Realistic letterpress wish list

There was a thread last year discussing titles we would want to see released in letterpress – however many of these would only come true in our wildest dreams (or as wild as book-lovers’ dreams get at least).

I thought it might be interesting to get people’s thoughts specifically on very plausible ideas. These could be viewed more as solid proposals to any fine presses which might be watching (rather than just our individual dreams) - or even predictions of what we might see.

When I say plausible, I am mainly thinking that they probably need to be on the shorter side and could generate sufficient interest to be profitable.

My three ideas:
Laughter in the Dark – Nabokov
The Hobbit – Tolkien (although it might be difficult to get the rights to this one...)
The Stranger – Camus

>1 EdmundRodriguez:

The Limited Editions Club did a nice letterpress edition of Camus' 'The Stranger' in 1971.

I would love to see Fahrenheit 451 in a new letterpress edition. I'm aware of the LEC edition, but I haven't found one at a price I'm willing to pay. I think the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy in five party would also be quite successfull.

>3 c_schelle: the Suntup F451 is letterpress. Decent price although I don’t have it as I’ve heard there are some issues on this forum.

>3 c_schelle:

I hadn't checked the current asking price of the LEC 'Fahrenheit 451' but it has skyrocketed over the past year. It could have been easily obtained in the $400-$450 range one year ago. I agree with you and would not pay $900-$1,000 for a copy.

Well, here are my realistic one:

1. Parable of The Talents by Octavia E. Butler
2. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin
3. Hardboiled Wonderland by Haruki Murakami
4. If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
5. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allen Poe

And then my two big pipe dreams ...

6. The Illustrated Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
7. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

>6 NathanOv: Pym and Hunchback have both been done by The Limited Editions Club

>6 NathanOv: I would be surprised (and disappointed) if Thornwillow don't do Parable of The Talents.

Maybe the Lathe of Heaven will be No Reply's Le Guin...

>7 jsg1976: I guess I assumed the question to mean modern letterpress, since you could argue that just about every classic is available in letterpress. That said, I'm just not particularly fond of the looks of those two and am holding out hope for more elaborate fine press editions.

>8 EdmundRodriguez: Indeed! Luke expressed a strong interest in publishing it, but did mention the rights had been a little harder to navigate with Butler's estate. I believe the plan was to pursue it based on the level of interest in survey responses, but am not sure where it stands.

I am holding out hope that No Reply's Le Guin is a work of fiction, and ideally a longer one then their norm like Lathe!

>6 NathanOv: If On a Winter's Night a Traveler would be great!

My personal list of plausible (at least in my mind!) works include:
—Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
—Kokoro, Natsume Soseki
— The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Yukio Mishima

Faulkner, A Fable
Musil, A Man Without Qualities
Solzhenitsyn, Gulag or Cancer Ward
Sholokov, And Quiet Flows the Don
Cortazar, Hopscotch
Bolano, 2666 or The Savage Detectives
Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrien
Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter
Laxness, Independent People

One can dream!

>11 Joshbooks1: 2666 would be another quite ambitious project!

It would be fascinating to start to see more experimental / non-ergodic fiction like Hopscotch pop up in fine press, though.

Cannery Row by Steinbeck would be an excellent choice. Much shorter then a typical novel and my personal favorite of his works. It would also help correct the tragic dearth of fine press works by Steinbeck.

I saw Faulkner mentioned as well and some of his early works would make an excellent edition as well.

May by Karel Hynek Mácha. The only nice English language version of this work I'm aware of is the trade hardcover from Twisted Spoon Press.

>13 Sorion: second that. can we make that a 2 volume set with sweet Thursday.

>11 Joshbooks1: honestly I would welcome anything by Yourcenar. Regretfully neglected. Also, tangent: she was the first woman elected to the Académie Française.

So who exactly is going to be doing these suggested letterpress books, most of which are very long by fine press standards? I can think of Arion and Thornwillow only. St. James Park Press is doing 1984 which is extraordinary for a one man press. Man without Qualities which was mentioned is 657K words. Arion did Don Quixote which is 345K. Ulysses is 265k.

