u/zorg2099

Recently received the 3rd and final omnibus completing my Grim Oak set of Temeraire! This is a series I really enjoyed and so I'm quite pleased to have this Grim Oak set for my next read through.

I think the artwork by Daniel Govar is excellent and suits these books really well. These omnibuses are quite hefty of course but the page blocks open up quite nicely which helps.

The typesetting/page layout is also not bad. The pages don't look overcrowded and have decent margins—poor typesetting is a problem I've seen on Grim Oak and SubT books so I'm glad its decent here. Only real quibble for me with this set is the use of bonded leather (again something common to those two presses), I would much rather prefer cloth but a lot of customers see bonded leather as premium I guess.

Grim Oak slip cases are optional but they feel really sturdy. I like the designs as well and sometimes turn them around so the slipcase titles are facing out rather than the book spines. Coincidentally they live on my shelves right next to the books that inspired them ie. my Folio Society editions of Aubrey/Maturin by Patrick O'Brian. Naomi Novik basically wrote Temeraire as Master & Commander with Dragons :)

I only just received Piranesi today as I had it sent to me via a package forwarder. I thought I would share some comparison pictures of both sets.

[Potential minor spoilers in the pics for earlier chapters in the stories]

I have to say that although the Folio books are a significant bump up in quality the TBB books with their improved specs need not be embarrassed to stand next to them.

I think the cover and slipcase of the Folio Piranesi is absolutely spectacular and is a real standout—even if bound in paper unlike JS&MrN. However, although I find Julian de Narvaez's art really atmospheric, I think Alice Cao's pen and ink art for TBB win out for me interior wise. The dense linework somewhat echoes Giovanni Batista Piranesi's copperplate etchings and engravings to an extent and seem very appropriate for the book since his labyrinth series of etchings inspired the world of the book.

For JS&MrN its much harder to compete with Charles Vess though. I read that Vess's artwork was itself an inspiration for Susanna Clarke in creating the character of The Gentleman so it was very appropriate that it came full circle and he illustrated her books for Folio later. The standout art for me on the TBB edition is the exterior (endpapers in particular) more than the interior but even they get overshadowed by unusual foldout endpapers on the Folio edition.

I didn't include any detail pics of The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories since TBB didn't do an edition (its a shame). But this too is Vess illustrated, in fact he illustrated the trade edition with some drawings and the Folio edition uses the same along with new colour paintings he did.

Between the two sets the most glaring gap in quality for me is the paper on TBB. It might be acid free but its quite thin and doesn't compare to the very nice Abbey Pure Rough used on the Folio books.

Anyway even as an owner of the Folio books, I'm very pleased to have the TBB set; Piranesi in particular for the fantastic artwork.

The collection I've managed to put together so far. The heart of the collection is on the 3rd and 4th shelves including the Folio Society LEs, a 2nd edition 1st imp set, Hobbit 3rd (late), the Unwin deluxes and most precious of all (to me) my custom bound set of Hobbit 4th, LOTR 2nd and Silmarillion 1st.

The HoMe set is a bit of a hodgepodge, the earlier volumes arent 1st/1st and there's some book club eds in there. On the other hand Sauron Defeated is only partially faded and I did find a Peoples of ME. WotJ is a US 1st wearing a boxset dustjacket :P . The index is from the boxset too.

The myths and legends for now live separately on my general myths, legends and history bookcase.

There are still quite a few notable gaps such as Letters from Father Christmas etc.

Just received my Deluxe copy of Weird vol 2, a weird fiction series by Conversation Tree Press. Each volume is an anthology from notable Weird Fiction writers (vol 1 was William Hope Hodgson, vol 3 will be Arthur Machen) edited by S.T. Joshi.

This is a really beautifully made book, and as with most CTP books its letterpress printed. The impression of the text is not super deep but it can be felt and in combination with the Fedrigoni Acquerello which has a VERY nice texture to it, the book has a very pleasant tactile feel to it. The typography is excellent as with all CTP books and the page layout features extravagant margins.

The book is half bound (thats what CTP says anyway but I thought the coverage was more like quarter bound) in goatskin leather with very vibrant hand marbled paper boards and the top edge is also gilded. The slipcase is also super nice with leather caps on the top and bottom.

I haven't gone through all the artwork as I only just started reading it but the colour plates look fantastic as is the letterpress printed frontispiece. The decorative chapter headers and tailpieces are also a cool touch.

This edition didn't sell out and copies of the deluxe and collectors editions remain available but I hope that doesn't bode ill for the future of the Weird series.

Anyways really looking forward to reading this anthology and I hope some of you found this post or the pictures interesting.

