Books about Books

I got to wondering lately about books written about specific fine press books. For the purposes of this list, I'm looking for books written about the creation a single fine press publication or series. I've started a list with books in my library (though I don't have all the books they're written about), but I'm sure there are several others. Books are listed along with the publication they're written about.

The Making of The Book of Common Prayer of 1928. Martin Hunter (Chiswick Book Shop, 1990)
The Book of Common Prayer (Merrymount Press, 1928)

A Typographical Masterpiece. John Dreyfus (Book Club of California, 1990)
The Four Gospels (Golden Cockerel Press, 1931)

The Book Becomes: The Making of Fine Edition. Sebastian Carter (Rampant Lions Press, 1984)
The Story of Cupid and Psyche. William Morris (Clover Hill Editions, 1974)

Only The Printer Knows: The Making of a Book. Martyn Ould (Old School Press, 2023)
Venice Visited. Thomas Coryat (Old School Press, 1999)

Reading Pericles. Crispin Elsted and Simon Brett (Barbarian Press, 2010) Issued only as a companion volume with the play.
The Play of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. William Shakespeare (Barbarian Press, 2009)

An Incidental Printing of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty” on Slipsheets. Andrew Steeves and Christopher Patton (Gaspereau Press, 2023) More about a byproduct of the book than the book itself.
Pied Beauty. Gerard Manley Hopkins (Gaspereau Press, 2021)

I have A Typographical Masterpiece and it was great to read with my FS facsimile version of Four Gospels (as close as I will get to the real thing). Not sure if this ticks the box you have in mind, but the forthcoming AP book with Barry Moser's reflections on creating the art for Moby Dick seems in this general theme.

>1 kronnevik: You can add another from the Old School Press, Martyn Ould's 2003 book Stanley Morison and 'John Fell'. This concerns the creation of Morison's John Fell, The University Press and the 'Fell' Types (1967). One of the finest printed (and monumental!) books of the 20th century.

sat James Park Press’s ‘An Albion in the Antarctic’ is another.

‘The Illustrations for Nineteen Eighty-Four’ by St James Park Press is another one to consider.

The Daniel Press & the Garland of Rachel

The Kelmscott Chaucer - A Census

The Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare

The After Omelas book details the process of creating the artwork for the No Reply Press edition of The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, as well as containing the full series of pieces from which the book's illustrations were selected.

>6 tim_rylance: You beat me to it with the Kelmscott Chaucer Census. But here's another suggestion that couldn't be more specific - not only is it about one book, but one copy!

C.H. St John Hornby's vellum copy of the Ashendene Press Dante, Steven A Bakker, De Zilverdistel Rare Books, Antwerp 2000

Technically it's a bookseller's catalogue, but like its companion, Bakker's magnificent 'catalogue' of the Margaret Davies collection of Gregynog Press special bindings, it's actually a major reference work in disguise.

>8 BillWoodbridge: Hi Bill, do you know what language that book on the Ashendene Press Dante is written in please?

>9 TheTotalLibrarian: I'm 99% certain it's in English, like the mighty Gregynog tome. But you've outed me as someone who hasn't actually got the book - it's still on my desiderata list for the reference shelves!

>10 BillWoodbridge: A quick online look and it seems it is in Latin

The Fell Imperial Quarto Book of Common Prayer from the Whittington Press is an interesting story.

Do you count books about printers or presses, or is that too wide of a net?

Peter Koch, Printer: A Descriptive Bibliography

Fine Printing, The San Francisco Tradition by Ward Ritche

Fine Printing: The Los Angeles Tradition also by Ward Ritchie, both from The Book Club of California

Wiliam Everson has a small piece, A Note on the Psalter, about his attempt to print a psalter, found in William Everson: On Printing (Book Club of California, 1992). I found the whole thing interminably boring, but it may be of interest to you, if you are of a more monastic bent. (Feel free to DM me if that collection of letters is of interest to you and we can strike a deal).

On the flipside, I really enjoyed Abigail Rorer's commentary on printing Mimpish Squinnies in Matrix 27.

(Thanks for starting this post! There are some really intriguing works posted so far.)

>11 ChestnutPress: The copy offered on Abe by Antiquariat Tautenhahn in Lübeck is described as being in English. And a quotation is provided:

"Following this peface the reader will find, respectively, an explanation of the method which my colleague Erik J. Warmenhoven and I used in describing the Charles Harry St John Hornby copy of the Ashendene Press 'Tutte le Opere di Dante Alighieri Fiorentino' printed on vellum, an introductory essay by Frans van Dooren, the eminent Dante scholar, and a bibliographical description of the folio, with illustrations detailed on pages viii and ix. The catalogue concludes with a census of all vellum copies of the Ashendene Press 'Dante', and a bibliography"

>15 tim_rylance: My mistake. For some reason I thought the question posed was what language the actual Ashendene Dante was in. I shall go and hide under a rock now…

>16 ChestnutPress: That misinterpretation had not occurred to me. I thought you were making a joke!