>9 NathanOv: interesting (to me at least) that you don't like either the LEC or Heritage Press Pym. This is actually one of the few where I like both versions enough to almost want copies of each (or rather, it took some time to decide which one I wanted and I could still see going either way; Pym isn't a work I like enough to actually want to own more than one copy). The LEC obviously has nicer materials and illustration reproduction, and the leather over over boards with parchment spine is classy and somewhat unique (leather over boards being a pleasantly surprising reversal of expectations), as is the detailed illustrated slipcase. The Heritage edition, in turn, has a beautiful near-greyscale hand-marbled paper over the boards which suits the mood of Poe perfectly.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder etc., but if you haven't taken a look at either of these recently, I would consider revisiting them, especially since both can be had on the secondhand market for much less than any fancy new treatment would cost.

Just for my own curiosity, I would be curious to know what your ideal treatment would be.

>17 punkzip: Well, my top choice for Pym would be Arete and I'd love to see Lyra's do Hunchback, but don't forget that they as well as Hand & Eye are all doing full-length works, No Reply is moving towards novel length publications, and a massive amount of the beloved works on this forum come from smaller / less active publishers like Deep Woods Press.

>18 abysswalker: Yes, those two editions were printed letterpress by nature of their time, but I would love to have a new, truly fine-press copy with solid attention to layout and typography, a nice bite to the letterpress, and a better paper for reading. While LEC uses nice enough paper, after 90+ years all the early ones I've seen are heavily yellowed.

I'd also love to see more gothic style in the artwork than the simple, kind've fanciful line drawings. Someone like Gary Gianni could do this in art that still lends itself very nicely to letterpress.

>11 Joshbooks1: As a fan of Undset, Lavransdatter would be amazing!

My other incredibly-long-novel dream would be Pynchon's Mason & Dixon (oh the illustrations you could get with that one).

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Book of Disquiet

>11 Joshbooks1: A letterpress Hopscotch whose sheets were somehow gathered in a way that could be read linearly or taken apart and put in the "hopscotch" order would be very interesting. I've yet to tackle my paperback of this novel but hope to read it both ways eventually...

>21 punkzip: 1000% support the Book of Disquiet. Instant buy. Hopefully the Richard Zenith translation.

>23 LBShoreBook: have you read Zenith’s recently published Pessoa biography? Such a great biography- never thought someone could write a 1000 page bio on Pessoa.

>24 punkzip: On my TBR. Will be reading it for sure. I took a Pessoa literary tour in Lisbon and it was fantastic. As an aside, while in Lisbon I ran across a quirky little book titled Fernando Pessoa: The Poet with Many Faces, by Hubert Jennings and edited by Carlos Pittella. It is an interesting mix of biography and then appendices with numerous poems from his heteronyms. Great little book if you are looking to expand on the Zenith biography.

Jan Morris's Last Letters from Hav (sold now in trade as an omnibus with the sequel novella, but I'm mostly interested in the original volume alone, which is quite short)

Rosemary Sutcliff's Blue Remembered Hills (a fairly slim memoir)

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows (a very short essay that would lend itself perfectly to black-and-white woodcuts)

Any number of James Tiptree Jr. shorter works; "The Women Men Don't See," "The Screwfly Solution," "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?," "The Girl Who Was Plugged In"--I'm not picky.

The unrealistic one would be Watership Down--unrealistic both because of its length, and because it's popular enough that I assume if the rights were remotely available someone would have done it already.

>26 ambyrglow: Re Watership Down - letterpress is highly unlikely, but Folio could do it particularly since this happened last year https://www.thebookseller.com/news/richard-adams-estate-wins-back-watership-down...

>27 punkzip: Oh, that’s wonderful news for the heirs. I have a nice enough deluxe trade edition myself, but I’ll be interested in seeing if any new ones come out.

>28 ambyrglow: What edition is that? I have the nicest edition I could find which is the Penguin/Kestrel hardback in slipcase illustrated by John Lawerence but I wish I could find something nicer.

