Peter Pauper Press

I just picked up the Peter Pauper Press edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I have never bought a Peter Pauper book before, but this is terrific. It doesn't have a printing date on it, but I'm guessing 1930s. I will try to find it on the Internet. Setting aside the fact that I already had the great Heritage Press version with illustrations by Arthur Szyk, I love this book. It's a small, comfortable size with attractive line drawings and beautiful decorative paper. Unlike most other books, the slipcover has an illustration pasted on it. I will definitely keep my eyes open for other Peter Pauper Press books.

Yes, there were some real gems that came out of the PPP. I have their Candide, with great illustrations by Fritz Kredel, and a wonderful edition of Aristophanes' The Clouds with Art Deco line drawings by Andre Durenceau that was limited to 895 copies. I have always hoped to find, but have never seen, the PPP limite edition of Leaves of Grass with wood engravings by Boyd Hanna.

I also have their Red Badge of Courage, but despite the fact that I bought it new, and have kept it in the slipcase and taken good care of it (only reading it once), the paper board of the spine has completely detached from the book. Some of their editions tend to be very fragile--especially the ones bound with paperbacked boards from the later years.

I can see that. This book is in good shape, but as I was reading it last night, the binding felt a little looser than, say, a Folio Society book. It definitely seems to need gentle hands when readings.

I would love a great edition of The Clouds. I will have to look for it.

Just in case anyone has missed the thread over on FSD and is interested in the Peter Pauper Hamlet, here are some images:

http://s901.photobucket.com/albums/ac220/HuxleyTheCat/Hamlet/

Password is my username here.

Very nice Hamlet, H.

I see that the paper is a Curtis Paper Co. stock, how has it aged? The Newark, Delaware company provided good paper to LEC and other fine presses before its' demise in the late 1990's.

The illustrations for Hamlet remind me a bit of the woodcuts of Peter Pendrey I've seen in some early Folio editions, who illustrated your volume?

Off topic, yet similarly, I recently visited the antique store in a nearby small town where the books are kept upstairs in a smelly room with stained ceiling tiles, thought 'no way', but found an odor free 1950 edition of The New Colophon, a Book Collector's Quarterly, 5 essays, regular columns like Adventures in Typography, an interesting and touching article about Gregg Anderson, a promising young printer killed in the Normandy invasion, July 1944, also about the written tribute produced by his friends. The ads caught my eye-A New Paper for Fine Books...CURTIS RAG... Curtis Paper Co.-The Folio Society of London...New Program for 1950..."never has so much been offered for so little"...eight titles...$2.95 each- how about Bernard Quaritch 11 Grafton St and Sawyers 12-13 Grafton Street, both London, W. 1, England, are they still around? Contributing editors is a list of golden age giants- Mr.'s Blumenthal, Carter, Dwiggins, Hersholt, Hunter, Lewis, Powell, Rogers, Rollins, etc.-$5 at a used book store-So much for so little!

>5 olepuppy: Fascinating! I've not heard of The New Colophon, although I have seen several issues of The Colophon edited by Adler and Winterrich. I actually have seen ads for Mr. Quaritch in recent publications.

The Peter Pauper Hamlet illustrator was the prodigiously talented and industrious Valenti Angelo, who did many gems for the LEC and Heritage Press. Someone else in this thread mentioned his Heritage Press The Song of Songs which is illuminated on every page, and uncial letters gilt in pure gold by hand by Mr. Angelo (2500 copies!!!!)

I also have, as one of my earliest purchases, a splendid edition of Douglas's South Wind illustrated by Angelo in a similar Art Deco style.

