Fine Press Wish List

By which I mean, what would you wish to see a fine press publish?

I'll go first: a selection of poetry by Roy Campbell, who was praised by T.S. Eliot, Edith Sitwell, and others, but who has since fallen out fashion, due in part to his support of Franco.

But Franco's dead, as is Campbell; let's resurrect the poems, many of which are out of print.

In the grey wastes of dread,
The haunt of shattered gulls where nothing moves
But in a shroud of silence like the dead,
I heard a sudden harmony of hooves,
And, turning, saw afar
A hundred snowy horses unconfined,
The silver runaways of Neptune's car
Racing, spray-curled, like waves before the wind.

- From "Horses On The Camargue"

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’

Hmm, nice offbeat first choice. I'll respond in kind and say I would adore a fine press edition of the tales of Ooka Tadasuke, also known as Ooka the Wise. He was an actual judge during the Edo period and the tales purport to be cases of his where he delivered clever resolutions to often-unusual problems. There have been a couple English editions of these tales - Ooka the Wise: Tales of Old Japan and Japanese Folktales: Stories About Judge Ooka - but I would be just as happy with a fresh translation and some illustrations in period style.

Johannine corpus, in its Greek original.

There are horses too, and their four apocalyptic horsemen.

>2 ChestnutPress: I'd love this.

>4 Transfixed: Interesting! Would you hope for any explanatory material, or just the text?

>3 Shadekeep: This is just what I was hoping for: something I'm utterly unfamiliar with that nevertheless sounds like something I should rush out and read.

>2 ChestnutPress: Valeria and I are beginning to plan on edition somewhere down the line. Due to its length it would likely be a "whole year" project, where the workshop is dedicated to nothing else. We're thinking an original translation and two dozen ish gravures. It may even be our retirement edition, who knows — I certainly love the novel.

>2 ChestnutPress: that's getting to be a little too relevant to the current era, unfortunately

Lucia Berlin, Safe & Sound. Edited to add Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schlansky. Great for wanderlust and the island maps in fine press - what a challenge. Paris Review blurb on the book: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/01/08/fifty-islands-i-have-not-visited/

>6 Shotcaller: Text only, in large, well designed, well set, & readable type. With chapter & line numbers. The current largely accepted text with only main text variants mentioned. There could be woodcut illustrations if they were well done.

I use Baskerville's 4to printed in 1763, but I would prefer a separate edition of the Johannine corpus.

>12 Transfixed: out of interest, if you feel able to say, what is about the text that makes you value it especially?

Gödel, Escher, Bach

>8 grifgon: That would be fantastic, except for the “retirement” bit…. (!)

Another vote for >2 ChestnutPress:'s Ivan.

And for myself, a selection of the essays of Loren Eiseley.

I'd like a treatment of H2SO4 in the same vein as A Tango With Cows.

Or an exploration of the lyrics of all the footprints you've ever left and the fear expecting ahead by envy or Dahoam by Waldgeflüster. Both albums vacillate wildly between multiple styles of screaming/yelling and spoken word, which I think could translate in interesting ways to print.

Ottlik’s “Nothing’s Lost”, maybe better titled in English “It’s All Still Here”. A beautifully lyrical novella of memory and loss. Aging celebrated violinist returns to his home town after a very long absence and wanders about trying to reconcile what was important to him in childhood with the traces that still exist in a changed city.

I’ll happily settle for Ivan Denisovich though!

>8 grifgon: That would be an instant buy for me.

Did you win the lottery, Griffin?

>8 grifgon: Magnificent!!! Pretty much a guaranteed top-tier edition that would blow any other out of the water!!

The Pisan Cantos

>13 sanvito: Starting with the famous prologue, John is profound, playful, poetic, imaginative, and intimate, full of human interaction and dialogue. Presenting the Lamb of God, slain but full of life, he inspires us to open our eyes to human suffering and our minds to hope.

I'd like to see a selection from the poetry of Keith Douglas (indeed the whole body of work would be manageable) who to the best of my knowledge has had no fine press treatment except for an Incline Press broadsheet. His work has a searing honesty that cuts through any artifice. Illustrated with some of Edward Bawden's work as a war artist in North Africa and it could be something special.

