The Book of the Erinyes

I’ve just got back from this week’s letterpress workshop where I managed to print some proofs (photo below) of the title and half-title pages of the Book of the Erinyes.

These two pages will make up the first signature of the book.  The signatures only consist of 2 sheets (8 pages in total, Crown Quarto size — 7½″ x 10″) because of the thickness of the 220gm cartridge paper I’m printing on.

The half-title page is set in 48pt Goudy, and the title page is in various smaller Goudy & Goudy Italic type with a decorative block.

link to high resolution scan of title page (JPEG ~415KB)

As the pace has started to pick up on the Book of the Erinyes project I decided it was time to get some much-needed bookbinding practice.

I’d sewn together a collection of blank signatures a week-or-so ago and tipped on the endpapers, but I was feeling somewhat nervous about the case binding.

Today I took the plunge and put together my first case binding, and attached it to the signatures to produce a finished book.

I was fairly pleased with the results — although the edges of the pages are very uneven from where I’d had to cut them with a knife since I don’t have a guillotine or a plough for trimming the pages properly.

I’ve been teaching myself bookbinding, and there have been three books which have been a great help:

• Hand Bookbinding — A Manual of Instruction by Aldren A. Watson, Dover Publications Inc.
• Handmade Bookbinding Techniques by Josep Cambras, A & C Black.
• The Bookbinding Handbook by Sue Doggett, Search Press.

I’d recommend all of these three books to anyone thinking of teaching themselves hand bookbinding.

The Handmade Books DVD from Shepherds was also an invaluable help — although the books mentioned above are excellent, watching the techniques being demonstrated lets you fully understand the process.

So my first book is bound and I’ve learnt a lot about all the necessary techniques that I can use on the Book of the Erinyes.  I’ve got at least a couple of months until the text and photographs for the Book of the Erinyes will be ready, so I’m going to do a few more practice pieces using blank paper over the coming weeks.

Last year I did an evening course in Letterpress Printing at the Brighton Independent Printmaking centre. Last week Les Ellis, the course tutor, invited me back for a 4-evening follow-on course where I could work on my own project, but with Les Ellis and colleague John Packer on hand to refresh my memory and provide expert advice.

I’ve just got back from the first of these four 3-hour Letterpress Printing workshops, and I’m happy to say that I managed to remember most of what I was taught on last year’s course.

This evening I manage to get the half-title and title pages hand-composited and locked into chases, ready for proofing and printing next week.

The half-title page is set in 48pt Goudy, while the title page is a mixture of 30pt Goudy (for the title), 24pt Goudy Italic (for the subtitle), and some 12pt Goudy for the small print.  It also includes a very nice decorative block.  I hope to be able to show you the results next week.

I’m really pleased with the progress today — I managed to get more done in one session than I’d hoped. Next week’s session can’t come soon enough.