#quarter binding

Marbled Monday

This week's Marbled Monday post is A Study of the Illuminated Books of William Blake: Poet, Printer, and Prophet. It was written by British surgeon and author Geoffrey Keynes and published by the Trianon Press in 1964. The Trianon Press was a Paris-based publisher of fine art books founded in 1947 by Arnold Fawcus. The book includes an essay on Blake's illuminated books and reproductions of some of his illustrations. They are printed on paper specially made to reproduce the tint of the paper used by Blake.

The slipcase and binding are covered in the same marbled paper—a red field with green, chartreuse, and lighter red veining. The book is quarter-bound in brown Morocco leather and features the title gold-stamped on the spine and a gold-tooled line where the leather and marbled paper meet on the front and back covers. It is signed by Geoffrey Keynes.

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Birthday Anniversary - Walt Whitman, May 31, 1819

Walt Whitman was born on this day, May 31, in 1819 in West Hills, New York. At the age of 36, he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass—his seminal work of poetry that began as a pamphlet of 12 poems and grew to a tome of over 300 poems in what is called the “deathbed edition” which was copyrighted in 1891 and published in 1892, the year of Whitman’s death. The deathbed edition isn’t actually a new edition, but is essentially a new impression of the 1881 edition. 

This edition of Leaves of Grass contains the complete poems of Walt Whitman as published in the 1891-1892 edition mentioned above. It was published in 1950 by Peter Pauper Press in Mount Vernon, New York. The book features original two-color wood engravings by Boyd Hanna that illustrate the text, including one of Abraham Lincoln, who Whitman greatly admired. I particularly enjoy the engraving of a figure I assume to be Whitman, with a bird landing on the poet’s hand and his characteristic beard. 

The book was published in an edition of 1,100 and “the types used are Waverly and Lydian; the paper was specially mould-made for this book by the Hurlbut Paper Company, and the binding was done by the Russell Rutter Company” (colophon). The binding is a quarter binding done in brown leather and red paper patterned with (you guessed it!) leaves of grass printed in cream and green. 

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