In Harm, Vickie Karp acknowledges the dangers of love, including possible harm and captivity, even as she willingly takes her chances:

There is such harm in love.

But let it be the green-and-blue acrobat it is,

A tropical danger in the midst of my body,

The body that you built for me.

Let it be the cage you cared for from which

Birdsong was pulled into the cool and colorless air.

Steve J. Hellman, in Love to Cecilia, has his protagonist refusing to submit to other people’s definition of love, especially if that definition is ultimately for self-serving reasons. She has the strength to resist and not give in, telling herself that “I am me…and nothing…is ever going to stop that.” As a father to a daughter, this vignette resonated with me as I felt that Cecilia was strong enough in her personhood to not give into the gender expectations of her/our culture. I hope we can all start to raise and support the women in our lives to do the same.

While the Home Burns, by Lisa Rappoport herself speaks to me of the catastrophe of a love that is dying even as one of those involved goes on totally unaware that everything is coming down around them:

…We were about to lose it all. I scurried

from you to the fire, begging, panicked, throwing thin liquids

onto blue flames, while you stayed in the background,

intact, beyond my reach, fiddling.

I’ve always loved Frida Kahlo, so I love her paean to Diego that closes out this collection in true love/hate fashion. Her obsession with him jumps out of every line of the poem. Her feelings for him are everywhere, in everything she did, and

In the ultimate limits of the sun (the sun has no limits)

One could easily substitute the words love or hate for the word sun in the above line to describe this collection.

On the Littoral Press website, Lisa states that “As a book artist/letterpress printer, I am especially interested in where form and content overlap or diverge.” This book shows that interest realized, especially in the cover paper. The colophon states that it is Thai Unryu reverible. To me it looks like the reflection of the flames that are engulfing the hearts on each page. The titles are printed in a blood-red ink that contrasts nicely with the body of the text printed in black. The Johannot paper provides a good feel and texture as well as really allowing the type to bite into the page. I also really like the accordian book structure for poetry in general, and Lisa has really made it seem perfect for this collection.

From looking at the website, the Littoral Press production covers the whole spectrum from book to book object. It looks like A Flame in the Heart is one that falls about as close to the book end of the spectrum as the press gets. And a very nice book it is at that.

AVAILABILITY: As of this post, the regular edition of 125 appears to be available via the Littoral Press website for $275. There were 10 copies signed by all the contributors except Frida Kahlo (obviously) but there is no indication as to whether these are still available

Additional Images:

As a reader, I am primarily attracted to fine press books that present a great novel, poems, or other significant literary text in a physical form that appeals to my senses on top of the pleasure I get from the text itself. But as you can see below, many beautiful books that I can’t “read” end up on my wishlist.

Some books that I found of particular interest and/or were just plain striking:

