SPIRAL PRESS (1926-1971), A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL CHECKLIST.|THE

New York: American Printing History Association, 2002. cloth. Spiral Press. 8vo. cloth. 196 pages. While preparing an exhibition to accompany the 1997 Dartmouth Book Arts Summer Workshop, "Joseph Blumenthal and the Spiral Press," Mr. Cronenwett discovered that there was no standard bibliography of The Spiral Press. Since that time, Mr. Cronenwett has exhaustively researched and examined the holdings of many collections to compile this checklist of more than 600 items. The bibliography lists the press's monographs, pamphlets, exhibition catalogs and all publications relating to printing arts. This APHA publication will be an important research tool to literary and printing history scholars and collectors.



The significance of The Spiral Press to American letters and cultural history is underscored by the items listed in the bibliography. Joseph Blumenthal designed and printed for Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, Pablo Neruda, William Carlos Williams, Robinson Jeffers and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Institutions counted among the press's clients were The Metropolitan Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, The Morgan Library, The Grolier Club and The American Academy of Arts and Letters.



The press is also extremely significant to printing history in America. As a printer, Joseph Blumenthal set standards that are unequalled for dedication to the details of fine printing and design. His proprietary typeface, Spiral, was admired by the Monotype Corporation and adapted as "Emerson" for commercial book composition. In his later years, Blumenthal prepared a series of exhibitions on fine printing in America and Europe. He wrote and taught, sharing his passion for the book. To him the book was "a prime cultural heritage. Poetry, knowledge and the aspirations of mankind have been spread by the book to the whole of society."



The book has 196 pages containing more than two dozen reproductions of Spiral Press pages. These are offset-printed, in additional colors where appropriate, at the Studley Press. The book is casebound in a fine imported cloth over boards and issued in an edition of 500 copies.