Specs:

• Limited to only 250 hand-numbered copies.
• Signed by Ramsey Campbell, S.T. Joshi and Marcela Bolívar.
• Letterpress printed by Nomad Letterpress in the United Kingdom on 120gsm (80lb) Fedrigoni Acquerello paper.
• Half bound by Ludlow Bookbinders in the United Kingdom in goatskin leather and marbled paper from Daniela Prina.
• Title of series and book foil-stamped on the spine.
• 13 full colour illustrations by Marcela Bolivar.
• A headpiece and two tailpiece decorations by Sveta Dorosheva, with the emblem artwork tipped in.
• Title calligraphy by Svetlana Molodchenko. 
• Enclosed by a custom slipcase handmade by Ludlow Bookbinders, wrapped in Napura Kazar paper with goatskin caps on top and bottom and a Suedel-lined interior.
• Trim size of 170mm by 240mm (6.7in by 9.5in).
• 263 pages.

Just received a set of books that I had rebound as beautiful but durable reading copies.

Hobbit 4th(2nd print), Lotr 2nd (2nd print) and Silmarillion 1st(1st domestic). These are bound in full natural grain, vegetable-tanned goatskin by Wayne Rowe of Loxley Bindings in the UK.

Basic concept was to re-create the design of the original publishers cloth bindings (under the DJ) in full leather. I was inspired by a post I saw on Reddit earlier where someone did something similar for a LOTR 1st set albeit without the publisher stamp.

Really pleased with the colour and grain of the leather on all 5 books, and they feel very nice in hand indeed.

The gold tooling here was done with custom made brass dies, the deep impression means the foiling catches some light at most angles so there's always a little glint and sparkle. It looks really nice in person. The slight unevenness of the title devices on the LOTR is deliberate, recreating some of the quirks of the original binding.

The Sil uses off the shelf endpapers by Rachel Maiden of Maiden Marbling—chosen for the colours resembling the OG jacket with some gold which I liked as it harmonises with the gold tooling.

The Hobbit and LOTR uses custom made endpapers made to my specification by Jess Goulty of The Whimsical Marbler (the binder works with her regularly). The LOTR papers are obviously inspired by the fires of Mt Doom and the Hobbit uses the colours of the DJ with a splash of extra gold. I decided to use marbled endpapers for the hobbit despite the original having maps since the other two looked so good. The maps are now tipped in foldouts instead.

The donor books were sent in to the binder directly after buying them online—would have been wasteful to send them halfway round the world to to me for inspection first. It worked out well although the top edge stain on the Sil had a small rough spot slightly worse I initially thought. I wasn't too bothered about getting 1st imps for the Hobbit and LOTR and just looked for early imps in decent condition without DJs or with poor DJs.

I thought about UT as well but in the end the Tolkien sigil kind of looked out of place next to the devices used on these books.

Anyways all in all very happy with these and they will likely be my main reading copies for the foreseeable future.

Just received a set of books that I had rebound as nice reading copies.

Hobbit 4th(2nd print), Lotr 2nd (2nd print) and Silmarillion 1st(1st domestic). These are bound in full natural grain, vegetable-tanned goatskin by Wayne Rowe of Loxley Bindings in the UK.

Basic concept was to re-create the original cloth bindings in full leather. Was inspired by a post I saw on Reddit earlier where someone did something similar for a LOTR 1st set albeit without the publisher stamp.

Really pleased with the colour and grain of the leather on all 5 books, and they feel very nice in hand.

The gold tooling here was done with custom made brass dies, the deep impression means the foiling catches some light at most angles so there's always a little glint and sparkle. It looks really nice in person. The slight unevenness of the title devices on the LOTR is deliberate, recreating some of the quirks of the original binding.

The Sil uses off the shelf endpapers by Rachel Maiden of Maiden Marbling—chosen for the colours resembling the OG jacket with some gold which I liked as it harmonises with the gold tooling.

The Hobbit and LOTR uses custom made endpapers made to my specification by Jess Goulty of The Whimsical Marbler (the binder works with her regularly). The LOTR papers are obviously inspired by the fires of Mt Doom and the Hobbit uses the colours of the DJ with a splash of extra gold. I decided to use marbled endpapers for the hobbit despite the original having maps since the other two looked so good. The maps are now tipped in foldouts instead.

The donor books were sent in to the binder directly after buying them online—would have been wasteful to send them halfway round the world to to me for inspection first. It worked out well although the top edge stain on the Sil had a small rough spot slightly worse I initially thought. I wasn't too bothered about getting 1st imps for the Hobbit and LOTR and just looked for early imps in decent condition without DJs or with poor DJs.

I thought about UT as well but in the end the Tolkien sigil kind of looked out of place next to the devices used on these books.

Anyways all in all very happy with these and they will likely be my main reading copies for the foreseeable future

I just got an email survey from The Folio Society canvassing interest in potential future limited editions. Full list below but I found it quite intriguing that Gardens of the Moon is on the list!

