DLE Grimm's Fairy Tales Artist Signed Edition

Very nice! https://www.eastonpress.com/deluxe-editions/grimms-fairy-tales-3872.html

Yes, indeed. Thanks for the tip.

Gorgeous illustrations!

Indeed, gorgeous illustrations! Very much in the style of works from the Golden Age of Illustration :)

For those who may be familiar with some of the other better presses out there, Suntup Editions used Jason Mowry to illustrate all four of the Hannibal Lecter books by Thomas Harris. He was quite a popular choice among their customers.

>5 whytewolf1:

Unfortunately, he only did two of them. The other illustrator wasn't bad, but not up to par with Mowry.

Mowry is also the reason I'm actually interested in a translation of Grimm's Tales, when I already have one illustrated by Arthur Rackham and can read the German original. But these illustrations really look good.

>6 SF-72: Ah… thanks for the correction! And yes, I agree, the illustrations do look very nice indeed.

As much as I like the illustrations, I already own two books of fairy tales illustrated by Gustave Dore and one by Arthur Rackham, so this one will be a reluctant pass for me. Maybe when I enter my third or fourth childhood, I’ll reconsider.

I will try to share some pics soon but WOW Grimm's Fairy Tales arrived. They sweated the details here. Even the font and paper. At this time of higher costs this book is a great value. Even has two fold out illustrations that tortue the OCD collector in me. The green on the cover is actually foiled detail.

>9 cu29640:
Glad to hear it and thanks for the review. Many members of the Fine Press and the Folio Society forums throw unfair punches at Easton Press, either from ignorance or jealousy. Many EP books, especially the 42 volumes currently in the signed-by-the-illustrator series, are as “fine” as most of the books they plug. All they lack is letterpress printing that most readers and collectors don’t care about.

>10 jroger1: What is letterpress printing? I have heard of it before but don’t know what it is.

>11 Neil_Luvs_Books:
I don’t really understand it either, so others will be better at answering your question. It is the way all books were printed before offset printing and now digital printing were invented. A few specialists still think it is superior to the newer methods, but I have a few letterpress books and they are no clearer or easier to read than a good quality modern method such as in the EP series we are discussing.

There is a detailed article about “letterpress printing” in Wikipedia.

>10 jroger1:

To be fair, a lot of Easton Press books are a bit generic, with covers that have little to do with the content, one illustration or none, always the same endpapers, that kind of thing. But they also have real gems, and I would count the signed-by-the-illustrator series as such. I've got a small number of those and they are all really beautiful. I ordered the Grimm's Fairy Tales and am really looking forward to receiving the book.

As for letterpress printing: I just googled it because I never got why some people think it's so superior, and one source says "Fine letterpress work is crisper than offset litho because of its impression into the paper, giving greater visual definition to the type and artwork, although it is not what letterpress traditionally was meant for." That makes sense to me.
That being said, I just got a letterpress book where the printing wasn't that well done and the text is sometimes pretty weakly printed. And that's the same as I encountered in cheaper ways of printing books and really not superior quality at all. I've got the impression that the method on its own doesn't matter as much as how good the craftsmen behind the printing are. What makes me say that is that I've got a book by Areté where the letterpress printing made reading an almost three-dimensional experience in the right light and at the right angle. It was beautiful and quite a fascinating experience. But so far that's been unique (to me at least) and other aspects of book production generally are a lot more important to me than the kind of printing that was used. But there are some people who are really into letterpress and that look down upon other kinds of printing. To each their own, I guess.

>14 SF-72: thanks for digging into that for me. 😀 I guess it is like any other technique or skill: some practitioners are better than others.

Letterpress is the older, more traditional, and more manual way of printing. It's harder to do well so when it is done well the feat itself is impressive. The 3D aspect of the impression can make the text crisper and more readable but I think it's simply more appreciated than the mass-produced offset printing simply because it isn't mass produced. It also gives the book more character because the ink level is less controllable, so each letter or page of letters is more unique. Is it worth it? Maybe sometimes.

>16 treereader: “It also gives the book more character because the ink level is less controllable, so each letter or page of letters is more unique.”

Why isn’t that a defect? It would be distracting to me.

Admittedly, I have little experience with letterpress books because I won’t pay a premium for them. I have 4 Letterpress Shakespeares from Folio Society and a few LECs. I don’t read any of them because the Shakespeares have no illustrations or notes, and the LECs have unattractive and mostly damaged or faded covers. The print in all of them is crisp and attractive but no more so than EP’s signed-by-the-illustrator series.