>29 kdweber: Oh, that one looks nice. I just have the Macmillan 1975 “Deluxe Edition”—no illustrations (aside from the maps), but a slipcase, a solidly sewn binding, and nice sturdy acid-free paper. Which is pretty much all I ask for in a reading copy.

The nicest edition of Watership Down out there is almost certain the Paradine Press edition, but at more than $3000 for the cheapest copy currently on the market I'm unlikely to pick it up any time soon! And while the binding and illustrations look lovely, I know nothing about the presswork.

1. The Catcher in the Rye
2. The Alchemist
3. 1Q84 - it can be made into 3 books i guess? one for each part?
4. The Five People You Meet in Heaven
5. Neverwhere
6. The Hobbit
7. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
8. The Handmaid's Tale

>31 Praveenna_Nagaratnam: I've determined after some research into the printer that it's not full letterpress, but supposedly 111 copies of this beautiful 1Q84 are out there in the wild: http://www.stefanieposavec.com/haruki-murakami

Has anyone done a letterpress Flann O'Brien? I love my Folio Society edition of The Third Policeman, but I would l really love a Thornwillow or AP edition of that one.

A few people have mentioned The Hobbit here, and while I suspect that the desire is for a new shiny edition with all the bling, my copy of the first version printed by the Folio Society in 1979 has a nice crisp bite to the letterpress and the illustrations give a classic traditional illustration feel to the book. (The illustrations look like woodcuts but might be mannered drawings? Unclear, and a quick web search did not clarify.)

The colophon says the paper is "white cartridge" (whatever that is), which doesn't have particularly positive associations, but in fact has pleasing texture.

I bought my copy with the intent to get it rebound at some point given the lack of alternatives, which seems likely to persist given the revealed preferences of the estate so far. The original Folio Society binding design is a bit too 70s for my taste, and the spine is artificial leather which (perhaps irrationally) bothers me. But I am pretty happy with the text block.

>34 abysswalker: that looks lovely! what is the estate's preference btw?

>34 abysswalker: I agree with your assessment. I have this edition rebound in full Morocco by Richard Tong of Lyra's.

>36 ultrarightist: oh wow.. please share photos..looking up first edition folio hobbit on ebay now 😂

>37 Praveenna_Nagaratnam: make sure to check abebooks too if you are interested. Folio Society fantasy tends to have a markup on ebay (probably because a lot of genre fans are not clued in to the various specialty platforms and search engines for book selling).

>35 Praveenna_Nagaratnam: the estate's preferences seem to be along the lines of authorizing an unending sequence of deluxe trade editions with variations on binding and slipcase designs that mimic surface level signifiers of old fashioned books.

(To be fair to the estate, you can buy an edition from Easton Press which is at least durable, with a stitched binding, and acid free paper, if the Easton aesthetic works for you. But the Easton edition is certainly not printed letterpress, which is the topic at hand.)

>34 abysswalker: Eric Fraser was a pen and ink man (not woodcut), and a talented one at that :)

>39 abysswalker: I am not a fan of the aethetics of Easton Press books in general. I would love to get my hands on a letterpress hobbit and get Lyra's to rebind it... unless of course there is hope of Lyra's publishing The Hobbit 😁

It will never happen but the pisan cantos

With Algernon Blackwood coming off copyright next year I would like to see a collection of his work. The Beehive edition is nice but I am craving something more. Also, unless I'm mistaken Canadian publishers can start doing Tolkien in 2023. Just planting the bug ... :)

Anyone familiar with Judith Shalansky's Atlas of Remote Islands? Fantastic little book and could be really interesting to see what an artist could do with the island maps.

https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Remote-Islands-Fifty-Never/dp/014311820X

>44 LBShoreBook: Oh, yes. That would make a lovely fine press book.

>46 the_bb: So they show letterpress pages, but the printer they list only advertises offset. That's what leads me to believe that it's just letterpress cover / art and colophon, but I am not certain.

Some letterpress Ezra Pound would be nice.

>48 ultrarightist: LEC did a very nice "Cathay" - Pound's translation from the Chinese, in 1992.

