he discusses why he was so attracted to 15th and 16th century papers, realizing that the intimacy between the papers' fiber and its human handlers was the essence of early papermaking that is rarely evoked in modern paper. He concludes by saying here that for quality hand papermaking to survive and flourish, the papers must become again what they always were: made by skilled experienced hand, slowly & carefully, of the best available materials, using processes sympathetic..."

This scarce and handsome book is bound in cream paper covers with a title label to front cover. From the colophon: Handset monotype Baskerville was printed damp on UICB's B8-33 paper which was then bound by hand into PC4 paper wrappers. All work was completed at the Silver Buckle Press." The text is followed by three folded sample sheets of handmade paper made by Tim Barrett. The book Includes notes on the cover, text, and sample papers. In fine condition. Measures 7.25 x 10.25 inches. Unpaginated [10 unnumbered pages].  (#37377)

Price: $400 

Seamus Heaney - Limited and Signed

[The Deerfield Press and The Gallery Press]
Heaney, Seamus; Timothy Engelland, illustrator.
After Summer.
Old Deerfield, MA and Dublin, Ireland: The Deerfield Press and Gallery Press, [1978].

One of 250 copies signed by Seamus Heaney. A small early book of poems by this famed Irish poet. This is a nice copy of a work containing two of Heaney's lovely poems. They are accompanied by two illustrations by Engelland, one being a black and white engraved portrait of the poet. Hand bound maroon cloth covers by Museum Bookbindings in Dublin. Printed by the well known Harold McGrath at the Hampshire Typothetae in Massachusetts. In a tan dustjacket that has creases to the top edges, light fading, and small tears to top edge and bottom of spine. The cloth binding has a few spots of fading on both covers. Despite noted condition issues, this relatively uncommon book is still in very good condition. Measures 6 x 9 inches. Unpaginated [5 pages]. Very Good / Good. (#37389)

Price: $500 

John DePol Monograph - Endgrain Designs

[The Legacy Press]
Baker, Cathleen A., author and proprietor of the press; John DePol, images, patterns and Reminiscences/Recollections.
Endgrain Designs & Repetitions: The Pattern Papers of John DePol.
Tuscaloosa, AL: The Legacy Press, 2000.

Number 50 of 130 copies of which 115 were offered for sale. Signed by both Cathleen Baker and John DePol. This important monograph offers the first study of DePol's endgrain designs. From the Prospectus: "Since the 1950's the American master of wood-engraving, John DePol has been cutting small ingrain blocks featuring...[various subjects] as well as fantastic abstract, geometric designs. Although many of these images have been made into patterns and used as binding papers in a number of important books, the full breadth of this aspect of DePol's oeuvre has never been published. For the first time, these images - 117 in all and a pattern formed from each - are reproduced as originally conceived by DePol. Accompanying these is an autobiographical sketch, as well as an essay, the publication history of the images and patterns, and a bibliography."

Bound by Gray Parrot in a one-quarter black cloth binding with black and white pattern paper covers called "Shade." There are fifteen signatures, five tipped-in color specimens of published pattern papers, and the book is hand-printed on Mohawk Superfine Ultrawhite Smooth using the Diotima typeface. In fine condition, accompanied by the prospectus. Measures 5.75 x 10.5 inches. 164 pages, with text pages numbered, and the plates unnumbered. (#37440)

Price: $375

Humorous Fictitious Collection of Letters to a Nudist Art Student
Filled with odd nude photographs

[Wallflower Press]
Cameron, Peter writer, designer, crafter; J. Lawrence Pinkerton-Smith, introduction; Marian MacDowell, letter; Christopher Isherwood, afterword.
Dieter at MacDowell: Summer, 1939 Two Volumes.
New York: Wallflower Press, 2010.

Number 10 of 10 copies of this exceedingly scarce work. No copies on OCLC or in commerce. Volume One contains the text while Volume Two has photos of the subject of this book, Dieter von Thiebault. The book, a work of fiction, recounts the unfortunate experiences of von Thiebault after he escaped from Germany, made it to the United States, and ended up at the MacDowell artist's colony under the auspices of the writer Christopher Isherwood. Isherwood believed that MacDowell in New Hampshire would be an ideal place for Dieter to go. The opposite proved true. A series of letters to Dieter from the colony's founder, Marian MacDowell, documented the many problems Dieter caused, and he was ultimately banished. He died homeless and penniless in Florida seven years later around the age of 26 There are seven color photographs of Dieter in Volume Two, all with a bizarre mask of a head and most in the nude.

Peter Cameron is a MacDowell Board member and a fiction writer who is best known for his novels Andorra, The Weekend, The City of Your Final Destination, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, and What Happens at Night. He is the founding editor of Shrinking Violet Press, where he has published two books of MacDowellania: Dieter at MacDowell: Summer, 1939 and Untied: Memoirs by Mary Carswell, the former Executive Director and MacDowell board member. MacDowell is an artist's colony whose mission is to nurture the arts by offering talented individuals an inspiring residential environment in which to produce enduring works of the creative imagination.

The two slim volumes are in paper stitched covers with the title and volume number on its covers. In near fine condition safe for minor creases to the top right edges of Volume One. The two volumes are housed in a stiff paper folder with a green and cream geometric design. In a clear plastic envelope with a string tie. Books are about 5.25 x 8 inches. Unpaginated [each volume about 18 pages]. Near Fine. (#37445)

Price: $400 

Paper Marbling

Wolfe, Richard J.
The Mysterious Marbler: James Sumner. With an Historical Introduction, Notes on the English Marbling Tradition, and Thirteen Original Marbled Samples made by Richard Wolfe.
New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Boos, 2009.

One of 300 copies of this second reprinting of James Sumner's book, with 275 for sale. The is the second reprinting of this interesting work first published in 1854 by James Sumner on the history and processes of paper marbling. It was reprinted in 1976 by Bird & Bull Press, and reprinted a second time here with the author's preface explaining why he decided to issue a second reprinting. The paper cover on the binding is a facsimile on an original English marbled paper in the author-editor's own collection, with a black cloth spine with titling in gilt. Interior pages are clean and bright. In fine condition. Measures 5.5 x 8 inches. 131 pages.  (#37379)

Price: $75