>17 jroger1:

Absolutely! It's probably more of a normal distribution thing - as long as the ink covers the intended letter shape within 1 or 2 standard deviations it's considered "fine". If ink coverage variation stretches to 4 or more standard deviations, it's a shoddy job. 3 might be the target (i.e., 6sigma). Something like that, I suppose. Obviously, I'm guessing here but I think it's a fair assessment.

I'll say that I started my book collecting years and years ago with Easton Press -- lovely stuff! That said, over the years I have learned to greatly appreciate letterpress printing and count myself among the devotees that believe there is nothing else like it! Of course I will continue to purchase Easton Press books, as well as Folio Society etc. However, there is a big resurgence in the fine press movement, and there are lots of affordable letterpress books being published today.

For me, I can immediately see the difference in quality between letterpress and offset printing. Part of that is that letterpress printing has to use high-quality paper that is thick enough for the impression to sink in but not bleed through. Also, the depth of the letterpress printing, also known as the "bite", is typically fairly deep by today's standards (that wasn't always the case) which only adds to the beauty in my mind. The ink used in letterpress printing is also different from offset printing, and is more "striking" for lack of a better word.

I'm honestly not trying to change anyone's mind -- if you don't think letterpress printing is a "big deal" I'm not going to argue with anyone. My personal journey took me to letterpress printing and I never looked back, it's absolutely my favorite method of printing. Anyway, that's my 2 and a half cents :)

Here's an old, but wonderful 6-minute documentary on letterpress printing --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv69kB_e9KY

Does anyone know the name of the translator of this Grimms Tales book, and/or the titles of all the fairy tales included? (EP Customer Service was unable to answer either question.) Thanks in advance for any info supplied!

>20 DavidMF: The book doesn't list the name of the translator. The titles of the fairy tales are:
The Frog King
Hansel and Gretel
The Goose Girl
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
The Brave Little Tailor
Rapunzel
Rumpelstiltskin
Little Red Riding Hood
Cinderella
Snow White

There's an illustration for each fairy tale, and at least one is a fold-out spread. Ten fairy tales is definitely a small sample of Grimm's work. I feel like this book is more for the art than for reading Grimm's fairy tales, since there are only ten tales. However, this book is beautifully done by Easton Press. The illustrations are very beautiful and interesting, and in some cases surprising. I had to read the story of Cinderella to understand the art for that one. The paper quality is very nice. I don't think anyone could be disappointed in this one. It's a very impressive book!

Letterpress = the type set is hand set into the press plate with engraved letters. It then acts similar to a rubber stamp where it strikes the ink and then the paper. Otherwise the book is printed by litho offset with a blanket that is etched almost microscopically by a material that attracts the ink with the remainder of the blanket attracting water. Oil and water don't mix so the ink fills the letters and can be transmitted to the paper at high speed. I find it interesting and have never understood how this doesn't smear at high speed. The more generic Easton Press books noted above are often less than $100. These were historically the books they used to only sell. Like the Great Books etc. They were fine for the price and in some ways the leather was better than what we see today. Used to be thick/soft/shiney. I applaud EP over the past decade in exploring the deluxe offerings with art, better covers, marbled papers, etc at a time when books and collectibles were in decline with the masses. Just proves that focusing on your customer works. Chasing the masses does not (ask Franklin Mint how that went for them...another sad story of a great company with historically outstanding products). Easton Press has always offered coffee table type books with the same printing block found in a book store with added leather binding. I recall the old Peterson Field Guides were like this, but I loved those and regret not ordering them.

>21 indigosky: Even the end papers exhibit a deeply complex and disturbing piece of art. It really sets the stage for the forthcoming tales.

I received my copy today and am very happy with it. The illustrations are beautiful as well as fascinating (and at times a bit disturbing, which fits), a mix you don't often find. The paper is great, as is the binding / cover. The margins and print are huge - clearly to make the book 'bigger', but I can live with that. I'm very glad I bought it.

>6 SF-72: Do you know which two he did for this book?

>6 SF-72:

There might be a misunderstanding. Mowry did all the illustrations for the Easton Press Grimm's, and they're really good, as is the whole book. It's beautifully made. In posts 5 and 6, whytewolf1 and I referred to Suntup editions of a book series, for which Mowry only illustrated two out of four. The ones he illustrated were Red Dragon and Hannibal. Hannibal Rising and The Silence of the Lambs were illustrated for Suntup by Tom Bagshaw. Those illustrations were good, but to me just not as good as Mowry's.