The Service
Toronto: Coach House Press, [1978; sheets]. Octavo, 22.6 x 14.5 cm. Cased first in full teal cloth over boards, then covered with printed paper. The covering paper was elaborately printed and decorated by William Rueter in several passes by letterpress. The background was printed with multiple registrations of wood blocks in various shades of blue. Text from the novel in two different sizes and a few orientations was overprinted in black. Wood blocks, metal cuts, and finger prints were impressed over the text in violet, bronze, gold, and black; Quarrington’s name is printed with wood type in bronze to the lower cover and the spine; and the title is printed to the upper cover with wood type, in two passes, in purple and red. Plain grey endpapers. [ll. 2: 1 blank and a later limitation leaf tipped to the text-block; pp. 6] 7-182 [pp. 2; plus ll. 2: later blanks tipped to the text-block]. Barely perceptible split of roughly 2 cm to the covering paper at the top of the upper cover joint; else a fine copy. The text was set in Baskerville and Clarendon according to a design by Glenn Goluska and printed offset at Coach House Press. “This hardcover issue of the author’s first book was hardbound from original sheets by Will Rueter in an edition of 50 numbered copies signed by the author Spring 1994. The sewn signatures were recovered during the relocation of The Coach House warehouse in the summer of 1989, and are being issued by the Small Press Resource Centre in homage to the author and the trees.” The present copy is number 22 of a stated 50 copies. According to Nick Drumbolis only 25 copies were completed (Drumbolis 2020, 186). As Nick also notes, this was “the first production involving three of Canada’s greatest indie bookies, Glenn, Stan and Will” (Ibid.). Signed in ink by Quarrington on the limitation page. The Service is Quarrington’s first published novel. Item #298
Price: $400.00