Books On Books

Alan Kitching: A Life in Letterpress

Alan Kitching: A Life in Letterpress

$70.00
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Designed by Simon Esterson of Esterson Associates, this long-awaited monograph documents the work of world-renowned typographer, designer and letterpress practitioner Alan Kitching.

Spanning over fifty years, this lavish volume leads us from Kitching's first typographical experiments under the auspices of mentor Anthony Froshaug to his most iconic creations at The Typography Workshop. It covers his years designing alongside Derek Birdsall, as well as his time teaching letterpress at the Royal College of Art, and showcases his most colourful and expressive pieces, including his prolific work for The Guardian. Kitching's work hangs in private collections and galleries but it has also featured on everything from magazine and book covers, postage stamps and theatre posters, to wine labels, billboards and signage.

Designed by Simon Esterson of Esterson Associates, this long-awaited monograph documents the work of world-renowned typographer, designer and letterpress practitioner Alan Kitching.

Spanning over fifty years, this lavish volume leads us from Kitching's first typographical experiments under the auspices of mentor Anthony Froshaug to his most iconic creations at The Typography Workshop. It covers his years designing alongside Derek Birdsall, as well as his time teaching letterpress at the Royal College of Art, and showcases his most colourful and expressive pieces, including his prolific work for The Guardian. Kitching's work hangs in private collections and galleries but it has also featured on everything from magazine and book covers, postage stamps and theatre posters, to wine labels, billboards and signage.

Alexander Strahan, Victorian Publisher (USED)

Alexander Strahan, Victorian Publisher (USED)

$15.00
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University of Michigan Press. VG/VG

Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

$37.50
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A major literary biography of America's best-loved nineteenth-century poet, the first in more than fifty years, and a much-needed reassessment for the twenty-first century of a writer whose stature and celebrity were unparalleled in his time, whose work helped to explain America's new world not only to Americans but to Europe and beyond. From the author of On Paper (Buoyant--The New Yorker; Essential--Publishers Weekly), Patience and Fortitude (A wonderful hymn--Simon Winchester), and A Gentle Madness (A jewel--David McCullough).

In Cross of Snow, the result of more than twelve years of research, including access to never-before-examined letters, diaries, journals, notes, Nicholas Basbanes reveals the life, the times, the work--the soul--of the man who shaped the literature of a new nation with his countless poems, sonnets, stories, essays, translations, and whose renown was so wide-reaching that his deep friendships included Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, and Oscar Wilde.

Basbanes writes of the shaping of Longfellow's character, his huge body of work that included translations of numerous foreign works, among them, the first rendering into a complete edition by an American of Dante's Divine Comedy. We see Longfellow's two marriages, both happy and contented, each cut short by tragedy. His first to Mary Storer Potter that ended in the aftermath of a miscarriage, leaving Longfellow devastated. His second marriage to the brilliant Boston socialite--Fanny Appleton, after a three-year pursuit by Longfellow (his fiery crucible, he called it), and his emergence as a literary force and a man of letters.

A portrait of a bold artist, experimenter of poetic form and an innovative translator--the human being that he was, the times in which he lived, the people whose lives he touched, his monumental work and its place in his America and ours.


Fleuron Anthology (USED)

Fleuron Anthology (USED)

$30.00
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Chosen and with a retrospectus by Sir Francis Meynell & Herbert Simon. Spine and edges toned; spine creased; binding good; text clean. VG

The Making of a Book at the Officina Bodoni: Twelve Woodcuts by Frans Masereel (USED)
The Making of a Book at the Officina Bodoni: Twelve Woodcuts by Frans Masereel (USED)
The Making of a Book at the Officina Bodoni: Twelve Woodcuts by Frans Masereel (USED)
The Making of a Book at the Officina Bodoni: Twelve Woodcuts by Frans Masereel (USED)
The Making of a Book at the Officina Bodoni: Twelve Woodcuts by Frans Masereel (USED)

Making of a Book at the Officina Bodoni: Twelve Woodcuts by Frans Masereel

$295.00
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Two-page introduction followed by 12 full page woodcuts. Mardersteig's commentary is printed on each facing page. One leaf of contents. One of 300 copies printed at the Officina Bodoni. Masereel's woodcuts (which first appeared in the 1929 "Operation of a Hand Press") are printed from the original woodblocks.

Verona: Officina Bodoni, 1973.Scarce and near fine.