>5 olepuppy: Thanks olepuppy,

I originally posted about the book on the FSD thread concerning the Letterpress Shakespeare, as it seemed pertinent to the conversation at the time. If you are interested, here's the tale of how I acquired it:

"I had a day out in London during the week, pottering around secondhand book shops. I visited one in the knowledge that they had a Limited Editions Club 1933 edition of Hamlet; designed, illustrated and signed by Eric Gill. At £150 I thought it may be a viable alternative to the FS Letterpress Hamlet. Having seen the book, the condition wasn't quite what I was hoping for - I have an LEC volume from 1929 which is amazing - and the number of illustrations was quite disappointing (although their quality certainly wasn't) so I decided to go away and "have a think". A bit later on I was in Charing Cross Road and a slipcased copy of Hamlet caught my eye. The volume was printed in red and black, in a bitingly sharp letterpress, on a fine quality paper and was illustrated throughout with Valenti Angelo linocuts. The publisher was Peter Pauper Press, Mount Vernon NY and there was no date. The price for this lovely volume (in immaculate condition) a whopping £12.50. It is now sitting on my shelf and I have quite happily removed both LEC and FS Letterpress Hamlets from my wants list."

The paper is excellent. It is a nice heavyweight paper - it would have to be to take the density of the ink used in the linocuts - and has a very nice, quite coarse, texture, but not so coarse that I am unable to feel the indentation of the type. It has aged extremely well, with not a hint of browning, spotting or foxing, and each page is a uniform creamy shade.

As Django says, the illustrator is Valenti Angelo, who has provided ten single page linocuts plus the rather magnificent title page double spead. I think that the simplicity and lack of detail works very well with the text. I was not at all familiar with his work before, but I will certainly seek out further examples.

Your edition of The New Colophon sounds like a fascinating read and something of a bargain. I can report that the venerable institution that is Bernard Quaritch: Antiquarian booksellers is still alive and kicking, although no longer in Grafton Street:

http://www.quaritch.com/default.asp

Sawyer's is no more, but I found an interview with the last owner - Richard Sawyer:

http://www.sheila-markham.com/Archives/rsawyer.htm If you have several hours to kill then the archived interviews on this website hold much of interest.

On the subject of items odiferous, my heart sank this morning when I recognised the rather unique packing style of an eBay seller, from whom I recently purchased a 1951 edition of The Poems of Emily Bronte which I have to keep in isolation. My fears were proven founded upon opening the package to find my first edition FS copy of De La Mare's Ghost Stories in otherwise very good nick, but whose mildewy odour is pungent enough to penetrate the thick head from which I am currently suffering. Oh well, the book gods have been bestowing plenty of good fortune on me lately, so one or two minor hiccoughs is a small price to pay.

I have been looking on-line at more work by Valenti Angelo, who is fantastic. Looks like he did a very nice edition of Leaves of Grass. If I'm following this correctly, he did a great deal of work for Grabhorn Press. Random House published trade versions of these books, including Leaves of Grass. Then, Random House reprinted under the Modern Library Giant Series imprimatur.

I would love a Grabhorn Press edition, but that's not likely in the budget, but the Modern Library Giant series seems easy to find, often under $10.

Really? Is there a trade edition of the Grabhorn Press Leaves of Grass out there to find? That would be very interesting indeed. I will have to look for that.

Jveezer-
Went back to find a link. It turns out I did not follow this correctly. The 1930 Grabhorn Leaves of Grass was printed for Random House. Random House then used it for its Modern Library Giant series. I can't find an edition between the two yet. The Modern Library Giant books are very inexpensive, but obviously don't have the design of the Grabhorns, only the illustrations.

Interestingly, there also is a Modern Library with illustrations by Boardman Robinson from the 1940s. Rockwell Kent did the Nonesuch/Heritage version.

>6 Django6924: Colophon page states that the New Colophon continues the franchise of the original Colophon established in 1928, 2500 subscribers. It was edited by Adler, Winterich, and Frederick B Adams.

Funny about V Angelo, I always pass by book offers with his illustrations because somewhere I saw something of his(or something I thought was his) that I did not like. I had no idea he created art of the quality from Hamlet.

>7 HuxleyTheCat: Thanks for all the info, Huxley, I was especially interested to hear about the paper. Interesting too how a little patience in book buying can be a good thing. I will check out the Quaritch and Sawyer links come the weekend.

