Delany & Haeckel Approach

Sent out a prospectus for Barbara Hodgson's Mrs Delany Meets Herr Haeckel to our usuals last week. Details here. If interested contact one of HM's booksellers (at right). Only a few copies remain reserved, and it looks like they'll be claimed by the end of the week.

"An imagined collaboration between Mrs. Mary Delany (1700-88), an English widow, woman of accomplishment, and creator of imaginative botanical “paper mosaicks,” and Herr Ernest Haeckel (1852-1911), a distinguished and controversial German biologist and artist, who devoted much of his time to the study and rendering of single-celled creatures. The book, which expands on a paper-cutting theme presented in Cutting Paper (2013), presents 58 cut-paper interpretations of microscopic organisms tipped on to 11 captioned plates.

"An introductory text provides some biographic background for Delany and Haeckel and describes how the cut-paper renderings could have come about. An appendix provides a detailed taxonomy and nomenclature for each of the plates. Tipped-in cut-paper embellishments are incorporated with the text on several pages. The book (6 x 8.5 inches, 56 pp.) is set in Fournier and printed on dampened Arches wove with the handpress at Heavenly Monkey.

"The edition will be uniformly bound by Claudia Cohen in full leather with extensive gilt tooling, to a design by the author. Each copy from the edition of 25 will be signed by the author, binder and printer, and issued in a clamshell box. Printed in the fall of 2015, copies are to be issued spring 2016."

Piling Up & Cutting Out

Entering a less verbal, more visual period for the blog ... Sheets for Barbara Hodgson's Mrs Delany Meets Herr Haeckel are piling up. Most (i.e. the ones shown here that are mostly border, with just brief captions at the bottom) will have her original papercuts mounted on them. Same for a frontis across from the title page.

She comes by once a week to pick up the latest batch, goes home & sets to the painstaking work of finishing & mounting the cuts.

Found this gem about rocks last week. Should probably go to Barbara's color reference library. We'll see. For now it's mine.

Not only is it a kool color-related book, it was printed by Enschedé! Sort of: I can't find anything in English that explains what Huyskes-Enschedé was, but it seems to have been some kind of publisher specializing in geological topics. In Holland with Enschedé attached, it has to be tied to the foundry somehow.

Barbara never reads this blog, so I have no fear about her finding out I have the thing & demanding I had it over. Same with Claudia.

Remember, if you're in LA tomorrow, that Barbara will be giving this year's Lieberman Lecture, talking about The WunderCabinet. Claudia, who claims she can't speak in public, will be hiding in the audience, no doubt piping up with questions & comments.