Letterpress and Brillat-Savarin

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Letterpress and Brillat-Savarin

1cupidum
Mar 13, 2021, 3:30 am

I occasionally see that people ask what the meaning with letterpress is and why some prefer it to offset printing. I have not studied printing and typography, so what I write is just my view as an amateur collector. There are several persons on this forum that are far more knowledgable on this subject than I, and it is my hope that they will correct me where I a wrong.

First of all, I believe that it is important to decide what kind of book collector you are. Many are very avid readers and read thousands of books while others, like me, came to this hobby as collectors of beautifully produced works of art.

I must confess that I do not read very much. There are a few books that I delight in, and then I return to them again and again over the years. There are many many more books that I try to read but find tedious, and then I just put them aside.

Often, I just sit down with "an old friend", read a little here and there and look at the book as a piece of art, meditating over the book and (often) its illustrations for hours, preferably with a glass of pinot noir and some tobacco under my lip.

So, my thoughts about letterpress. Almost all of the books that I consider "the finest" do not have any visible indentation at all. The printers used the "kiss the paper" technique. The difference when I compare this kind of letterpress printing to offset is that a first-class letterpress printed book has a very black blackness. Offset printing, on the other hand, never seems to be able to achieve this but comes in fifty shades of grey.

It is also important to know that there are many different types of letterpress, from handset and hand printed, through Monotype and Linotype, to casting and replication of set type and polymer plates.

What I believe (if it is done by a person mastering his craft) makes a handset book so attractive is that it is done by hand and eye, where the typesetter knows how to make a page attractive for reading and attractive if you look at the entire page or spread from a distance, not making each line of text "perfect", but arranging the entire text block, avoiding visual disturbances. Different letters require different distances, et cetera et setera.

Nowadays, I believe that all this could be done on a computer, but it is my fir belief that the result would not be the same, just an imitation.

Another charm with letterpress is that often, but not always, there is a little unevenness, the line of text isn't always so perfect, and sometimes you can spot a few mistakes, but so you can in most works made by artisans, be it a silver coffee pot or a rifle. (Of course, too "bad" mistakes makes the item look amateurish, like a replica set of dueling pistols produced somewhere in the third world).

As I started this short text, it all depends on why you collect books. I collect finely produced books as a hobby, but in most other fields, I am happy with modern production methods. I bought my first CD player in March 1983 (when maestro Herbert von Karajan uttered "Alles anderes ist Gaslicht!") and quickly got rid of my LP:s. I am personally very happy with y CD:s and have no wish to have any LP:s. But there are many persons that collect LP:s and frown at CD:s.

You will have to decide for yourself.

To finish this post, I will show a few photos of one of my "eternal companions", Brillat-Savarin illustrated by André Jacquemin for Flammarion in 1951. It was printed by Pierre Bouchet who set the entire book by hand. The book has 168 original etchings (they had to divide the pulling between two ateliers), so I can show just a small selection. The production of this book lasted for five years.

In the first photo you can also see the English edition published by the LEC, translated by M.F.K. Fisher. This book is also a favourite of mine. Fisher wrote extensive footnotes, and they are almost as enjoyable as Brillat-Savarin's text, full of anecdotes and even recipes (I much prefer her Fondue recipe to Brillat-Savarin's).
















































































2wcarter
Mar 13, 2021, 5:44 am

>1 cupidum:
I agree with a lot of your collection philosophy (books as art objects), but tend to read them too. The book is truly beautiful.

3cupidum
Editado: Mar 13, 2021, 9:44 am

>2 wcarter: Don't get me wrong: I do read books and B-S I have read many times. It is just that it is seldom that I find new books worth reading - too often, I am just bored, and return to my select few old friends.

Edit: Since I wrote my reply, I have been behind the wheel driving home for a couple of hours, thinking about this. I am afraid that this post will stray quite a bit off topic, so disregard it if you wish.

First of all, I want to point out that I do not only have "fine" letterpress editions in my library. For example, I have the Folio Society Pliny and Three Kingdom sets that I value and have read more than once.

My impression is that several persons believe that my book collection is very valuable and that I am a rich person. The truth is far from this. What I have understood from posts on this and other forums, there are many collectors who buy new books for much more than I ever could afford.

The Jacquemin Brillat-Savarin, for example, didn't cost me the USD 3000 a seller is asking on Abe, but 500 Euros on eBay a few years ago.

