Perfecting a fine press homage

This may or may not interest the members of this forum, but I think it speaks highly of the obsessive perfectionism that us fine press folk are so dedicated towards.

Some of you may know that I occasionally publish fine press poetry editions under my Chestnut Press imprint, having been led to doing so in no small part by the marvellous Anthony Baker and his Gruffyground Press. My second Chestnut publication was the poem ‘Indian Summer’ by Peter Scupham, whose work I had initially fell in love with in Gruffyground’s beautiful Scupham collection ‘Natura’. I wanted my edition of ‘Indian Summer’ to be an homage to ‘Natura’ by being very closely based on it in as many ways as possible. Firstly, I wanted to use the same Romanée italic for the text, which I managed as the printer for the project, John Grice at Evergreen Press, had plenty of. I also wanted at least some of the copies to be on similar papers to those used for the text and cover of ‘Natura’. As a stroke of huge fortune, Anthony Baker had managed to get hold of—and still had—a small batch of the Barcham Green Windhover handmade text paper that Kim Merker had used for printing ‘Natura’. Very lucky, considering it was a bespoke paper made specifically for the Windhover Press. He kindly allowed me to purchase it, so now I had two major elements to my homage under the belt. The last was to get a cover paper similar to ‘Natura’s’ Barcham Green Katuscha handmade. This proved not to be on the cards, but I did get some gorgeous St Armand handmade that was similar enough for me to be happy. The edition was printed and my homage published. That was in 2008.

Fast forward to earlier this year when I was working on a book for Graham Williams at Florin Press and also getting ready to put out a new Chestnut. While talking with Graham about fine cover papers he still had that I might be able to use for my Chestnut edition, he had a hunt through his stacks and found a couple of very suitable Barcham Green handmades that I could use. Incredibly, he also said he had a partial sheet of Katuscha, which he added to the selection he sent me. I immediately hit on the idea of ‘perfecting’ my ‘Indian Summer’ homage. I spoke with John Grice about the possibility of resetting the cover text and printing me a couple of covers so that I might have definitive copies printed in the same type, on the same text paper, and in the same cover paper as ‘Natura’. He agreed and so I got out the partial sheet of Katuscha which just yielded three pieces of the size required. Really not much wiggle room for error as far as printing was concerned, and very little chance of ever replacing the sheets. Thankfully, after sending them down to John a couple of days ago, they arrived back this morning, beautifully printed. I immediately set about grabbing the two copies of ‘Indian Summer’ that I had allocated and sewed them into their new covers, finally making my homage complete. It only took 16 years!

Very cool. I have Kim's Windhover book. Are you going to post photos?

>2 SuttonHooPress: Photos of the standard version are on my Insta, but I might repost with the new subtly different cover! 😁

>1 ChestnutPress: Congratulations! That must feel very satisfying. I look forward to seeing pictures too!

>4 GardenOfForkingPaths: Very satisfying, although to outside eyes the difference is pretty negligible. It’s just all about the exact materials, and managing to get both obsolete papers is something I didn’t expect I would. I didn’t even expect to get one of them, but things sometimes go one’s way

>1 ChestnutPress: A story of dedication and passion. Thanks for sharing.
The fine press community is a lovely one.

>6 SebRinelli: Cheers!

I've got some leftover Windover sheets but the stock is very light weight and far too transparent to use well for books. I did the 3 deluxe copies of my "In the Penal Colony" on the paper but was not pleased in the end. I'm not sure how many variations Barcham did for Kim over the years - Sid Berger might know.

>8 DWPress: That’s interesting, Chad, as I have only seen it in the reasonable weight used for ‘Natura’. Mind you, I haven’t seen it used in many books! As makers do/did multiple weights of a particular paper then it shouldn’t surprise me. Not that the chance will ever avail itself, but I would love to see in the flesh one of those three deluxe copies.

>9 ChestnutPress: Send me a PM with an address and I'll mail you a sample of the paper to compare, BG made all kinds of paper for various entities. Two of the deluxe Penal Colonies went off to the artist and translator so not sure what happened to those, I think my copy went to UofM.

>10 DWPress: I’m glad I’m not the only one that creates special copies that aren’t for the general public (although it must be a real thorn for any completist collectors of yours). In my case, it’s always variant paper (or vellum) copies for my own shelf.

>11 ChestnutPress: I didn’t know that there are printers that take commissions for printing on vellum?!

>12 SebRinelli: Just a couple, if you ask real nice and don’t mind the expense of the material and the risk of them printing badly because of its famous difficulty to print really well

>11 ChestnutPress: Yes, I often will do 1-5 copies on a different stock. Currently printing a book for a binder in an edition of 50 on Mohawk Superfine but I'm adding 5 press proofs to the edition in Hahnemühle Biblio keeping a fore edge deckle. I love messing with the completists and special collections librarians.

>13 ChestnutPress: last time I did it a couple years ago it was a tremendous expense for just one book and sourcing suitable matching vellum in quantity is getting harder it seems.

>14 DWPress: I don’t know about outside the UK, but there is only one maker I know of here that makes and sells truly great vellum, and that’s William Cowley. They have always supplied me superb, highest quality manuscript calf vellum and sheepskin parchment.

I expect that single book of yours on vellum is one of the crowning glories of your output over the years.

Here are pictures, showing one of my ‘full homage’ copies next to a copy of the item it is an homage to:

>16 ChestnutPress: Beautiful printing, very tasteful.

>16 ChestnutPress: Very well done indeed. Did you send a copy to Anthony by any chance?

>18 Shadekeep: I didn’t. As I only have two for my collection: one as backup if I damage one! He has two or three of the different copies from the edition anyway.

>17 Lukas1990: Cheers Lukas!

>19 ChestnutPress: Fair dues!

>16 ChestnutPress: Lovely, inside and out!

>21 Shadekeep: I’ll actually ask him. I think he has one on Windhover, one on Magnani, and possibly one on vellum

>22 GardenOfForkingPaths: Thank you!

>16 ChestnutPress: That lower case 'f' is just the best in the business--LOVE it!

>25 SuttonHooPress: It is a beauty. I fell in love with Romanée italic as soon as I saw it in Natura

>25 SuttonHooPress: that ff ligature is pretty cool too!