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
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., accordionfold. 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
(Hamburg - Barmbek: c.1890). Quarto. (64)pp. Accordion-fold album, each page interleaved with protective tissue. Throughout the album, on both the fronts and backs of the folds, are various mounted paperworks, including 197 examples of paper folding, 52 pieces of paper basketwork, twenty-five pin-prick stitches, twenty-two geometrical silhouette works, and thirty-nine... 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
Los Angeles: Plantin Press for Dawson's Book Shop, 1956. Folio. 31pp. One of 290 copies printed at the Plantin Press for Dawson's Book Shop. Though this title usually only includes one original leaf, this particular copy contains two, one from the Book of Proverbs and another from the Book of... More
Glastonbury, CT: Blue Moon Press, 1992. Octavo. (7)pp. One of ninety copies. Four color images printed from reduction woodcuts, collaged plates, etched zinc plates, and a photo-engraving. One is a fold-out illustration. Napora's poem provides narration and context to the main illustration, which is presented in its original form on... More
(Cambridge, MA): Houghton Library, 1994. Square octavo. (26)pp. One of 500 copies. Warmly inscribed by Lorenz to Anne & David Bromer. A catalogue for an exhibition of artist's books by Angela Lorenz held at Harvard University's Houghton Library in September 1994, featuring full-page photographs of the books and detailed descriptions... More
(1860). Handscroll. An elegant makimono-e painting in sumi ink and color wash on paper by 83-year-old artist Toshin. Handscrolls are meant to be viewed right to left in sections, traveling arms-length by arms-length through the continuous landscape. This painting takes the viewer through each of the four seasons in a.... More
(England): 1849. Octavo. 5ff. Verse manuscript with original watercolor illustrations, including a full-page cover title and title-page and sixteen vignettes throughout. The text tells the tale of Timothy Brown, who is introduced as "a wild little lad" who constantly tears his clothes and searches for ways to spend his days... More
(Paris: c. 1240). Manuscript leaf, on vellum, with text in Latin. The leaf contains 50 lines of double-column text in fine Gothic script. On the recto, it includes a five-line initial in blue and red inks with flourishes radiating along the center margin, while another red and blue initial with... More
(c. 1470). A single miniature manuscript leaf from a fifteenth-century Dutch or German Psalter executed in a miniscule gothic hand. The text of the recto includes the last three verses of Psalm 144 and the first three and a half verses of Psalm 145. The leaf contains eight initials executed... More