I'd like to see Nabokov's 'Speak Memory'. I assume that if Nabokov does receive a fine press edition, then either 'Pnin' (in part due to the length), or 'Lolita' due to it's fame would be the contenders, but for me this is the Nabokov that I have enjoyed the most

>24 DMulvee:

I would be very keen for that.

However I must say that Pnin (sorry Griffin, but this one also just has to be you...) has sat firmly atop my wishlist for almost 5 years. I cannot think of a book I'd rather have.

>24 DMulvee: Speak, Memory is wonderful. Great choice.

I would still like The Stronghold (aka The Tartar Steppe) by Dino Buzzati or If on a Winter's Night a Traveler... by Italo Calvino.

>27 Shadekeep: Yes, please.

>27 Shadekeep: I was just about to comment "If on a Winter's Night A Traveller" myself.

I always bring up Caroline Alexander's translation of The Iliad for threads on fine press or small press wishful thinking... but I suspect it will remain that.

I would also add Tom Shippey's translation of Beowulf (facing page with the OE text of course).

>29 zorg2099: Calvino is one of those authors who just feels like a natural fit for fine press. Could do with some Pushkin, too.

I concur on both of those translations and would happily back either. One such work I've long agitated for is The Kalevala. But that would be an epic undertaking for any private press.

>30 Shadekeep: Calvino's Il barone rampante in the Italian original version would be great!

Seconding Calvino, especially (& despite Arion having already done one rendition of it) invisible cities suggests so many possibilities for design in a fine book.

>31 Transfixed: Would love that with Italian and English facing pages. Perhaps bound tête-bêche or dos-à-dos with Il cavaliere inesistente?

It would only be a pamphlet/chapbook but a printing of Umberto Eco's essay How to Take Intelligent Vacations would be amusing. Other essays from the collection are also funny but this one in particular will strike a chord with any avid reader.

It can be read here (along with some of the others essays in the collection):
https://books.google.com/books/about/How_to_Travel_with_a_Salmon.html?id=3bytC0a...

Addendum: the link i posted only shows the title for some reason but a Google search for the table of contents allows reading some of the essays on Google Books.

>30 Shadekeep: Ohhh! The Kalevala! Yes, indeed, with illustrations by Björn Landström (deceased) or someone else in similar style as his work for the Otava edition of this epic.

>35 Glacierman: That'd be grand! Would also be happy with artwork on par with that of Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

>36 Shadekeep: Absolument ! That was the other artist I was thinking of, but couldn't remember his name. Danke, danke, mein Herr!

Has there been a fine press War Music by Logue?

Steinbeck's "The Pearl" or "Cannery Row". And what about a selection of short stories by James Salter or John Cheever?

I'd quite like to have a fine press edition of Kathrine Kressman Taylor's "Address Unknown" please. Having first encountered it as a radio play, I have subsequently read the book and seen the stage play. A fine press edition is the next logical step! It's 64 pages, and possibly out of copyright too (1938). (Apologies for the multiple deletions, my message posted three times).

Is this thread different from this thread which was active recently: https://www.librarything.com/topic/315754#9124862 ?

Anyway, one I didn't mention in that one, but which I thought about recently was The Sorrows of Young Werther. Has that been done before?

>43 Opinacus: I felt this thread started off with an intention of more obscure wants that were truly wishful thinking, rather than the more feasible titles typically seen in such threads. But it did come around to those as well, as it tends to do here.

Well, if obscure is wanted, how about excerpts from the Chronicum Scotorum with the Irish and the English en face?

Well if we're going that route, why not hope for a book of Epstein birthday cards signed by Donald Trump. Stylish!

>46 7om: It's a high school yearbook for the ugly, unpopular kids who didn't go to prom. Herr Falkenhorst looks like he should be appearing wistfully over the shoulder of Tammy Lumpkin from fifth period algebra.

Rather chilling that someone ordering the deaths of so many people appears to be developmentally arrested in his teens. Plus ça change...

Yeesh. Im not perturbed by the content as much as by the type of collector who would want one.

