Barry Moser and Pennyroyal Press

Just got back from a trip to the Philly area. My wife and I went to the Brandywine River Museum, which is the former Wyeth studio. Great collection of N.C. Wyeth's illustrations for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, etc. They also have an exhibit of Barry Moser illustrations, plus limited edition books from his Pennyroyal Press. The books were amazing. If anyone is in the area, the exhibit is worth the trip. A little later research shows that Pennyroyal puts out limited edition letterpress editions, then teams up (usually with a university press) to put out a hardcover edition then a paperback edition. Seems like a smart approach.

Thanks for the note. I might make a road trip this summer and visit (I'm in the greater Boston area myself :)

I have the Barry Moser Pennyroyal Bible, but alas only in the cloth trade edition! It cost me £35/$65, bound in good quality cloth and dust jacket, though, of course, not letterpress.

http://www.librarything.com/work/306947/details/60973624

The $10,000 and $30,000 2-volume originals are a little (a lot) out of my league, but they and the other Pennyroyal letterpress editions look incredible. I'm in the UK, so I envy you the chance to visit them in person.

http://www.pennyroyalcaxton.com/index.html for the Bible

http://www.moser-pennyroyal.com/moser-pennyroyal/Blank.html for Barry Moser and the Pennyroyal Press.

I have the Pennyroyal Press publication of Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' and it is a stunner. It uses the most definitive edition of the text which is a result of the Mark Twain Project at the Bancroft Library/Univ. Of California at Berkeley and is bound in a sumptuous full green morocco gilt. The typefaces, Centaur and Arrighi, are bold, clear and eminently readable and are printed on a super-thick and heavy Mohawk Letterpress, an archival sheet. The type was handset by McKenzie & Harris, now owned and part of the Arion Press. Last but certainly not least, Barry Moser produced forty-nine stunning woodcut illustrations which are also included separately in a linen-covered portfolio. All are then included in a linen covered slipcase.

This is undoubtedly the most beautiful edition of Huck Finn ever printed and is well worth seeking out if you consider (as I do) Huckleberry Finn to be one of the finest and most important American novels ever written.

>4 dlphcoracl: I have the trade edition of the Pennyroyal/UC Berkeley Huck Finn printed by the UC Press; however, it is no longer the definitive edition since a full manuscript was found in Los Angeles in 1990.

4: I'm always skeptical when someone says something such as "this is undoubtedly the most beautiful edition"... etc etc. Are you familiar with EVERY edition of Huck Finn ever published? Also, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. Why don't you share some pics?

>6 astropi: "I'm always skeptical when someone says something such as "this is undoubtedly the most beautiful edition"... etc etc....Also, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder"

I'm sure this was intended as tongue-in-cheek since you made the claim on the FS site "in my opinion the Arion Press edition is the most beautiful" and "nevertheless I think the AP Moby Dick is the most beautiful edition ever published." Beauty is, indeed, in the eye of the beholder when it comes to claims of pre-eminence. I have mentioned elsewhere that I am unpersuaded of Mr. Moser's genius. I have not seen all his illustrations for Huck, but I have to say the ones I saw impressed me, as Moser's work always has, with their technical skill, but artistically left me cold. I like his portrait of Jim, and the depiction of the half-sunken riverboat, but his portrait of Huck doesn't do it for me; most of the illustrations I've seen are too literal for my taste (for Huckleberry Finn, which to my thinking benefits from a non-literal approach).

I have to say I MUCH prefer the wood engravings Harry Brockway did for the Folio Society's edition of Huck, and that my favorite of all are the ones Tom Benton did for the LEC/Heritage Press edition. Alas, I can't afford the LEC edition, but I do have the Easton Press reprint. (I'm prejudiced, probably, because growing up in Independence, MO, I had Benton's work and Midwest Regional Art in my blood.)

Django6924:

As luck would have it I, too, have the LEC edition of Huckleberry Finn with Thomas Hart Benton's illustrations, as well as the LEC editions of 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Life on the Mississippi' that Benton also illustrated. I also own the Folio Society edition with Brockway's illustrations you've reference above. If ever there was an excuse to own multiple editions of a work, this is it. Benton's illustrations 'get under the skin' of what Mark Twain is writing about in a way that is unique.