• Don Quixote by Ante Wichtrey: I really liked Ante’s imagery for the windmill episode of Don Quixote. A German living in Spain, she said that as a book artist you have to do Don Quixote. I can only imagine what the complete book might look like with her illustrations.
• Alphabets by Lucie Lambert Editions: It was delightful to have Lucie show me this one-0f-a-kind book that she has put so much of her life and art into. I forget exactly how many years she said she spent on it. I found it quite interesting that while you could call this a “bi-lingual” book, the poems in French and English accompanying each letter are actually unique poems specially written for the book by Robert Melançon and E.D. Blodgett, respectively. Her edition of Rainer Marie Rilke’s collection Les Roses is also amazing.
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Taller Martin Pescador & Juan Pascoe: Not sure I need another copy of this essential part of the Middle English canon, but need never really figures into my book decisions. And the two I own are trade editions, so…The green cover and interesting binding were what stopped me in my tracks as I passed the table of Ediciones Catherine Docter, who was displaying the book for Juan. I love the description of the paper in the prospectus, which says that it is “just the right shade of green, neither too dark for legibility nor too coy for seriousness.”
• Paris by Del Milion Editions and Peter Koch Printers: As I explained in my comments above, my main interest is in books with substantial textual content like novels and collections of poetry, but that doesn’t mean that I am immune to other examples of the book arts. This is one such example. I really liked the gay 20′s Art Deco feel of the illustrations in this book. They seemed to confirm illustrator Christopher Carroll’s love for the city of Paris. Each letter in this alphabet books is related to a person or place that has become part of the Paris mystique.
• Dust Bowl Blues by Peter and Donna Thomas: Another book outside my usual interests but compelling none-the-less because (a) I’m a Woody Guthrie freak and the text for this accordian book is the lyrics from the song of the same name, and (b) Peter and Donna have used family photographs from the Dust Bowl era along with watercolor illustrations, making this an intriguing personal glimpse into the Dust Bowl.
• Norfolk Isle & The Cholla Widow by Nawakum Press: I’ve been on the look out for some fine press editions of Melville. Mostly that means looking for fine copies of the Limited Editions Club books, so I was happy to find this edition and press a while back. The book instantly went on my wishlist to acquire one day. Seeing it in person definitely made me even more certain that I’d love to have this book, as the website just doesn’t do it justice. First of all, the patterned paper used for the covers really gives one the impression of waves in the sea. Secondly, I just really love the illustrations by Rik Olson, especially the bird’s eye view of the ship and the women standing in the sea breeze.
• Ovid’s Metamorphosis by Shanty Bay Press: A fine press edition of this classic has long been on my wishlist. This edition contains a selection from Ovid’s masterpiece, so it might not be for you if you want the complete poem. However, the illustrations are killer and the book overall is beautiful.
• Einhand Press: Having a conversation with fellow Joyce-lover Reinhold Nasshan is always wonderful. His one of a kind books that interpret different episodes and scenes from Joyce’s works definitely appeal to this Joycean. He’s not limited to Joyce, however, as he also has works inspired by Poe, Stein, Homer, Schiller, and Chopin, as well as publishing his own poetry.
• Innocents Abroad by the Sherwin Beach Press: I saw this edition at the last CODEX in 2011 and I like it more each time I see it. The coptic binding is beautiful and the red covers combined with the creamy white of the paper is striking. Now this is the kind of book that is right down my alley. Making it even cooler is the bold use of the graphic illustrations of Heather McAdams. There is great graphic art work being done with recent publications like the The Graphic Canon, and Seymour Chwast’s adaptations of The Divine Comedy, The Canterbury Tales, and the Odyssey, so it is nice to see it also making its way into fine press like this edition.

I highly recommend making the pilgrimage to CODEX someday. The next one is 2015 and will probably be even bigger. I’m in business start-up mode so my wallet had to stay in my pocket but the wishlist grew and I hope to be ordering from some of these presses soon. In which case, you will see a detailed review!

The Chimes: or, Some Bells That Rang an Old Year Out & a New Year In, a Goblin Drama in 4 Quarters; Adapted from Charles Dickens’ celebrated work by Mark Lemon & G. A. a’Beckett; First produced at the Aldelphi Theatre December 18^th, 1844.

So for the second Christmas in a row, I have a fine press book to review for The Whole Book Experience. Not sure if I will be able to continue in this vein next year unless I am lucky enough to find the Barbarian edition of A Christmas Carol before the next holiday season. I’m not sure I know of any other fine press Christmas books. (More on that later…)

The Chimes was Dickens’ second Christmas book. It was written in 1844, a year after his incredible A Christmas Carol, and was followed by another three Christmas books: The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain. One of the amazing things about these books is that stage adaptations appeared within days of their publication, almost all unauthorized, and all competing to satisfy the public’s appetite for a good Dickens Christmas story. The Barbarian Press used the authorized adaptation by Mark Lemon and G. A. a’Beckett that was first produced at the Adelphi Theatre on December 18^th, 1844. This was a mere two days after The Chimes appeared in booksellers’ shops. Five more rival versions appeared or were announced within the month, according to Joel Kaplan’s insightful introduction to the play.

