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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San Francisco: Arion Press, 2011. Tall quarto. 112 pp. One of 400 copies signed by the illustrator, Julie Mehretu. This is Mehretu's first artist's book, and she created twenty double-page prints to accompany the text, printed in Greek and English. These abstract etchings at once evoke an evolving landscape, but... 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
Paris: Gumuchian, (c. 1930s). Quarto. (181)pp. + 135ff. of plates. One of 1000 copies. A catalogue of fine bindings from this famed Parisian bookseller, profusely illustrated with full-page black and white illustrations including XX color plates. In original dust wrapper, with the English titling: "Fine Bindings." This title also appears... More
(London): Jo Bird, (2009). 48mo. (22)pp., accordion-fold. A one-of-a-kind artist's book, signed by the artist, printer, and binder, Jo Bird. Folding out from right to left, the leporello is comprised of twenty-two linocuts depicting the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Each calligraphic letter is printed in black ink onto swaths... More
Worcester, MA: Achille J. St. Onge, 1960. 45pp. Printed by Enschedé en Zonen in Holland. The text of the book is accompanied by several full-page illustrations printed in green, along with a frontispiece portrait of the author. Featuring a designer binding by the renowned English binder James Brockman. A church... More
London: Folio Society, 2013. Octavo. 107pp. Illustrated with seven bold portraits of Holly Golightly by Canadian illustrator Karen Klassen. The collage-like images reflect the artist's fashion background, layering textures and patterns, such as scraps of lace and fabrics, with paint strokes and pencil lines. The multidimensionality of the illustrations is... More
Venezia: Antonio Zatta, 1757-1758. Four quarto volumes: L’Inferno, Il Purgatorio, Il Paradiso, Prose & Rime Liriche. (16), xlviii, ccccviii; ccccxiii, (3); cccclii, (4), 104; xii, 408, (4), 264, lxxxiv, (2)pp. Illustrated throughout with 114 engraved plates, by F. Giampiccoli, J. Magnini, F. Rizzi, and B. Crivelli, after works by Italian... More
(Shaker Heights, OH): Wind and Harlot Press, 1986. 12pp. One of twenty-three copies. Keats's ballad of a knight wooed by a beautiful and wild "faery's child" and then abandoned by her, haggard and pale, on the cold hillside. In a designer binding by Paul Delrue depicting the setting at the... More
Hammersmith: Doves Press, 1914. Octavo. (168)pp. One of 200 copies printed on paper. Following the Doves Press's style, the two initials are a red five-line "C" on the half-title, and a black four-line "B" on page 7. Stage directions, names, and scene indicators printed in red, while lines from The... More
Hammersmith: Doves Press, 1914. Octavo. (168)pp. One of 200 copies printed on paper. Two initials in typical Doves Press style: a red five-line "C" on the half title, and a black four-line "B" on page 7. Stage directions, names, and scene indicators from The Tragedy of Coriolanus printed in red... More
Lisbon: (1813). 32mo. (157)pp., + folding map. An elegant embroidered hand-calendar, giving Feast Days, a Court Calendar, phases of the moon, eclipses, lists of kings, bishops, cardinals, and more. Includes the lineage of the Royal Family. Frontispiece is an engraved, hand-colored folding map of Portugal. In a white satin embroidered... More
Petersham, Massachusetts: Lone Oak Press, 2005. Oblong quarto. 89pp. From an edition of fourteen deluxe copies and 70 standard copies, this is one of five deluxe copies chosen to be specially bound for the international traveling exhibit "InsideOUT: Contemporary Bindings of Private Press Books," and as such, it does not... More
Oxford: University Press, 1838. Two near-miniature volumes. Unpaginated. Concealed under the gilt fore-edges of the two volumes are beautifully executed paintings by Martin Frost. The fore-edge painting on the first volume, which contains the Old Testament, depicts the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. Built in the Moorish Revival style in..... More
Worcester, MA: Achille J. St. Onge, 1973. 55pp. The text is printed with large ornamental initials in red by Joh. Enschedé en Zonen. In a striking designer binding by Stephen Conway, evoking ancient wood and stone. Conway writes that his bindings "have a tactile quality, in keeping with the three... More
(Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1896). Folio. (556)pp. One of 425 copies. Contains 87 wood-engraved illustrations designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. William Morris, in addition to the "Chaucer" type designed expressly for this book, provided 26 nineteen-line initials, and numerous foliate and floral borders and initials. Burne-Jones called the book "a pocket... More
(Newton): Gregynog Press, 1938. Large octavo. Binder's dummy, with all pages blank. The edition was limited to 175 copies, translated from the Spanish by Henry Thomas. Gregynog Press books were created under one roof, from design to printing, all the way to binding. George Fisher, who started at Gregynog Press... More
London: John Lane the Bodley Head, (1936). Octavo. xiii, (766) pp. First edition printed in England. From an edition of 1000 copies, this is one of 900 printed on Japon vellum. Text follows second Odyssey Press edition. Includes bibliography by Peter Pertzoff which had been sent to Joyce and was... More
NY: Macmillan and Company, 1894. 12mo. 274pp. A unique copy with beautifully executed original pen and ink drawings throughout showing the sights and landmarks of Shakespeare's country. Profusely illustrated with hand-drawn vignettes of the thatched cottages of Stratford-upon-Avon, landscape vistas of Warwick and Windsor, and other known British locations. The... More
San Francisco: Lantern Press, 1929. Octavo. 32pp. One of 500 copies. Inscribed by the author to the binder, Caroline Weir Ely. Printed at the Grabhorn Press, with a woodcut frontispiece by Ray Boynton. A collection of poems by Wood, celebrating the spiritual and rustic beauty of the wilderness. Wood is... More
Alford, MA: 1962. Small quarto. 28ff. One of forty copies. Etched title page and twenty-six fine etchings by Fink, ranging thematically from portraits to botany to insects. Many of Fink's etchings have a decidedly Baskinesque aesthetic, but Fink's circle centered primarily in New York, where he was friendly with Jack... More
Leipzig: Robert Crayen, n.d. (c. 1830). Two oblong octavo volumes comprising seven parts. (118); (120); (122); (122); (120); 120; (ii), 120; (iv), (124)pp. A collection of sheet music and lyrics for pianoforte gathered from a variety of composers, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. This set features wrap-around fore-edge paintings by... More
London: W. Bulmer, 1795; 1796. Quarto. Two books bound together in one volume: xx, 76; xv, vii, 126pp. First editions thus. With a fore-edge painting by the "double-line" painter depicting the pastoral village of Lissoy where Oliver Goldsmith spent his youth, standing in for the pseudonymous town of Auburn in... More
NY: Dodd, Mead, 1899. Three quarto volumes. xxvi, 330pp. From an edition of 268, this is one of thirty copies on Imperial Japon. In addition, this is a unique copy with an extra set of the 126 color photogravure plates printed on white satin and backed in celadon silk. The... More
Mount Vernon, NY: William Edwin Rudge, 1925. Octavo. 51pp. One of 500 copies. A one-act play, set in Medieval Spain, by the English poet and dramatist T. Sturge Moore. Designed by Bruce Rogers and bound in full golden morocco by Peter Franck, who at one time executed tooled leather bindings... More
(N.p. 2008). Small quarto. 32ff. One of five copies, signed by the artists, noted bookbinder, typographer, and illustrator Eri Funazaki and Danny Flynn, a fellow typographer who also wrote the text. Each letter was printed using different wood and metal types, many of which were altered by the artists or... More