In his 'Note by the Illustrator' at the beginning of the LEC edition, Benton describes how he grow up in this region along the Mississippi, how he lived this life, met these people, is familiar with the dialect, etc. Obviously, illustrating these books was a labor of love for Benton. By contrast, Moser's woodcuts are somber, magesterial, and ennoble the principal characters, although that probably is not what Mark Twain would have wanted :) .

Two very different ways of skinning a cat but both work for me.

7: fair enough! I should have said of the Moby Dick volumes I have seen, the AP edition is by far the most beautiful (in my opinion, obviously :)
I am not familiar with Moser's other works, so I can not comment on those. As for Huck Finn, I don't really have a favorite edition. My favorite Tom Sawyer however, is the Rockwell illustrated edition.

I visited the British Library yesterday to have a look at their current science fiction exhibition (worth a couple of hours of time if anyone is in London), and the exhibit which was most impressive to me was an edition of Frankenstein, illustrated by Barry Moser. The really frustrating thing is that the book (large format) was open at one page, and I could see nothing of the binding etc. The quality of the publication, typography, design etc was very clear however. The only bibliographic details available were that it was a publication from: Mass; 1983. When I got home, I checked and discovered that this must be a Pennyroyal Press publication. Does anyone here have the book or more detail about it? From what little I could see, it looked quite stunning, at least a rival from the Centipede edition.

Huxley, the Pennyroyal Press edition is very collectible, ergo, somewhat hard to find and expensive--in the $2000--$3500 range. This copy was unsold at an auction but the listing gives some useful information about the book's details (and a picture):

http://historical.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=6043&lotNo=36121

As with most productions of the Pennyroyal Press, the University of California reprinted it in a trade edition in both hardbound and paperbound versions, and these can be found for anywhere between $10 and $200.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I am not a huge fan of Moser's art, and when this was first released, I felt that Ward's illustrations were still the benchmark for Frankenstein. I was, however, impressed with one of the illustrations of the monster's hand when I saw it a year ago as an artist's proof. It made me wonder if my problem with Moser is that his work seems more interesting out of context as a piece of art than as an illustration for a book.

I saw the Frankenstein at the exhibit mentioned above. The hand really was memorable.

>11 Django6924: Thanks Django. I have ordered a paperback copy of the UoC edition so that I can see the full set of illustrations - the little that I have seen of them so far, has left me wanting to see more rather badly.

>12 pm11: I agree. As an aside: the 'sleepy robot' left me with a desire to acquire the FS Hitchhikers Guide...

Interesting discussion. I have the U. Cal Press cloth edition of the Pennyroyal "Alice"...heavy Moser illustrations that can give you pause at first, but it's his style, and I must say they add to a particular interpretation of "Alice", but I'd be interested in other thoughts/reactions to them. I think the book design and layout are really fine, although perhaps the annotations (in red) could be a bit larger font size, in this edition at least. The fold out Alice illustration is both stunning and thought provoking.

BTW, of the books I saw at the exhibit, I think Legend of Sleepy Hollow might have been my favorite.

This thread sent me back to Amazon and eBay. I've long enjoyed my University of California Press editions of the Pennyroyal Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and I'd like to find good copies of Moser's Frankenstein, The Wizard of Oz, and Dracula.

Last weekend I found an Amazon listing for a like-new copy of the California slipcased edition of the Pennyroyal Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for only about $30, and it arrived yesterday in just the condition described. I love it! The illustrations are fabulous (interesting that Huck and Jim are the two characters whose eyes you never see in Moser's portraits), and the typesetting is generous, making the book substantial in size but not too large for comfortable reading.

Did California issue slipcased editions of Moser's other Pennyroyal productions?

My copy of Pennyroyal's Frankenstein is shipped. Could anyone share the entry for this book from Grolier Club 'A Century for the Century, 1900-1999'? Thank you!

>17 Lukas1990: I would love if some saint could provide the full list of titles.