I can’t help but marvel that a book could generate six different stage adaptations within the first month of publication. That could never happen today due to copyright laws and the fact that our main theater experience has shifted from stage to screen, with no chance of bringing an adaptation out so quickly. Imagine the latest Harry Potter book comes out and we have six stage and/or film adaptations to choose from? Some versions would try to be true to the book, one might even be “authorized”, and others would vulgarize it into parody or farce or allegory. That would be interesting indeed.

The Chimes is a sweet book full of the love of Trotty Veck for his daughter Meggy, and indeed for his fellow man in general. Typical of Dickens, he hoped to strike ‘a great blow for the poor’ with the book. And he does a good job of giving us a glimpse of the life of the London poor. Using the same method of alternate visions of the future that he employed in A Christmas Carol, Dickens has the Goblin of the Bell show Trotty several different possible outcomes of the life of Meggy, Lilian, and Richard.

In his portrayal of Alderman Cute and Sir Joseph Bowley, he shows how the poor suffer from the misguided and frequently mean-spirited way the wealthy and the government perceive and deal with them. Alderman Cute wants to “put down” pretty much everything about the poor, whether it is hanging about on doorsteps, enjoying an honest meal out-of-doors, or even musicians joyfully playing in the new year. As Jabez is told by Cute’s footman, “Mr. Alderman Cute hates street musicianers, & he means to put ‘em down.”  And this dialogue between Toby(Trotty) and Meg illustrates how helpless the poor can feel as they are being “put down”:

Toby. …But they’re always a-bringing up some new law or other.

Meg. And according to what I was reading you in the paper the other day, father – what the judge said, you know – we poor people are supposed to know ‘em all. Ha, ha! What a mistake! My goodness me, how clever they think us!

Sadly, I can imagine this same dialogue could be heard on the streets of any American city 150 years after this was written, as we still haven’t quite figured out how to deal with “the poor”. I thought The Chimes a great reminder of all I have to be thankful for this holiday season and to think charitably and kindly of those with less. And it was very interesting to read the stage adaptation in the Barbarian Press edition after reading the prose version many years ago. [I have the Easton Press facsimile of the Limited Edition Club book illustrated by Arthur Rackham. I hope to find the real thing at some point! Then I’ll have another book to review for a Christmas future]

According to the notes in bibliography Hoi Barbaroi: a Quarter-century at Barbarian Press, the press originally set out to publish all of Dickens’ Christmas stories. As Crispin Elsted explains,

“…we had badly overestimated the potential sales of A Christmas Carol, and proud as we were of the book, we could feel the vile breath of capitalism soughing about our ears. We decided to fix the edition of The Chimes at 150 copies.”

And

“Despite the beauty of Colin’s engravings & the interest of the text, sales of The Chimes were disappointing, and we were finally forced to give up our plans for the remaining three Dickens adaptations. The counterpoise between commerce and common sense—which are, we feel, mutually exclusive—provides some of the more sensational moments of despair in the lives of private press publishers.”

A sad reality check from my perspective 25 years later, since I hope to obtain A Christmas Carol someday and would love to also have seen at least The Cricket on the Hearth published. More’s the pity as this edition of The Chimes is a beautifully designed book. I’m not sure the team of Jan & Crispin Elsted has an equal when it comes to book design. Certainly some of the most beautiful books in my library are Barbarian editions. The cover of the book is stunning. The front cover has the title printed on a paper label along the whole length of the front cover. The title, subtitle, author information, and borders are printed in letterpress with three colors along with one of Colin’s engravings. (The green borders running up the sides of the cover label reminded me of the upcoming Barbarian Press book focusing on Curwen Press Borders. The book is titled Bordering on the Sublime and will be a treat for booklovers that are interested in this area of printing ornamentation). The illustrations by Colin Paynton are wonderful, and I really like the border he created for the title page. The addition of a ribbon to help remove the book from the slipcase is a nice feature not often seen, and is very useful given the buckram used on both the book and the slipcase.