>17 tim_rylance:
>16 ChestnutPress:

Me too! Sorry I hadn't replied, as I was still trying to puzzle it out!

Dare I mention that the Ashendene Dante is in the original Italian?

>18 BillWoodbridge: So I’m double-wrong! Never going to come out from under this rock now!!

The printer and the poet; an account of the printing of 'The Tapestry' based upon correspondence between Stanley Morison and Robert Bridges appears to be the only one of the 34 Cambridge Christmas Books devoted to a single book.

Here's one that is a little different. It is about a book that was planned, but never published: The Book That Never Was by Joseph Dunlap. It chronicles the efforts to design an edition of Wm. Morris' The Earthly Paradise that failed to come to fruition.

>21 Glacierman: That sounds fantastic.

>18 BillWoodbridge: On the topic of this book, I noted this morning that Sophie Schneidemann has a copy of the Ashendene Dante for sale. Only £36,000! See her latest catalogue: https://www.ssrbooks.com/

>23 Opinacus: Shoot, at that price, might pick up five. ;)

>21 Glacierman: I picked that one up a while back thanks to your earlier recommendation. Worthwhile indeed!

If we're progressing to books about books that didn't come to fruition, I'd suggest Robert Harlan's Chapter Nine The Vulgate Bible & Other Unfinished Projects of John Henry Nash (1982, Bird & Bull Press for The Typophiles and Book Club of California).

>23 Opinacus: She had that at the Rare Books LA fair last weekend. Unfortunate amount of foxing on that one.

>23 Opinacus: Note that the set for sale is the three volume octavo-sized "Divine Comedy" set printed from 1902-1905. The magnificent folio-sized "Tutte le Opere di Dante Alighieri" was published in 1909, and considered along with the Doves Bible and Kelmscott Chaucer, the pinnacle of Fine/Private Press achievement.

>1 kronnevik: John Dieter Brinks "The Book As a Work of Art" is about the Cranach Press, with quite a bit of focus on its "The Tragedie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke" production. It can be a bit of a ponderous read, but informative in a Tuetonic fashion.

>28 Sport1963: Ah, thank you. So presumably not as expensive then ;)

>23 Opinacus:
>28 Sport1963:

Yes, the De Zilverdistel book is about the folio Tutte le Opera di Dante Alighieri. The earlier Divine Comedy isn't quite so legendary, although it's following its big brother into the pricing stratosphere it seems. Three-book sets are at even more of a premium over singletons than might be expected, since the Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso were published as three separate books with limitations (on paper) of 135, 150 and 150 copies respectively. So if you ever find a singleton Inferno, you will have the set-assemblers at your mercy!

There is (unusually) also a folio Dante on the market at the moment with Peter Harrington at their new New York gallery - The Garden Ltd copy (presumably Lot 245 in the famous Sotheby's 1989 sale, sold for $11,550 including buyer's premium) in quarter-holland over boards. Unusual (even by Ashendene Dante standards of scarcity) to see it in that binding, but at £95,000 it would make a nice pair with a quarter-holland Kelmscott Chaucer I guess.

Naturally Haven O'More wasn't content with having (have'n?) only such a modest example of the book in his collection, so to come full circle, the preceding lot 244 in The Garden sale was 'St John Hornby's own copy of his magnificent 1909 Dante, ... one of only 6 copies on vellum', bound by Katharine Adams, which was the subject of the De Zilverdistel book eleven years later. Sold for $85,250 - a bargain compared to the Doves Press English Bible on vellum at $297,000 a few lots later, but that was one of just two copies, with a Cobden-Sanderson binding. O'More wasn't able to complete the triple with a vellum Kelmscott Chaucer, having merely two paper copies: Cobden-Sanderson's own, presented to him by Morris and bound to C-S's design, plus another copy in the white pigskin edition binding. What a lightweight!

>31 BillWoodbridge: The Garden Ltd copy price of £95,000 at today's fx rate is $129,200 retail, which in my opinion is much too dear. Would you consider a rebind on this or leave as is? The Douglas Cockerell designed white pigskin and red morocco over polished oak boards variants with Celtic-like designs on the sides work better for the Kelmscott Chaucer than for Dante's Renaissance masterpiece. Perhaps I am the fox considering the grapes...

I am one of those collectors who will be at the mercy of anyone looking to sell an Ashendene "Inferno". I've been advised that it will cost more than the other two titles of the set put together.

>31 BillWoodbridge:
>32 Sport1963:

Is there a story behind the uneven limitations across the three books? I'd have thought if one book would have a larger limitation it would be Inferno...Or was demand just misjudged for the first?

