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series are ideal for Dunsany collectors, as they contain stories which are either previously uncollected or previously unpublished.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.

Pegana Press Celebrates 10 Years

It was about this time in July 10 years ago that Mike unpacked the restored Vandercook sp15 press which had just shipped from the Midwest to its new home in the Pacific Northwest, and Pegana Press became a part of our lives.

We feel very lucky to have come so far with this endeavor from a part time obsession to a full time business creating the kinds of books inspired from our early days of book collecting.  We want to thank others like us, who have supported our efforts by collecting our letterpress, hand made Pegana Press Books.  Together all of us keep the press alive.

The Men of Baldfolk...More Lost Tales

The Men of Baldfolk and Other Fanciful Tales is another edition of lost tales from the imagination of Lord Dunsany.  The content included in this book offers a range of styles from the humorous and whimsical to the dark and brooding to the thought provoking observations of a master story teller.

Visions of wonder and splendor await you in this volume.  From the archives at Dunsany Castle, these stories were shared by the curator, the majority of which were previously unpublished.  Also included in this volume are two very early essays hunted down by Mike and retrieved from The Saturday Review magazine.

Although the material presented in this book is of the Lost Tales, the book design was a departure from our usual Lost Tales volumes.  This book did not appear in chapbook format, and was letterpress printed on  paper of a green tint.  And we include a color Sime illustration, courtesy of Dunsany Castle, as frontispiece.

The signatures were sewn with green linen thread and the book was quarterbound at Ars Obscura in Seattle using paper and silk on boards.

The binding reminds us of an unpublished story which appears in this book titled The Book of Flowery Tales, which would have been at home in A Dreamer’s Tales.

This book is currently being offered at a special price through the end of July in celebration of our 9 year anniversary with Pegana Press.  You may find it on our website

June Showcase: Fritz Leiber

Twelve heartbeats to go.

Death most strongly felt that, if only for artistry’s sake, heroes should be made to make their exits from the stage of life in the highest melodramatic style, with only one in fifty score let to die of old age and in the bed of sleep for the object of irony.

Death has a quota to fill in The Sadness of the Executioner by Fritz Leiber, and only twenty heartbeats in which to claim tenscore human lives.  

Let’s see, thought Death with a vast coolness that yet had a tiny seething in it, one hundred sixty peasants and savages, twenty nomads, ten warriors, two beggars, a whore, a merchant, a priest, an aristocrat, a craftsman, a king, and two heroes.  That would keep his books straight.

We are invited to peek over the shoulder of Death as he tries to creatively engineer the demise of Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser in fulfillment of the heroes quota.  While completely unaware that Death has his eye upon them, will they unwittingly cheat death?

Pegana Press brings you this hugely entertaining story from a master weilder of the sword and sorcery genre in a limited edition handset letterpress chapbook edition titled Nehwon Vision.  This volume contains Fritz Leiber’s The Sadness of the Executioner with frontispiece by Patrick Mallet.

If you love letterpress, and appreciate Sword and Sorcery, we bring you this chapbook to whet your appetite and to give you a taste of the simple elegance that a small press edition can bring to your collection.

We’ve chosen to Showcase this book and are making it available to purchase at the special price of $65.00 through the end of June.

Please visit our website for details.

And one thing more...Pegana Press is on Patreon.  We invite you to view our page and our subscription levels.  If being a patron of a small press appeals to you, we offer great patron rewards to express our gratitude.

Like free shipping on The Sadness of the Executioner for new patrons who sign up before the end of June.  See details on our website.

Death Does Not Take A Holiday

I spent the last week folding, scoring, trimming and gathering  sheets for our latest release, Nehwon Vision by Fritz Leiber, with new artwork.  It's a tremendous story from Leiber, a timeless tale of Death, Fafhrd, and the Gray Mouser played out in 20 heartbeats. Well worth checking out.  More information and how to order can be found here.

The new audiobook , The Vengeance of Thor  should be available to download and purchase sometime in the next month.  A truly immersive rendering of rare stories by Lord Dunsany.

Next up a new Dunsany release!

presenting The Men of Baldfolk & Other Fanciful Tales

 Mike and Rita of Pegana Press are pleased to announce that we are taking preorders for The Men of Baldfolk & Other Fanciful Tales by Lord Dunsany on our website.

In this offering, we have moved away from the chapbook single signature design that marked our Lost Tales editions.  But as with the rest, our books continue to be hand made from start to finish by Mike and Rita Tortorello at Pegana Press.

This book is quarter bound, black cloth spine with Florentine paper covered boards.  Letterpress spine title on Hahnemühle Ingres paper.  Inside the book is hand typeset letterpress printed, also on Hahnemühle Ingres.

Now for the good stuff...

5 of the 9 stories contained in this book have never appeared in print before now.  The other 4 have not appeared since their original magazine publications.