Sorry for the funky formatting. Cut and paste from the spreadsheet I use to keep track of items I collect. (I've managed to gather 20 of these so far.)

Book Number # copies Title Author Year Illustrator Volumes Designer Press
1 200 Parallelement Paul Verlaine 1900 Pierre Bonnard 1 Pierre Bonnard L'Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, France
2 325 Title Pages as Seen by a Printer T. L. De Vinne 1901 Facsimiles of title pages from the early days of printing 1 Theodore Low de Vinne Theodore Low De Vinne Press, New York, New York
3 135, 14 Lo Inferno Dante Alighieri 1902 Charles Keats (woodcuts) from drawings by R. Catterson Smith 1 C.H. St John Hornby Ashendene Press, Chelsea, England
4 500, 2 The English Bible 1903-1905 5 T.J. Cobden-Sanderson Doves Press, Hammersmith, England
5 175, 10 Songs by Ben Jonson Ben Jonson 1906 Lucien Pissarro 1 Lucien Pissarro Eragny Press, Hammersmith, England
6 250, 12 Men & Women Robert Browning 1908 2 T.J. Cobden-Sanderson Doves Press, Hammersmith, England
7 370 Geofroy Tory August Bernard 1909 Bruce Rogers from Geofroy Tory 1 Bruce Rogers Riverside Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
8 400 Ten Spiritual Designs Edward Calvert 1913 Edward Calvert 1 Thomas Bird Mosher Thomas Bird Mosher Press, Portland, Maine
9 200 Newark Walter Pritchard Eaton 1917 Rudolph Ruzicka 1 D. B. Updike Merrymount Press, Boston, Massachusetts
10 257 Notes and Journals of Travel in Europe Washington Irving 1921 Rudolph Ruzicka 3 D. B. Updike Merrymount Press, Boston, Massachusetts
11 300 La Divina Commedia Dante Alighieri 1921 1 Willy Wiegand Bremer Presse, Munich, Germany
12 615 Iliad and Odyssey Homer 1923-1924 greek text 2 Willy Wiegand Bremer Presse, Munich, Germany
13 230 Das Roemische Carneval 1788 Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 1924 1 Giovanni Mardersteig Officina Bodoni, Montagnola di Lugano, Switzerland
14 385 De Civitate Dei S. Aurelii Augustini 1925 1 Willy Wiegand Bremer Presse, Munich, Germany
15 264 The Eclogues of Virgil Virgil 1926 Aristide Maillol 1 Emery Walker Cranach Press, Weimar, Germany
16 Die Vier Evangelien 1926 1 Rudolf Koch Gebr. Klingspor, Offenbach am Main, Germany
17 400 A Distinguished Family of French Printers of the Sixteenth Century: Henri and Robert Estienne 1929 1 George W. Jones The Sign of the Dolphin, London, England
18 250 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1929 1 John Henry Nash John Henry Nash, San Francisco, California
19 1200 The Decorative Work of T. M. Cleland Alfred E. Hamill 1929 T. M. Cleland 1 Elmer Adler Pynson Printers, New York, New York
20 1000 Das Blumenbuch Rudolf Koch 1929-1930 Rudolph Koch and Fritz Kredel 1 Rudolf Koch Druck der Mainzer Presse, Mainz, Germany
21 300 The Tragedie of Hamlet William Shakespeare 1929-1930 Edward Gordon Craig 1 Gordon Craig Cranach Press, Weimar, Germany
22 1000 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1930 Rockwell Kent 2 William A. Kittredge Lakeside Press, Chicago, Illinois
23 400 Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 1930 Valenti Angelo 1 Edwin and Robert Grabhorn Grabhorn Press, San Francisco, California
24 300 John Fell Stanley Morison 1930 1 Stanley Morrison Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England
25 500 The Book of Common Prayer 1930 1 D. B. Updike Merrymount Press, Boston, Massachusetts
26 500 The Four Gosples of Lord Jesus Christ 1931 Eric Gill 1 Eric Gill Golden Cockerel Press, Waltham Saint Lawrence, England