Once Upon a Tome

Once Upon a Tome

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Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd (est. 1761) to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store's resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram).

A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran's brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff, whose mere glance may cause the computer to burst into flames. As Darkshire gains confidence and experience, he shares trivia about ancient editions and explores the strange space that books occupy in our lives--where old books often have strong sentimental value, but rarely a commercial one.

By turns unhinged and earnest, Once Upon a Tome is the colorful story of life in one of the world's oldest bookshops and a love letter to the benign, unruly world of antiquarian bookselling, where to be uncommon or strange is the best possible compliment.

Printing  Poetry:  A  Workbook  in  Typographic  Reification
Printing  Poetry:  A  Workbook  in  Typographic  Reification
Printing  Poetry:  A  Workbook  in  Typographic  Reification

Printing Poetry: A Workbook in Typographic Reification

$195.00
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San Francisco: Scarab Press, 1980. Limited to 2000 copies; dust jacket in protective cover; spine toned; small tears at top edge and bottom front corner; blue cloth spine over illustrated paper boards; corners bumped; 1 folded page announcement for book laid in front; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/G

Reading Jackie : Her Autobiography in Books (USED)

Reading Jackie : Her Autobiography in Books (USED)

$11.99
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Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis never wrote a memoir, but she told her life story and revealed herself in intimate ways through the nearly 100 books she brought into print during the last two decades of her life as an editor at Viking and Doubleday. Based on archives and interviews with Jackie's authors, colleagues, and friends, "Reading Jackie" mines this significant period of her life to reveal both the serious and the mischievous woman underneath the glamorous public image.
Though Jackie had a reputation for avoiding publicity, she willingly courted controversy in her books. She was the first editor to commission a commercially-successful book telling the story of Thomas Jefferson's relationship with his female slave. Her publication of Gelsey Kirkland's attack on dance icon George Balanchine caused another storm. Jackie rarely spoke of her personal life, but many of her books ran parallel to, echoed, and emerged from her own experience. She was the editor behind bestsellers on the assassinations of Tsar Nicholas II and John Lennon, and in another book she paid tribute to the allure of Marilyn Monroe and Maria Callas. Her other projects take us into territory she knew well: journeys to Egypt and India, explorations of the mysteries of female beauty and media exploitation, into the minds of photographers, art historians, and the designers at Tiffany & Co.
Many Americans regarded Jackie as the paragon of grace, but few knew her as the woman sitting on her office floor laying out illustrations, or flying to California to persuade Michael Jackson to write his autobiography. "Reading Jackie" provides a compelling behind-the-scenes look at Jackie at work: how she commissioned books and nurtured authors, as well as how she helped to shape stories that spoke to her strongly. Jackie is remembered today for her marriages to JFK and to Aristotle Onassis, but her real legacy is the books that reveal the tastes, recollections, and passions of an independent woman.

1st edition. VG/VG

Reflections  of  a  Book  Artist
Reflections  of  a  Book  Artist

Reflections of a Book Artist

$26.00
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Jan Sobota (1939-2012) was a master bookbinder and book artist. This publication is part of a series of annual publications of NOBS, the Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society.

Akron: Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society, 1990. Introduction by Robert G. Cheshier. Signed limited edition, no. 138 of 150 copies. String bound; edges lightly toned. VG

Rejected Books

Rejected Books

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Rejected Books is a collection of forty hilariously unrealistic, totally cringe-worthy covers for books that will never, ever be published--from the authors of Images You Should Not Masturbate To

Have you ever had a great idea for a book but then thought, "Nobody would ever read that"? Well . . . you're probably right. But you're not alone! Enter Rejected Books, a rollicking collection of the best book covers for books that were never meant to be. These awful pitches were turned down for any number of reasons: they're either too long, too sad, too raunchy, or just plain bad.

The compilation of imagined book covers in Rejected Books will have you scratching your head and guffawing with every page turn. Though Pranks with Sausages and Holy Bible II don't actually exist, Rejected Books offers up a professionally produced series of photos imagining just what these wacky ideas (and plenty more) could look like.

Rejected Books includes delightfully weird covers of imagined books like:

- The Sculptors Who Couldn't Do Hands
- Cooking with Breast Milk
- Possessed Toys: A Buying Guide
- Unfortunate Gluing Accidents
- Camel Toes Through History


Enjoy the worst book pitches of all time and rest assured that anyone can have a future in publishing . . . even if your ideas are totally horrible.