E-catalogue 90: Heavenly Monkey—The First Decade
In this first list of works from Heavenly Monkey, we invite you to peruse the books of Rollin Milroy’s first decade—including two books he produced under A Lone Press in the late 1990s.
E-Catalogues
2021 California Antiquarian Book Fair
We offer our selection of recent acquisitions for the California Virtual Book Fair in the hopes something will put a Spring in your step…
E-catalogue 87: Sing the Body Electric
The bridge between the book and the human body traverses language and feeling. We describe backs as supple, heads and feet as sure or firm, a lip as stained or rough. Is it any wonder that a poetry of words so readily can meet the poetry of the body? Our current e-catalog embraces that intimate and inimitable connection that brings a vocabulary to the shape of ourselves.
E-catalogue 86: Back to Basics
What is an alphabet but one of the essential building blocks of language, and thus, of the stories that serve as the backbone of culture? From our first formative educational experience to the intricacies of letterform and design, our mastery of our ABCs shapes how we experience the world during our time in it. We have therefore gathered a selection of material that speaks to this broad range of influence. From 19th century illustrated primers, to Edward Gorey’s Gashleycrumb Tinies; from Vespasiano Amphiareo’s writing manual, to the jewel-like calligraphy in Melissa Sweet’s Garden Companion, we see just how well-traveled these characters are.
2020 Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair
A tour of the offerings in our booth at the virtual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair in 2020.
E-catalogue 82: Eric Gill and his Circle
The subject of this e-catalogue is the examination of Eric Gill's considerable talents in the book arts. From his work for Count Kessler at the Cranach Press and Robert Gibbings at the Golden Cockerel Press, to the small communities he formed at Ditchling with Hilary Pepler, Gill's prolific output was enduring and his influence on future artists immense. His biographer, Fiona MacCarthy, concludes that he was “a most extraordinary person,” which dovetails perfectly with something Gill himself wrote in 1934: “Art itself has become an extraordinary thing—the activity of peculiar people—people who become more and more peculiar as their activity becomes more and more extraordinary.”
E-catalogue 81: Books-about-Books
We close out our series of lists featuring books-about-books with a nod to the self-referential nature that these works tend to take. The preservation of stories about printing, typography, bookbinding, and book collecting lies at the core of this selection, covering a variety of bookish worlds, from the booksellers imagined in Henry Morris’s San Serriffe, to the Typestickers of Los Angeles. The high level of production also befits the texts they contain: consider George Parker Winship’s address on William Caxton, delivered to the Club of Odd Volumes in 1908 and printed at the Doves Press; or the indulgently extravagant entrée into the world of books and book collecting that is The Colophon—available here as a nearly complete run and with the first part in original slipcases.
E-catalogue 80: Paper Books
The third installment in our month-long books-about-books theme takes a look at several aspects of that essential element of bookmaking: paper. Although this list is weighted heavily toward the decorative end—featuring a range of books about marbling, paste-papers, and sample books showing the available range of patterns from commercial papermakers—there are several works here that delve into more historical perspectives.