It is quite common (though not always guranteed) that Folio would follow up a limited edition with a subsequent Standard Edition using the same text block (perhaps in a different paper but sometimes the same) in a less premium binding.

I could picture Folio doing a one off Gardens LE and then subsequently doing the full series as standard editions. The full series as both LE and SE is also possible but less likely imo.

I would personally be super keen on a Folio Society treatment of the whole series as standards if it does happen. I've been collecting the SubT reprints but the bonded leather binding and poor typesetting (Folio is always good on that point) bug me on those editions.

If anyone would like to push this but wasn't already signed up to their mailing list this is the link from their email (redirects to survey monkey)

https://trk.emails.foliosociety.com/l/01KY7GMS8CNCK8081DVDXFEAXT_3

Full list:

Horns, Joe Hill
High-Rise, J. G. Ballard
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
The Aeneid, Virgil
The Golden Lotus, Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Orlando, Virginia Woolf
All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
Gardens of the Moon, Steven Erikson
Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Jules Verne
Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
Ham on Rye, Charles Bukowski
Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky.

I voted for Gardens, Golden Lotus, da Vinci, Children of Time and The Aeneid personally :)

There's also a write in box

I've owned this for a few months but I thought I would finally get around to making a post about it.

Full details on the website now but currently only matching pre-orders for rights holders. General sale for the remaining numbered (there are at least 50 numbered editions without rights) and the standard will open up on Thursday.

https://conversationtreepress.com/pages/perdido-street-station

Just got this today, a first edition 1st impression of Sir Gawain & The Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo. I read this book earlier from the edition in the myths and legends boxset 1 and really enjoyed it. So pretty pleased to pick up this first edition which isn't very expensive.

This copy is in really good condition with no real issues I can see. The book also features a nice green cloth casing and a sewn binding which was a given at the time. Also a dark green top edge stain to the page block.

The edition in the myths and legends set has a glued binding by comparison. However the new edition does have rather attractive more stylised drop caps (oversized first letter of a chapter, book etc) and very handsomely illustrated title pages which can be seen in the last 2 pics. I presume the current deluxe slip-cased edition features the same and that would be the way to go for a modern edition with a nicer binding than the myths & legends version.

Still this old edition is a genuinely nice book and a neat collectible.

This just popped up on their Kickstarter as an upcoming project, zero details yet https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wraithmarked/odyssey-1

Anyone else intrigued by this? It doesn't say which translation—since I already have the Robert Fagles and Emily Wilson editions from Folio, this would have to have very appealing art/design to compel me. However, I expect either of those two choices would please a lot of people.

On the other hand if its any other well known translation like Fitzgerald, Lattimore, or more recent ones like Green or Mendhelson it would be an upgrade over the editions I have for them so I would almost certainly get one.

ps. Wraithmarked if you're listening and intend to do the Iliad some day please do Caroline Alexander's lol. Her Iliad is my favourite and yet its the only one I have that doesn't even have a sewn binding.

Since there's been some interest in Conversation Tree Press recently here I thought I might share some impressions of one my books from them :)

CTP's main titles are multi state with Lettered and Deluxe (numbered) editions and most of the time an unnumbered but limited Collectors edition too. They are pre-orders with long lead times. However they also produce their so called Short Stops for short stories and novelletes which go on sale when ready to ship.

CTP is a true "Fine Press" meaning almost all aspects of the book are hand made to the highest standards from binding and even printing. Although some of their titles (the very long ones) are printed using the typical offset process the majority are printed using traditional letterpress where the type is impressed onto the paper — when using luxurious paper this leaves a tactile impression which can be felt, almost like braille!

The edition here is Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent, a new short story by Scott Lynch originally published in two parts in Grim Dark Magazine last year. This edition was revised and expanded and exclusive to CTP. Since its a pricey limited edition CTP also published an ebook version for anyone who missed out or couldn't afford it.

The interior design and layout is also superb as you might expect from a production like this with an interesting type face and very generous margins to the text on the sides and bottom; an approach deriving from medieval canons of page construction.

The front and rear boards of the book are also hand marbled by marbling artist Renato Crepaldi and its some of the nicest marbling work I've ever seen. The vibrant greens and yellows look great in person and its run through with sparkly silver streaks and gold spots mixed in with the white and black paints. The cover of each book is unique due to the hand marbling process. The book is also bound by hand.

The artwork by Even Mehl Amundsen is wonderful and reproduced in three spectacular hand tipped-in fold outs on very nice semi-gloss paper. The illustrations are very vibrant and the resolution and quality of the printing is substantially better than you see in typical illustrated books.

This edition sold out in a few minutes unfortunately and the latest Short Stop release, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (ie. Total Recall) by Philip K Dick is as well although Kelly Link's Faery Handbag remains available.

Anyways I hope some of you found this interesting!

Received my Silmarillion 1st ed today

Its not rare but it feels nice to pick one up as its the only true 1st/1st I'll ever own of any of the main Middle-earth books.