I'm really moving away from 'I want this particular book dressed up in fine press clothing' and more to investing in the talent of the individuals creating the books. I would love to see more books which, through subtle intelligent design, encourage participantion from the reader. Not just something pretty to gawp at but books which make you work. You go back to them and keep discovering layers on each read. I don't care whether it's Moby Dick or something more esoteric as long as it makes me think. The design shouldn't just be focused on one read through but what the reader will discover on the tenth or twentieth read through.

For me the most important is the title. I want those books I love or I think I would be interested in to be published by private presses. Artists books and weird designs are not my piece of cake.
There are so many Latin American writers I would like to see published by fine presses. J.L. Borges, J. Cortázar, M.A. Asturias, J. Rulfo, C. Fuentes, A. Bioy Casares, C. Lispector to name but a few. The optimal would be one designed and printed by some Latin American printer for example Patricio Gatti, illustrated local. Bound maybe by Phoenix bindery. The shorter ones bilingual. They could be like the Short Stops series.

The Invention of Morel truly deserves fine press edition

>53 koszakedv: Real Lead Saloon is working on something that may interest you, if you like poetry.

Well known author but under the radar book, I’d love to see A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny.

It’s a wonderful story, told in a fairly unique manner, and each chapter was initially illustrated but they were dropped from publication after the first edition.

It can be read straight through, but also designed so that the 31 chapters can be read each night leading up to Halloween. Many devotees do this as an annual tradition.

>54 lgreen666: >56 greenwald1: Adding my vote for these, as both titles have been on my personal wish list for a long while. NYRB put out an excellent translation of Morel that would be a good basis for a fine press edition, and I would love for any issue of Lonesome October to include the Gahan Wilson illustrations.

>52 LT79-1: " I would love to see more books which, through subtle intelligent design, encourage participantion from the reader.....I don't care whether it's Moby Dick or something more esoteric as long as it makes me think."

Yes. This. I suspect there are more than a few book artists on this forum and outside it who have these as some of their goals...but I do wish your sentiments above were as easy to advocate for as "I want my fine press to be letterpress" or "the quality of paper matters most to me." Thanks for posting this idea.

>53 koszakedv: Borges is perfect for fine press - short concise stories with philosophical themes to be read over and over again.

>54 lgreen666: Never read this. Sounds like a classic I've missed and something I'd enjoy so I ordered a paperback copy. Thanks

>58 abgreens: Sometimes I just want beautiful clean typography, letterpress and handmade paper and the book to step out of the way but I also really do appreciate design which asks something of the reader. But yes it's not easy to advocate as collectors can assume you mean really garish design and that's not the case.

I'd love to see a fine press edition of E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr. Given the book's length (384 pages in the Penguin Classics edition) and relative obscurity, though, only a madman would dare print such a thing. Then again, madmen aren't unknown in this craft...

From Penguin's description:

Tomcat Murr is a loveable, self-taught animal who has written his own autobiography. But a printer's error causes his story to be accidentally mixed and spliced with a book about the composer Johannes Kreisler. As the two versions break off and alternate at dramatic moments, two wildly different characters emerge from the confusion - Murr, the confident scholar, lover, carouser and brawler, and the moody, hypochondriac genius Kreisler. In his exuberant and bizarre novel, Hoffmann brilliantly evokes the fantastic, the ridiculous and the sublime within the humdrum bustle of daily life, making The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr (1820-22) one of the funniest and strangest novels of the nineteenth century.

>60 Shotcaller: That does sound rather delightful! Perhaps shelve it next to Soseki's I Am A Cat.

>61 Shadekeep: Not familiar with the Soseki. I do like Shonen Knife's song "I Am A Cat."

>62 Shotcaller: Ah, Shonen Knife! That takes me back. The early days of listening to Japanese bands, when you had to find them in record stores instead of on the internet.

>63 Shadekeep: There was something romantic about those days. I'm currently listening to a Spotify playlist of Haruki Murakami's favorite music. It's nice, but I imagine sitting in Peter Cat, his jazz bar, was nicer.

>64 Shotcaller:
And here I was just this morning reading about this jazz bar in his book about running!

>65 GusLogan: Quite the coincidence! If it is a coincidence….watch out for cats and beautiful girls with shapely earlobes.