27 1500 The Iliad and the Odyssey Homer 1931 2 Jan van Krimpen Joh. Enschede en Zonen, Haarlem, The Netherlands
28 500 An Essay on Typography Eric Gill 1931 Eric Gill 1 Eric Gill and Rene Hague Hague and Gill, Pigotts, England
29 200 Canticum Canticorum Salomonis 1931 Eric Gill 1 Count Kessler Cranach Press, Weimar, Germany
30 210, 80 Urne Buriall and the Garden of Cyrus Sir Thomas Browne 1932 Paul Nash 1 Oliver and Herbert Simon Curwen Press, London, England
31 123 Amores P. Ovidii Nasonis 1932 1 Giovanni Mardersteig Officina Bodoni, Verona, Italy
32 525 The Odyssey of Homer T. E. Shaw (trans.) 1932 Bruce Rogers 1 Bruce Rogers Bruce Rogers and Emery Walker, London, England
33 1050 The Works of Shakespeare William Shakespeare 1933 7 Francis Meynell The Nonesuch Press, London, England
34 390 Fra Luca De Pacioli Stanley Morison 1933 1 Bruce Rogers Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England
35 390 A Descriptive Bibliography of the Books Printed at the Ashendene Press MDCCCXCV - MCMXXXV 1935 1 C. H. St. John Hornby Ashendene Press, Chelsea, England
36 Typograpische Gestaltung Jan Tschichold 1935 1 Jan Tschichold Benno Schwabe & Co., Basel, Switzerland
37 1250, 200 The Holy Bible 1935 2 Bruce Rogers Oxford University Press, Oxford, England
38 750 The Nonesuch Century A. J. A. Symons, Desmond Flower, Francis Meynell 1936 1 Francis Meynell The Nonesuch Press, London, England
39 125 Diggings from Many Ampersandhogs 1936 1 Paul A. Bennett Various (Typophiles)
40 200 The History of Saint Louis John, Lord of Joinville 1937 Reynolds Stone 1 James Wardrop The Gregynog Press, Newton, Wales
41 350 Types, Borders and Miscellany of Taylor & Taylor 1939 1 Edward and Henry De Witt Taylor Taylor & Taylor, San Francisco, California
42 210 Bibliography of the Grabhorn Press Elinor Raas Heller and David Magee 1940 1 Edwin and Robert Grabhorn Grabhorn Press, San Francisco, California
43 Eaux-Fortes Originales Pour Textes De Buffon G. L. De Buffon 1942 Pablo Picasso 1 Roger Lacouriere (Plates) and Martha Fequet & Pierre Baudier (text) Paris, France
44 40 Apokalypse 1943 Max Beckmann 1 F. H. E. Schneidler Baursche Giesserei, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
45 285 Pantagruel Francois Rabelais 1943 Andre Derain 1 Roger Lacouriere (plates) and George Girard (text) Paris, France
46 300 Esthetique du Mal Wallace Stevens 1945 Wightman Williams 1 Harry Duncan Cummington Press, Cummington, Massachusetts
47 175 The Book of Psalms 1947 1 Jan van Krimpen Joh. Enschede en Zonen, Haarlem, The Netherlands
48 Jazz Henri Matisse 1947 Henri Matisse 1 Edward Vairel (plates) and Draeger Freres (text) Paris, France
49 Gedichte J. C. F. Holderin 1949 1 Victor Hammer Stamperia del Santuccio, Lexington, Kentucky
50 500 Feder und Stichel Hermann Zapf and August Rosenberger 1949 1 Hermann Zapf D. Stempel AG, Frankfurt, Germany
51 210 Papermaking by Hand in America Dard Hunter 1950 1 Dard Hunter Mountain House Press, Chillicothe, Ohio
52 225 Oratio de Hominus Dignitate Pico Della Mirandola 1953 1 Victor Hammer Anvil Press, Lexington, Kentucky
53 1000 (300 in English) Manuale Typographicum Hermann Zapf 1954 1 Hermann Zapf D. Stempel AG, Frankfurt, Germany
54 A Descriptive Catalogue of the Book of Common Prayer James R. Page 1955 1 Saul and Lillian Marks The Plantin Press, Los Angeles, California
55 48 Novum Psalterium PII XII 1955 1 William Everson The St. Albert's Press, San Francisco, California
56 280 De Divina Proportione Luca Pacioli 1956 1 Giovanni Mardersteig Officina Bodoni, Verona, Italy