Having a chance to spend some time reading and examining this early book from the press reminded me of why I’m always eagerly awaiting the next books from the Barbarians. I encourage you to spend some time with Dickens this holiday season and hope that you lived every day of the Old Year to the fullest when the Bells ring it out.

[Availability] Despite the slow sales indicated by Crispin above, the edition eventually sold out. You can occasionally find them second hand at bookstores specializing in fine press, as well as on-line. I found mine at Wessel & Lieberman in Seattle and once saw A Christmas Carol at Moe’s in Berkeley. Alas, I didn’t/couldn’t make it mine at the time.

Since the press’ website does not give the details on this edition any more, I thought I would include the basics as described in Hoi Barbaroi:

Scotch roman and italic. Red & black on Zerkall mouldmade. Half natural buckram with centred strip of paper running from head to foot of upper cover, printed in red, green & black. Spine label printed down in red & black. Endpapers of Ingres Ivy. Slipcase of natural buckram over boards with green or white ribbon. 150 copies. $120.00

So The Arion Press continues to lead me to read novels I may have never gotten to otherwise, Collins being the second British novelist they’ve published since I started my subscription with the press. The first subscription book I received was H. G. Wells’ Tono-Bungay, which I have yet to get back around to reviewing as my reading of it predates this blog. All in good time, I suppose, as I may someday run low on fine press books to review.

For epistolary novel The Moonstone, Collins uses written narratives from various characters to reconstruct the theft of the famous, cursed diamond after a dinner at the Verinder country estate. As the reader works their way through each narrative, sometimes returning to a character that had dictated their view of the incidents surrounding the mystery earlier in the book. I expect this approach might have been chosen since the original publication was in serial form in Collin’s friend Charles Dickens’ All the Year Round. Regardless of the origin of its form, it works well in The Moonstone, and allows you to really get to know a couple of the characters. Obviously, you also see the same events over and over again but from different sets of eyes, and gradually the events of that night become clear.

I have to say that my favorite character was the faithful servant, Gabriel Betteredge. He seemed like a character that could easily have appeared in one of Dicken’s novels. One of his most endearing traits was his unwavering faith in a book to guide his life and to be a spiritual and temporal resource in troubling times. No, not the Bible or The Pilgrim’s Progress, but Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Who would have thought you could find all the answers there? At one point, not happy with the direction the indefatigable Sergeant Cuff’s investigation was leading, he writes:

“Robinson Crusoe—God knows how—had got into my muddled old head. If Sergeant Cuff had found himself, at that moment, transported to a desert island, without a man Friday to keep him company, or a ship to take him off—he would have found himself exactly where I wished him to be! (Nota bene: I am an average good Christian, when you don’t push my Christianity too far. And all the rest of you—which is a great comfort—are, in this respect, much the same as I am.)”

He pulls it out multiple times in the book to show people why events happened the way they did or to help explain some point or the other. When troubled, he Usually likes a nip of something or a smoke with it but he seems to have always been able to rely on it throughout his life and has worn out several editions of it by the time of novel.

But he is doesn’t always need to consult Robinson Crusoe to spout some pretty interesting opinions of his own:

“…it is a maxim of mine that men (being superior creatures) are bound to improve women—if they can. When a woman wants me to do anything (my daughter, or not, it doesn’t mater), I always insist on knowing why. The oftener you make them rummage their own minds for a reason, the more manageable you will find them in all the relations of life. It isn’t their fault (poor wretches!) that they act first and think afterwards; it’s the fault of the fools who humor them.”

And:

“I am (thank God!) constitutionally superior to reason. This enabled me to hold firm to my lady’s view, which was my view also. This roused my spirit and made me put a bold face on it before Sergeant Cuff. Profit, good friends, I beseech you, by my example. It will save you from many troubles of the vexing sort. Cultivate a superiority to reason, and see how you pare the claws of all the sensible people when they try to scratch you for your own good!”