'heart sank', yes, an accurate description of the emotional process of moving from excitement and anticipation to disappointment, and while I find I can put up with a bit of structural aging I can't stand a mildewed book, it is so opposite of the good smell of paper. My latest bad experience is continuing, as the Abe seller to whom I returned a water damaged Imprint Society volume wishes to save $12 in shipping charges by saying there is no damage and several things must be wrong with me. Ah, Battle!

Go get 'em, olepuppy. You battle for all of us.

>12 pm11: Tho I like being easy-going, that is not my nature. 'Tis nice, tho, to have some mates in a struggle.

Was in another smelly room, an antiques bazaar basement, looking thru rack after rack of the most unheard of books, when I spied the paper rack label 'Peter Pauper'. There were two Cyrano de Bergerac's, beat to hell, and a not bad Confessions of St. Augustine, illustrated by, yes, Valenti Angelo. Except for the vague facial features, his work here is different from Hamlet, as I guess it should be. These illustrations depict religious persons and events with borders and lower panels filled with doves and leafy boughs and such. I did not buy, but hope to return later for a second look, in better light. Did find 2 newer Timber Press volumes by Allan Armitage and Christopher Lloyd, in great shape, 5 each instead of 40 apiece, yahoo!

I have an inquiry out on an edition from the Book Club of California about Angelo which includes over 50 pages of his illustrations plus appreciations and autobiography, looks very interesting.

>13 olepuppy: The Angelo book sounds interest.

I also have run into poor condition versions of Cyrano from Peter Pauper. I was a little tempted, but was disappointed by the small number of illustrations.

>7 HuxleyTheCat: Interesting info from the links, thanks Huxley, the Markham especially, read of Sawyer and Adrian Harrington. I wonder if Oak Knoll packaging can withstand the games of 3 footballers- let's not put it to the test!

>14 pm11: The Angelo volume is on the way from California...printed by Andrew Hoyem at Arion for BCoC...there are 3 for sale on ebay should you wish to look... will let you know my impressions when it arrives...there will be no pre-arrival chortling as I did in 'set mentality', as Woman in White has only just arrived after a journey of several weeks, severely testing my patience...great price, tho(mini-chortle).

Picked up the Peter Pauper Press edition of On Love this weekend. Very nice with excellent illustrations. I could not find a publication date on it but believe it was published in 1957.

Serendipity strikes. I picked up a box of interesting looking (i.e. nice design and higher quality printing) Xmas cards to send this year and as I'm addressing a few realized they were printed by Peter Pauper. Happy Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice and New Year's to all and may you get many, many books.

For LT Members interested in Peter Pauper Press, please see http://www.librarything.com/publisherseries/Peter+Pauper+Press and http://www.peterpauper.com/ .

It may be that virtually all of a publisher's catalog isn't a proper "Publisher Series" by LT standards, but I've always considered, cataloged and shelved them that way.

More recently, the publisher seems to be moving away from Peter & Edna Beilenson's original editorial interests, to my regret. I'm seeing more and more "near non-books" than literature and thematic anthologies. On the other hand, if readers aren't buying old-style books anymore, I understand the need to find other, profitable ventures and markets, or close up shop.

I've noted before, and would say again, I'm a fan of the old-style PPP editions, and have been for years. That I could recently e-mail a question about early titles (Gift of Friendship, in both Elisabeth Deane's 1969 edition { http://www.librarything.com/work/2626865 } and Nick Belienson's 1987 edition { http://www.librarything.com/work/163135 }) and get an almost-instant (helpful!) reply both burnishes their crown AND gilds their lily.

I have the PPP 'Leaves of Grass' and it is almost certainly their 'Magnum Opus'. It is a folio-sized book measuring 14 1/2 inches H by 10 inches W. As noted by several posters above, it is a typically fragile PPP book and nearly impossible to find in anything approaching fine condition. Quality of materials and workmanship is not a hallmark of the PPP and they will never be confused with the Arion Press in this regard.

