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uwmspeccoll · 2 years

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It’s Fine Press Friday!

This week we bring you The Bottom of the Harbor, by the The New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell, with photos by by celebrated American photographer Berenice Abbott, printed by Wild Carrot Letterpress on a paper made at Cartiere Enrico Magnini, and published in 1991 by the Limited Editions Club in an edition of 250 copies signed by the author. The six stories that comprise the book were first published in the The New Yorker, and then first published as a collection by Little Brown in 1959. The collection has been recognized as Mitchell’s best and most “elegiac account of New York,” featuring his distinctive focus on the everyday underdog characters of New York City.

Berenice Abbott spent her career documenting New York City as it underwent massive changes, particularly in the 1920s and 30s when millions were immigrating to the United States through Ellis Island. Abbott’s and Mitchell’s works are complementary as they both focused on often overlooked places and people, emphasizing the importance and beauty of the small things.

The photographs are produced here in photogravure by American photogravure printmaker Jon Goodman. Photogravure allows a photographic image to be printed in intaglio. These images were produced using the original negatives taken by Abbott. The result is a rich velvety tonal image that is fully integrated into the paper though the extreme pressure used in the printing process.

Goodman’s photogravure plates were printed by Sara Krohn and Wingate Studio on handmade paper. The text was set by Michael and Winifred Bixler in Monotype Bell. Our copy is a gift from our friends Megan Holbrook and Eric Vogel.

View other posts on books published by The Limited Editions Club.

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-- Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern

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uwmspeccoll · 4 years

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It’s Fine Press Friday!

On this #FinePressFriday before Halloween we present some creepy scenes from a 1964 Limited Editions Club edition of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, with 16 original color lithographs by American artist and illustrator Joe Mugnaini. The edition, limited to 1500 copies signed by the artist, was designed by Peter Oldenburg in 11-pt. Monotype Bell type on wove paper specially made for this edition by the Curtis Paper Company of Newark, Delaware, and printed at the Press of A. Colish in Mt. Vernon, N.Y.

Mugnaini’s graphic depictions capture the unsettling experiences of the Time Traveler encountering the Eloi in their deteriorating buildings and battling the troglodytic race of the Morlocks in 802,701 CE., as well as the Traveler’s ultimate encounters with a dying Earth millions of years in the future with its final, degenerate inhabitants and a giant, dim, red sun. Mugnaini drew the illustrations directly on the lithographic plates and the prints were pulled by master printer George C. Miller in New York.

View a 1931 Limited Editions Club printing of The Time Machine with equally creepy design and illustrations by the famed graphic designer W. A. Dwiggins.

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#Fine Press Friday #Fine Pres Fridays #Halloween #holidays #pagefrights #H. G. Wells #The Time Machine #Limited Editions Club #Joe Mugnaini #lithographs #color lithographs #George C. Miller #Peter Oldenburg #Press of A. Colish #Curtis Paper Company #Monotype Bell #fine press books

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