>32 Sport1963: Apologies, I muddled up my currencies - £95,000 as you say, now corrected.

Curiously, the Bibliography doesn't mention quarter-holland over boards at all (only 'bound in oak boards with Niger morocco or pigskin backs and clasps' for the paper copies). I've only ever handled the morocco, and I did wonder about the slightly 'Celtic' flavour but I think I could live with it! Only 80 of the 105 paper copies were for sale as opposed to private use (Colin Franklin says 35 for private use, which looks like a typo for 25), so that might be the ghost of a clue to an undeclared variant binding. Or, more likely, a customer might simply have requested a quarter-holland 'special' (or rather anti-special?) with a view to commissioning a custom binding - that being the usual rationale behind issuing such grand books with such utilitarian bindings, the Kelmscott Chaucer being the most notable example.

Of course these days with originality being prized above all, the modest and often shabby quarter-hollands, never intended as permanent bindings, are instead revered (again, note the majority of Kelmscott Chaucers that retain this binding even today) and it would be a brave collector who commissioned a rebind on such a book, however distinguished!

I'm not that brave, although I'd be frustrated by the impasse of 'having' to retain an unattractive temporary binding on a magnificent book (this is where an externally-wrecked copy would, paradoxically, be very useful so a modern binding or facsimile binding could be undertaken with a clear conscience - dlphcoracl has championed this idea in the past).

But the Harrington copy doesn't fall into that category, so (and I stress this is strictly academic, but fun to think about) if that folio Dante were mine, I'd leave it as-is but ask James Brockman for a solander box facsimile of the niger morocco / oak boards /clasps binding to put it in. He's even got the ex-Sandy Cockerell Edward Johnston punches for the spine gilt titling. I might not be able to lift it, but that's a minor detail. Simples!

I'll let you know about the Inferno just as soon as I get a copy in :)

>33 MyrddinWyllt: I've never found a story or even speculation, other than Hornby's lofty yet obvious comment 'It is somewhat regrettable that the number of copies printed of 'Inferno' was less than that of 'Purgatorio' and 'Paradiso', thus making it difficult to acquire a compete set of the 3 volumes of the Commedia, especially on vellum.' I suspect as you say demand was misjudged. Hornby certainly had had to refuse at least five orders for the vellum Inferno (the first vellum Ashendene, so presumably an especially commercially-uncertain endeavour) and perhaps the increase from 14 to 20 of the vellum limitations was the main driver for the paper copies' increase.

I was reading this post about a book showing the illustrations which would have been in the Biblia Innocentium by Kelmscott Press. So it is a book about what another book could have been:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/357676

Herbert Hodgson by Fleece Press (1989) is a detailed account of the creation of the 1926 Cranwell edition of T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Has beautiful paste paper covered boards too.

“The Secretary of my Union asked me if I would like to go over to a place at Paddington to help and advise a chap who had taken on a job of printing a private book all on his own, but had had no practical experience, only theory and what he had watched other people do. … I thought to myself, ‘this sounds interesting.’”

Today I received a packet from Hard To Find Books in New Zealand with The Books to Come by Alan Loney, issued in 2010 by Cuneiform Press, one of the 200 copies of the first, hardcover, edition. Beautiful!

An interesting review of this book can be found at The Landfall Tauraka Review.

>37 Transfixed: looks interesting thanks, i enjoy these kinds of book. It's not easy to get hold of though. Even the paperback is expensive.

>38 LT79-1: Yes. If you happen to find the hardcover, it's worth it.

>35 LT79-1: Nice to see my post! A copy is for sale on Ebay: https://ebay.io/m/dNImdc

>39 Transfixed: Thanks, is the writing style quite dense? I noticed the review referenced Blanchot which would suggest it is.

>40 Lukas1990: Thanks, I tend to only buy from ebay sellers in the UK but it's on my list after reading your post.

>41 LT79-1: The seller in my link is actually from UK, Southampton :)

>42 Lukas1990: And so it is! Whenever I link from FPF to ebay it changes the listing to USD so I always assume it's a US listing.

>41 LT79-1: There are morsels of thought. I appreciate that it can be read in snippets.

>40 Lukas1990: By accident, I finished with purchasing both versions of that Beginning / Dawn of the World, both the British and the American one.

>44 Transfixed: I read the discussion on Lucas1990's post on the two versions. Which do you prefer after spending time with them?

>45 LT79-1: I'll see, as I ordered both just today. One from the UK, a better copy then the one linked above. The US version from a German bookseller.

>46 Transfixed: you did well, the covers look very grubby on most copies. Some feedback when you receive would be great.

>47 LT79-1: Took this & that one.

>48 Transfixed: nice clean covers!