The romantic interest in the novel is provided through the love triangle of the main characters (and cousins!) of Rachel Verinder, Franklin Blake, and Godfrey Ablewhite. All of them at one point or another are prime suspects in the disappearance of the diamond. There is another romantic angle coming from the unlikely and tragic housemaid Rosanna Spearman. And a second reference to a literary classic when the odd medical assistant  Ezra Jennings recommends that Franklin consult De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Sergeant Cuff is notable for his on-going battle with the Verinder’s gardener regarding the care of roses

“I haven’t much time to be fond of anything, but when I have a moment’s fondness to bestow, most times, Mr. Betteredge, the roses get it.”

And for such observations of during his investigation as this gem:

“If you will look about you (which most people won’t do),” says Sergeant Cuff, “you will see that the nature of a man’s tastes is, most times, as opposite as possible to the nature of a man’s business.”

Overall, Collins develops quite an interesting cast of characters.

The Moonstone was an entertaining and interesting read into the origins of the modern detective novel. I was happy to have the excuse to read it provided by the Arion Press. The story definitely deserves the fine press treatment, so let’s now look at the Arion Press edition in more detail to flesh out The Whole Book Experience.

As some of you may have read in my previous post, I was lucky to get a glimpse of the book in production when visiting the press, so that adds a bit of fondness to the edition right away. The overall design of the book is very nice. The Mohawk Letterpress paper feels really nice to the touch and has a nice subtle aroma. (I really love the smell of good paper!). The printing in two colors and the yellow endpapers are a very nice touch, as is the Swarovski crystal “moonstone” on the spine of the slipcase. The deep blue cloth used on the binding is very striking. I also like the way the fore-edge of the text block mimics the curvature of the spine and how the pages are not all trimmed evenly.

The illustrations are excellent and the illustrator well chosen in Stan Washburn. I think the head-shot illustrations work especially well with the narratives from various characters. The Betteredge illustrations are my favorites, of course.

On the negative side, I do sometimes feel like the slipcases on Arion Press books are afterthoughts. This one is designed nicely but just not very sturdy. I wonder if it will hold up as well as the 74 year old slipcase on my Limited Editions Club Les Miserables? Especially if it passes through a couple 2^nd hand bookshops like my Les Mis did. Definitely not. I love slipcases so I’d rather have a flimsy one than none but would like to see the Arion Press beef them up a little more. I know they can do it because the slipcases for Sappho, Don Quixote, and The Structure of Rime, to name a few, are excellent. I also noticed more typos than I’m used to, even if they were only a handful in total. And a finally nit, the titling on the spine seems like it could have been more heavily weighted or, better yet, utilized a spine label so that it stood out more.

But overall, another quality edition from The Arion Press that captures that Whole Book Experience I look for in fine press. I’m admittedly spoiled in owning several Arion Press editions so the little quibbles I have with a book like this probably have more to do with comparisons with some of the Arion Press masterpieces I own and would be unnoticed in the joy of reading The Moonstone were it my only Arion Press Book.

AVAILABILITY: As this book is part of the 2012 Subscriber series, it is available directly from the Arion Press. It was issued in an edition of 300 numbered copies for sale, all signed by the artist.

So imagine my joy/jealousy when the tour we recently took at the Arion Press resulted in my daughter interviewing with and then getting a job offer at the Press. OK, it’s pretty much all joy right now; the jealousy will start as I begin to hear stories of being so close to the people and craft of making such wonderful and beautiful books. I’m thinking to myself “(What a) Wonderful World…”

The Folio Society Edition Cover

So both my readings of Swann’s Way have been in the Scott Moncrieff translation, the first in the Folio Society trade edition of In Search of Lost Time, in which the Scott Moncrieff translation was reworked to account for the corrections in the Pléiade editions. Then I guess I stepped backwards for the LEC. But nonetheless, both readings were quite enjoyable. In the Folio edition, Terence Kilmartin sums up Scott Moncrieff thus: “…his prose tends to the purple and the precious—or that is how he interpreted the tone of the original: whereas the truth is that, complicated, dense, overloaded though it often is, Proust’s style is essentially natural and unaffected, quite free of preciosity, archaism or self-conscious elegance.”

