The Marriage of True Minds; | An Anthology of Fifty Love Poems from Twenty-Six Centuries | Selected by Jan & Crispin Elsted in celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary on 6 September 2022 | With engravings by | Walter Bachinski | Simon Brett | Andy English | Peter Lazarov | Abigail Rorer | Richard Wagener | & Graham Williams
[Mission, B.C.]: Barbarian Press, 2023 [in roman numerals]. Quarto, 26.8 x 19 cm. Cased in quarter crimson morocco, with a narrow morocco fore-edge strip, and decorated white paper over boards. The covering paper repeats a pattern “using elements of the Granjon Arabesque.” The ornaments were arranged and printed in squares alternating between red and pale gold. Matching morocco label to the spine, lettered in gilt. Matching morocco endbands. Cream laid endpapers. Housed in a crimson silk covered slipcase. All edges neatly trimmed. pp. [14] 9-88 [6; plus a suite of engravings: ll. 8, all loose]. A fine copy. The text was set in Pastonchi, “newly cast by Michael and Winifred Bixler from matrices owned by the press, and was put through the stick and imposed by Apollonia Elsted; the display type on the title page is ATF Civilité. The paper is Zerkall’s ENE White Smooth from the now sadly defunct Zerkall Mill near Köln.” The titles were printed in red. The binding was done by Alanna Simenson. The text comprises 50 of the Elsteds’ favourite love poems, “reaching back to classical Greece and the Old Testament, and forward through the late Middle Ages, the renaissance, and the 18th and 19th centuries to the present day, by twenty-eight poets ranging from the writer(s) of The Song of Songs which is Solomon’s to lyrics by Sappho to Chaucer, Spenser and Donne, Marvell, Clare, Christina Rossetti, Tennyson and Yeats, to contemporaries Jan Zwicky and Heather Simeney MacLeod, among many others – not forgetting the ubiquitous Anonymous, who contributes five. Eight of Shakespeare’s sonnets form a thematic spine throughout the book.” The other selections include poems by John Skelton, Edward Dyer, Philip Sidney, Thomas Campion, Charles Best, Thomas Ford, Robert Herrick, Robert Burns, Emily Dickinson, Lizette Woodworth Reese, Amy Lowell, Sarah Teasdale, Elinor Wylie, Frances Cornford, and Crispin Elsted, who also translated the selections from Sappho. The frontispiece is a wood engraving by Richard Wagener, printed in black. A wood engraved vignette by Simon Brett, also printed in black, adorns the half-title. And a wood engraved press device, cut by Edwina Ellis for use in A Christmas Carol or, The Miser’s Warning (1984, cf. item 18 above), was printed in red to the colophon page. Six engravings printed in black accompany the text, one each by Andy English, Walter Bachinski, Abigail Rorer, Peter Lazarov, Graham Williams, and Simon Brett. A total of 9 engravings embellish the book. Graham Williams’ engraving, which accompanies Donne’s A Valediction, was made 45 years ago, “for a pamphlet of Donne’s poem which he published at his Florin Press in Staplehurst, Kent- helped by Crispin, who was working with Graham during an unofficial but life-changing apprenticeship. Graham was our only teacher.” Together, the engravings “bracket the entire history of the press, coming full circle to make us end where we began- although we have no intention of ending anytime soon.” From a single state edition of 128 unnumbered copies. Of these, 108 were issued for sale. Accompanied by a suite of 7 loose engravings, along with a title leaf, enclosed in a folded cream paper portfolio. All the engravings appearing in the book were reproduced in the suite, except for Edwina Ellis’ press device and one other notable exception: “Simon Brett’s engraving for ‘Late Schubert’ did not hold up beyond the printing of the book pages. Just as the last of the edition in the book itself was completed the block split along one of the lamination lines, making further printing impossible.”. Item #329
Price: $900.00