The tale of Words and Boards

Well, things are humming along at Pegana Press as we continue our work. Rita has been cutting the boards for the Lord Dunsany Lost Tales 5 by hand and notching out the insets for the cover pastedowns. We use a much denser binder board for our books so they're more durable and don't warp,  but of course they're so dense I can't cut them with our cutter and local people have just screwed them up so we {Rita} cuts each one by hand and since I insisted on insets for the Dunsany books Rita gets to do that as well.

Meanwhile I'm nearing the end of typesetting the new Clark Ashton Smith story.  His writing certainly requires a dictionary to catch some of the nuances layered into his prose.  It can also be a challenge when having to decide where to hyphenate an unfamiliar word or one of his character's proper names!

We're looking forward to seeing the finished color Robert H. Knox illustration for the new chapbook, the prelim sketch is below.

Stay well and safe everyone and Good Reading.  We read Terry Pratchett here a lot these days...

Taming of The Signatures

I spent the week folding about 800 pages of Lost Tales V by Lord Dunsany and then collating the pages into signatures.  The illustrations were scored and trimmed for insertion into the signatures.

I just need to print the spine titles and front board pastedowns and my part of the work will be finished!  It's nice to see the book becoming a completed entity.  The special pre-order price will end July 15th.  Here's a link to more information and how to order.


Rita is continuing binding work, please be patient as she has a lot of books to get through and it's slow and painstaking work to do it right.

I'll be starting on a Lovecraft broadside of one of his lesser known poems with a great period illustration.

Good and safe reading to everyone from Mike and Rita at Pegana Press.

Update from the Bindery at Pegana Press

Just a quick update to let you know where I’m at with the binding process. As you may know Pegana Press is a small press run by the two of us, Mike and Rita Tortorello.

Under ordinary circumstances our books take about 8 to 10 weeks to bind from start to finish, and most of that time is spent under weight.

I am experiencing a delay of about 3 to 5 weeks due to the pandemic, but am just about ready to get books under weight in this upcoming week.

I will continue to update you with progress reports as the books are bound.  You may expect your books to be finished by no later than June, if all goes as expected.  We are doing our best to stay safe and we hope you are too.  Thank you for your patience and your understanding at this time.

New For 2020: Pegana Press Podcast

Several years back, we tried doing a Storycast, where we read rare stories.  We tried posting them on our blog and website, but didn’t really have the proper platform to do it.

Over time this idea has been resurrected in two ways.  One is where Mike Tortorello in partnership with Daven Tillinghast creates audio stories with music.  You can find out more about that on Dreamer’s Tales on Patreon .

The second evolution of Storycast comes in the form of a podcast on anchor . fm.  We’ve just put out our first episode.  You can listen on Pegana Press Podcast 

We hope to make this a regular thing and plan to release two episodes a month for now.

We invite you to join us.

Lost Tales Volume 5 Sneak Peek

Lost Tales Vol 5 available for pre-order at Pegana Press

Pegana Press Update for February 2020

From the Bindery:

First of all, Happy Spring.  The nights are frosty but the days are sunny with clear skies here in the Maritime Pacific Northwest.  I’ve got spring chicks in the brooder and seed catalogues are spread out before me.  But what I really want to talk about is what books are being bound right now here at Pegana Press.  The answer to that is-almost everything in our catalogue.

Thanks to the enthusiasm of our customers, we currently have sold out of bound copies of our books.  Which means I need to hustle.  So for the next several weeks I will be filling the book press with freshly bound copies of almost everything we have.  The books will need about 5 weeks to sit under weight after they’re bound and then once they get their titles they will be ready to put on the shelf, (or into a box to be shipped to their new home).

You can learn more about how I bind the books at Pegana Press, on our website at the bottom of the About Pegana Press page.

From the Press:

In other news Mike is busy working on Lost Tales volume 5.  A collection of more short stories from the pen of Lord Dunsany.  The Lost Tales series are ideal for Dunsany collectors, as they contain stories which are either previously uncollected or previously unpublished.  A real treasure provided to us all with the blessing of the Dunsany Estate.

The stories for this volume are currently being hand type set for letterpress on Hahnemühle paper.  You can learn more about the printing process at the link provided above.  

We are also excited to reveal that we have commissioned an original work from fantasy artist Amelia Leonards to use as frontispiece and are very much looking forward to see what she envisions for this piece.

Mike expects to be finished printing the book early this Summer.  Then he will hand it over to me at the bindery, where it will be bound uniform with the other Lost Tales volumes.

To find out more about the Lost Tales series or to pre-order a copy of Lost Tales volume 5, you may go to Pegana Press/Dunsany. 

Thank you for your interest in Pegana Press.

Of Spirits and Trees

We wanted to give a status update on a couple of Pegana Press editions by Clark Ashton Smith.

Zothique Prism I "The Empire of the Necromancers" illustrated by Robert H. Knox is nearly out of print. We only have a handful of copies left of this fantastic tale presented in a limited letterpress chapbook.

Zothique Prism III "The Tomb-Spawn" illustrated by Jim Pitts will begin shipping the 2nd half of January. The special pre-order price on this edition ends January 10th.

More information about these editions, limited to 55 copies, may be found here at our Clark Ashton Smith page. https://peganapress.com/clark-ashton-smith

Also, if you like your fantastic fiction in a sound format, I'm creating audiobook dramas of authors both known and lesser known. I invite you to my page to hear some great fiction. https://www.patreon.com/dreamerstales