Here is Proust writing sublimely about his fears that he would ever be a great writer:

How often, after that day, in the course of my walks along the ‘Guermantes way,’ and with what an intensified melancholy did I reflect on my lack of qualification for a literary career, and that I must abandon all hope of ever becoming a famous author. The regret that I felt for this, while I lingered alone to dream for a little by myself, made me suffer so acutely that, in order not to fell it, my mind of its own accord, by a sort of inhibition in the instant of pain, ceased entirely to think of verse-making, of fiction, of the poetic future on which my want of talent precluded me from counting. Then, quite apart from all those literary preoccupations, and without definite attachment to anything, suddenly a roof, a gleam of sunlight reflected from a stone, the smell of a road would make me stop still, to enjoy the special pleasure that each of them gave me, and also because they appeared to be concealing, beneath what my eyes could see, something which they invited me to approach and seize from them, but which, despite all my efforts, I never managed to discover. As I felt that the mysterious object was to be found in them, I would stand there in front of them, motionless, gazing, breathing, endeavouring to penetrate with my mind beyond the thing seen or smelt. And if I had then to hasten after my grandfather, to proceed on my way, I would still seek to recover my sense of them by closing my eyes; I would concentrate upon recalling exactly the line of the roof, the colour of the stone, which, without my being able to understand why, had seemed to me to be teeming, ready to open, to yield up to me the secret treasure of which they were themselves no more than the outer coverings. It was certainly not any impression of this kind that could or would restore the hope I had lost of succeeding one day in becoming an author and poet, for each of them was associated with some material object devoid of any intellectual value, and suggesting no abstract truth. But at least they gave me an unreasoning pleasure, the illusion of a sort of fecundity of mind; and in that way distracted me from the tedium, from the sense of my own impotence which I had felt whenever I had sought a philosophic theme for some great literary work. So urgent was the task imposed on my conscience by these impressions of form or perfume or colour—to strive for a perception of what lay hidden beneath them, that I was never long in seeking an excuse which would allow me to relax so strenuous an effort and to spare myself the fatigue that it involved. As good luck would have it, my parents called me; I felt that I had not, for the moment, the calm environment necessary for a successful pursuit of my researches, and that it would be better to think no more of the matter until I reached home, and not to exhaust myself in the meantime to no purpose. And so I concerned myself no longer with the mystery that lay hidden in a form or a perfume, quite at ease in my mind, since I was taking it home with me, protected by its visible and tangible covering, beneath which I should find it still alive, like the fish which, on days when I had been allowed to go out fishing, I used to carry back in my basket, buried in a couch of grass which kept them cool and fresh. Once in the house again I would begin to think of something else, and so my mind would become littered (as my room was with the flowers that I had gathered on my walks, or the odds and ends that people had given me) with a stone from the surface of which the sunlight was reflected, a roof, the sound of a bell, the smell of fallen leaves, a confused mass of different images, under which must have perished long ago the reality of which I used to have some foreboding, but which I never had the energy to discover and bring to light.

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For me, Proust can write from the perspective of perception and time better than anyone. As one reads through his novel, the perspective of time shifts from his remembrances of Combray as a child, then pushes even further back in time to Swann’s love affair with Odette, and then forward again to the narrator’s love for Swann’s daughter Gilberte. In the first and third parts, he is pulling from his own memory of events; in the second part, he is pulling from other’s memories of events before he was born. His ability to describe his memories of his grandmother and aunts resonate with my memories of my own family from long ago. And his use of the ability of objects, music (the little phrase!), smells, and tastes (that Madeleine!) to conjure up those memories throughout the book totally parallels my experiences with memory.

And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect mush prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die.

…and the famous madeleine sequence. Here’s the act that created the memory:

Presently my aunt was able to dip in the boiling infusion, in which she would relish the savour of dead or faded blossom, a little madeleine, of which she would hold out a piece to me when it was sufficiently soft.

