In their broadest sense, the book arts are at the core of our inventory. To be sure, the category encompasses the specialties that you see on our homepage, such as Fine Printing, Fine Binding, and Illustrated Books. However, it also includes such things as writing books and calligraphy, fore-edge paintings, books on papermaking, and leaf books.
Read more about one of the book arts, Fore-edge Painting
![[DELUXE]. Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley. David J. Bromer.](/pictures/thumb/23630.jpg?v=1434431961)
Boston: Bromer Booksellers, 2011. Octavo. 408pp. One of 50 deluxe copies signed by the bibliographer, of which 40 are available for sale. The deluxe edition includes a previously unpublished poem by Huxley dedicated to his first wife Maria. Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley... More
Japan: (1918). 64mo. Eleven original sumi-e and watercolor paintings in an accordion-fold book. The paintings are dated Taisho 7, that is, the seventh year of the Taisho period, or 1918. The paintings depict various landscapes, flora, and fauna, and have been created by the artists Sekitai Nagasaka, Seisen Oka, Hiyakunen... More
Offenbach am Main: Gebr. Klingspor, 1930. Oblong 32mo. 24pp., frenchfold. Illustrated with elegant silhouettes of men and women dressed in the height of fashion, each framed by a colorful border. Facing each silhouette or pair of silhouettes is a passage of German verse. This particular copy is specially bound as... More
Paris: Libraire Henri LeClerc, 1907-1914. Six volumes (Première Partie Tomes I-III, Seconde Partie Tomes I-II, Troisième Partie). Variously paginated. First edition. One of 300 copies. Extensively illustrated with reproductions of 2,000 woodcuts. A monumental and exhaustive bibliography on the illustrated book in Venice from 1450-1525. Essling provides lengthy and thorough... More
London: John and Arthur Arch, 1816. Small quarto. Two volumes. xxii, 478, 478*pp. + (9)ff. plates; (479)-836pp. + (13)ff. plates. A valuable reference on the history of engraving in Europe, illustrated with numerous examples throughout the text and on inserted plates. Handsomely bound in full red straight-grain morocco, decorated with... More
London: John Murray, (1957). Oblong quarto. 76pp. Publisher's copy of the first edition. An instructional book on the creation of patterns, illustrated throughout with examples of two-, three-, and four-color patterns. The patterns themselves range from natural forms, such as flowers and insects, to geometric designs. Each page of the... More
(London): Sotheby's Publications, (1987). Quarto. 2 volumes. 1-608; 609-1131pp., numbered continuously. Illustrated with 225 color plates and numerous black & white illustrations throughout. This detailed reference work also contains a glossary and indexes of works and authors. Hillier was the leading authority in Europe on the Japanese woodblock print, working... More
Tokyo: Kodansha International, (1966). Folio. 274pp. Illustrated with 107 tipped-in color plates. A beautiful reference work tracing the Japanese print from the fifteenth century all the way through the ukiyo-e period into the nineteenth century. Adapted into English by C. H. Mitchell. Fine in black cloth, with fine dust wrapper... More
Tokyo: privately published, 1933. Quarto. XIII, 122pp. + 93 plates, four of which are in color. Of a total edition of 1000, this is one of 500 copies of the English edition sold in Europe and America, numbered and signed by the author. With a fold-out frontispiece wood engraving, "Woman... More
Fairfax, CA: Jungle Garden Press, 1991. Oblong 24mo. (14)pp., accordion-fold. One of 55 copies designed, printed, and bound by Marie Dern at the Jungle Garden Press. A tongue-in-cheek printer's alphabet, with large initials in, appropriately, Caslon type. The initials are accompanied by humorous representations of the letters printed using numerous... More
Postenkill, NY: Kaldewey Press, 2018. Quarto. (12)pp, accordion-fold. One of fourteen copies. Kaldewey's interpretation of Rilke's poem invoking the transformative power of music showcases the German text, deeply imprinted in yellow ink. The lines are paired with bright watercolors that evoke the atmospheric and affective quality of both the poem's... More
