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
(Vancouver): Heavenly Monkey, 2008. 20ff.,+ 4 tipped-in paper samples. Second edition. One of 50 copies. Printed to mark the tenth anniversary of its original publication, El Autobus Azul was the first book printed by Rollin Milroy, and this new edition adds a Foreword by him. Four samples of papers collected... More about El Autobus Azul: Handmade Papers from Costa Rica
NY: Random House, 1931. Octavo. 116pp. One of 500 copies, inscribed by the bibliography's compiler, Louis Henry Cohn. Illustrated with a frontispiece facsimile note from Hemingway to the bibliography's author. With a presentation card from Cohn's wife and a 1961 Playboy Magazine article with Hemingway quotations laid in. Some rubbing... More about A Bibliography of the Works of Ernest Hemingway
(Cambridge, MA): Department of Graphic Arts, Harvard College Library, 1948. 32mo. (12)ff. One of 600 copies. Inscribed by the editor, Philip Hofer, who also wrote the Foreword. A volume experimenting in modern offset color reproduction, based on the original held at the Harvard College Library. Crisp in marbled paper wrappers... More about There Is No Natural Religion
(Paris: Perrigot-Masure, c. 1922). Framed sheet of handmade paper with a chiaroscuro watermark portrait of Dard Hunter as a young man, based on a photograph by Clara Ragna Johnson. To the left, his name is lettered in the style characteristic of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Sheets of this handmade... More about Watermark portrait of Dard Hunter
(Vienna): Jugend & Volk Wien Verlag, (1969). Oblong quarto. 210pp. One of 99 copies, signed and numbered by the artist, Wolfgang Hutter. Bound-in are three original lithographs, also signed and numbered by Hutter. An essay on the style of the Austrian neosurrealist artist, followed by a catalog of his works... More about Essay und Werkkatalog
![Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley [TRADE]. David...](/pictures/thumb/23629.jpg?v=1434431961)
Boston: Bromer Booksellers, 2011. Octavo. 408pp. First trade edition. Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley is the culmination of over twenty years of research, fact-finding, and detective work undertaken by David J. Bromer. With over 2,000 entries, Aun Aprendo is the most current and... More about Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley [TRADE
![DELUXE]. Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley....](/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 about DELUXE]. Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley
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 about Les Livres a Figures Vénetiens de la fin du XVe Siècle et du Commencement du XVIe
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 about An Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, upon Copper and in Wood, with an...
Oldham: Incline Press, 1999. 32mo. 10pp. An extract from a talk given at the Typophiles, illustrated with figures contorted into the shapes of letters. Fine in decorative paper wrappers. More about I Am Not a Type Collector
(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 about The Art of the Japanese Book
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 about The Japanese Print: Its Evolution and Essence
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 about The Ukiyoye Primitives
Waltham St. Lawrence: Golden Cockerel Press, 1925. Four woodcut initials, separately matted and framed, from the Golden Cockerel Press edition of Jonathan Swifts' Gulliver's Travels. The "I", "A", "O", and "T" appear as part of symmetrical black-and-white designs, with lines falling in simple sweeps and patterend with dots and stars... More about Four Initials from Gulliver's Travels
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 about William Caslon's Typographic ABC
Postenkill, NY: Kaldewey Press, 2018. Quarto. (12)pp., accordion-fold. One of only fourteen copies. Kaldewey’s interpretation of Rilke’s poem invokes the transformative power of music by showcasing the German text, which is deeply imprinted in yellow ink. The lines are paired with bright watercolors that amplify the atmospheric and affective quality..... More about Musik: Atem der Statuen
(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 about Hymenoptera, Twelve Specimens
(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 about A Printer's Garden
(Turkey: c. 1875). 200ff. Complete, single column, with between thirty-eight and forty-one lines of miniature gold gubari per page. Surah headings in black against gold ribbon banners. The opening two pages of text feature illuminated blue, red, and white borders decorated with interlocking vinal circles, creating a mesmerizing array of... More about Miniature octagon-shaped Koran
(Philadelphia): Philadelpia College of Art, 1972. Quarto. (18)pp. One of eleven copies. Inscribed by the artist, Susan Kronfeld, to Stuart Schimmel, who served on the Grolier Club council and whose personal collections and public curatorial positions allowed him to continually present exhibits to the New York community. Kronfeld's eight color... More about A Tragedy
Chicago: Le Petit Oiseau Press, 1968. 7pp. One of 150 copies. With a portrait frontispiece of Christ tipped in. Printed by Doris V. Welsh. Very fine in half blue cloth and yellow boards. (1 7/8 by 1 7/16; 47x36mm). More about One Solitary Life
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 about Julius Firmicus Maternus and the Aldine Edition of the Scriptores Astronomici Veteres
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 about Printed Pages from English Literature
(McMinnville, OR): Bird & Bull Press for Philip J. Pirages, 1991. Octavo. 132pp. One of 275 copies. The leaf is from a copy of Volume I of the Sweynheym and Pannartz first edition of Nicholas of Lyra's Postilla super totam bibliam, completed on 18 November 1471 in the Palazzo Massimo... More about Sweynheym & Pannartz and the Origins of printing in Italy: German Technology and Italian...
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 about An Original Leaf from the First Edition of Alexander Barclay's English Translation of Sebastian...
