William Stafford: An Annotated Bibliography.
Pirie, James W.

First Edition, first printing. Large octavo. 544pp. Index. More than forty illustrations, from photographs and facsimiles. Black cloth over boards, stamped in silver; a Fine copy in a pictorial dust jacket; as New. // Identifies literally thousands of items, divided into sections of: books by Stafford; books edited by Stafford; translations by Stafford; broadsides & leaflets with poems by Stafford; serials with contributions by Stafford; Stafford's contributions to works by other authors; Stafford's archival collections; and criticism of Stafford's writings. There are several appendixes which contain prose by Stafford, interviews with Stafford, translations of Stafford, and photographs by Stafford. // "William Stafford (1914-1993) was one of the most prolific and important American poets of the last half of the twentieth century. Among his many awards, Stafford served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, and received the National Book Award in 1963 for his poetry collection Traveling through the Dark. During his lifetime, Stafford wrote over sixty books of poetry that still resonate with a wide range of readers. Stafford's perspectives on peace, the environment, and education serve as some of the most articulate dialogues by a modern American writer. James W. Pirie (1913-2002) was the author of Books for Junior College Libraries: A Selected List of Approximately 19,700 Titles (1969) and Typology of Institutions of Higher Education (1974). As the well-respected Director of Aubrey R. Watzek Library at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, from 1966 to 1982, Pirie worked closely with his friend and colleague William Stafford to maintain an accurate bibliographic record of Staffords numerous publications. Following James Piries death in 2002, the Lewis & Clark College Special Collections staff expanded and updated Pirie's bibliography for this volume, the only comprehensive bibliography of William Stafford's writings. " ~ from the pubilsher.

Parole in Liberta: Marinetti's Metal Book.
Giroud, Vincent.

First Printing, limited to 500 copies. Octavo. 24pp. Bibliography. Illustrations.' Number 1 in the CODE (X) + 2 monograph series (and monograph number 7, overall) published by the Codex Foundation. Printed wrappers, stapled; a Fine copy, as New. // "This book discusses the Italian art movement, Futurism, and its impact on book design. It focuses on the metal book Parole in Liberta Olfattive Tattili-Termiche, a collection of futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's poetry, made by Tullio d'Albisola and Vincenzo Nosenzo in 1932. This limited edition of 500 copies was designed and printed by Peter Koch with the assistance of Jonathan Gerken and Max Koch. "

Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking.
Lee, Aimee.

First Edition, First Printing. Quarto. x, 194pp. Glossary, index. Wit more than three hundred illustrations, primarily from photographs (in color) and drawings, and a map. Cloth over boards; a Fine copy in dust jacket; as New. // "With a history of well over 1,500 years, Korean handmade paper, known as hanji, is familiar to Koreans but a mystery outside its home country. This lustrous paper that comes in a wide array of thickness, color, size, and translucency was once a coveted item inside and beyond Korean borders. Made by farmers during bitter cold winters, hanji was a noble marker of the literati that demanded paper for books, documents, calligraphy, and painting. Hanji also played a spiritual role as the ground for illuminated sutras, the body of temple decorations, and spirit of rituals where it was burned in hopes that its ashes would rise to the sky. Fashioned into objects that ranged from kites to armor to shrouds to chamber pots, there was seemingly no end to the possibilities of human ingenuity merged with transformation of nature's fibers, until the forces of history and industrialization collided and left this once celebrated substrate and its related practices near extinction. In this first Engilsh-language book about Hanji, Aimee Lee shares her experience as a Korean-American artist on her search for a traditional Korean paper-making teacher. Of the handful of American hanji researchers, she is the only one to have interacted with Koreans in their own language while simultaneously learning the craft. Not only did she meet the few remaining paper-makers who still practice the indigenous Korean sheet formation method, but she also found teachers of related crafts that include jiseung—cording and weaving hanji, joomchi—texturing and felting hanji, natural dyeing, and calligraphy." ~ from the publisher.

Various Small Books: Referencing Various Small Books by Ed Ruscha.
[Ruscha, Ed] Edited and compiled by Jeff Brouws, Wendy Burton, and Herman Zschiegner; Text by Phil Taylor, with an essay by Mark Rawlinson.

First Edition, First Printing. Octavo. 288pp. Illustrated throughout with many color photos. Red cloth over boards, with white stamped lettering on spine and front cover. Fine. As New. // With his books, Ruscha expanded the artist's field of permissible subjects, approaches, and methods. With VARIOUS SMALL BOOKS, various artists pay tribute to Ed Ruscha and extend the legacy of his books. At once celebratory, serious, and challenging, the collection gracefully offers new points of inquiry for considering an artist whose core questions remain wonderfully unresolved. ~ publisher

Designing Nature. The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art.
Carpenter, John T.