57 250 Printing for Theater Adrian Wilson 1957 1 Adrian Wilson San Francisco, California
58 200 Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut L'Abbe Prevost 1958 T. M. Cleland 1 T.M. Cleland Overbrook Press, Stamford, Connecticut
59 1500 Metamorpheses Ovid 1958 Hans Erni 1 Giovanni Mardersteig Stamperia Valdonega, Verona, Italy
60 The Alphabet in Various Arrangements 1958 1 John Fass The Hammer Creek Press, New York, New York
61 150 Das Evangelium Johannes 1960 1 Gotthard de Beauclaire Trajanus Presse, Frankfurt, Germany
62 400 Alphabetum Romanum Felice Feliciano 1960 1 Giovanni Mardersteig Officina Bodoni, Verona, Italy
63 Am Wegesrand 1961 Fritz Kredel 1 Willy Pingel Baursche Giesserei, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
64 Aschaffenburg Karl Gruber 1962 1 Hermann Zapf Ludwig Oehms, Frankfurt, Germany
65 850 Chinese Calligraphy and Painting in the Collection of John M. Crawford Jr. Laurence Sickman (ed) 1962 1 Joseph Blumenthal The Spiral Press, New York, New York
66 500 Typographic Variations Hermann Zapf 1963 1 Hermann Zapf D. Stempel AG, Frankfurt, Germany
67 330 Sequence, Sometimes Metaphysical Theodore Roethke 1963 John Roy 1 Kim Merker The Stone Wall Press, Iowa City, Iowa
68 285 Ecclesiastes 1965 Ben Shahn 1 Joseph Blumenthal The Spiral Press, New York, New York
69 250 Weeds and Wildflowers Armida Maria-Theresa Colt 1965 George Mackley 1 Will Carter The Rampant Lions Press, Cambridge, England
70 250 Flosculi Sententiarum 1967 1 Leonard Baskin Gehenna Press, Northampton, Massachusetts
71 500 Der Roman von Tristan und Isolde Joseph Bedier 1966 Fritz Kredel 1 Gotthard de Beauclaire Trajanus Presse, Frankfurt, Germany
72 500 Presses of the Pacific Islands 1817 - 1867 1967 Edgar Dorset Taylor 1 Saul and Lillian Marks The Plantin Press, Los Angeles, California
73 1000 John Fell Stanley Morison 1967 1 Stanley Morison Oxford University Press, Oxford, England
74 242, 75, 12 C-S the Master Craftsman Norman H. Strouse and John Dreyfus 1969 1 Leonard Bahr The Adagio Press, Harper Woods, Michigan
75 100 The Garden Andrew Marvell 1970 Lance Hidy 1 David Godine David R. Godine, Boston, Massachusetts
76 150 A Portfolio of Thomas Bewick Wood Engravings James M. Wells 1970 Thomas Bewick 1 R. Hunter Middleton Cherryburn Press, Chicago, Illinois
77 518 William Blake's Watercolor Designs for the Poems of Thomas Gray Geoffrey Keynes 1972 William Blake 1 Arnold Fawcus The Trianon Press, Paris, France
78 160 The Fables of Aesop Aesop 1973 1 Giovanni Mardersteig Officina Bodoni, Verona, Italy
79 120 Siete Poemas Sajones / Seven Saxon Poems Jorge Luis Borges 1974 Arnaldo Pomodoro 1 Richard-Gabriel Rummonds and Allesandro Zanella Plain Wrapper Press, Verona, Italy
80 270, 130, 100 The Story of Cupid and Psyche William Morris 1974 William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones 1 Will and Sebastian Carter The Rampant Lions Press, Cambridge, England
81 250 Das Schreibuch des Vespaino Amphiareo Jan Tschichold 1975 1 Jan Tschichold Cantz'sche Druckerei, Stuttgart, Germany
82 1550 Type Foundries in the Netherlands Charles Enschede 1978 1 Bram de Does Joh. Enschede en Zonen, Haarlem, The Netherlands
83 250 Moby-Dick; or, the Whale Herman Melville 1979 Bary Moser 1 Andrew Hoyem Arion Press, San Francisco, California
84 140 The Allen Press Bibliography 1981 1 Lewis and Dorothy Allen The Allen Press, Greenbrae, California