The PPP Leaves of Grass was a commemorative edition limited to 1100 copies and it was published in 1943 with a slipcase. It has a brown gilt-titled morocco leather binding with paper patterned boards decorated in a 'grass' motif. It was printed on a mould-made paper specially produced for this book by the Hurlbut Paper Company. There are 15 superb woodcut illustrations by Boyd Hanna printed directly from the blocks in varying shades of brown and burnt siena. Unfortunately, the colors from Hanna's engravings always bleed into the adjacent pages. The typefaces are Waverley and Lydian, printed in two colors, and are wonderful --- pleasing to the eye and work well with the mould made paper. The cardboard and paper used for the boards of the binding are of poor quality and easily wear. Also, many copies show the paper cracking at the inner hinges of the front and rear boards.

Interestingly, there are three pages at the rear which list nearly 160 patrons and sponsors (mainly private individuals and university libraries) who aided and contributed to enable publication of this commemorative issue.

Incidentally, I have two other PPP books which are not in the the extensive list provided by jasbro's link in 'library- thing' (>18 jasbro:). They are both very small slender volumes:

1. Chinese Philosophy: Sayings of Confucius, Mencius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and Lieh Tzu, which comes in a small bluish slipcase.

2. The Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Harry Behn and published in the late 1950's. Only 100 copies were printed and all were signed by the translator. Behn also provided a series of elegant abstract illustrations which are scattered throughout this volume.

Both books are spare, elegant, and nicely done.

> #19: Thanks, @dlphcoracl -- I've included them now. Please don't hesitate to add others you know of that should be there. (And now, I've got to go see which of those you mentioned that we have!)

>19 dlphcoracl: The PPP Four Gospels (1947) is similarly top quality. Limited to 985 copies and signed by Alexander Mueller. The book measures 8'' by 12'' and comes in a slipcase. At the end of the book all sponsors and patrons are listed alphabetically. Perhaps a commemorative edition as well?

Does anyone else have a copy of the Peter Pauper Press edition of Stendhal's On Love? My copy is missing some pages, and I wonder whether this affected the entire run, or whether there are copies out there without any missing pages.

In my copy, the pages go:

1-126, 147-150, 143-146, 155-158, 151-154, 143-261

So, the pages from 143-158 each appear twice and the pages from 127-142 don't appear at all.

Separately, something I was surprised to learn, while researching other editions of this text, is that this version is abridged, even beyond those missing pages. Compared to the original edition of the translation used by the PPP, the PPP edition omits the translators' introduction, three of the author's introductions, and the appendices (including the translators' notes).

These issues are disappointing because from a physical and aesthetic perspective, this edition is very nicely made.

> 22

I have this book and there are no missing pages (they go from 1 to 261).
In the beginning there is "A Note on Stendhal" and "Preface to the Edition of 1842". There are no appendices.

I went to a garden center today that happened to have a little free library outside their gate sponsored by the Rotary Club. Of course I peeked in and found Peter Pauper’s John Donne’s Love Poems. The spine is a little rough but otherwise ok.

A few tears ago at a book show I told a dealer that my daughter loved Walt Whitman. A week later I found a copy of a Peter Pauper Leaves of Grass in my mail. No charge; Bookpeople are often good people. I also have a copy of The Song of Songs from PPP. Nice paper with lovely line drawings.

As mentioned by >18 jasbro: above, PPP later went to publishing what are basically gift books having moved away from the fine press tradition of the early years. The best of the bunch are the early limited editions which were often reprinted to similar quality but in unlimited editions and were referred to in their catalogs as a "Deluxe Edition." One such was Voltaire's Candide which came in a nice 1/4 cloth binding in a slipcase. Although not a limited edition, it is still a nice addition to your FP collection. The company today is not publishing anything worth your attention.