First Edition (paperback only). Quarto. 216pp. Notes, selected bibliography, index. Color illustrated wrappers, printed wrap-around band; a Fine copy, as New. // "The distinctive style of Japanese art known as Rinpa embraces bold, graphic renderings of natural motifs and formalized depictions of fictional characters, poets, and sages. An aesthetic that arose in Japan in the 16th century and flourished until modern times, the Rinpa school is celebrated for its use of lavish pigments and its references to traditional court literature and poetry. Central to the Rinpa aesthetic is the evocation of the natural world—especially animals and plants with literary connotations—as well as eye-catching compositions that cleverly integrate calligraphy and image. Featuring beautiful color reproductions of some ninety works—including painting, calligraphy, printed books, textiles, lacquerware, ceramics, and cloisonné—from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other notable public and private collections, Designing Nature traces the development of Rinpa, highlighting the school's most prominent proponents and, for the first time, the influence of this quintessential Japanese style on modern design aesthetics in both the East and the West." ~ from the publisher.

Walter Crane: The Arts and Crafts, Painting, and Politics, 1875 - 1890.
O'Neill, Morna.

First Edition. Quarto. 296pp. Notes, bibliography, index. More than seventy illustrations, several in color. Red cloth over boards; a Fine copy in dust jacket. // Walter Crane (1845-1915) was one of the most important, versatile, and radical artists of the 19th century: a painter, decorator, designer, book illustrator, poet, author, teacher, art theorist, and socialist. Crane's astonishingly diverse body of work challenged the establishment, both artistically and politically. In this original and carefully researched new study, Morna O'Neill presents a fascinating portrait of an artist who used his talent and energy to dismantle the traditional boundaries between fine art and decorative art, between elite art and popular art, and between art and propaganda. O'Neill reconsiders Crane's politics and reintegrates it with his art, allowing Crane to emerge in this book as a unique figure, an artist who translated "art for art's sake" into "art for all."

"Gun Shy" [Broadside].
Oakley, Annie.

Limited Edition. Broadside. Single sheet, 10 x 18", printed in ochre & brown. A Fine copy, as New. One of 151 copies. // "Annie Oakley (1860 - 1926) was born Phoebe Ann Mosey (or Moses) near Greenville, Ohio. Her Quaker parents raised seven children on their farm until Annie's father was caught in a blizzard and succumbed to pneumonia. By age ten, Annie was sent to the poor farm, then to live with an abusive family for several years. She escaped back to her mother's home, taught herself to shoot a rifle, and quickly paid off their mortgage by selling game. In 1875 Annie defeated well-known marksman Frank Butler in a shooting contest — and married him shortly afterward. Annie became Butler's assistant in his sharp shooting show, but as audiences clearly preferred Annie, the two soon switched roles. Annie was a curiosity, dressed in a homemade costume that modestly covered her petite frame but also allowed her to shoot with athletic grace. The couple joined Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show, where Annie performed for 17 years, traveling to New York, Paris and London. Upon seeing her shoot the wick off a burning candle, the famous Chief Sitting Bull adopted Annie, bestowing the nickname "Watanya Cicilla" (Little Sure-Shot). In 1894 Thomas Edison captured her performance on film at his studio in New Jersey, making her the first cowgirl to appear in a motion picture. Despite not being from the West, Annie defined our notion of a cowgirl as a self-reliant, strong woman. She advocated for equal pay, and went to great lengths to defend her reputation. She challenged William Randolph Hearst in a series of libel lawsuits over a false newspaper story, winning 54 of 55 cases at great personal expense. After her retirement in 1913, Annie continued to tour the country, teaching over 15,000 women how to use firearms responsibly. Illustrated by Chandler O'Leary and printed by Jessica Spring, demanding that our federal government enact strict controls to end gun violence."

At the Turn of the Centuries: The Influence of Early 20th Century Book Arts on Contemporary Artist's Books. Three essays adapted form conference presentations given at Yale University on April 13, 2007.
Rossman, Jae Jennifer, edited and with an introduction by.

Limited Edition. Small octavo. 48pp. With eighteen illustrations. Glossy wrappers, a Fine copy, as New. // Published as Book Arts Essay 4. The essays are by Stephen Bury ("The Text Engine and the Artist's Book"), Marcia Reed ("Material Encounters Content"), and  Angela Lorenz ("Research in the Works").

Jess: O! Tricky Cad & Other Jessoterica.
Duncan, Michael, edited by.

