Non Libri Sed Liberi

non libri sed liberti
Gerald Lange, of The Beieler Press, printed this broadside with an excerpt from Kenneth Grahame’s essay from 1898 (Grahame also wrote The Wind in the Willows). This particular paragraph is often referred to as the “Lament to a Bookbinder.” Lange used a digital version of Monotype Bell that he altered to work with letterpress printing. I suppose in keeping with the time that the essay was written, it’s printed on a paper called Somerset Velvet Newsprint Grey. The lament is below, you can read about Graham, or the entire essay is here

Of a truth, the foes of the book-lover are not few. One of the most insidious, because he cometh at first in friendly, helpful guise, is the bookbinder. Not in that he bindeth books — for the fair binding is the final crown and flower of painful achievement — but because he bindeth not: because the weary weeks lapse by and turn to months, and the months to years, and still the binder bindeth not: and the heart grows sick with hope deferred. Each morn the maiden binds her hair, each spring the honeysuckle binds the cottage-porch, each autumn the harvester binds his sheaves, each winter the iron frost binds lake and stream, and still the bookbinder he bindeth not. Then a secret voice whispereth: “Arise, be a man, and slay him! Take him grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May; At gaming, swearing, or about some act That hath no relish of salvation in it!” But when the deed is done, and the floor strewn with fragments of binder — still the books remain unbound. You have made all that horrid mess for nothing, and the weary path has to be trodden over again. As a general rule, the man in the habit of murdering bookbinders, though he performs a distinct service to society, only wastes his own time and takes no personal advantage.

A Little Nudge

Lulu’s mini book contestI’ve been too busy with other stuff recently to think much about my own bookmaking projects. Last month my computer died unexpectedly (isn’t that always the way it works?) and I had to get a new one with an updated operating system. For a while it looked like I wasn’t going to convince my very old but much loved inkjet printer to work with my new setup and as I looked at large format inkjet printers as replacements, I began dreaming up new projects to try. But after more cajoling, my faithful printer is working again, so why spend the money and (much worse) considerable learning time on a new one?
But there must be something in the air, because small nudges to work on something new seem to happen every day. Yesterday my friend Kate sent a link to a contest at Lulu: Create a Mini Photography Book. Win $500. Even if I don’t enter the contest, their new mini books have interesting possibilities. They have 2 sizes, 3.75×2.5 and 5.25×3.5. The smaller one is $3.99 each for a 20 page book, and I probably couldn’t make a small edition for that price (see all the details here).
And then came a call for entries for Broadsided! The Intersection of Art and Literature, an exhibition of letterpress printed broadsides in October in Portland…. guess I better get busy!

Rabbits do not know…

I’ve seen this print at a number of book fairs and it always makes me chuckle. It’s printed by Gerald Lange, who runs Bieler Press and started the PPLetterpress list. In his Etsy shop, he gives this review of the print from Fine Print:

Here a disarmingly simple aphorism is combined with a wood engraving of two of the most perfectly astonished rabbits conceivable. The effect is priceless. Words assert, images respond. The broadside’s elements congeal, calling up the multifaceted incongruities that lie at the heart of all humor.

Rabbits do not know…

The Feminist Broadside Series

TUGBOAT THEAAnagram Press and Springtide Press in Tacoma Washington have teamed up to print a series of “feminist broadsides” — that’s the latest to the left. It’s got a quote by Thea Foss, who founded the Foss Tugboat company in Tacoma. Each one has a quote and a short history of the woman quoted — for Foss:

Norwegian immigrant Thea Christiansen Foss (1857 – 1927) arrived by train to Tacoma in 1889 as Washington achieved statehood. While her husband Andrew was at work she spent five dollars on a rowboat, launching a marine transport business that would grow into Foss Maritime, operating the west coast’s largest fleet of tugboats. Thea inspired the character “Tugboat Annie” featured in a “Saturday Evening Post” series, motion pictures and a television show. Tacoma’s Thea Foss Waterway is an inlet connected to Puget Sound named in her honor.

Others in the series are