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The Spectacular Mosaic Bindings of Curtis Walters
By Stephen J. GertzNot too long ago, I had a mosaic binding pass through my hands. It was all I could do to let go of it. The book was bound by the great American binder, Curtis Walters.The front cover...
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The Stunning Retro Collages Of Muharrem Çetin
By Stephen J. GertzUSA TODAY, from Neptune.We confine ourselves to rare books on Booktryst yet, because typography is such a key element in them, any time we discover interesting uses of the art that...
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A Doves Binding To Die For
By Stephen J Gertz"A thing of beauty is a joy forever." So Keats declares in the first line of Endymion (1818), and never has a poem so succinctly expressed the exquisite loveliness of the binding it...
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New Bibliography of Dickens First American Editions a Must-Have
By Stephen J. GertzIt's the literary scholarship event of this, the Charles Dickens bicentennial. Let the celebration begin.Charles Dickens: A Bibliography of His First American Editions 1836-1870, the...
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Father of Graphic Design: Dwiggins in Living Color
by Alastair JohnstonBill Dwiggins (1880–1956), type designer, book designer, typographer, calligrapher, writer, artist & puppeteer is famously the first American to call himself a graphic designer....
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Edmund Dulac's Persian Pearls
By Stephen J. GertzNeither serpents, nor magicians, nor sickness, nor accidents can touch him who has and holds in honour a pearl born in the head of a serpent (Léonard Rosenthal, stanza 66, from Au...
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Books, Drugs, and Wallpaper
by Stephen J. GertzStruggling booksellers seeking new ways to broaden their client base and increase profits may wish to follow the model of F.W. Richter, who, in 1907, advertised in Tried and True: a...
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The Wearable Artist Books of Johanne Renbeck
by Stephen J. GertzWater Is the Blood of Earth"I make artist books about the woods and the moon, about wetlands and frogs, about how it feels to be surprised by a certain light and see my shadow cast...
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Bookplates in a Printer’s Library, Part II
by Alastair Johnston(Note: part I will follow tomorrow)Bookplates can create wonderful associations to their former owners. For a lover of ephemera the bookplate of Bella C. Landauer, drawn by Sidney...
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Bookplates in a Printer's Library, Part I
by Alastair JohnstonAs a letterpress printer, I create a lot of ephemera. Recently I was asked to design a bookplate, so I have been thinking about this ephemeral work (though, like a bumper-sticker,...
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Madonna's Rare JHS Yearbook Comes To Auction: A Personal Overview
by Stephen J. GertzIn Booktryst's ongoing effort to bring to readers the most important, indeed earth-shattering stories from the world of rare books, we herald the news that Madonna's rare 1971-1972...
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You Can Smoke William Faulkner's Pipe For Only $3,000-$5,000
by Stephen J. GertzOne of Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Faulkner's tobacco pipes is being offered at auction house PBA Galleries Fine Literature - Cooking & Gastronomy sale, today, August...
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Female Excellence: Satyr Pokes Women
by Stephen J. GertzThe most celebrated wit and courtier in Restoration England, John Wilmont, 2d Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) suffered from a laundry list of STDs and alcoholism when he died at age...
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D-I-V-O-R-C-E or, John Milton on Splitsville
by Stephen J. GertzIn 1643, poet John Milton, who later wrote Paradise Lost, anonymously published The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, the first of four tracts he wrote 1643-1645 in support of...
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Mr. Bunting in Paradise
by Alastair JohnstonBunting's Persia. Translations by Basil Bunting. Edited by Don Share. Flood Editions, 2012.Ask your distant cousins out there in Middle America what they fear most and they will...
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A Leopard Gave Its Life For This Binding
by Stephen J. Gertz Sometime between 1828 and 1832, a copy of One Hundred Fables, Original and Selected by James Northcote (1828) was bound with leopard skin panels. This is that copy.Bound unsigned in...
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Meet John Guttemberg, Printer
by Stephen J. GertzIn 1657, London stationer William Lee issued the fifth (sixth) edition of Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives. of the Noble Greeks and Romans. In addition to the usual...
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The Artistic Roots of Modern Typography
by Alastair JohnstonMatthew McLennan Young The Rise and Fall of the Printers' International Specimen Exchange.Oak Knoll Press $59.95Not all books have a plot, or a beginning and an end. I am not...
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A Scarce Libation: Bacchus, Rumfusticus Bibulus, and R. Cruikshank
by Stephen J. GertzMeeting of Victuallers. "The Publicans, as well as every other branch of the community, were aware that recent improvements in modern science had effected a Rail Road from this Earth...
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William Heath On Womens Hats and Fashion Madness, Part I
by Stephen J. GertzModern Oddities by P. Pry (W. Heath). Plate 1st. The Sleeves Curiously Cut. June 30, 1829.A singular collection of vividly colored, vividly satiric prints on Regency England fashions...
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