The Splendour of a Morning; | Early Poems of C.P. Cavafy | Translated from the Greek by David Smulders | Greek text edited by Anthony Hirst | with five wood engravings by Peter Lazarov
[Mission, B.C.]: Barbarian Press, 2016 [in roman numerals]. Tall octavo, 27.5 x 15.4 cm. Cased in blue paper over boards, with a darker blue morocco spinestrip and matching morocco tips. Blue leather label, lettered in gilt, to the spine. A device with Cavafy’s name in Greek majuscules is printed in blue to the upper cover. Pale blue laid endpapers. Top edges neatly trimmed, others untrimmed. Housed in a blue silk covered slipcase. pp. [14] xi-xiv, [2] 3-73 [5; plus corrigenda slip tipped to the recto of the final rear blank; plus a suite of engravings: ll. 5, all loose ]. A fine copy. The text was set in Antigone, Van Dijck, and Open Kapitalen for display, all designed by Jan van Krimpen. It was printed on Zerkall Smooth White Wove paper. The binding was done by Alanna Simenson. Presented as a parallel text, with Cavafy’s poems in the original Greek in Antigone on the versos and Smulders’ translation into English appearing on the rectos in Van Dijck. An Open Kapitalen initial embellishes the opening of each poem. The poems are prefaced by Smulders’ Notes on Cavafy. 5 wood engravings by Peter Lazarov, including the frontispiece, accompany the poems. Each was printed in black from the original block. Additionally, a wood engraved press device by Lazarov accents the colophon page. From an edition of 100 unnumbered copies issued for sale. This copy is one of 50 comprising the deluxe state. Accompanied by a suite of loose wood engravings enclosed in a folded blue paper portfolio. Each of the 5 engravings by Lazarov appearing in the book is included in the portfolio. Each was pulled again from the original block. Item #323
“The Splendour of a Morning is a project which almost literally fell into our laps. Paul Razzell, past editor of Parenthesis in North America and proprietor of the far too short-lived Inferno Press, had chosen some years ago to publish a manuscript of thirty-seven of Cavafy’s poems in translations by a friend, David Smulders. Smulders had been living and working in Greece some years before, and having become fascinated with Cavafy’s poems he had translated some of his favourites for his own pleasure. Paul approached us to ask about possible illustrators for his edition, and we recommended Peter Lazarov, who subsequently provided Paul with five engravings.
Unfortunately Paul’s increasingly busy life continued to hamper his every attempt to get the book into production. He had designed the book by the time he decided, most regretfully, that he would have to close his press, at which point he offered the project to us. We accepted gratefully.
Paul’s plan was to publish the translations in a slim book with Peter’s engravings, a plan we were happy to embrace. However, at about this time a friend and subscriber to the press who was aware of our desire to add some commercially unavailable types to our collection offered to fund the striking of new matrices for two faces from the Monotype Corporation in England. One of these—a type we had hankered after for many years—was Jan van Krimpen’s Antigone, a Greek face of great beauty.
Consequently we redesigned the book, and we are introducing our new Antigone in this selection of Cavafy’s poems, which is published in Greek with the English translations en face set in van Krimpen’s Van Dijck. We were most fortunate to receive Anthony Hirst’s permission to use his Greek edition of Cavafy’s poems, first published in 2007 by Oxford; more than that, Mr Hirst generously offered to proofread the Greek texts for us. Peter Lazarov’s five engravings are printed from the wood. David Smulders, the translator, has at our request provided an Introduction and one further translation (‘Ithaka’).” — Jan & Crispin Elsted.
Price: $1,450.00