Now, it's time for the off topic part: I realized that there are parallels to my philosophy to limit my reading and really get to know one book, ponder it and meditate about it rather than being an omnivore, reading book after book without really digesting them.

Some 3-4 years ago, nearing 60 years of age, I bought an Irish Setter puppy and decided to become more healthy. I started walking in the forest for a couple of hours each day, and also took up strength training with a barbell in my basement. I stopped using tobacco and tried to eat less.
I read book after book on training, including Rippetoe on barbells, Fung on among other interesting things autophagy, insulin and mTOR.

What happened is that after a few weeks, I got pains in my knees, particularly on the outside of my right one. I pushed through the pain and continued to walk and train with heavy squats and deadlifts, and the pain worsened and worsened. Finally, and for a period of two unbearable years, I felt like a cripple, like if my life was over. Our bedroom and my study is on the second floor, and using the stairs was terrible, especially walking downstairs. I felt like if I suddenly were 100 years old, and that my life was over.

I know that you are a doctor, but I totally lost all confidence in doctors. The first one that I visited said that I had sciatica, and that I had to wait for 3-4 months. The second one ordered X-rays and said that I suffered from arthritis. I ordered special inlays for my shoes that made my knees hurt so bad that I threw them away two kilometres away from home just to be able to stumble back. Then a chiropractor told me that the problem was misaligned spinal discs. I even visited a Stockholm clinic that said that they could cure my problems for some USD 20.000 if I let them inject stem cells into my knees. My impression was that it was a scam, so I decided not to follow through.

My pain got worse and worse and my temper got so bad that I almost lost my wife and kid. I simply did not know what to do.

At the last moment, after two years of pain, I decided to try one thing that I hadn't dared to try earlier, because I had had such a hard time after stopping to use tobacco after 35 years (not the smoking kind, but Swedish snus, a mixture of tobacco, salt and bicarbonate that you put under your lip), so I drove to the store and bought a pack, put it under my lip, and, believe it or not, after just a few hours, all my pain disappeared. I was so happy that I put on my old jogging shoes and went for a 6 kilometre jog in the forest, and felt like twenty again.

What has this got to do with books?, I guess you're wondering. The answer is that I read too much, and as a consequence was confused and did too much, or the wrong things.

At the same time as I started using "snus" again, I decided to change my eating habits. I did not fall for any diet, but rather decided to eat according to what authors like Brillat-Savarin and other 19th century ones suggested, avoiding any stuffs that were invented during the 20th century, such as refined carbs and seed oils, as well as starting to fast as so many religious texts have indicated. I almost bought Myhrvold's Modernist Cuisine, but changed my mind when I realized that if I were going to follow his recommendations, I would have to start making processed food at home.

Pondering Brillat-Savarin, trying his recipes, as well as training according to my (hopefully) common sense, has meant all the difference in the world to me.

I no longer go to the store and buy a lot of foodstuffs, but rather a few ingredients that I feel are good for me, including meat and vegetables, but also flour to make bread. I bake my own bread using sourdough and rye, but make sure to eat it only twice a week or so.

Some people think that it is expensive to eat meat often, but that is not so. The tastier bits, like high reef, are no so costly, and afte a meal I stay satisfied for an entire day. Nowadays, I usually eat only one meal a day.

Since I lost all confidence in doctors and specialists, I had to figure it all out myself. I have got my life back, I have a few more kilograms to lose because I have a belief that bodily fat might trigger some low volume inflammation that causes the pain that I experienced. I don't really care about the truth - all that I care about is that I feel well again. I have tried to forget several of the books that I read, and reread the few that I consider valuable instead.

4ttrotts
Mar 13, 2021, 3:48 pm

Just to add to the discussion of offset and letterpress printing:

Offset printing traditionally uses CMYK, with the "K" being Black. It's a black ink--just as black as letterpress ink. The difference comes in how the ink is transferred to the paper. With letterpress, it's easy; you put ink on the type, and press the type onto the paper. With offset, ink is applied to a metal plate, the metal plate transfers its image to a blanket, and the blanket transfers the image to the paper. Offset printing is, more or less, dot matrix printing. You can see the dot array by looking at an offset printed color image through a loop. With letterpress, ink is solid, and thus appears (and is) more black.

Polymer plates used in letterpress printing are similar to plates used in offset printing (both reproduce a digital image on a physical plate). Polymer plates, however, are able to produce solid colors on the page.

