An Invitation to British Columbia; | A letter from T.E. LAWRENCE to MARTIN A. GRAINGER | Preface by Jeremy Wilson | Forward by Don Stewart
Vancouver: Heavenly Monkey, 2005. Octavo, 20.5 x 14.5 cm. Cased in limp covers of tan ‘paper vellum’ handmade by Reg Lissel. The upper cover is printed with the initials 'T.E.L | M.A.G.’ and an arrangement of dots. The lower cover is printed simply with ‘H•M’. The spine is lettered in black. pp. [10, including uniform endpapers and pastedown] 5-14 [12, including uniform rfeps. & pastedown, plus a fold-out leaf of vegetable parchment paper printed on the recto only]. A fine copy. The text was set in Garamont and printed on HM Text paper handmade by Reg Lissel. Display accents in Garamont are printed in green throughout. A facsimile of the titular letter is printed on a fold-out leaf of vegetable parchment paper; it was reproduced from a polymer plate by David Clifford at his Black Stone Press. The frontispiece is a wood engraving by George Kuthan (1916-1966): “the block was kindly provided by the University of British Columbia’s Special Collections Library.” From a total edition of 70 copies, of which 20 (I-XX) were hors commerce. This copy is one of the balance of 50 signed and numbered copies. It is number 27. Signed in ink by Jeremy Wilson and Don Stewart on the colophon page. Item #377
“Contrary to the colophon, not entirely set by hand: I started by printing the first and last two sheets, including the colophon, which had to be sent to England for Jeremy to sign while I finished printing the book. I set & printed his four-page essay without problem, and then started printing Don’s. To my consternation and horror, the type started dissolving before my eyes! (It had been cast by Jim Rimmer for Good & Evil in the Garden. It’s not a great face, but it was the best roman for which he had matrices.) Despite being printed on dampened paper with the gentlest of impression, serifs, descenders & ascenders disappeared with each pull. The project was saved with David Clifford’s help: we would set Don’s essay in digital Garamont and print it from polymer. But even with the greater care, it wouldn’t look the same as the sheet I had completed, so we set both Don’s and Jeremy’s texts in polymer, and printed them dry. If you look closely you can see the printing on pages 7-14 is not quite as black, and a little thicker than the sheets I printed with metal.” — Rollin Milroy (This Monkey’s Gone to Heaven, 1.13).
Price: $300.00