An interesting article about the Letterpress Shakespeare
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1ironjaw
I found an interesting article about the company that made the first Hamlet.
"The Letterpress Shakespeare will almost certainly be one of the last letterpress projects of such a large size to be undertaken in this country UK. As I said in the prospectus, I know of no other publisher who would take it on. Nor can I imagine a better one with which to work. I feel part of a team of publisher, typesetter, paper mill, paper merchant, printer, marbler and binder that is working together to make exceptional books."
http://handandeye.wordpress.com/the-letterpress-shakespeare-from-matrix-27/
There are some pictures of the finished work on their webiste:
http://www.handandeye.co.uk/Pages/Gallery/Gallery_LS_Title.html
"The Letterpress Shakespeare will almost certainly be one of the last letterpress projects of such a large size to be undertaken in this country UK. As I said in the prospectus, I know of no other publisher who would take it on. Nor can I imagine a better one with which to work. I feel part of a team of publisher, typesetter, paper mill, paper merchant, printer, marbler and binder that is working together to make exceptional books."
http://handandeye.wordpress.com/the-letterpress-shakespeare-from-matrix-27/
There are some pictures of the finished work on their webiste:
http://www.handandeye.co.uk/Pages/Gallery/Gallery_LS_Title.html
2boldface
Thanks, ironjaw - a fascinating article. I hadn't realised that up to half the printing is being done by a second firm outside the UK. So far, I only have four of these books, three of them printed by Hand and Eye and one by Offizin Haag-Drugulin, Leipzig. All the books are being bound in Germany.
Much as I'd like to, I just couldn't justify getting all of them - I wouldn't be able to buy anything else for the next 10 years. So the four I have will have to stand on the shelf as examples of a wonderful edition.
Much as I'd like to, I just couldn't justify getting all of them - I wouldn't be able to buy anything else for the next 10 years. So the four I have will have to stand on the shelf as examples of a wonderful edition.
3ironjaw
Hi boldface. Which ones do you have. Let me guess the tragedies? I'm tempted too, but I have to decide which one I should get first before they are sold out: the Canterbury Tales (Eric Gill), Letterpress Shakespeare Tragedies or The Four Gospels.
Do you have any pictures that you could share. I cannot get to the Members Room to see them but would like to know how big they are. I know Metamorphoses was big but was still surprised by its size and weight.
Do you have any pictures that you could share. I cannot get to the Members Room to see them but would like to know how big they are. I know Metamorphoses was big but was still surprised by its size and weight.
4Cicero78
Regarding Shakespeare...I find that many people do not enjoy reading Shakespeare due to the difficulty of the old english. I have been reading the Barron's "Shakespeare made easy" series. It has a full modern translation side by side with the old text. I find this to be much better than the usual footnote method and it is highly recommended.
The only downside is that they are paperbacks and do not look aesthetically pleasing in your library.
The only downside is that they are paperbacks and do not look aesthetically pleasing in your library.
6boldface
> 3 - "Which ones do you have?"
The three printed by Hand and Eye are Hamlet, King Lear and A Midsummer Night's Dream. The German printing is The Tempest.
As for pictures, I don't have a convenient way of putting them up on here, but you can see from the FS website what they look like, particularly if you click on the extra pics,
e.g. http://www.foliosociety.com/images/books/illustrations/lrg/LZ4_12475642590.jpg
There is a picture of The Tempest here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Folio-Society-Letterpress-Shakespeare-The-Tempest_W0QQitemZ1...
The books themselves are very slim but otherwise quite large. The dimensions:
Supplied in a buckram-bound solander box measuring 15" x 11" x 2¾". Letterpress volume: 14" x 10¾".
Commentary volume: bound in buckram. 8¾" x 5¾".
When I bought mine, they were available in slipcases without the commentary volume. I went for this option because I already have the commentary books in their original guise as volumes of The Oxford Shakespeare. In fact they are complete editions in themselves of the play in question, with full text and notes, whereas the letterpress volume is text only.
The three printed by Hand and Eye are Hamlet, King Lear and A Midsummer Night's Dream. The German printing is The Tempest.
As for pictures, I don't have a convenient way of putting them up on here, but you can see from the FS website what they look like, particularly if you click on the extra pics,
e.g. http://www.foliosociety.com/images/books/illustrations/lrg/LZ4_12475642590.jpg
There is a picture of The Tempest here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Folio-Society-Letterpress-Shakespeare-The-Tempest_W0QQitemZ1...
The books themselves are very slim but otherwise quite large. The dimensions:
Supplied in a buckram-bound solander box measuring 15" x 11" x 2¾". Letterpress volume: 14" x 10¾".
Commentary volume: bound in buckram. 8¾" x 5¾".
When I bought mine, they were available in slipcases without the commentary volume. I went for this option because I already have the commentary books in their original guise as volumes of The Oxford Shakespeare. In fact they are complete editions in themselves of the play in question, with full text and notes, whereas the letterpress volume is text only.
7ironjaw
The books themselves are very slim but otherwise quite large. The dimensions:
Supplied in a buckram-bound solander box measuring 15" x 11" x 2¾". Letterpress volume: 14" x 10¾".
Hmm interesting... I'm not really good with inches, centimeter is what I grew up with. The metamorphoses is 13" x 9¾". which would make the Letterpress slight larger. Now that is huge!
Supplied in a buckram-bound solander box measuring 15" x 11" x 2¾". Letterpress volume: 14" x 10¾".
Hmm interesting... I'm not really good with inches, centimeter is what I grew up with. The metamorphoses is 13" x 9¾". which would make the Letterpress slight larger. Now that is huge!
8boldface
Ok, in centimetres:
Supplied in a buckram-bound solander box measuring 38.1cm x 27.9cm x 7cm. Letterpress volume:
35.6cm x 27.3cm.
