The Wind in the Willows ~ Finished

29 Monday Nov 2021

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Kenneth Grahame, Mad Parrot Press, The Wind in the Willows

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Fine Press, Kenneth Grahame, Letterpress, Peter Hunt, The Wind in the Willows, Vladimir Zimakov

I am very pleased to present the completed standard edition of The Wind in the Willows. It has been a long journey from inception, design, editing all the way through to printing and binding here at Deep Wood Press. I do everything “in house” and transforming the piles of paper, board, leather and cloth into books is always magic for me: True alchemy, turning lead to gold.

In my previous blog entry I was waiting on materials for the cover image hoping to use calf vellum, but in my tests the skin would not cooperate and I was unhappy with the results. I finally decided to acquire a couple natural fair goat skins and dyed them to the shade I wanted, which all took a little extra time but I am finally pleased with the results.

Once again the specifications: 75 standard edition copies of the book are quarter bound, rounded and backed, in a very dark moss green Natural Goat from Siegel Leather with a cinnamon cotton book cloth. The endpapers are a printed pattern on mocha Hahnemühle Bugra with a cloth inner hinge. The title is gilt in foil on the spine in copper and silver and the debossed panel on the front cover features Rat & Mole in a crossed oar emblem foiled in dull copper on grey-dyed goat. The text is set in 14pt Centaur with Arrighi and printed on custom-made, cotton rag paper from Papeterie Saint-Armand developed especially for this book. Interwoven throughout the book are thirteen multi-color and nine 2 color linocut illustrations by Vladimir Zimakov, with an introduction from Peter Hunt. All this in large format folio size; 148 pages, 10.25 x 14″ (26×35.5 cm). $2000.00

There are also 4 copies of the book left in sheets for purchase by other binders. Please inquire.

Initially the book was not specified to include a slipcase but given the number of people desiring such an enclosure (and I don’t blame you) I have materials on hand to produce slipcases to order in full black cloth for an additional $65. Please make a note on your order if you desire this to be added to your final purchase.

To purchase please go to the Mad Parrot website or follow this link.

Email invoices have gone out to our subscribers for their balance due, if you did not receive one please contact James for details via our Mad Parrot Press website.

Once again, the deluxe edition is sold out and no longer available.

Thank you for your patience. I am as excited to get these off to you as you are no doubt to receive them.

Update: James has set up a short video on YouTube with a slideshow of the book. Many more photos to be viewed than are shown here on the blog.

The Wind in the Willows nears completion!

04 Thursday Nov 2021

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Book Bindings, Kenneth Grahame, Letterpress, Mad Parrot Press, The Wind in the Willows, Vladimir Zimakov

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Bookbinding, Fine Press, Letterpress, The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows is almost finished and will be shipping in November!

The 75 regular edition copies of the book are quarter bound, rounded and backed, in a very dark green Moroccan goat with a cinnamon cotton book cloth, the endpapers are a printed pattern on mocha Hahnemühle Bugra with a cloth inner hinge. The title is guilt in foil on the spine in copper and silver and a debossed panel on the front cover has Rat & Mole in a crossed oar emblem foiled in copper on dyed grey vellum. The text is set in 14pt Centaur and Arrighi and printed on a custom made cotton rag paper from Papeterie Saint-Armand developed especially for this book. Featuring thirteen multi color and nine 2 color illustrations by Vladimir Zimakov and an introduction from Peter Hunt, large format 10.25 x 14″ (26×35.5 cm)

Copies of the regular edition are still available and are available with a deposit at the

Mad Parrot Website

The pictures below are bench prototypes of the finished binding. The inset illustration on the cover will be done on a grey calf vellum and the patterned end papers will be printed this week. Stay tuned for finished photos coming soon!

The deluxe copies of the book are no longer available. Binding will commence on those copies as soon as the regular edition is complete. Look for pictures here in the future as these individual works of book binding explorations come to be. Inadvertently, one longtime customer was mis-marked as wanting a regular edition, to make everyone happy (I hope) there now will officially be eleven copies made in this way.

The printing has been completed and bindery work has been moving along full steam. The printing was all done on my Vandercook 219 OS proof press – nearly 800 runs on the press all hand fed and cranked with over 40 custom ink colors made. But recently it has been a great pleasure having past apprentices and students join in on the arduous process of bindery work. Daniel Schneider (Industrial Rust Press) and Tonya Baumhardt (Snow Fairy Cottage) have been especially instrumental with their more than capable skills and we’ve managed to have some good fun along the way as well. I began the printing of this book in late February of this year with snow drifting outside and today was the first snowstorm of the new winter coming on. Cycles of seasons and books continue here at Deep Wood Press.

This series of photos shows a loose progression from printing to collating, punching sections for sewing holes, cutting and paring the goat skin, foil stamping the title, sewing, rounding and backing and casing in the book blocks.