Offset printing is itself becoming an antiquated method of printing. Soon enough all printing will be done on digital units--essentially large inkjet printers. It eliminates the need for any kind of plate, and dramatically reduces setup time/cost.

5wcarter
Mar 13, 2021, 4:40 pm

>3 cupidum:
Sounds like you went to the wrong doctors 😀

6cupidum
Mar 14, 2021, 1:53 am

>5 wcarter: The sad thing is that the risk to find the wrong doctor seems to be very high. My conclusion when it comes to non-lifethreathening situations is to avoid doctors and try to find out oneself what to do. For some reason it seems like doctors only have ideas about how to treat symptoms, but not how to avoid, or even find out, the cause of the illness. It's easier to prescribe a pill than to tell a patient how to train or live his life. On the other hand, when it comes to real lifethreatening situations, doctors seem to be very good. Just a month ago, a friend of mine had a heart attack. When I phoned him he told me that he had had four heart stops during a two week period after the attack. After operating a "scar", he said, he is now recovering.

Enough of off topic now.

On topic: How I wish that a fine press publisher would publish a selection of Galenus' (or Galen's)
writings.

I presume that you (or anyone else?) have ordered and read The Greatest Benefit to Mankind that was recently published by the FS. Your thoughts on that book?

7astropi
Mar 14, 2021, 7:06 pm

My trainer basically has eliminated heavy lifting from my regimen. I go decently heavy with squats, but even those not nearly as heavy as I used to. This saves wear on the joints and deadlifting is a killer for your back. At least in my case, I have an injury that hasn't healed up in years and won't ever, so I avoid anything remotely heavy on the lower back. Yeah, it's easy to injure yourself permanently! Anyway, listen to your body, and take breaks by reading good books :)

8jroger1
Editado: Mar 14, 2021, 8:45 pm

>1 cupidum:
This is an interesting thread to me because it relates reading and exercise. I’m convinced that exercise helps me to concentrate better and to lengthen my reading sessions. (Cataract surgery helped too - I’m 76 now.)

I would love to have your book, but I’m not sure that in 40 years of collecting I’ve ever spent more than $400 for a book - sets yes but not singles. It helps that I don’t care about the kind of printing or limitation numbers or signatures. What I do want is an attractive book inside and out that feels good in my hands and that contains beautiful illustrations.

Except for reference books, I never buy a book I don’t intend to read right away. Occasionally I’m disappointed and don’t finish one, but I’m proud to say I actually finished War and Peace last month despite being bored throughout!

Back to the exercise angle, I used to run races up to 10 miles, but I quit when my knee started hurting. Today I still take long walks and lift weights of gradually lighter amounts. The key is to do what you comfortably can, have a tasty breakfast, and settle in with a cozy book.

9cupidum
Editado: Mar 15, 2021, 2:43 am

>7 astropi: I should have had a trainer, but since I live in a remote area, I bought a power rack and a bar that I installed in the basement, read The Barbell Prescription and Starting Strength and started lifting three sets of five, heavier and heavier with, likely, not the best technique.

For years, I have had a motorised desk and have been standing while working. Apparently, my knees aren't happy with standing for long periods of time, so today I try to stand about 50% of the time, and sit for 50.

During the pandemic I have also changed my training and do much more cardio at the same time that I try to be outside in the fresh air and get as much sun as possible.

>8 jroger1: I can recommend the LEC (and I believe there is a Heritage Press reprint) of Fisher's translation. It is the first one that I acquired (I didn't know about Brillat-Savarin before I bought it. I found much that I otherwise would have missed when I built up my LEC collection). The translation is wonderful and Fisher's footnotes are a joy to read.

I have read War and Peace twice, though not in English, but Anna Karenina at least four times. Levin and his development fascinates me.

I would rather pay USD 400 for one book that I can read and reread, than shout "enabled!" or "ordered!" at almost every new publication at USD 50 to 100, which quickly would add up to a much higher cost and at the same time fill my home with clutter. Books that just rest on the shelves are nothing but clutter.

I married late in life, at 39, and became a father at 44. Earlier in my life, while living in the capital, I always ate out and never learnt cooking. Some fifteen years ago, especially after reading Brillat-Savarin, I got interested in cooking and realized what a joy it can be. Now I even roast my own coffee.

But, as with reading and re-reading and getting to really know one book, I have done the same with cooking - doing the same dish over and over again (to my family's dismay) until I really master it, before attempting something new.

And, it has helped with the effort to eat better but less, that a dish can take hours to prepare. After those hours, it also tastes better.