Since >26 Glacierman: saw fit to revive this old thread, I thought I'd mention that I recently acquired the PPP Leaves of Grass (1943). It is a rather spectacular edition, with vivid wood engravings and especially beautiful fonts. Although the hinges do not seem the strongest, there are no signs of cracking on my copy and the leather binding is unmarred. (For full details about this edition, see >19 dlphcoracl: above on this thread.) My only concern with the volume is its size. I didn't check the dimensions of the book before I purchased it online, and it is gigantic: 14 1/2" x 10". It doesn't fit on any of my shelves so I have laid it flat on a top shelf. Perhaps I'll read it at a lectern.

>27 Eumnestes: coincidentally, I also recently bought my first PPP book: Madame Bovary. It's a bit of a mixed bag. Nice illustrations and design, but the text is a little small, there's no introduction, and the paper isn't very good. I have so far only gotten as far as flicking through it; I'll have to spend some time reading it to fully make up my mind. The book cost £6 so these shortcomings are very easy to forgive.

>27 Eumnestes: PPP Leaves of Grass (1950) reviewed on B&V here: https://booksandvines.com/2014/08/21/leaves-of-grass-by-walt-whitman-limited-edi...

>29 mr.philistine: Thanks for this. I read online somewhere that the publication date was 1943, but I guess that's a mistake. There is no date in the book itself.

I feel lucky that my copy lacks the damage to the leather shown in the photos of this review. However, mine also lacks a slipcase (which reduced the purchase price considerably).

>30 Eumnestes: Since your copy lacks the protective slipcase, museum-quality/ archival clear films like Grafix Dura-Lar come highly recommended. Here are some posts and techniques for your perusal:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/219023#6404423
https://www.librarything.com/topic/343214#7895173
https://www.librarything.com/topic/321771

Cheaper alternative to Grafix Dura-Lar discussed here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/333597#7829216

Regarding the PPP Leaves of Grass, there are actually two editions. The original is described thus:

(1943). Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman. Illustrations by John Stuart Curry. 7 x 10-1/2, 397 p. Weiss type; in boards with cloth spine. (from Ransom, Will. Selective Check Lists of Press Books, p 31. NY: Philip C. Duschnes, 1963. The list for PPP covers 1929-1945). Not noted in Ransom, but this edition also came in a slipcase.
Dates for this edition in bookseller's listings are all over the map, as the date was not stated and they are guessing. Go by the size & illustrator.

and the 1950 edition with illus. by Boyd Hanna described in the B&V review.

(There is also a later, ca. 1968, edition, that is not worthy of your attention.)

>27 Eumnestes:

I usually go with folding all-metal bookshelves (Origami, Healsmart, etc.). These shelves allow you unfold the uppermost shelf leaving you with plenty of room for tall books. For those of us with back problems, they are also anywhere from half to a third of the weight of equivalent wooden bookshelves.

PPP first published Voltaire's Candide in 1944. The edition was not limited. It was reprinted frequently, without any indication of that fact, and was still in the publisher's catalog in the late 1970s and early '80s. In fact, I purchased my copy new, in slipcase, from the publisher ca. 1978 for $7.50.

The earliest book from PPP in my collection is the fourth book from that press:

Benjamin Franklin on Marriage. 5 x 7-3/8, 49 p, Oxford type, hand set; 550 copies, 525 of which were for Random House on Worthy Hadrian paper, in marbled boards with cloth spine. The imprint on the title page is given thus: Larchmont / PETER PAUPER PRESS / 1929.

The colophon: Five hundred fifty copies printed / Five hundred twenty-five are for sale by / Random House, New York / (two ornaments) / Peter Beilenson, printer

The Press was located in Larchmont, NY 1928-1929, then was moved to New Rochelle, NY (1929-1935) thence to Mt. Vernon, NY, where it remained for many years. The Press HQ is now in White Plains, NY.

Given the diabolical subject of a recent thread on this forum, here is a 62 page hardcover dated 1971 from PPP titled Witches' Potions and Spells. All copies listed on Abebooks or eBay for over $100, most approaching $200! I wonder why...