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 – onto the next book already!

11 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by Deep Wood Press in CODEX, Future Projects, James Dissette, Kenneth Grahame, Letterpress, Mad Parrot Press, PR and Media releases, The Wind in the Willows, Vladimir Zimakov

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illustration, James Dissette, Kenneth Grahame, literature, Mad Parrot Press, The Wind in the Willows, Vladimir Zimakov

I spent a couple days before and after Oak Knoll Fest with my partner James Dissette in Mad Parrot Press (formerly Chester River Press) brainstorming our next projects and making plans. I’ll keep you all updated as things move forward with The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame but we have established size, layout and many other aspects of the book.

We settled on typesetting the book in 14pt Centaur and Arrighi – finally a good excuse to use these exquisite typefaces which we have both admired for years but never quite had the right project for. David Carruthers of Papeterie Saint-Armand in Montreal will be making our custom stock and will most likely be making all of my paper for Deep Wood Press from here forward. Vladimir Zimakov is already onboard illustrating with his glorious linocuts and we will have a couple page spreads to show off in February, 2019 during the CODEX show in Berkeley. This will be a big book, a page size of 11.25 x 14″ (28.5 x 35.5cm) is planned and preliminary layout puts the book at around 116 pages not including front or back matter. Edition size will likely be around 60-70 books.

We’re still toying with the idea of having some sort of introduction at the foreword of the book but, really, who needs introduction to such a classic tale? Still, J.K. Rowling, if you’re reading this – we’d love to work with you!

We’ve also decided to move forward with The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster but that book will now come after we complete work on The Wind in the Willows.

I will have my other Kafka project, The Hunter Gracchus, completed for CODEX as well but I will save those details for a future post.

Back to the bindery — I’ve orders to fill!