Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat).

Rimbaud, Arthur

Rennie, Sylvia (illus.)

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West Stockbridge, New York: Thornwillow Press, 1992. Folio. (86)ff. One of 250 copies. Signed by the artist and designer, Thierry Despont. Text in French, with an English translation by Louise Varèse, the English set below the French on the page. Contains twenty-eight drawings by Despont, printed using offset lithography by Susan Medlicott. Type and printing by Michael and Winifred Bixler and Luke Pontifell. Printed on heavy, sumptous cotton rag paper. This copy has been bound by Sylvia Rennie in full blue calf with a design of seven stiff, curvilinear shapes of polished blue, black, and white calf mounted to the front cover as a sculptural element evoking waves and sails. The endpapers are reddish brown brushed suede, very heavy, and the top edge of the book is stained black, with subtle swirling patterns in the stain that pick up the theme of one of the illustrations. The spine letters are onlays of black leather, and this is repeated on the spine of the book's clamshell box, which is specially designed to house this sculptural binding. Sylvia Rennie was a student of Hugo Peller, the Swiss master binder, and her work has been shown in a one-woman show at Kroch and Brentano in Chicago, in the Guild of Book Workers traveling exhibitions, at the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, and other universities and galleries. A very fine copy of an elegant production, both inside and out. (Item ID: 22014)