The 20 "written" copies of The Kelmscott & Doves Presses shipped out from Claudia Cohen's bindery this week, and I saw the finished piece for the first time just like everyone else. She and I had had long discussions about aspects of the structure, materials & overall design, but she always has a degree of freedom with these projects to proceed as she deems appropriate ‑ there’s not much point in working with someone like Claudia if you don’t take advantage of her opinions and inspirations. My main direction was that I wanted the binding to be muted and light in appearance, to contrast the large format.
These copies are quarter-bound in vellum, the sections sewn on vellum slips which were then laced through the vellum spine. The boards are covered in a subtle paste paper Claudia made for the project. The tooling on the front board reflects parts of Pollard's essay, about page proportions. The endpapers are Japanese echizen metallic silver, with a red leather hinge.
In addition to adding all of the calligraphy to each of these copies, Martin Jackson signed the colophon. They also include the liveliest Kelmscott leaves from what was available. The book is issued in a box covered in light gray Japanese cloth, edged with the echizen.
With these copies now distributed, the project is truly completed (and happily, no copies of other issue remain available). I'll be spending the summer working on the Griffo project. Ciao.
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