>48 ultrarightist:
>49 Sport1963:

There is surprisingly little written directly by Ezra Pound in a private press edition, mostly his translations. Aside from the LEC 'Cathay', there are two separate editions of his translations of Guido Cavalcanti's sonnets/poems, a contemporary of Dante Alighieri. One edition was printed on the handpress by Giovanni Mardersteig at the Officina Bodoni for New Directions publishers (1966) and a beautiful edition of the Pound translation of Cavalcanti poems was published by the Arion Press (1991).

Only two Pound private press editions come to mind:

1. Imaginary Letters, Black Sun Press, 1930. Edition of 50 copies printed on Japanese vellum..

2. Indiscretions, Three Mountain Press (Paris), 1923. This is a thinly-disguised autobiographical memoir of only 62 pages dealing primarily with Pound's father. Edition of 300 copies.

>49 Sport1963: and >50 dlphcoracl: Thank you

Hemmingway. Should be easy to do as his works are very short. "The Sun Also Rises" if I had to choose.

>52 L.Bloom: ‘The Sun Also Rises’ may be the next title from Century Press based on a teaser image of a bull they posted on Instagram a couple weeks back.

>53 SolerSystem: Teaser indeed! I feel very teased right now...

>53 SolerSystem: I messaged Century about that, based on their indirect response, I’m about 99% sure it will be The Sun Also Rises

>53 SolerSystem: >55 Esoterics: That would be much more attractive to me than Huckleberry Finn. I just finished the Great Gatsby and despite its flaws enjoyed the reading experience immensely (size, soft leather, the fact that it’s letterpress)…

>52 L.Bloom: Three Hemingway fine press recommendations:
1. For Whom the Bell Tolls - LEC, 1942
2. The Old Man and the Sea - LEC, 1990
3. Big Two-Hearted River - Contre Coup Press, 2011

>57 Sport1963: I love my LECs, thank you!

I agree with several other suggestions here, particularly If On A Winter's Night a Traveler by Calvino, Hav by Jan Morris, and Mason & Dixon by Pynchon.

Limiting myself to shorter works:

-The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

-On Being Blue by William H. Gass

-The Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon

-The Horla by Guy de Maupassant (I'm a bit tired of all the Poe and Lovecraft and Dracula and Frankenstein that occupies so much of the horror output of fine presses)

-A Universal History of Infamy by Jorge Luis Borges

-On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts by Thomas De Quincey

>59 SolerSystem: along the lines of The Horla:

Saki's Sredni Vashtar
Machen's The White People
Blackwood's The Willows

Tartarus has decent editions, but not fine press/letterpress. I'm also aware of the Beehive Willows but not a fan.

Also, in a different vein, the original Elric short stories:

The Dreaming City
While the Gods Laugh
The Stealer of Souls
Kings in Darkness
The Flamebringers (retitled The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams)

This may not be realistic but I would like Plutarch's lives. I know there was an LEC but it is not very appealing to me with the North translation or the look of it (at least in photos).

>61 L.Bloom: the binding of the LEC Plutarch is simple, but the design inside is quite nice, especially the occasional marginal notes. It's the copy I have and I am happy with it. For me North is a plus, given the Shakespeare connection.

The full parallel lives is probably practically impossible in modern fine press without a wealthy patron, but particular pairs might be doable, possibly as a series using crowd funding.

LEC:

>62 abysswalker: you're right, the inside is quite nice. Maybe I can hope for a Landmark version one day with a more modern translation and a pile of maps.

Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The most popular works are prohibitively long for letterpress, so some of the shorter, less popular works could be candidates for the typical private press.

Perhaps Arion or Thornwillow could take on the ambitious project of a longer work like Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, etc.

I would only be interested in works not translated by Garnett. Limited Editions Club published many Dostoevsky books featuring Fritz Eichenberg illustrations, an incredible pairing. Unfortunately, they’re all translated by Constance Garnett, which I hold a strong preference against.

I plan to release a chapter from The Brothers Karamazov as a standalone work. The bit with the inquisitor and that Jesus dude. Not sure which translation or if I'll have a new one made. Is there a preference for a particular translation?

>64 Esoterics: Why do you dislike the Garnett translation? Inaccurate? Clunky English? Just doesn't capture the spirit/essence of the original?

