A designer binding is the most visible of all the book arts. To those artists whose medium is the binding of a book, the old adage that you can't judge a book by its cover is untrue. From colored leathers and gold foil, vellum and exotic woods, the artistry of a book is vividly ...
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Venice: Heironymous Scotus, 1550-1551. Quarto. 75ff. Woodcut device on title page and last leaf, several geometrical text figures, two ten-line and two five-line initial capitals. A book of commentary by the sixth-century Greek philosopher Philoponus, who also went by the name John the Grammarian for his scholarship on language. Although... More
Lyon and Paris: Librairie Catholique de Perisse Frères, 1844. Small octavo. viii, 524, (v) pp. A seventeenth-century silver gilt, jeweled binding covering a French prayer book, which was placed into the binding at a later date. Very fine in a modern, velvet-lined dropback box. The Journée du Chrétien concerned the daily... More
(London: c. 1928). Small quarto. 33pp. Signed by Alberto Sangorski. A unique manuscript on vellum, designed, illuminated, and calligraphed by Sangorski. A stunning work containing the title poem and five others: "To the River," "Dream Land," "The Sleeper," "To One in Paradise," and "Fairy Land." With an illuminated full-page frontispiece... More
NY: Johnnycake Press, 1985. (44)pp.+ a large fold-out map by David Marshall. One of fifty copies. Signed by the printer. An very fine copy with sugi bark endpapers, and bound in oasis goatskin by Carol Joyce with the sculpted impression of mountains across both covers. Bookplate of former owner. (2... More
(Lunenburg, VT): Stinehour Press, 2000. (16)pp. This short text describes things a book can be, starting with the practical ("a general term given to a variegated species whose individual members share the trait of being composed of several sheets of paper of like size...") and becoming increasingly more fanciful ("Books... More
London: John Murray, 1836. Octavo. xxii, 530 pp. First edition, extra-illustrated with engraved portraits and landscapes related to Johnson's life. A collection of extracts not included in James Boswell's acclaimed biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson due to space restrictions, but which "are essential to the completion of the intellectual portrait... More
London & Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press, (1926). 24mo. 92pp. The first in the Dorian Booklets series produced by Collins' Clear-Type Press and designed by Jessie M. King, which features elaborately illustrated endpapers, title pages, and text borders, printed in orange, tan, and black. The endpapers in this volume depict a.... More
(Watertown, MA): Anne and David Bromer, 1977. (24)pp. The text is printed on Japanese paper with ornamentation in green. Wood engravings by Sarah Chamberlain, as her first miniature book commission. This is the first miniature book published by the Bromers. Midori Kunikata-Cockram captures the whimsical nature of the text, which... More
Newton, IA: Tamazunchale Press, 1987. 31pp. Truman Capote's essay describes his first meeting with French author Colette, during which she gave him a crystal paperweight and inspired him to start collecting the objects for himself. The book has been specially bound by Tom McEwan to reflect the world in miniature... More
Worcester: Stanbrook Abbey Press, 1965. Small quarto. 81pp. One of 500 copies beautifully printed in red, black, and green on handmade paper. Title-page decorations by Margaret Adams. Lithographed portrait of the author tipped in. With an English translation on each page facing the original French text by Raissa Maritain, who... More
N.p. (1845). Octavo. (26)ff. A manuscript alphabet book of calligraphic paintings, signed by the artist, Jean Midolle. Includes an elaborately decorated title page, twenty-four letters, and "Fin." A renowned nineteenth-century Swiss calligrapher and miniature-painter, Midolle executed his alphabets in the gothic style of lettering to resemble the text of a.... More
London: Methuen, (1927). First edition. This famous collection of children’s verses, featuring Milne’s son, Christopher Robin, and his bear, is illustrated throughout with Ernest H. Shepard’s whimsical drawings. Signed at a later date on the title page by Shepard. Handsomely bound by Bayntun-Rivière in deep red morocco, with gilt ruled... More
