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<div class="plus"> 41</div>
<div class="client">Stunning Books</div>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><font size="+1">Introduction</font></strong></p>
<p>The private press books on show are all hand-crafted: printed on fine
paper, bound individually, limited in issue number, and almost all
contain fine illustrative matter, usually wood-cuts or engravings.
With such superb productions, it is inevitable that a number of well-known
illustrators were commissioned to illustrate these books. Such artists
include Eric Gill, Blair Hughes-Stanton, and the Dunedin-born John
Buckland Wright. </p>
<p> The books define the notion of a private press, which is an unofficial
press that runs not for profit, but to produce works of some aesthetic
merit for a restricted audience. Enthusiasm for printing is clearly
a prerequisite and most presses are informed by a strong craft ethic.
Not normally seen in bookshops, they are simply stunning.</p>
<p> Presses featured include the Kelmscott Press, founded by William
Morris, the ‘Father of the Arts and Craft Movement’, the
Doves Press, and Lucien Pissarro’s Eragny Press, to the Welsh
Gregynog Press, the Ashendene Press, and local New Zealand operations
such as Caxton Press and The Pear Tree Press.</p>
<p> Notable items on display include The Tale of King Coustans (1894),
an original Kelmscott production, a Rampant Lion Press printing of
Samuel Johnson’s The Vanity of Human Wishes (1984), Robert Louis
Stevenson’s Prayers (1999), a 1993 spread featuring Rimbaud’s
poem Voyelles (Vowels), Judith Haswell’s painstaking three year
production of Potsherds and Geraniums (1988-91), and Alan Loney’s
experimental Dawn/Water (1979) and Squeezing the Bones (1983).</p>
<p> The 41 examples on display are a select sample from Special Collections,
University of Otago Library, and the Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection,
Dunedin Public Library.</p>
<p class="smalltag"> <strong>Long live the book</strong></p>
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