>64 Esoterics: I've tended to avoid fine press (letterpress) versions of non-English books because as someone who is primarily a reader, I'm looking for the best possible translation, which is usually not the public domain one. Of course using a copyrighted translation carries an additional cost which for a small press is often not an easy option. This is why to me, the AP Don Quixote using the Grossman translation is extraordinary. Now for non-letterpress, FS is using modern translations more often and even specially commissioned translations like the Pasternak Zhivago.

>64 Esoterics: One line in Nabokov's Pnin that gave me a chuckle is when the protagonist summarizes a few books in a bookshelf, including "Mrs. Garnett imitating somebody ...." Ouch.

>66 ultrarightist: I would also be curious about the aversion to Garnett, as I have come to often prefer her translations, especially compared to P&V. I have found P&V almost unreadable for any of their takes on the Russian classics (the only exception so far being Notes From Underground).

I do often prefer more modern translations, such as John Wood for Thomas Mann. The only other older translator I tend to prefer categorically (ignoring for the moment translations that have themselves become classics of literature such as Pope/Homer or North/Plutarch) is the work of Willa and Edwin Muir for Kafka.

Translating Russian isn't easy. Sometimes, you have to paraphrase and some things Russian don't translate well at all.

>67 punkzip: Which I why I've hired new translations for my Kafka projects. Breon Mitchell's work is beyond reproach for In the Penal Colony. The Muir translations not so much so.

>69 abysswalker: People don't like Garnett because her translations, especially of Tolstoy, are extremely Victorian. Essentially, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are made to sound like Dickens and Thackery.

My partner is a native Russian who finds Tolstoy's writing more challenging and more "shoot from the hip" than comes across in English translation. And oftentimes much funnier! Here's an example from the widely read Maude translation of Ivan Ilyich: "His father had been an official who after serving in various ministries and departments in Petersburg had made the sort of career which brings men to positions from which by reason of their long service they cannot be dismissed, though they are obviously unfit to hold any responsible position, and for whom therefore posts are specially created, which though fictitious carry salaries of from six to ten thousand rubles that are not fictitious, and in receipt of which they live on to a great age." Apparently the original Russian is laugh-out-loud funny. Though we can still chuckle at it, a lot of the verve is sapped.

In general, I believe in a "right words in the right order" approach to translation as opposed to a "same words in the same order" approach. The issue is that the community of translators and trade publishers have a lot of security in taking the "same words in the same order" approach. Nobody could argue that translating "In principio creavit deus caellum et terram terra autem erat inanis et vacua" as "At the beginning created by god was sky and terrain, terrain however was empty and vacuous" is inaccurate, if you consider accuracy to be "the same words in the same order." But this certainly doesn't capture the spirit of the Latin. A new translation which made it, "First, god made heaven and earth — a void" would open itself up to a lot of criticism. However, this "new" translation captures a different element of the original — terram/autem and terra/erat are slant rhymes, as is first/earth. But the general presence of slant rhymes is not considered something which must be conveyed in an "accurate" translation. (A silly example, but I do wish such elements were taken more seriously into consideration.)

>68 LBShoreBook: My favorite novel!

>72 grifgon: If Pnin is your favourite novel, then surely it deserves the fine press treatment. That would be an immediate buy from me!

>73 EdmundRodriguez: I agree!!! No Reply is currently tiptoing toward longer length works. We just acquired a Vandercook Universal I (with an adjustable bed) which is lightyears better than our current press. It will certainly make longer works possible, and Pnin is a top choice for me. The only problem is rights.

>74 grifgon: Well that is exciting.

Good luck getting the rights, I will keep my fingers crossed (and some book budget spare in anticipation).

>65 DWPress:

The Brothers Karamazov is one of my favourite books, so very interested to see this on the horizon (as long as it doesn't delay The Machine Stops...).

However, I am afraid I cannot help on the translation front, I have only read Garnett.

>71 DWPress: Maybe the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation.

Please do Notes from the Underground!

>74 grifgon: Congratulations grifgon, it will serve you well! Also, glad I'm not the only maker who lurks on this forum.