85 310, 50 Robert the Devil W. S. Merwin (trans.) 1981 Roxanne Sexaeur 1 Kim Merker The Windhover Press, Iowa City, Iowa
86 165 Apocalypse: The Revelation of Saint John the Divine 1982 Jim Dine 1 Andrew Hoyem Arion Press, San Francisco, California
87 200 Papermaking by Hand Walter Hamady 1982 1 Walter Hamady The Perishable Press Limited, Mount Horeb, Wisconsin
88 320, 95 The Whittington Press: A Bibliography 1971 - 1981 1982 1 John and Rosalind Randle The Whittington Press, Andoversford, England
89 61 Company Samuel Beckett 1983 1 Kim Merker Iowa Center for the Book, Iowa City, Iowa
90 Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings Sarah Greenough and Juan Hamilton 1983 Alfred Stieglitz 1 Eleanor Caponigro Meridan-Stinehour Press, Meridan, Connecticut and Lunenburg, Vermont
91 Lo Splendore Della Verona Affrescata Pietro Nanin 1983 1 Martino Mardersteig Stamperia Valdonega, Verona, Italy
92 350 Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus Mary Shelley 1983 Barry Moser 1 Barry Moser The Pennyroyal Press, Northampton, Massachusetts
93 150 The Circus of Dr. Lao Charles G. Finney 1984 Claire Van Vliet 1 Clair Van Vliet The Janus Press, Newark, Vermont
94 1200 Photographs from the Collection of the Gilman Paper Company 1985 1 Richard Benson (plates) and Martino Marderstieg (text) Gilman Paper Company, Newport, Rhode Island
95 1500 Max Caflisch: Typographica Practica Various Authors 1988 1 Walter Wilkes Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
96 40 Icones Librorum Artifices Leonard Baskin 1988 Leonard Baskin 1 Leonard Baskin Gehenna Press, Leeds, Massachusetts
97 250 The Poems of Catullus Charles Martin (trans.) 1989 1 Harry Duncan Abatoir Editions, Omaha, Nebraska
98 350, 17 The Stanbrook Abbey Press 1956 - 1990 David Butcher 1992 1 John and Rosalind Randle The Whittington Press, Herefordshire, England
99 210 Ornamented Types James Mosley 1993 1 Ian Mortimer I. M. Imprint, London, England
100 50 Divan E Shams Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi 1996 fifteen artists 1 Vincent FitzGerald and Jerry Kelly Wild Carrot Letterpress, Hadley, Massachusetts

>19 Chemren:
Thank you! A lot of limitations too small for my wallet there…

>17 Lukas1990: After three unsuccessful tries at scanning, cutting and pasting - I just retyped it below (please excuse the typos):

From entry #92 Pennyroyal Press, Frankenstein of "A Century for the Century" (Hunter and Kelly, 2004):

"Barry Moser was a student of Leonard Baskin's, absorbing many of his teacher's best qualities and combining them with extraordinary finish, flourish, and skill. Moser learned much about printing from Harold McGrath, the pressman at Baskin's Gehanna Press, with whom Moser formed a partnership to print, among other things, the Pennyroyal Press books. Several notable volumes were issued, including John Walsdorf's "Men of Printing", designed by Richard Hendel, and Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland". But Moser's dark, precise style is perhaps best suited to Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". The heavy, somewhat rough-around-the-edges Poliphilus text type (set by Michael and Winifred Bixler) is a perfect choice for the book, combined with a textura display type (Wilhelm Klingsporschrift, designed by Rudolf Koch) that adds just the right gothic touch. Type and engravings were carefully printed by McGrath on specially made Strathmore paper."

>21 Sport1963: Thank you very very much for your effort!

>19 Chemren: Thank you for this. Super helpful!