Roy A Squires

I picked up the copy of Lost Worlds from the library table where Mike had recently lain it.  I was hoping to get inspiration for a quote to pass on for the day.

Inside, I found this card, which got me thinking about Roy A. Squires, and how much his work has inspired the work of Pegana Press.

When I read the words on the card, I am taken back 25 years. In those days we were very young, newly married and Mike was working in a recording studio which no longer exists, but which at the time hosted it's share of well known musicians and producers like Steve Miller, Randy Meisner, Queensrÿche, and Terry Brown.

The card included with the sale of the book was a nice touch, which  is appreciated even more now, when I see it tucked away like a snapshot in time.  I like the line which reads, Cordial regards and Good hunting, Roy.  It reminds me of how it used to be for collectors without the resource of the internet.

In the 1980s and 90s, it was amazing to walk into a book store, and know that you were on the brink of pure potential.  Books you had been seeking for years, might suddenly pop out from the shelf.  And every town had at least one used book store. Everywhere we went, the first priority was to find the local bookstore.

 Soon after we were married in 1984, and while we were still in college, we began dreaming about our library.

Mike bought a used copy of Bookman's Weekly which had an article written by Roy A. Squires. After reading it, he wrote for a catalog.

Mike recalls that a lot of what Mr. Squires sold came from personal collections of authors and friends that he knew so even the catalog is filled with little gems, insights and background of the people associated with these books.

More from Mike:

We have a fair amount of his chapbooks--tidy clean work.











And this book...

Clark Ashton Smith - The Hill Of Dionysus - Pacific Grove 1962

While my personal design tendencies are more ornate than Squires, he inspired me with his dedication to publishing lost works resting forgotten in boxes and filing cabinets and his desire to keep the hand-craftsmanship of the book arts alive.  The absolute precision of his printing is something to aspire to but takes many years to realize; and which I am still far from achieving.

I am astounded years later remembering how cordial and willing he was to help build my young library even with (at the time) fairly inexpensive copies of books. I had no idea then of the world he lived in and the people he knew and had collaborated with over the years.  He was a living repository for us that will always be missed but never forgotten.

This Week At Pegana Press

We are happy to report "The Age of Malygris" has reached the halfway point of its press run and we expect it to sell out before long.  If you are interested in a fine press edition featuring our favorite magian Malygris don't wait too long to secure your copy.

More information is available on our website Pegana Press.

Our thanks to the collectors around the world who have helped support this edition.  We hope to complete the Poseidonis stories later this year in a companion volume "The Age of Ending".

In other press news, things are progressing nicely on Lord Dunsany Lost Tales Volume 3.

And we were honored to read in Michael Swanwick's Flogging Babel that he and Marianne were enjoying Poseidonis Cycle 1 - The Age of Malygris.

Our thanks for all the customer feed back we've gotten on our books.  If you'd like to write a customer review there are two ways to do it.

You can click on the Customer Reviews tab on the blog, and leave your review in the comments (where we will retrieve it and post it to our review page).

Or you can email Pegana Press through the contact form in the sidebar of this blog or on our website.


Have a great week-end

Mike & Rita
Pegana Press

Pegana Lost

Dunsany Study Magazine  Pegana Lost Vol 14  May 2014 Edited by Oto Mitani

We just received the current publication from Pegana Lost, a wonderful Dunsany scholarly appreciation group based in Japan.  They have been active since the 1990's translating the work of Dunsany to share in Japanese.

It is a beautiful magazine, which includes scholarly articles discussing the work of Lord Dunsany and stories translated by Hiroshi Inagaki.

Their love of Dunsany's work is profound. Moments after Rita tweeted the release of The Emperor's Crystal orders began flooding in from Japan and kept me busy filling out customs forms! 

Dunsany helps us to embrace the Wonders of this journey we are all on together and Pegana Lost is doing noble work.

Our thanks to Mitani Oto (Editor of Pegana Lost) and Hiroshi Inagaki (Translator from English) for sharing the work of Pegana Lost and Lord Dunsany.

Our collection of Pegana Lost on the shelf

Setting Volume 3

Setting page 6  Lord Dunsany Lost Tales Vol 3

Setting 4 lines of type at a time in the composing stick.  Letter by letter with spaces.  Upside down and backwards to get the right perspective for the press.  If a word doesn't fit at the end of a line and can't be hyphenated, then I take out the spaces, and put in smaller spaces until the word fits.

Drawer full of Goudy Franciscan type with spacing on the table.

Hello Again

I'm taking a moment to connect on line with our book loving friends.

Not a lot to report at the moment.  Mike is type setting Lord Dunsany Lost Tales Vol 3, and I am binding books as always.

It's been a lovely day here today.

One of us will be writing a real blog post soon, with full sentences and everything.

I hope you are enjoying your week, and that you are finding plenty of wonderful books to read.

Rita Tortorello
Pegana Press
Olympia WA USA