>77 Undergroundman: I'd forgotten about Notes and someone should do it I agree. Doing Penal Colony was unnerving, not sure I could take existential Russian so soon but I plan to be at this for awhile so who knows....

>78 DWPress: Thanks Chad! (We haven't met before; I run No Reply Press out of Portland. Long been an admirer of your work!) Vandercooks don't often become available (and as I'm sure you've experienced, moving them is a nightmare), so I feel lucky to have found one nearby. It was formerly owned by Jubilation Press in Ashland, which between 1995 and 2021 printed broadsides mostly. So far in its life, the Vandercook has printed work for U.S. Poet Laureates William Stafford, Robert Pinsky, Ted Koosier, and Juan Felipe Herrera, as well as Eavan Boland, Michael and Matthew Dickman, Mark Doty, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Tony Hoagland, Li-Young Lee, Barry Lopez, Michael Meade, Wayne Muller, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alberto Rios, Kim Stafford, and Wavy Gravy. It's a neat one! Very much hoping to add to its rap sheet going forward.

>77 Undergroundman: Love the name but I feel like Notes was a masterpiece during his time but has been done and copied so often that it's my least favorite Dostoevsky work. Maybe Memoirs from the House of the Dead? A PG version of the Russian Gulag compared with the Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov days but amazing psychological insights. But honestly anything Dostoevsky would be more than welcome.

>66 ultrarightist: “The reason English-speaking readers can barely tell the difference between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is that they aren’t reading the prose of either one. They’re reading Constance Garnett.” - Joseph Brodsky. This quote sums up my opinion. Garnett isn’t terrible, there’s a reason her translations are widely used. They’re readable. While some other translations may be more difficult, they’re also more in line with the authors prose and intent. I’m not an expert on the topic at all, but I do know that everything I’ve read that has been translated by Garnett sounds alike. For Dostoevsky, I’ve preferred Pevear and Volokhonsky. For Tolstoy, specifically Anna Karenina, I liked the Aylmer and Louise Maude translation.

>81 Joshbooks1: Don't think that book ever received a proper release. It's always released with The Gambler, or some other short story. Folio recently released it, and it's hideous.

>82 Esoterics: Thank you. I understand.

>83 Undergroundman: What's hideous? The story, or the recent FS publication?

>80 grifgon: I expect all Vandercooks have stories to tell and I'm glad yours has provenance. I remember talking with Jubilation Press at a CODEX 2011. Lovely people (An artist and her writerly son Derek, I seem to recall?) owned that Vandercook. My daughter, who worked at Arion Press around that time, bought a broadside of one of Derek's poems called 'Dumpster Meditation.'

>85 jveezer: That's awesome! I acquired the Vandercook from Cathy (the artist you met) and Derek directly. They retired the press, and agreed to hand it over to me for the sake of keeping it in Oregon. They'll still be able to visit it whenever they like! I can't wait to start using it!!!

>80 grifgon: That's a big machine, no wonder you had trouble moving it. They're also not cheap or common to buy. What version did you get?

>87 kdweber: Vandercook Universal I — which is the press I learned to print on while at Thornwillow. Importantly, it has an adjustable bed (most don't) which means that impression and type height can be adjusted with the turn of a handle rather than with more packing on the cylinder.

"Not common" is totally right. I've been waiting about four years for any Vandercook to become available in the PNW. Basically these presses only change hands when a printer retires.

Moving it has required professional riggers, and reinforcing with hydraulic jacks the floor under where it will be set. The thing weighs, literally, a ton.

Thanks to all who subscribed for "Enūma"! This is what we've spent the unexpected windfall on.

>83 Undergroundman: I'm with you on the Folio releases. He's my favorite author and I have both CP and BK and am underwhelmed to the point that I plan to sell them and keep my everyman copies. The new release of short stories is too expensive and bland with fewer than 300 pages to even consider purchasing it. Maybe if it's half off on a future sale...

>88 grifgon: Glad to hear that you are investing the windfall in your press! I trust your press will do wonderful things with the new Vandercook. I'm guessing that is the key piece that will enable you to print longer works.

