Out of Print Printery Publications

This previously unpublished typescript is printed with Field’s annotations and changes reproduced in his own hand over his original text. Illustrations based on toys in the collection of The Eugene Field House and St. Louis Toy Museum. William K. Bixby gave the original manuscript to his granddaughter on her thirteenth birthday and her son donated the manuscript to The Field House. Thirty-two pages handset in Bulmer types and printed on a handpress in six colors on Mohawk Superfine. Quarter bound in Brillianta with French marbled paper sides and printed paper lables on front and spine. Limited to 150 copies. 5 x 8-1/2 inches.

This chronology tracks the friendship and mutual admiration of two journeyman printers through their collected transatlantic correspondence, including what drew them together, what split them apart, and their eventual reunion through their mutual interest in the state of the book arts in Europe and England in the 1780s. Thirty-two pages handset in Baskerville and Bulmer types and printed on a handpress in three colors on dampened English Bishopstoke, a hand made English laid sheet. Quarter-bound in calf with English Cockerell marbled paper sides and gold stamping on spine. Limited to 100 copies. 5-1/2 x 8-3/4 inches.

Young Joseph’s narrative traces relations between the Nez Perce and the white man, beginning with Lewis and Clark, and chronicles Joseph’s famous 1,000 mile flight to avoid confinement on the Lapwai Reservation. During the summer of 1877 Joseph led the Nez Perce across Idaho, Montana, through the Yellowstone country, crossing the Rocky Mountains twice before turning north in a futile attempt to reach the safety of Canada “the Grand-mother’s country.” Joseph’s speech before the United States Congress is printed in its entrety for the first time since it appeared in The North American Review for April 1879. Introduction by Dee Brown and woodcuts by Gillian Tyler. Forty-eight pages are handset in Ehrhardt types and printed on a handpress in two colos on dampened Rives Heavy, a French mould-made paper. Quarter-bound in natural buckrum with French marbled paper sides and printed paper lables on front and spine. Limited to 110 copies.

Printer’s Manuals: from Moxon to the PIA is the previously unpublished text of a talk delivered by Alexander S. Lawson as part of Doc Leslie’s “Heritage of the Graphic Arts Lecture Series.” This essay traces the history of English language printer’s manuals from 1683 up to the middle nineteenth century where entire passages from Moxon still appear verbatim. The text continues on into the twentieth century and concludes with the PIA’s 1953 publication of A Composition Manual. Professor Lawson’s prose is authoritative, succinct, and eminently readable.

Professor Trevor Howard-Hill, in his review of Printer’s Manuals appearing in the June 2003 issue of “Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America” notes: “We received gratefully the valuable additions that Lawson’s talk supplied . . . The strength of his talk, to which Kramer added illustrations and a chronological checklist of works cited, and its value to bibliographers derives from his access to the English and American manuals he described.” And in a follow-up e-mail to The Printery, Professor Howard-Hill notes: “I learned from the essay; this is a commendation.”

Title pages from thirteen of the principal manuals have been reproduced and a short-title bibliography of all 53 manuals cited in the text has been added. Scenes of the interiors of a “Letter Foundry” and a “Printing House” from The Universal Magazine for 1750 and 1752, respectively, are reproduced on the endpapers.

This 64-page monograph is set in Bulmer types and printed letterpress in five colors in an edition of 100 copies. The paper, Kelmscott Text, is an early twentieth-century handmade sheet with a Pierpont Morgan Library provenance.

Vincent Starrett was one of the most civilized and versatile literary figures of the twentieth century. Upon his death on January 4, 1974, Michael Murphy collected these 15 distinguished tributes to Starrett’s life and work. Contributors include Carl Sandburg, Christopher Morley, Charles Honce, and August Derleth. Robert G. Little’s charcoal portrait of Starrett, the last portrait taken from life, is reproduced as a frontispiece. Forty-eight pages are handset in Bulmer types and printed on a handpress in two colors on Andorra Text. Quarter-bound in cloth and stamped in gold with Bertini printed paper sides. Limited to 225 copies. 6-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches.

This thoroughly researched text, The Printery’s first book, records the events leading up to the Old Drum Trial and George Graham Vest’s now famous “Eulogy to the Dog.” The eulogy “The one unselfish friend a man can have in this selfish world . . . is his dog” is set in 18 pt Bulmer and appears as the center spread. A summary of Vest’s long and distinguished career as a Missouri senator follows the eulogy. Forty-eight pages are handset in Bulmer types and printed on a handpress in two colors on Tweedweave Text. Bound in calf and stamped in gold on spine. Limited to 100 copies. 5 x 7-3/4 inches.

Jean Wahl, the French existentialist poet and philosopher, scratched out these terse, powerful poems while in a Nazi concentration camp for Jews during World War II. Charles Guenther, honored Missouri poet and critic, introduces Wahl’s work and translates his verse into English. Forty-eight pages are handset in Cochin types and printed on a handpress in two colors on dampened La Garde, a French laid sheet made prior to World War II. Quarter-bound in cloth and stamped in gold with French marbled paper sides. Limited to 120 copies signed by the translator. 7 x 5-3/8 inches.

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