The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars

A lot of my work making books for Pegana Press reminds me of a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story in which the Mouser can only concentrate on small, seemingly insignificant details and items.  The setting of the type with little bits of metal, viewing the printing under a magnifying glass, pulling tiny cat hairs off the ink rollers, etc., etc., etc.  I've now reached one of my favorite points in making a book with The Men of Baldfolk and Other Fanciful Tales by Lord Dunsany.  All the printing is done and I've been folding pages for the past few days.  Nearly a thousand pieces of paper to fold and carefully crease while keeping them as square as possible. Then collating the pages into their signatures and trimming each one. There's something very soothing and therapeutic about repeating the same sequence over and over to create tidy piles of pages. Somewhat like mowing a lawn with all the neat straight rows. Very little thinking or decisions to make; what a relief.  Seeing all the months of work slowly taking shape as a book is immensely satisfying. Knowing I'm almost done and the relief that comes with it.  We got back the test print of the rare Sime watercolour frontispiece and it's quite lovely  I will be posting the story titles of the book soon on the website as well as more images.  It's going to be a beautiful book and we hope you're as excited as we are.

Straying Into Elfland

I recently recorded some moody, contemplative piano tracks to support a story for the Lost Tales audiobook that should be done later this year.  The story, Our Laurels is a classic, dreamy tale of the struggle with dark and light and the participation of man.  All in three short paragraphs of course!  First collected in Lost Tales Volume I.

I'm in the preliminary phases of designing a Lovecraft edition of some of his early dream tales accompanied by some superb illustrations for later this year.

Continuing work on the forthcoming new Lord Dunsany edition The Men of Baldfolk and other Fanciful Tales, this group of stories are all unpublished or uncollected.  From dark gods to dreaming poets, some really fine material embellished with another very rare color Sidney Sime frontispiece. Our deepest appreciation to the Dunsany Estate for their sharing of these incredible pieces.  Will begin typesetting the second to last story tomorrow.  I'm using a german laid paper of the palest sage color for the pages which should complement the binding we have in mind quite nicely.

Rita is being kept busy in the bindery with  batches of Lost Tales and The Golden Key as well as doing taxes and taking care of 9 chickens and 3 cats. The response to The Golden Key has been very encouraging and has kept her hopping with glue, thread and all the strange things she uses to shelter and enhance our stories.

Happy Thanksgiving from Pegana Press

Yesterday we sent out more packages to preorder customers of The Golden Key.

Expect yours soon.

And if all goes as planned, we should be caught up with orders by mid December.

#FeelingThankful at Pegana Press

Binding The Golden Key pt 6

The Golden Key/Pegana Press 2015

As you can see, no two books are exactly alike.  Each front title and spine title are cut by hand individually.

This photo shows the front title being trimmed down from its parent sheet.


The second photo shows the spine title being trimmed down.  Requiring only a ruler and cutting tools, the most important thing is to have a good eye and a steady hand.

The Golden Key/Pegana Press 2015

The next step will be to attach the titles to each book.  After drying, the book is finished and ready to be read.

You can view the finished book on the George MacDonald tab of Pegana Press.

Binding The Golden Key

At Pegana Press we make all of our books by hand from start to finish.  

I'd like to share the binding process here with you, and I'll be taking photos as I bind The Golden Key.

After Mike trims and collates the pages, he hands them off to me in the form of signatures.  This is a beautiful book to work on and I'm really enjoying it.

I start by piercing the holes for sewing into each signature.  They have to line up, so the book will be even.  I use a template and a stabbing cradle and pierce each one by hand.

The next step is the sewing.  For The Golden Key, I used linen thread and linen sewing tapes.  I am binding in batches of 12 to 14 until I catch up with the preorders, so I sewed a stack of books before moving on to the next step.

Today I tipped in the end papers, which were cut and folded by hand.  I have to wait for the end papers to dry before moving on the next step, gluing the spines.  Once that glue has dried, I round the spines.  This afternoon, I will add mull and head bands.

Tomorrow, I will be cutting cloth and spine reinforcements.  The reinforcements create a flat spine for our letterpress titles to be glued to. 

Back to the bindery.  More later.

The Golden Key Turns the Lock

Greetings.  This is just a quick update on the status of our latest release from Pegana Press.  We're very happy to announce that after nearly a year, The Golden Key is entirely finished and is now, in the process of being bound.

My decision to devote an immense amount of energy and labor to print The Golden Key stems from being a book lover and collector.  I've always chosen works that I would want to have in my own library  Beautiful editions that support and enhance the wonder of the story that you can hold and caress.  I felt that The Golden Key needed such an edition.

We are very fortunate to have Charles van Sandwyk's illustrations for this book.  Charles is one of the truly great illustrators of our time.  His style is perfect for what I had in mind for this edition, being reminiscent of Arthur Rackham's magical images.  He has provided us with three pen and ink illustrations as well as a beautiful hand signed watercolour for the fronticepiece.  It is a wonder to see it facing the title page which is printed on rose colored paper.

Each signature of the book is letterpress printed on a different color paper.  The page colors are pale rose blush, custard yellow, soft sagey-green, and a sky blue reminiscent of twilight.  The pages are displayed to their best advantage in the soft glow of library lamps, which was an unexpected and happy result, and which exceeded my vision for this edition.

We feel in every way, that this book will be our most beautiful release to date, and that it will be a book to treasure and pass down, which must be seen and handled in person to be fully appreciated.  I've come to realize that the photos posted on our site aren't able to convey the full beauty of this book and that it really comes to life when it is held, and read, and savored.

Never the less, please visit Pegana Press online, to see for yourself the recent addition of the frontispiece.

We wish you many years of happy reading, surrounded by beautiful books.

From Mike & Rita at Pegana Press