First Printing. Quarto. 192pp. One hundred fifty illustrations, nearly one hundred of which are in color. Stiff light blue wrappers, illustrated dust jacket with a poster printed on the verso; a Fine copy, as New. "The artist Jess has been known for decades to cognoscenti as an inventive and sophisticated master of the collage aesthetic. His works are now receiving fresh attention from a younger generation attuned to Jess's interests in myth, narrative, and appropriation. A unique synthesis of art and literature, Jess's collages intermingle and juxtapose images taken from wildly eclectic sources (Dick Tracy, Dürer, 1887 Scientific American line engravings, Beatles bubblegum cards, beefcake photos from Physique Pictorial, etc.) in order to re-assemble the meanings of our time. This volume brings to light collages, collage books, word poems, and altered comic strips that have been largely inaccessible or unavailable since their making. Originally published in small editions and hard-to-find journals, or made as singular artist's books, these works demonstrate the full range of Jess's extraordinary verbal and visual play. Legibility has been emphasized in the reproductions, so that the work can be fully engaged and read. Several of Jess's surreal comic strip manipulations—including all of the existing Tricky Cads—are reproduced for the first time in their entirety. The book also includes a group of complex wraparound book covers, several unpublished collage poems, and two artist's books never before reproduced in full—From Force of Habit, a "fantastic tale" which plays with the pages of a cult 1895 Swedish sci-fi novel, and When a Young Lad Dreams of Manhood, a homoerotic paean (and naughty parody of the priapic urge). Jess's twenty-page collage masterpiece O! is also included as a separate booklet, and the dust jacket unfolds to a 19 x 25 poster reproduction of a large-scale paste-up. JESS (1923-2004), born Burgess Collins in Long Beach, California, was trained as a chemist and worked during World War II on the production of plutonium for the Manhattan Project. Experiencing anxiety over the ramifications of his work on atomic energy, Jess abandoned science and his surname in 1949 and enrolled in the California School of Fine Arts. He soon met poet Robert Duncan and the couple embarked on a domestic relationship of shared aesthetic concerns, setting up their home as a haven for books, literature, and the art of their friends. Duncan and Jess were active participants in the burgeoning Bay Area poetry and art scenes, developing close friendships with Helen Adam, Wallace Berman, Robin Blaser, George Herms, Harry Jacobus, Patricia and Lawrence Jordan, Michael McClure, and Jack Spicer. Jess's self-reflexive style of image-making was most powerfully conveyed in the Translations (1959-76), a group of thirty-two paintings based on found images. They were exhibited in his first solo show in New York in 1971 at the Odyssia Gallery and shown three years later at MOMA. His paste-ups and Tricky Cad works were included in early Pop Art and assemblage exhibitions on both coasts. A major retrospective was organized by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo in 1993 and traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Jess's work is the centerpiece of the 2013-14 exhibition, An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan & Their Circle organized by the Crocker Art Museum and travelling to Grey Art Gallery, New York University; Katzen Art Gallery, American University; and the Pasadena Museum of California Art. His work resides in numerous private and public collections including those of the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art" ~ from the publisher.

Dates: A Global History.
Nasrallah, Nawal.

First Printing. Octavo. 136pp. Recipes, references, selected bibliography, index. Nearly ninety illustrations, 60 in color. Brown cloth over boards; a Fine copy in dust jacket. // "In Dates, Nawal Nasrallah draws on her experience of growing up in the lands of ancient Mesopotamia, where the date palm was first cultivated, to explore the history behind the fruit. Dates have an important role in their arid homeland of the Middle East, where they are a dietary staple, consumed fresh or dried, as a snack or a dessert. They are even thought to have aphrodisiac qualities. The ancients said that the date palm had 360 uses: its seeds can be burned for charcoal, its trunk used as an irrigation pipe in fields, its leaves are woven into baskets and its sap can be turned into wine. It is no wonder, then, that it has played such a central role in the economy & and the culture & of the Middle East. The date palm's story follows its journey from its land of origin to the far-flung regions where it is cultivated today, such as Australia, California and Spain. Along the way, Nasrallah weaves many fascinating and humorous anecdotes that explore the etymology, history, culture, religion, myths and legends surrounding dates. She explains how the tree came to be a symbol of the Tree of Life; how it is associated with the fiery phoenix, the famous ancient goddess Ishtar and the moon; and lifts the veil on the curious sex life of the date palm." ~ from the publisher.

Aurora, Daughter of the Dawn: A Story of New Beginnings. With drawings by Clark Moor Will; afterword by Jane Kirkpatrick.
Kopp, J.J.