Supplied in a buckram-bound solander box measuring 38.1cm x 27.9cm x 7cm. Letterpress volume:
35.6cm x 27.3cm.
9GiltEdge
>4 Cicero78:
Regarding Shakespeare...I find that many people do not enjoy reading Shakespeare due to the difficulty of the old english. I have been reading the Barron's "Shakespeare made easy" series. It has a full modern translation side by side with the old text. I find this to be much better than the usual footnote method and it is highly recommended.
Fully comprehending Shakespeare is a multi-tiered reading/learning experience that takes a lifetime of devotion and study. No other author requires this much attention; but of course no other author gives as much back to the reader as Shakespeare, either. Reading him is as close as most of us will ever come to having a conversation with a Genius. Just being included in the conversation is a rich, elevating experience. In the pantheon of great authors, there's Shakespeare, and then everybody else, contra Eliot's co-nomination of Dante.
I haven't read Barron yet, but the new Yale Shakespeare series edited by Burton Raffel is a great place to go if you're relatively new to the Bard (as I am). The footnotes are quick and easy explanations of the obsolete or obscure words and passages. From there you can graduate to the Arden or New Cambridge editions, which have fully annotated footnotes with the latest scholarship, all of which add layers of fascination to an already fascinating subject.
(Granted that the cover art to the New Cambridge series is utterly, irredeemably dreadful. I buy the hardcover editions, and if they arrive clothed in that garish garb, I strip them post haste.)
The only way I can read WS is with the footnotes on the same page as the text. Therefore I don't use my Folio Society set (the regular one, not the letterpress) very much. And while I understand the letterpress editions are purely aesthetic and therefore putting the notes on the same page would be in bad taste, I couldn't justify buying them for the same reason. Not that I could afford them, anyway.
"A beggar's New Cambridge outworths a noble's Folio Letterpress." ;-)
Regarding Shakespeare...I find that many people do not enjoy reading Shakespeare due to the difficulty of the old english. I have been reading the Barron's "Shakespeare made easy" series. It has a full modern translation side by side with the old text. I find this to be much better than the usual footnote method and it is highly recommended.
Fully comprehending Shakespeare is a multi-tiered reading/learning experience that takes a lifetime of devotion and study. No other author requires this much attention; but of course no other author gives as much back to the reader as Shakespeare, either. Reading him is as close as most of us will ever come to having a conversation with a Genius. Just being included in the conversation is a rich, elevating experience. In the pantheon of great authors, there's Shakespeare, and then everybody else, contra Eliot's co-nomination of Dante.
I haven't read Barron yet, but the new Yale Shakespeare series edited by Burton Raffel is a great place to go if you're relatively new to the Bard (as I am). The footnotes are quick and easy explanations of the obsolete or obscure words and passages. From there you can graduate to the Arden or New Cambridge editions, which have fully annotated footnotes with the latest scholarship, all of which add layers of fascination to an already fascinating subject.
(Granted that the cover art to the New Cambridge series is utterly, irredeemably dreadful. I buy the hardcover editions, and if they arrive clothed in that garish garb, I strip them post haste.)
The only way I can read WS is with the footnotes on the same page as the text. Therefore I don't use my Folio Society set (the regular one, not the letterpress) very much. And while I understand the letterpress editions are purely aesthetic and therefore putting the notes on the same page would be in bad taste, I couldn't justify buying them for the same reason. Not that I could afford them, anyway.
"A beggar's New Cambridge outworths a noble's Folio Letterpress." ;-)
10spacmann
I just want to point out that Shakespeare isn't Old English. A common misconception. Beowulf was originally written in Old English - a language that sounds a little more like German. Chaucer was middle English and Shakespeare was Early Modern English.
11ironjaw
>8 boldface: Thanks, but you did not need even though I am very lazy to convert inches to centimeters :)
12Django6924
>9 GiltEdge:
GiltEdge has stated the crux of the matter so aptly, that I can only agree with him on both points: 1) there's Shakespeare and then everyone else, and 2) the more effort you put into studying him, the more you will agree with point 1.
The one thing that I would like to add is, Shakespeare was intended to be seen on the stage, and that a reading of the works following watching a well-acted production, is worth a bunch of footnotes and reader's guides. I saw a production at UCLA several years ago, of Measure for Measure, a Shakespeare play I never "got" when I studied it in school, by Mark Rylance and the Globe Shakespeare Company. I read it the very night of the performance--for the first time in perhaps twenty-five years--and have read it twice since then, with an ever-growing appreciation.
GiltEdge has stated the crux of the matter so aptly, that I can only agree with him on both points: 1) there's Shakespeare and then everyone else, and 2) the more effort you put into studying him, the more you will agree with point 1.
The one thing that I would like to add is, Shakespeare was intended to be seen on the stage, and that a reading of the works following watching a well-acted production, is worth a bunch of footnotes and reader's guides. I saw a production at UCLA several years ago, of Measure for Measure, a Shakespeare play I never "got" when I studied it in school, by Mark Rylance and the Globe Shakespeare Company. I read it the very night of the performance--for the first time in perhaps twenty-five years--and have read it twice since then, with an ever-growing appreciation.
13Willoyd
Django, I can only agree. I studied Hamlet for A-level, and have seen a dozen or more productions, but the one I went to see at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, starring Christopher Eccleston, was monumental in that, for the first time ever, I could really start to understand how it could have all come about. Took Shakespeare to a new level for me. Equally,we went to see Merry Wives of Windsor at The Globe last year - it was screamingly funny - just came completely alive. Just two of the best examples, but there have been plenty of other good ones over the past years that all fconfirm what you are saying, that Shakespeare (well) performed is an essential to really understand and enjoy what is going on. Didn't need any footnotes either!