We are also excited to offer as frontispiece, a rare Sime watercolor.

If you're a Dunsany fan, you are in for a treat with these stories.  A rare and beautiful book of material from a master story crafter, brought to you with love from Mike and Rita of Pegana Press.

...and Thor said to the rest "It is even as we have dreamed.  The years have been going by and the ages passing away; Time has been active here, and it grows late on Earth.  Unstained and cold are the stones.  It is later than we had dreamed."       

--Lord Dunsany from The Vengeance of Thor, written 1929 and previously unpublished.  Available from Pegana Press Spring 2016.

We invite you to visit our website.

Getting Closer

We are putting the final touches on The Men of Baldfolk and Other Fanciful Tales by Lord Dunsany, the newest release from Pegana Press.

Mike has finished the printing and has collated the pages into book form.  We are waiting on the illustration, which should be finished soon.

Rita is binding variations of dummy copies to see how Mike's vision for this book will look fully bound.

We hope to share pictures on our website around May 1st.

There are 9 stories in the book, 5 of which have never been published before, the other 4 are uncollected in book form.  The material spans 1908 to 1955.  Featured as frontispiece is a rare, color Sime illustration.

Please visit our website for updates.

Men of Baldfolk Nearing Completion

March is very nearly over and we have been very busy at Pegana Press.  Mike has finished setting and printing all the stories for The Men of Baldfolk, which is the title of our latest volume of stories written by Lord Dunsany.  This morning he printed the colophon for the book.  The only pages left to print are things like table of contents, copyright, title page, etc.

He also plans to start work on the illustration this week.

I have been using the time between releases to catch up with all the work that went undone during the binding frenzy caused by The Golden Key.  This is tax season, and my book keeping skills always cause a frantic search for records and receipts in various files as I try to fill out forms correctly.

Fortunately, The Men of Baldfolk won’t be ready for binding until after mid April.  Until then, I am spending my time in the bindery working on a dummy to see the practical application of our design for this publication.  When I get one finished, I’ll post pictures on the website of what the book will look like.  It will be some time yet, before I can bind an actual copy of the book, but the dummy will provide a peek into what you can expect the book to look like.

We hope to begin offering the book for presale soon.

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.

New Worlds For Old

A fantastic thing about running a Press is the wonderful and talented people we get to meet along the way.

One of these is Robert Finegold, a writer of great spirit and meticulous prose. His work has that rare distinction of being apparently effortless and entirely real and engaging.  His stories are profoundly moving.

This is timeless fantasy and speculative fiction that burns with the fire of the human condition.  It is both intricate and familiar.  I urge you to explore his writing if you want to be moved and entertained.

A couple of his stories that have been published can be found here as well as a link to his FB page.

And the Ends of the Earth for Thy Possession

http://giganotosaurus.org/2015/07/01/and-the-ends-of-the-earth-for-thy-possession/

Lirazel's Heart

... With a pair of long hook-tipped tweezers, he carefully lifted the square gold lid of the box in the center of her heart, revealing two inner chambers. The larger was filled with a mesh of dried broad-leaved grass, semi-translucent and almost as golden as the box. A hidden object glowed from within the mesh like sunlight obscured behind a layer of cloud.
"What is in there?" Dominic whispered.
"The treasure of our house," Astolfo replied. Gently, he spread the dry grass mesh and a beam of silvery light shot upward like water spouting from a fountain. It crested and broke upon the quadratura of the ceiling with a prismatic radiance of a thousand hues...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1518712274?keywords=robotica%20Finegold&qid=1447622840&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1


Robert Finegold

https://www.facebook.com/robertbfinegold/?fref=ts

This Week At The Press: New Projects and More

This week has been busy at Pegana Press.  Mike is finished printing The Golden Key, and we are just waiting for the watercolor frontispiece to arrive from the printer before we begin the binding process.  It won't be long now.  Just a reminder, the special preorder price on this book is only offered until the release date.  This book really is special.  Charles Van Sandwyk has done some outstanding work, as usual, adding to the beauty of this offering.  Truly an heirloom quality book to treasure.  And limited to 80 copies.


Mike is already two pages into the next printing project, and we will be announcing details about that book soon.

Today, Mike is in the recording studio working on some audio readings with music.

And in the bindery, Rita is finalizing The Golden Key binding design, as well as binding our last available Clark Ashton Smith book, The Age of Malygris.  This final finished book will make two only, available at the press.  If you've been wanting to add The Age of Malygris to your collection, please don't hesitate to order while we still have it.

For Dunsany collectors, interested in the Lost Tales 3 volume box set, the last finished set went out this week, and I will be working on binding 4 more sets and making slipcases for them as time permits.  They are currently on special, so if you'd like to add this set to your collection, please order before the sale price ends.  But please allow 2 to 3 weeks for availability.