Boston: Anne & David Bromer, 1983. (62)pp. First edition. From an edition of 400 copies signed by Gorey, this is one of 100 copies comprising the deluxe issue with the illustrations hand-colored by him. The text is an alphabet of short humorous couplets patterned after early moral primers for children... More
Boston: Anne & David Bromer, 1989. (32)ff. This Gorey rarity features a one-of-a-kind designer binding by Gabrielle Fox, one of the leading artisans in binding and conservation. Signed by Fox and the artist, Edward Gorey. With twenty-nine illustrations accompanied by rhyming couplets, Q.R.V is an homage to Isaac Watts, and... More
Boston: Anne & David Bromer, 1989. (32)ff. From an edition of 400 copies, this is one of 110 hand-colored in metallic casein by the artist, and signed by him below the colophon. This Gorey rarity is bound in a one-of-a-kind designer binding by Brother Edgard Claes, a binder known for... More
Rome: Delfino, (1985). Folio. 106pp. According to the colophon, this is one of 1,200 copies. Illustrated with ten color lithographs after drawings by Henry Moore. The editor, Dr. Stanley Wells, notes in the Foreword that this work reveals an "unsuspected spiritual kinship between one of the greatest visual artists of... More
Dallas: Somesuch Press, 1983. 24pp. Inscribed by Stanley Marcus, noted miniature book collector and proprietor of the Somesuch Press, to his friend and fellow microbibliophile Donn Sanford. A collection of love poems by Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Browning, illustrated with two United States "Love" stamps and a British stamp in honor... More
Chelsea: Ashendene Press, (1906). Small quarto. 161pp. One of 100 copies. Printed in red and black with initials by Eric Gill. This is the first book by the Ashendene Press with marginal notes printed in red. Featuring a designer binding by Franklin Mowery of black morocco blind-tooled with an intersecting... More
(Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1895). Three octavo volumes. 399; 412; 421pp. One of 250 copies. Ornate wood-engraved double-page opening in Volume I and initials and borders throughout the three volumes by William Morris. In a letter to a friend in 1855, William Morris wrote that he had just been reading Shelley's... More
(Hyattsville, MD): Rebecca Press, 1983. 118pp. One of 150 copies. Illustrated with whimsical wood-engravings by Sarah Chamberlain. Designed by Rebecca Bingham, who signed the colophon. Published in the bicentennial year of the birth of Washington Irving. Bound in blue cloth with paper label. Very fine. Bookplate of former owner. (2... More
Baltimore: Xavier Press, 1993. 19pp. A timeless essay by Lewis Carroll on the art of correspondence, illustrated with two pasted-in postage stamps promoting letter-writing and a fold-out sample of a letter by the author. In a designer binding by Dominic Riley featuring gilt-tooled envelopes and abstracted stamps in onlays of... More
Oxford: Oxford Polytechnic Press, 1984. Revised first edition. Robinson's classic introduction to the craft of bookbinding, with step-by-step visual aids. The revised edition provides instruction not only for standard case-bound and library-style bindings, but also techniques for finishing in foil and gold leaf, advice on equipment and materials, and commentary... More
Sea Pen Press & Paper Mill: Seattle, 1989. Broadside measuring 14 1/8 by 28 5/16 inches. One of 60 copies, signed by the author. A poem by Thomas Brush printed on black, white, and turquoise-patterned paper created using various techniques for manipulating the paper pulp. Fine. More
Mill Valley, CA: Sunflower Press, 1977. (16)ff. From an edition of 250 copies illustrated in color by Marcie Collin and printed by Carol Cunningham, this copy is in a designer binding by Sonya Sheats. Evoking the fierce battle between the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat, the artist envisioned "a... More
(Northampton, MA): Apiary Press, 1961. Oblong quarto. (10)ff., + single letterpress sheet laid in. One of twenty-five copies signed by the illustrator, Joyce Sills. This copy bears a presentation inscription from Sills to social-realist artist Ben Shahn and his wife, Bernarda. The colophon notes that the Shahns' son, Ezra, had... More
