Beautiful Books in Limited Editions
The books they published were "beautifully bound, hand set books." One of their most beautiful books was the was the Hindu Love Manual which they first found while on holiday in Damascus. They reprinted it in October 1928, printing only 20 copies. Bound in navy blue leather, the cover was stamped with gold to reflect the style of ancient Persian manuscripts. The inside pages were printed on handmade paper colored a distinctive shade of gray and decorated with a gold border. Each illustration in every copy was hand-colored.
Their books were generally published in small numbers, usually less than 500 copies, sometimes as few as 10 or 20. They were "marked by clean lines, sharp typeface, and fine inks and papers." Some editions were published first as a "limited" edition, usually numbered and autographed, showcased with detailed design and costly materials, followed by a less expensive "trade" edition. Most were issued in slipcases. They published Les Liaisons Dangereuses with illustrations by Alastair. The cover was red-purple cloth with gilt lettering; it contained 14 engravings on color plates, with tissue guards, and numerous in-text illustrations.
In 1929, they published Harry Crosby's volume of verse, Mad Queen, which showed the influence of Surrealism and which included withering attacks on Bostonian tradition. Apart from his obsession with the sun, his writing increasingly contained references to dissolution and suicide. He viewed death as violent, quick, and liberating.
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Famous quotes containing the words beautiful, books, limited and/or editions:
“When all who had money and leisure
Grew rural o’er ices and wines,
All pleasantly toiling for pleasure,
All hungrily pining for pines,
And making of beautiful speeches,
And marring of beautiful shows,
And feeding on delicate peaches,
And treading on delicate toes.”
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)
“Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.... Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“The opportunities for heroism are limited in this kind of world: the most people can do is sometimes not to be as weak as they’ve been at other times.”
—Angus Wilson (1913–1991)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)