Finally, our webpage had a remodel last weekend and we think we've improved it, making it funner and easier to navigate.  Stop by and see if you agree.  https://www.peganapress.com/

Cheers for now, from Pegana Press.

The Adventures of The Golden Key

Let me take you on a fantastic journey.  A journey through colored pages of palest rose, custard yellow, light sagey green, and dusky blue.  We will follow the trail of ornate letters of a bygone era pressed into the paper, and the words will be our guide through Fairyland where we will meet Tangle and Mossy and accompany them on their quest to find the lock that fits The Golden Key.

The Golden Key title page.

...It was a curious creature, made like a fish, but covered, instead of scales, with feathers of all colours, sparkling like those of a hummingbird.  It had fins, not wings, and swam through the air as a fish does through the water.  Its head was like the head of a small owl.

The Golden Key by George MacDonald.  With illustrations by Charles Van Sandwyk.  Available from Pegana Press.

The Ties That Bind

I was thinking of all those who become a part of our books as we make them.  There are the author's estates who are supported by royalties to keep the legacies alive for us.  There are the 500 year old german and french paper mills for the pages.  The natives in Nepal harvesting renewable plants for the beautiful endpapers.  The 1920's formulation of ink from a small company in Illinois.  The parts and materials for the press coming from Fritz singlehandedly maintaining materials for the old equipment.  Cloth and glue from a lady serving the book arts community out of her house.  Copper plates from photoengravers in the town of Owosso.  The tiny local print shop who is kind enough to cut our boards even though it dulls their blades.  An artist dreaming of fairies on a remote isle.

The spirits, passions and dreams of all these people are woven into our books as they take form.  So the next time you open one of our books we invite you to see the patterns of energy that bind it together.  You are part of a much larger community when you dream those dreams written with such grace and printed on the page.

The Golden Key Pre Order Announcement

An illustration from the Blue Fairy Book
by Charles Van Sandwyk

We are very excited to announce that  renowned Vancouver artist Charles Van Sandwyk is working on illustrations for The Golden Key edition by George MacDonald.  One of the great fantasy illustrators of this century, his work on The Blue Fairy Book and The Wind In the Willows is superb and will complement this incredible allegorical fantasy journey.  The book is now available to pre order here.
The Golden Key by George MacDonald.

Charles works on a remote Fiji island and his watercolours and pen and ink are delicate and fantastic.  We expect this edition to sell out quickly and the special pre order price helps us to finish the book while giving you a great discount on the published price.

This is our most ambitious edition to date and I'm really pleased with how it's turning out.I am now printing on the final signature section of the book in a pale blue french laid paper.  More images will be posted as they become available.

It's Not Letterpress

No, it's not letterpress.  But you can help support Pegana Press by purchasing my first zine creation.  Just a bit of fun and whimsy.  

Check out the new zine page on our website.  

From A Conversation With The Moon

Winter Tales/Customer Reviews

Here are some quotes from emails I received about Winter Tales, a fine press limited edition chapbook released by Pegana Press.

On Voice of Fire:

I Love the concept of music being held within the memory of the tree. Thank you so much for the beautiful book! I will treasure it for years to come.

On Where the Snow Folk Live:

I've read and re read "Where The Snow Folk Live."

I feel like I have one of those huge and heavy fairytale books from my childhood. The book with stories that mesmerize. Tales for special occasions only. Reading your story Is like uncovering  a mystical passage and discovering a book that was hidden in order to preserve its secrets. 

And that is what great storytelling does!!!  Bravo

The  characters (in addition to the letters) really add to that story and the look of the page . They Create visual interest for me.

Thanks

On Cup of Cheer:

"Cup of Cheer" is my favorite of the three stories. For me it's like Jack and the Beanstalk and the Snow Queen went on a road trip and met the Star Trek crew. I love the idea of the "mixture of cultural anomalies." 

Winter Tales is available through Pegana Press

Archetypes

Here is our page of type locked up in the bed of the press using wooden furniture and quoins to exert pressure.  We'll see some printing next time.

As I was setting the type for a page of The Golden Key an image was presented that struck me as being one that runs through much of fantasy literature .

...Anon an exquisite shadow group of gambolling children would be followed by the loveliest female form, and that again by the grand stride of a Titanic shape, each disappearing in the surrounding press of shadowy foliage...

This recurring vision of a giant figure striding through various scenes yet being obscured, only revealing small, fragmented glimpses could have come from Cabell, Dunsany, Lovecraft and so many more.  Certainly an image that stretches back to the beginning of Man's imagination.  Sometimes sinister, yet always intriguing.

Adventures in Fairyland

I printed some of the introductory pieces for The Golden Key (photos above) which is in the rose paper signature of the book.The green paper for the new book will be here tomorrow and I'm looking forward to cutting and printing on it. This puts me into the second third of the book and gaining momentum. I found a great quote for the prelude which I will leave you with.
"I am a part of the part, which at first was the whole."