1Lukas1990
Finally there was some sun here in Lithuania (for four hours) and I managed to take better photos of this beautiful book. A great discovery of mine this year. No pun intended :)
This book is probably the Magnum Opus of Logan Elm Press which was a part of The Ohio State University Libraries' Department of Preservation and Reformatting.
It is a poem by David Citino which is adapted from the letter Columbus wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella on February 15, 1493, on returning to Spain from his first voyage to the New World. The letter was intended to excite the King and Queen, describing many things he found and explaining why he hadn't found others. Using a mixture of apology and hyperbole, Columbus appeals to both the greed and piety of his sovereigns in the hope of winning support for future voyages. Citino's version of the letter portrays a Promethean Columbus venturing forth from the common day world into a region of enigma and chaos and returning with the bounty and power of his discovery.
The book is entirely handset in Janson types and handprinted on Spanish flax paper which carries two wire watermarks, a dove in one corner and a portrait of Columbus with the date 1992 in the opposite corner. The title page is hand-lettered and decorated with gold leaf. Throughout the text twenty-two initial letters are hand-brushed in a variety of colors by Ann Woods.
Along with cotton and straw fiber endsheets the signatures are handsewn with linen thread onto a handmade cotton and flax pleated sheet and into handmade raw flax cover paper. The "long stitch" pattern shows through a goatskin spine. The illustrations by Anthony Rice were printed directly off handpainted zinc plates, making each copy in the edition a one-of-a-kind book, as if the artist has painted images into his own copy. Here the artist imagined how Columbus could have made his own sketches. Each page is illustrate except from the colophon.
Each book is slipcased into a box covered with a paste paper handmade from anchor line and inlaid with a cast paper bas-relief of the title page illustration.
Price at publication was $1,100 per copy. There were a total of 130 copies of which 115 were for sale. The book is not very rare on the market and there are always some copies available.
This book is probably the Magnum Opus of Logan Elm Press which was a part of The Ohio State University Libraries' Department of Preservation and Reformatting.
It is a poem by David Citino which is adapted from the letter Columbus wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella on February 15, 1493, on returning to Spain from his first voyage to the New World. The letter was intended to excite the King and Queen, describing many things he found and explaining why he hadn't found others. Using a mixture of apology and hyperbole, Columbus appeals to both the greed and piety of his sovereigns in the hope of winning support for future voyages. Citino's version of the letter portrays a Promethean Columbus venturing forth from the common day world into a region of enigma and chaos and returning with the bounty and power of his discovery.
The book is entirely handset in Janson types and handprinted on Spanish flax paper which carries two wire watermarks, a dove in one corner and a portrait of Columbus with the date 1992 in the opposite corner. The title page is hand-lettered and decorated with gold leaf. Throughout the text twenty-two initial letters are hand-brushed in a variety of colors by Ann Woods.
Along with cotton and straw fiber endsheets the signatures are handsewn with linen thread onto a handmade cotton and flax pleated sheet and into handmade raw flax cover paper. The "long stitch" pattern shows through a goatskin spine. The illustrations by Anthony Rice were printed directly off handpainted zinc plates, making each copy in the edition a one-of-a-kind book, as if the artist has painted images into his own copy. Here the artist imagined how Columbus could have made his own sketches. Each page is illustrate except from the colophon.
Each book is slipcased into a box covered with a paste paper handmade from anchor line and inlaid with a cast paper bas-relief of the title page illustration.
Price at publication was $1,100 per copy. There were a total of 130 copies of which 115 were for sale. The book is not very rare on the market and there are always some copies available.
4astropi
Beautiful, thank you for sharing! For anyone interested, and this is certainly enticing, I could not find a copy for under $1600, alas...
5DenimDan
>1 Lukas1990: Book looks awesome! Love the exposed stitching and the way the monoprints are printed (beautiful color) and laid out, a nice homage to the marginal decorations of the past. The whole thing works really well: if you're printing a letter of Columbus, use a scholar to look over it; have somebody not only hand-make the paper but also someone else make watermarks for the thing; of course someone needs to hand-brush the initials! Janson is a great choice, too. I never knew Logan Elm got this wild!