This is the "export variant" which precedes the UK market "domestic" printing and thus considered the true first state. Its in pretty good nick apart from some fading of the top edge. The spine is pretty vibrant and shows no real signs of fading.

To be honest the main reason I wanted the export version over the domestic is that it has all the bonuses 1) cloth binding 2)blue and white headband & 3) top edge blue stain. The domestic does not feature the headband.

Rounds out my 70s set nicely too alongside the 4th edition Hobbit and 2nd edition 2nd DJ variant LOTR.

Another recent acquisition—the 1990 edition of The Lord of the Rings by The Folio Society.

I recently picked up the pocket edition of The Hobbit on a whim after seeing it in a bookstore. First pic compares it to the 2007 standard octavo sized hardcover, the modern 1st edition facsimile and a vintage 3rd edition.

I had never paid much attention to it and had been under the vague impression it was kind of a cheap and nasty curio. It might be cheap but it really isn't nasty all things considered.

I was rather surprised to find that the book has a sewn binding and with little green head and tail bands too. In that respect it seems better made than the perfect bound (ie. cut and glued like a paperback) 2007 "classic hardback" (which is still in current publication) seen on the left side of the first pic.

The pocket edition only features black and white illustrations which is likely the main concession for cost cutting but also recalls the original first edition in that respect. The paper isn't fancy at all of course and seems quite similar to whats used in the 2007 Hobbit and 60th anniversary (author dust jacket) LOTR boxset.

I suppose at some point the phrase "Pocket Edition" was dropped from the dust jacket which I'm grateful for although most online listings still use that picture. I've no idea when that changed but mine's a 25th impression printed in India.

Anyways I'm quite happy with it. Not a fancy edition but nicer than I thought it would be for the price. Perhaps that says more about lowered expectations for books in general but I digress.

Very excited to have just received this! The 1990 LOTR deluxe by Unwin Hyman (11th impression overall having started under George Allen & Unwin).

The book is bound in buckram with a very attractive foil blocked design on the spine and comes with a slip case. The main attraction though is the use of "India Paper" a particular high quality type of ultra thin paper drawing inspiration from papers produced by Indian mills during the colonial era. This one volume LOTR edition with 1193 pages is barely thicker than the matching deluxe Hobbit printed on regular paper!

This is achieved purely through the thinness of the paper not through tiny font—the font size is actually identical to the original three volume 2nd edition as well as the modern 60th anniversary boxset (Tolkien dust jacket design). The later comparison can be seen in the last pic with the deluxe on the bottom and the 60th anniversary on top. The layout actually uses 1 fewer line too meaning more total pages.

The thin paper of course is somewhat translucent and feels quite delicate so a certain amount of care is required when flipping pages (which could be a deal breaker for some). Nonetheless its super comfortable to hold in hand and the book opens up flat too. I believe the paper is acid free as there's zero yellowing over the past 36 years.

Earlier impressions of the deluxe had speckled page edges and a fold out map but this one has plain edges and the maps are printed on the endpapers. I don't recall when those changes happened; that's a slight negative but these later impressions are also a lot cheaper than the earliest impressions.

All in all its quite a nice book imo and something quite different compared to the various deluxe editions on offer today.

I just picked up the 2010 limited edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner & Three Other Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (The three other poems are Christabel, Kubla Khan and The Pains of Sleep)

https://web.archive.org/web/20100920185523/http://www.foliosociety.com/book/RMR/ancient-mariner

This is a beautiful oversized (33cm/13" tall) edition quarter bound in vellum. Vellum used to be a common book binding material but is now quite rare due to lack of demand. My understanding is that it differs from parchment mainly in that vellum uses animal hide rather than calfskin. I couldn't find an exact specification for this book but I presume its goatskin. Its supplied by William Cowley who are the only suppliers of the material left in the UK.

I have to say the surprising thing about it that I discovered is that it has a more paper-like feel and texture to it compared to leather. The remnants of the follicles—which also provide an interesting texture as seen on the spine—however are a reminder that the source was an animal. Nevertheless plant based substitute vellum/parchment papers such as "Elephant Hide" (eg used in the Folio 1990 Lord of the rings) thus seem a decent approximation in some ways.

The book also features extremely(!) thick paper and thus touching the deckled edges actually feels like touching soft felt as all you can feel are the fibres rather than the edges of the sheets.

The artwork by Harry Brockaway, who always does great work, is tipped in and the book also features a frontispiece that's printed directly from the wooden block and which serves as the limitation page.

I'm really happy with this acquisition from the Folio back catalogue. There were also a few other LEs in a similar style that Folio produced around this time, I think I would like to pick up The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám at some point.

Wondering if anyone can confirm if this Maude translation (978-1857150964) contains footnotes/end-notes for the French sections? Thanks!