(N.p.): Kerberos Press, 2011. Octavo. 28ff. One of twenty copies. Signed by both artists on colophon. Presented as an unbound collection of twelve detail illustrations of twelve different species of solitary bees, each with an accompanying description of its physical and social characteristics, its habitats, and its recorded locations around... More
(N.p.): Kitemaug Press, 1972. A ten-leaf accordion panorama, with eight floral ornaments printed in color, one to a page. Fine in printed wrappers, housed in a paper sleeve. (3/4 by 11/16; 20x18mm). More
Los Angeles: Kenneth Karmiole, Bookseller, 1981. Quarto. 28pp. One of 164 copies. Scriptores Astronomici Veteres is a collection of Greek and Roman astrological texts, of which the most important is Maternus's Mathesis, the most extenstive astrological book from antiquity. Here, the original leaf is from Liber Octavus, printed by Aldus... More
NY: Society of Foliophiles, (1925). Quarto. One of 200 copies printed for the Society of Foliophiles, containing 20 original leaves from notable books of English literature from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Unbound, as issued, with each leaf in its respective, annotated folder measuring 12 1/2 by 9 1/2... More
San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1938. Quarto. 53pp. One of 297 copies printed for the Book Club of California by Edwin and Robert Grabhorn. Tipped-in is a leaf from the Polycronicon, with a rubricated initial on the recto and verso. It contains a passage on the campaigns of Cyrus the Great... More
San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1938. Quarto. (2)ff.,15pp. One of 260 copies. The original leaf is from folio ccxiii of the Pynson 1509 edition. The essay by James D. Hart is decorated on each page with charming color-printed facsimiles of woodcut fools. Leaf lightly stained, else fine. Bound in linen-backed printed... More
San Francisco: (Grabhorn Press), 1939. 12mo. (9)pp. One of 55 copies. Tipped in after the title page, the leaf features a large woodcut of John Heywood at his desk. On the window behind him, several spiders observe a fly trapped in a web. On the verso of the page are... More
San Francisco: Peregrine Press for the Porpoise Bookshop, 1962. Quarto. 20pp. One of 76 copies printed and illustrated by Henry Evans at the Peregrine Press for the Porpoise Bookshop. With illustrations throughout in pale terracotta. This leaf book explores the contents of a journal recording the business transactions of a.... More
Los Angeles: Plantin Press for Bernard Rosenthal and Zeitlin & Ver Brugge, 1971. Folio. 13pp. One of 193 copies printed for Bernard Rosenthal and Zeitlin & Ver Brugge at the Plantin Press, with an original leaf printed on vellum by Peter Schoeffer at Mainz in 1472. It is one of... More
Austin: W. Thomas Taylor, 1995. Quarto. lxxxiv, 242pp., leaf tipped in at rear. One of 100 copies of the special first edition distributed for the Friends of the Brigham Young University Library by W. Thomas Taylor. Specially bound in quarter goatskin, with an original leaf from the 1524 Colines edition... More
San Francisco: Grabhorn Press for David Magee, 1958. Octavo. 30pp. One of 200 copies printed for David Magee at the Grabhorn Press. This original leaf from a Book of Hours was likely written and illuminated in Paris during the first portion of the fifteenth century. It bears four initials accented... More
Los Angeles: Plantin Press for Dawson's Book Shop, 1950. Tall quarto. 62pp. One of 300 copies printed by the Plantin Press for Dawson's Book Shop. The leaf is from the portion of the Chronicle on the sixth age of the world. It bears two woodcuts on the recto and six... More
(Fullerton, CA): Stone & Lorson, 1985. Folio. 23pp. From an edition of 115 copies, this is one of 89 copies quarter-bound in vellum, together with an original bifolium leaf from the edition of 1619. This copy contains a full hand-colored map of Palatinatus Bavariae in southwestern Germany, complete with text... More
Oxford: Plough Press, 1986. Folio. (6)pp., followed by ten annotated folders containing type and paper specimens. One of 110 copies. This collection of leaves was compiled to demonstrate some of the most important characteristics of nearly two hundred years of printing in England and Scotland. Leaves include The Optick Glasse... More