Amazing feed. So inspiring. Please let us know at TOC Berlin (www.toc.berlin) what books you would recommend for contemporary signed letterpress editions. 👋

>91 birgitmschmitz: please do any of Fredrik Backman! Especially A Man Called Ove :)

>91 birgitmschmitz: Anna Burns, Milkman. Lamorna Ash, Dark, Salt, Clear: Life in a Cornish Fishing Town.

>91 birgitmschmitz: I would love a letterpress copy of Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

Guess I'm just an antiquated old geezer. Haven't heard of 90 % of those authors you folks have mentioned.

>95 Glacierman: Ditto. Always exciting to hear previously unknown names bandied about though. All of my favorite writers started off as someone I had never heard of ;-)

>91 birgitmschmitz: I second Fredrick Backman!

>91 birgitmschmitz: Who fears death by Nnedi Okorafor.

> Haven‘t thought about him - but a author from Sweden would be great our list. 🙏

>94 gmacaree: whoa- she is already on our list, maybe something already for next year.

>97 NathanOv: 😊

>98 filox: we have just published Chimamanda Adichie „Half of a Yellow Sun“ - completely different from Okorafor, but I will give it some thoughts 🙏

>93 LBShoreBook: that‘t I haven‘t yet read Lamorna Ash is unforgivable. She must be outstanding. 🙏

>99 birgitmschmitz: Thank you! I truly hope this is realised :)

>100 birgitmschmitz: I will be buying!

You could get on Petals of Blood before he wins his Nobel Prize if he ever does...I'm sure we'll have to wait a few more decades before another African writer wins. You've covered the West Coast; he could be your East Coast author.

Here are a few I'd like to see, all of which are an appropriate length for letterpress:
- Fictions or The Aleph, Borges. Imagine these with an illustration per (major) story by someone like Dan Hillier...
- The Man Who Was Thursday, Chesterton. Great potential for illustrations here, and as far as I know has never had a fine edition before
- A Month in the Country, J L Carr. A true modern classic which manages to say more in around 100 pages than most 500+ page novels. I have the Folio edition but would love to see it done letterpress
- The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
- Any of Wodehouse's classics, perhaps Right Ho, Jeeves

>106 jveezer: wise words! I have him on our list, but I have to read first the hole ouerve - to chose for TOC is always a hard decision.

>107 Levin40: A Month in the Country is a solid choice. Great, understated book. Similar to Stoner in the quiet poignancy.

>52 L.Bloom: >53 SolerSystem: >55 Esoterics: >56 stopsurfing: Century Press confirmed today on FB that they are, in fact, doing The Sun Also Rises as their next title

https://www.facebook.com/100616475391895/posts/258999812886893/

>110 jsg1976: This is great thank you! Take my money Century Press!

I wish for another attempt on Brave New World. The LEC edition is not to my liking (the non-letterpress FS editions are also uninspiring). It deserves better; it can do better.

>112 bacchus.: Arete will be doing Brave New World, we'll start posting details in the next couple of months, if all goes well, won't be ready for ages though.

>113 marceloanciano: Thanks I had no idea!

>113 marceloanciano: Now that's exciting and will be hard to pass up. Take your time taking my money! ;)

Tales of Ovid would be amazing.
There is imo no satisfying edition of King Oedipus (I am aware of the LEC and Officina Bodoni).

I am also missing a fine press edition of Camus’ La Peste (preferably in the original French).

I hope these are realistic wishes even if they are not E.A. Poe or Science Fiction which seem to be so popular these recent years.

>113 marceloanciano: Looking forward to Brave New World! I think you’ve mentioned being open to doing series in the past - have you thought about doing Island as well? Much more obscure of course but would be very cool!

>116 SebRinelli: I second the Ovid wish. I recently read the Mandelbaum translation from Everyman's and found it wonderful.

I also second the Camus. It seems that French lit is largely neglected in the fine press world. Let's get some Balzac, Zola, and Proust while we are at it.

