Metamorphoses, by Ovid and Mary Caponegro

Poestenkill: Editions Kaldewey, 1992. Kaldewey, Gunnar. Folio containing three oblong books of varying sizes. One of forty-five copies. The largest book presents the tale of Apollo and Daphne from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in Latin, illustrated with bold stripes, geometric shapes, and abstract swaths of color. The text's orientation on the page becomes increasingly dynamic as the story progresses toward the moment of transformation, which is expressed with a green explosion of ink and lines of text that radiate out from the center fold. The second largest book contains a retelling of the story in English from Daphne's point of view, written by the American writer Mary Caponegro. The narrow third book serves as a colophon, which explains the history of Ovid's stories and provides insight into Kaldewey's creative process and his collaboration with Caponegro. The two smaller books are intermittently printed with abstract shapes in pink, yellow, and green. All three books are bound in gray paper with a subtle woven texture, which is created by the strips of colorful paper which run underneath the gray and are only exposed along the edges of the cover. The three books fit together and are housed in a tall, gray cloth-covered folio. A characteristically imaginative presentation from Gunnar Kaldewey. Extremely fine. (von Lucius, pp. 196-199).