E-Catalogues

 

40% Off Select Chapbooks

As the 19th-century printing industry gained traction in the United States and Great Britain, it owed much of its rapid success to, first, the arrival of a crop of young readers craving educational materials to accompany new social investments in public education, and second, incredible advancements in the technologies of mass production. These developments coalesced in the publication and trade of chapbooks, short and inexpensive texts widely circulated and read well and often. Heavy use paired with ephemeral materials makes these books quite scarce, but nonetheless crucial to the history of print, literacy, and childhood.

We are delighted to offer, then, a wide selection from our stock of chapbooks at a 40% discount. Many are quite rare, with only a few, if any, institutional holdings; others show a fascinating mixture of mass-produced text and carefully designed illustrations. They attend to a wide array of subjects: ABCs and primers, animals and nature, and biblical tales (including a hieroglyphic Bible).

As always, we hope you will take the time to browse and find something stimulating to the mind, or nostalgic to your childhood heart.

E-catalogue 111: A Back-to-School Miscellany of Student Productions

E-catalogue 111: A Back-to-School Miscellany of Student Productions

Here in Boston the turn of August to September brings with it the arrival of college students, who spend most of the first week of the semester anxiously navigating the subway and hauling heavy loads of books from class to class. To celebrate this season of learning, we have assembled a list of books by students of typography, binding, drawing, and printing. They remind us that the nature of the classroom is a broad one, and that the pursuit of knowledge takes place not only at a desk but also in a workshop, at an easel, and in the library.

E-catalogue 112: Highlights from a Miniature Book Collection

E-catalogue 112: Highlights from a Miniature Book Collection

As we round the corner into the season of bounty and gratitude, we wanted to share our own good fortune in the form of a recently-acquired miniature book collection. Comprising over 600 volumes, we can only present some of the highlights in this e-catalogue. We left a seat at our table open for you to join us.

E-catalogue 113: New Acquisitions for the Holidays

E-catalogue 113: New Acquisitions for the Holidays

We are pleased to present a grouping of recent acquisitions from across our specialty areas, including fine printing, miniature books, and children's books. 

As always, we thank you for reading and wish you only the best for this holiday season!

E-catalogue 114: Miniature Books with Postage Stamps

E-catalogue 114: Miniature Books with Postage Stamps

In his bibliography, Miniature Books Relating to Postage Stamps, noted collector Kalman Levitan observes that, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then one might say that postage stamps are miniature books in that they are single page broadsides that have their own story to tell.” When one considers the artistry and design that go into the creation of postage stamps, one can certainly see the correlation to miniature books beyond the simple fact of proportion. Levitan identifies fifty miniature books that have postage stamps as a central theme and are incorporated into their design, and as a nod to this effort, we have gathered together roughly half of Levitan’s bibliography from the contents of two recently-acquired miniature book collections for your consideration.

E-catalogue 110: Mosaic Press

E-catalogue 110: Mosaic Press

The recent acquisition of a private collection of Mosaic Press material consisting of approximately three-quarters of its output served as the impetus behind our latest e-catalogue. A considerable number of titles are represented in deluxe states, and some feature binding variants that appear never to have been used. Other notable pieces include a small archive of process material, as well as acrylic-fronted wooden miniature bookcases Irwin offered for sale through the Press. 

E-catalogue 109: The Mystique of Vellum

E-catalogue 109: The Mystique of Vellum

The list before you takes as its inspiration Colin Franklin’s observation that “(I)n its long history even the most rational critic will agree that vellum well used has inspired extraordinary enthusiasm.” That this statement appears in our very own Mystique of Vellum certainly deepens the appeal as a guiding principle. Herein you will find books that explore the subject of printing on vellum in depth; exemplars of vellum printing, from Essex House Press's elegant panorama of English monarchic history in their Masque of the Edwards of England, to Melchior Lechter’s mystical meditation on sacred symbolism in Das Maerchen vom Sinn; and books bound in vellum—a material in which “(F)lexibility and strength were skillfully balanced,” as Ana Paula Cordeiro noted in her brief introduction to Lightweight, a celebration of the enduring binding material. In this list, you will find it both limp and stretched over boards, painted, calligraphed, and tooled in gold and palladium—the ideal blank canvas.

E-catalogue 108: Art and Artist's Books from the 1960s and 70s

E-catalogue 108: Art and Artist's Books from the 1960s and 70s

In the mid-20th century, the advancement and proliferation of new technologies democratized the art of the book, and of printmaking in general, to such a degree that, as many artists adopted innovative processes of Xerox, risograph, and silkscreen, so too did many rediscover letterpress. Print was chic, print was groovy, print spread the word of protest and opposed the systems and strictures of its traditional predecessors. Alongside the overt political statements of poster-makers and underground newsletter printers were the aesthetic forces of conceptual and serial artists, and it was a natural result that the birth and growth of artists’ books and private press publications boomed with the help of Kim Merker, Walter Hamady, Morris Cox, and so many others.

In the present e-catalogue, we celebrate this crucial moment in print history. We hope this list inspires you with the power of print, whether for its nostalgia or its invention, its relevance or its history.