>116 SebRinelli:
>118 L.Bloom:
Re: Ovid: Keep an eye on the Barbarian Press. They have indicated it is their white whale. If it somehow passes the beauty of Pericles, we have a true greatest-of-all-time contender on our hands. If it even comes within shouting distance, it'll still be exceptional work.

>116 SebRinelli: I'm definitely keen for some Camus, although I'd rather it were in English... I guess it could give me an incentive to learn French, if a beautiful edition was there to tempt me.

>120 EdmundRodriguez: His style and prose is very suitable for intermediate French speakers!

>119 PatsChoice: Thanks for pointing that out. I believe it is on the announcement section of their website for a few years now and, considering their publication schedule, I suppose it will continue to be there for quite a while.

Any opinions on the the LEC edition? In fact, when I wrote Tales of Ovid I forgot to add by Ted Hughes. If you haven’t read yet, I’ll heartily recommend it.

For those in search of existing letterpress Ezra Pound:

Stone Wall Press: Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII (Stone Wall Press, 1968)

Forked Branches (Windhover Press, 1985), which also has the distinction of printing some Old English in the original, with the "eth" and everything, an infrequent feature in the last couple generations. A wonderful book and an absolute steal.

A Draft of XXX Cantos (Paris House Press, 1930), which is prohibitively expensive.

Calvalcanti Poems (New Directions, 1966), printed by Officina Bodoni, also very expensive.

>122 DenimDan: Thanks for this

I have D&F and it is the star of my collection... there is also Shakespears Pound signed by Omar which uses designs Dorothy did for the middle cantos (31 to 51) - it is exquisite (and can be found for reasonable price) but some of the cantos are cut and I have no idea why they did this...

Also you can get for less than £100 the first editions of Rock Drill and Thrones as printed by Vanni Scheiwiller (All'Insegna del Pesce D'Oro, Milano) which are lovely little editions and numbered too

I would 'kill' for the original A DRAFT OF XVI CANTOS (Illustrations by Henry Strater. Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1925) but best I can do is the PDF version

A shame that in the 100th anniversary of Ulysses and The Waste Land EP will be seen as purely their midwife (though co-author of The Waste Land would be more apt if you believe what you excise is as important as what you right)

In an article I was reading, Noam Chomsky referred to an unpublished Introduction Orwell wrote for Animal Farm. Of course I pulled my Arion Press edition off the shelf in the hopes that maybe it was there and he meant it had never been published in the trades. But no luck.

Anyone know if his Intro is included in any fine- or private-press editions? It looks like it might be included in the Suntup edition along with his preface for the Ukrainian edition. But it is a bit unclear in Paul's description. The Ukrainian preface is timely though.

Anyway, that would be a cool feature of a nice letterpress edition. And while the AP illustrations are OK...

OK, that preface by Orwell is money (pun intended). Read it on the very clunky British Library site. Now I'd really like that in my ultimate edition of Animal Farm, which my AP is not. An afterword by Chomsky would make it a must-find-budget.

While down that rabbit hole I discovered Trotsky's biography of Stalin and it's history of suppression and mis-translation and adulteration along the same lines as Orwell describes in his preface. He was murdered by Stalin's KGB right in the middle of its writing. I don't usually read modern bios but if I run across that one (in the new translation without the meddling...), I might check it out. But not something a private press should waste paper on, ha ha...

Given recent events, I am rounding out my collection of WWII narratives, and have not been able to find fine press copies of Man's Search for Meaning or Black Rain. I love both those books. Anyone have recommendations?

I am also working on pandemic narratives, and have some from the black plague and the recent pandemic, but haven't found a good story about the Spanish flu, especially an account from someone affected by it. Anyone have a favorite?

I just picked up a trade edition of Leaves of Grass in the Deathbed edition. I can never have enough Whitman. I'm pretty certain that all of the letterpress fine/private press editions (Arion, LEC, Grabhorn, etc.) are earlier editions , mostly the first. Does anyone know if the Deathbed Edition has ever been done?

Seems like only Thornwillow could tackle a project that size but I'd be all over it if they would take that up at some point after their massive Ulysses undertaking is complete.

I would like to see Flatland by Abbott. I think Arion did this in 1980, but would love to own a special version of it