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
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
c. 1964. Four sheets, three of which measure 8.5 by 11 inches; the single sheet of text is smaller, measuring 8 by 6 inches, and is on blue paper. These reveal the unfolding of Gorey's creative process in developing the story and preliminary illustrations for the book. The text page... More
Tokyo: Kodansha International, (1977). Quarto. 264pp. Illustrated throughout in color and black & white. An introductory reference book of Japanese printing up to 1868, with a glossary and an index of the most important artists and works. Fine in quarter yellow and blue cloth, with title in silver to spine... 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
NY: Weatherhill, (1995). Square small quarto. X, 314pp. Illustrated throughout in black & white and color. Includes essays by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Joan B. Mirviss, and John T. Carpenter, as well as an illustrated listing of the collection and an index of poets. Very find in blind-stamped brick cloth, with... 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., 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 has been interleaved with protective tissue. Throughout the album, on both the fronts and backs of the folds, are various mounted paperworks, including 197 paper folding works, 52 pieces of paper basketwork, twenty-five pin-prick stitches, twenty-two geometrical silhouette works, and... More
(Malaysia): Bayard Jeunesse, 2007. Small quarto. (16)pp. A book of pop-up images depicting father and child animals, together with two pop-up maquettes of the father squirrel and the father bear as separate examples of this book's skillful paper-crafting, both signed by the paper engineer, Jean-Charles Rousseau. Each short poem is... 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
Oakland, CA: Peter Rutledge Koch, 1988. Broadside measuring 19 by 26 inches. One of 100 copies printed on Arches cover paper and signed by the author and the artist. This is an interesting piece in that it combines both art and science. The text includes the poem by Michael Rothenberg... More
(France: Mid-13th century). Single leaf measuring 203mm. by 140mm., written in a minute gothic hand in black ink with glosses in red. Text includes the last forty-three verses of Luke and all of the first chapter of John, plus chapter 2, verses 1 through 19. A small miniature at the... 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
Akron & Evanston: Bruce Ferrini /Hamill & Barker, 1993. Folio. 40pp. One of 166 copies. With an original leaf from the fourth edition of the Latin Bible, printed by Gutenberg's successors. The leaf contains text from Deuteronomy 9:17 through 12:6, a significant passage in which Moses returns from Mount Sinai... 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
