Search Results: Books about Books from W. C. Baker Rare Books & Ephemera

Boston: The Berkeley Press, 1919. First Edition. [1919]. [2],12 pp. Original blue wrappers, stitched, printed cover label. Near fine. A short history of William Caslon and Calson Oldstyle type, by Boston's Berkeley Press, with a brief description and advertisement of the press's services. Scarce, with OCLC listing five copies.

[San Marino, California]: [Huntington Library], 1939. First Edition. Softcover. Near fine. [20] pp. Color gift-wrapping tissue over paper wrappers, side-stapled, letterpress label on front cover. 1939 Christmas Seal stamp below colophon. Small stains and light toning and wear in tissue, tiny stain at fore-edge of first three leaves, else near fine. Fourth issue of the annual Huntington Library Christmas party keepsake journal, which ran from 1936 to 1970. The running joke of the present issue was economic anixiety, with a dedication "to the proposition that just maybe perhaps it might possibly be better if this economy thing doesn't reach too far into the reading of proof" and the limitation statement, "This 'economy number' of the Quarterly was printed (sic) in 100 copies, from pie-eyed type" (the "sic" presumably refers to the mimeograph production of the booklet). Contents include a "Dead End Kids" take on the Three Bears, humorous poetry, jokes, and a crossword puzzle. Scarce, with OCLC… Read More

New York: The Albondocani Press, 1986. First Edition. Softcover. Fine. 5 inches. [34] pp., including 14 full-page illustrations. Original pictorial wrappers, stitched. Prospectus card laid in. Signed by the artist on the colophon. Fine. From a stated edition of 326 signed copies (300 numbered and for sale, 26 lettered and not for sale); the present copy is signed but out of series and unnumbered (one of ten additional copies beyond the order sent to Albondocani Press owner George Bixby by the printer). Edward Gorey's spoof - and near-verbatim recreation - of plates and captions in L. H. Bailey's 1910 MANUAL OF GARDENING : A PRACTICAL GUIDE ... . In BORN TO BE POSTHUMOUS : THE ECCENTRIC LIFE AND MYSTERIOUS GENIUS OF EDWARD GOREY, Mark Dery relates that Gorey was first introduced to Bailey's MANUAL by Judith Cressy of Parnassus Book Service near Gorey's home on Cape Cod. When Cressy encountered the book, Dery writes, she found its illustrations "beautifully limned ... but '_odd_. There'd be this… Read More