…and here’s where the memory springs into life:

Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short,, plump little cakes called ‘petites madeleines,’ which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?

…

And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of Madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I was sent before luncheon, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and bend, take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann’s park, and the water lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.

Detail of Chapter Heading

These are experiences that I cherish as well when I run across a smell, a taste, or an object that reminds me of times gone by. Like when the cutting I have from my Nana’s Christmas cactus blooms 30 years after I lost here or when I run across the old copy of Jurgen she gave me from her books. Or that feeling of déjà vu when we hear a phrase or a song. We may all have these triggers in our memories but Proust is the master of capturing the process in words.

All of this brings me back to the whole book experience. While anything can trigger memories and transport us to other times and places, a finely wrought book provides a multitude of said triggers. The LEC edition is beautiful and a pleasure to read. My copy smells a bit of dust, which bothers my eyes and nose but also triggers more bookish memories of the bookshelves of my relatives and of trips into used bookstores around the country. But it’s not too bad for a book published over 50 years ago. The slipcase is a bit torn and frayed from doing its job over those years. The cloth used for the cover, the paper, and the typework all come together marvelously. But the highlight is the illustrations by Bernard Lamotte. These are perfect imaginings of the characters and scenes from the book in amazing colors. I can

Detail of cloth cover

only wish that the LEC had decided to publish more of the books from Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. That being impossible at this point, it would be nice to see another fine press attempt it. Alas, I don’t think a press exists that would take the risk to produce the whole work. It would be a monumental task on the level of the Arion Press Don Quixote or the upcoming Bowler Press Pride and Prejudice. So for now I’ll have to be content with my LEC Swann’s Way, supplemented by the Folio Society set and the trade editions of the new translations. But that still makes for a nice shelf of Proust.

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For your information, here are a couple more images from the Folio Society edition of Swann’s Way:

Period Photographs illustrating The Folio Society edition

Title Page of The Folio Society edition

Title Page of The Moonstone

I was recently visiting my daughter in San Francisco and we took the opportunity to take the tour of the Arion Press. Tours run every Thursday afternoon and are highly worth the time even if you are only tangentially interested in fine press. Blake Riley was our host for the tour and we were delighted to be joined by Andrew Hoyem as we gathered in the gallery. he explained that they are in the process of getting out their latest publication, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. Alas, I was a week or so too early to walk out the door with my copy, so I’ll wait for it by post like all the other subscribers.

Freshly cast type in the type-foundry

The Arion Press is probably the most fully functioning press in existence  today, as they have the capability to handle every aspect of bookmaking except papermaking. Being the last type-foundry in the United States, they typically cast and set their own type for their books using their Monotype casting machines. They also have the luxury of selecting from their large selection of old and irreplaceable type, some of which were acquired from venerable printers like John Henry Nash and the Grabhorn Press. It’s very interesting watching those old machines spit out new type, especially the one that has been modified to take input from an Apple laptop. The juxtaposition of old and new technology!

The Prospectus

From the casting room we headed into the print room where there were several projects in flight and in various stages of completion. For the most part, The Moonstone was already past this point but there was still plenty of evidence of it in the press room. We also saw some proofs for the upcoming Seamus Heaney book. Blake talked us through the different ways they used the various presses and how they worked differently with different types of page designs and illustrations.

Illustrations for The MoonstoneAn Illustration plate in the press

Finally, we headed to the fully operational bindery where they were hard at work binding the first batch of the Collins books. One of the binders gave us a great rundown on the process for The Moonstone along with some great anecdotal design insight from Blake.

We finished up with a discussion of some of the other upcoming projects, including The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West and the Porgy & Bess libretto mentioned on their website. But I also learned they had some Flaubert in the works!

The Arion Press is a hidden jewel in the Presidio of San Francisco. Check it out next time you are in the area!

A stack of books waiting to be glued into their bindings

An Illustration plate in the press

Cabinets full of type