First Edition. Octavo. 71pp. Illustrations. Illustrated glossy wrappers; a Fine copy, as New. // "As she lies ill from smallpox, thirteen-year-old Aurora recalls in her journal the important events of her short life. Though apprehensive when she learned her family would be leaving Missouri for a new home in the West, soon she was looking forward to the long journey, which finally began on May 23, 1855. She describes her family's adventures on the Oregon Trail and her hopes for a new beginning in her new home. 'Aurora' is a novel based on the life of Aurora Keil, whose father William founded one of the more successful Oregon utopian communal societies in the nineteenth century on the Pudding River in Marion County in 1856. Named for his daughter, the Aurora Colony (or Aurora Mills, as it was also known) grew to a population of more than 600 individuals who followed Keil's basic Christian beliefs. The Aurora Colony became known for its orchards, food, music, textiles, furniture, and other crafts as well as its communal lifestyle and German traditions. Readers of all ages, from middle school students to adults, will appreciate this intimate and personal glimpse into a compelling chapter in Oregon history." ~ from the publisher.

Morris Graves: Selected Letters. Edited by Vicki Halper and Lawrence Fong.
Graves, Morris.

First Edition. Small quarto. 324pp. Index. More than forty illustrations, 13 in color. Black cloth over boards, spine gilt; a Fine copy in dust jacket. // "Morris Graves is a major American painter with roots in the Pacific Northwest. Morris Graves: Selected Letters draws on a vast cache of his unpublished correspondence, dating from his teenage years until his death in 2001. Few visual artists of any era have left such a rich and wide-ranging collection of letters, which makes this body of work an unusual and valuable document in American art. The Graves correspondence is remarkable for its scope, variety, and depth. Written to many correspondents over long periods of time, the letters include the artist's reflections on his art, the art world, philosophy (Zen Buddhism and Vedanta in particular), architecture (Graves designed his homes and gardens), and relationships with family, friends, and lovers. Graves himself preserved most of the letters, or copies of them, and put no restrictions on their use. Other letters come from a wide range of private and institutional sources. Among the correspondents are Graves's family; Marian Willard, his art dealer; Richard Svare, his companion in the 1950s; and Nancy Wilson Ross, novelist and Buddhist scholar. Other notable figures with whom Graves corresponded are poet Carolyn Kizer, art critic Theodore Wolff, curator Peter Selz, choreographer Merce Cunningham (for whom Graves created a set design), and painter Mark Tobey. Recurrent themes in the Graves letters are the tensions between sociability and solitude; the desire to be free of the material world versus the need for material comfort; the dismissal of commerce and the desperate need for money; the pleasures and pitfalls of love; and the difficulties of the creative life. The letters are organized topically under the broad categories of people (family, friends, intimates), places (homes and travels), and art (finances and philosophy). Independent curator Vicki Halper knew Graves toward the end of his life through her work as a modern art curator at the Seattle Art Museum. Lawrence Fong is the curator of American and regional art at the University of Oregon's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. " ~ from the publisher.

A Kat Ran Checklist. Limited editions designed, printed an/or published between 1994 and mid-2012. With an introduction, occasional comments, and an essay about fine printing by Michael Russem. Prepared at the Cambridge Offices upon closing of the Florence Offices.
Russem, Michael.

Limited edition of three hundred fifty copies. 55pp. Illustrated with photographs in color. Composed in 9/13 Walbaum Ten with Walbaum Grotesk and printed on Mohawk Superfine via 4-color offset lithography. White wrappers printed with black titles; in a red dust jacket with white titles; a Fine copy. // Identifies more than ninety projects under a variety of headings ('Incomplete Student Work'; 'Kat Ran Press Publications'; 'Printed & Designed'; 'Designed & Printed Somewhere Else'; 'Books printed (but not designed)'; & 'The Kat Ran Ephemera Club'); additionally, includes two essays - 'The Beginning and the End of the Kat Ran Press You Knew', and 'Fine Printing's Design Problem'.

Born Modern: The Life and Design of Alvin Lustig.
Heller, Steven and Elaine Lustig Cohen.

Second printing. Quarto. 207pp. Appendixes, endnotes, index. Numerous illustrations throughout, reproductions of Lustig's work as well as many photographs of Lustig, his offices, and other three-dimensional work. Decorative paper over boards; a Fine copy in dust jacket, as New. // "Alvin Lustig was modern before it was cool. But there has never been a monograph devoted to his work—until now. A genius best known for his book covers and interior design, his theories on design education were precursors to the curricula of some of the most renowned design schools today. Lustig lent his imaginative vision and talent to a wide range of legendary projects, from the groundbreaking architecture of 1940s Los Angeles to magazine covers that have become collector's items. Spanning the breadth of Lustig's tragically brief but prolific career, Born Modern is a must-have for any student or practitioner of design, as well as anyone interested in the history of American visual culture." ~ from the publisher

The Look of the Book: Manuscript Production in Shiraz, 1303-1452.
Wright, Elaine.

