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.

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series are ideal for Dunsany collectors, as they contain stories which are either previously uncollected or previously unpublished.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

Dark Dreamlands II Preview

This beautiful illustration by Michael Hutter will appear in our next book of stories by H. P. Lovecraft, Dark Dreamlands II.

Hand set and printed letterpress, and hand bound at Pegana Press.  To view information about this book or to pre-order your copy please go to our website at Pegana Press.

Spring at Pegana Press

Printing Another Book

Mike is in with the press.  He’s printing another page from Dark Dreamlands II.  I just saw him looking through a magnifying glass to evaluate ink on the paper.

Keeping Pegana Press Running

It’s not all type-setting, printing, and binding.  We lead an integrated existence at the press.  Over the years, we’ve created a balance that allows us to spend less on living expenses, which enables us to put money into making books, which in turn generates income to pay the bills.

While Fall/Winter is the season I can devote to binding the books that Mike prints during the Spring/Summer season, this is the time of year I devote to growing/raising food on our small homestead.

I just got back from the post office where I mailed a couple of books off.  Our post office used to be housed in the general store in a very small community in East Olympia.  I really love that drive.  The community is mostly small farms and homesteads.  The general store is still there, but the post office has expanded to a new building.

Since I was close to the farm store, I drove out to pick up straw.  I can get two bales into the back of the Prius.  After a wet and cold winter, I need to change out the straw in my small barn where the hens like to lay their eggs.  A happy, healthy flock is a big part of our home economy, and allows us to use more income on making books and less on feeding ourselves.

On my way back home, I pass (I kid you not) the cider mill, which is a working farm.  They make fresh donuts daily, and who could resist home-made pastries?  It seemed like the perfect way to celebrate the end of the tax filing season, so I pulled in.  I drove home with the tempting aroma of fresh sticky buns made with a cider glaze.

When I got home, Mike was still printing so I share here, a photo of the page he is currently working on.

And that’s a little peek into life here at the press...

If you’re interested in hand made letterpress books and you would like to help support Pegana Press check out our website or take a look at our Patreon page.

Dark Dreamlands II

Mike is hard at work on the next book release.  Volume II of Dark Dreamlands.  Another letterpress edition for fans of Lovecraft.

We are also excited to announce that Michael Hutter will be illustrating this edition as well and we hope to have some of his new work to post on the website soon.

To view Dark Dreamlands I, or to pre-order Dark Dreamlands II, please visit our website.

For Lovecraft fans:  Dark Dreamlands I and II illustrated by Michael Hutter, and The Moon-Bog chapbook edition illustrated by Jim Pitts

Illustrations by Justine Jones

Once again we are excited to include the artwork of Justine Jones for our upcoming publication Poseidonis Cycle-The Age of Whelming.  Clark Ashton Smith.

Justine did the frontispiece for our chapbook Zothique Prism II-The Garden of Adompha and she has a real feel for bringing the characters and scenes of Smith’s stories to life through her art.

Currently Justine is involved in two other projects, so we feel lucky that she will be able to make time for this project before our deadline.

You may visit Justine Jones

And we found even more of her work at  Tumblr 

Type

An interesting and frustrating development for a typesetter is when you're going along setting a page from a story, and suddenly you run out of a particular letter.

It happened to Mike just this week, so now he's waiting to finish setting the page until more  t s arrive in the mail.

Last year, this same problem cropped up with the capital  F s when Mike was setting A Tale of Roscommon, one of the Lord Dunsany stories in Lost Tales volume 3.

Lord Dunsany, Lost Tales volume 3 from Pegana Press 2014

I think it was a pretty close thing with the capital  O s in this story as well.  As you can see in this photo, the character names are Mickey O'Finn, Father O'Groman, and Jimmy Flynn.  When the author really gets going in the story, The F s and O s start to pile up on a single page, as the characters interact.

It's just these little things that pop up in the printing world that keep you on your toes.  Something you would never even think about unless you spend your days typesetting little pieces of metal type, one letter and space at a time.

I know I never did.

Hope you're having a good week end.  I'm off to glue titles on more copies of The Golden Key.  Thanks for checking in on our blog.

--Rita

Binding The Golden Key pt 2

Yesterday I finished up the day by attaching mull and headbands to the book.  I let them dry over night.  I was really pleased with the result when I looked through them this morning.  The headbands I chose are golden.

The next step involves making the cases for the binding.  During the design process, I bound a dummy and glued the front title to the cover.  This worked really well for The Age Of Malygris/Clark Ashton Smith/Pegana Press 2014, because that title was on a really thin paper.  The paper we're using for the title of The Golden Key is much thicker and I could see that it would be subject to wear unless it was inset into the cover.

That means before making the cases, I need to make the insets into the boards used for the front cover.  This is done by hand, as crazy as that sounds.  But I've had a lot of practice with the Lost Tales books.

The inset of this book is quite large, because it has to accommodate the illustration on the front title.  I made two more dummy bindings with the insets to make sure the design would work.

Besides getting the boards ready, I need to cut the book cloth to the right size.  I've always used a cotton dubletta cloth on all our books, so I've continued with dubletta and for this edition we've chosen yellow to fit in with the title.

Another important step is to create the spine reinforcements which create a flat spine for our letterpress spine titles.  This was decided upon when we made our first case bound book for the Lost Tales series.  Having books in our collection with traditional spines, has taught us a valuable lesson about how paper titles glued to a spine can chip and crumble with handling over time.  The books with spine reinforcements create a flat spine, and those seem to cause less wear to a paper title.

Therefore, each spine reinforcement also has to be cut by hand.  This is one of the hardest jobs to get precise, but I feel that this extra step is worth the work and time to ensure that the paper titles stand up to handling over time.  This photo shows the case binding with a (white) paper liner to help reinforce the book and a spine reinforcement in place.  This is what the finished case looks like, all ready to glue a book into.

I'm planning on making the cases on Saturday.  More later.

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.

Working Through the Rainbow

I have remixed The Ghost of the Valley Dunsany storycast and we have created a new tab page on the website just for the storycast readings.  We are set to start work on a new storycast of Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean from A Dreamer's Tales.  Anyone who has a favorite story they would like to hear please let us know.  We hope to do an audiobook of The Lost Tales series this year as well.

I've nearly finished the yellow section of The Golden Key and will be starting on the pale green section of the book soon and then on to blue.

We'll leave you with a quote about George Macdonald from a fellow author.

George MacDonald... in his power to project his inner life into images, beings, landscapes which are valid for all, is one of the most remarkable writers of the nineteenth century.
W.H. Auden