First Edition. Square quarto. xx, 399pp. Appendixes, notes, bibliography, index. More than one hundred fifty illustrations, including 90 in color. Black cloth over boards; a Fine copy in dust jacket, as New. // "The Look of the Book assesses the role of the city of Shiraz in Iranian book production between the early fourteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries. It is the first detailed analysis of all aspects of the book - illumination, codicology, illustration, calligraphy, and binding - during this significant era when the look of the book was transformed. Four periods of change are identified: the years following 1340 until the end of Injuid rule in Shiraz; the later 1350s and the 1360s, during Muzaffarid rule; the years from 1409 to 1415, when the Timurid prince Iskandar Sultan was governor of Shiraz; and the decade (1435-45) following the death of Ibrahim Sultan, Iskandar's cousin and successor as governor. Although the focus is Shiraz, the author's comparative and chronological approach to the material means production elsewhere in Iran is also considered, while the results of the study increase our understanding of the history and development of the arts of the book not only in Shiraz, or even Iran as whole, but also in other centers of the Islamic world that followed the Iranian model. Highlights of this book, which is heavily illustrated with exquisite illuminated manuscript pages, are its examination of illumination, an overlooked area of book production; the codicological aspects of the manuscripts, including paper and text layout; and the development of nasta'liq script. The manuscripts studied are held in more than fifty collections, primarily those in Dublin (Chester Beatty Library), Istanbul (Topkapi Palace Library and Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts), London (British Library), Oxford (Bodleian Library), Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale de France); and Washington, DC (Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution). Elaine Wright is curator of the Islamic Collections at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland. " ~ from the publisher.

Mortal Poems.
Hannon, Michael.

Limited Edition. Octavo. [8]pp. Light brown wrappers, sewn; a Fine copy, as New. One of one hundred seventy-five copies printed on Mohawk Superfine from Monotype Bulmer, with a cover illustration by William T. Wiley.

What is Reading For?
Bringhurst, Robert.

Second printing. Octavo. 37pp. Notes. Title-page and wrappers printed in red and black; a Fine copy, as New. // One of five hundred copies in the second printing (with some minor corrections) of a book first printed a year earlier (also in an edition of five hundred copies.) Publishes Bringhurst's remarks made from a commissioned talk at the symposium titled "The Future of Reading" at RIT in June, 2010. This (and the previous) edition printed letterpress from digital type by Bradley Hutchinson in Austin. Fifty of the original five hundred copies were numbered & signed by the author, and printed on mouldmade paper.

Notes from Disappearing Lake. The River Journals of Robert Sund.
Hughes, Glenn and Tim McMulty, edited by.

First Printing. Octavo. xii, 84pp. Glossy pictorial wrappers; a Fine copy, as New. // Includes material originally published in 'Shack Medicine' (Tangram Press, 1990.)

The Bears in My Life: A Collection.
McCracken, Jon Henri.

Limited Edition of one thousand copies. Oblong quarto. 192pp. Photo index with descriptive text for the more than two hundred images, and bibliography. Pictorial endsheets. Full gray cloth stamped in silver, with a color pictorial dust jacket; a Fine copy, as New. This is one of 500 numbered copies signed by the author, with a photographic print tipped-in opposite the half-title; additionally, this is one of 220 copies with an original silk-screen image of a bear by Larry Cyr tipped-in opposite the colophon at the back. // "'The Bears in My Life' is a beautifully photographed tribute to Jon McCracken's collection of bear images. It is also a call to pay homage to the wild creatures that inspired their creation and to act on their behalf. Bears have captured human imagination for tens of thousands of years, simply by being bears. Mysterious, powerful and nurturing of their young, the natural characteristics of bears -- and the many, colorful, human beliefs associated with them -- have inspired creation of bear images in wood, stone, ink, glass, bronze and more. 'The Bears in My Life' features captivating photographs of images across all media and provides a wealth of information about the significance of bears within diverse cultures, over time. Author and photographer Jon McCracken gives special attention to the history of the carved, wooden bear images and artists who created them. He traces how tourism and bear images have played into the controversial and varying demands of art and commerce, and he outlines how bears have evoked human beliefs that have resulted in both bear worship and bear genocide. Jon McCracken's collection includes bear images discovered in Europe, Russia, Japan, North American and by North American Indians." ~ from the publisher.