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THE DIVINE COMEDY.
Dante
Volume 1: Inferno. Volume 2: Purgatorio. Volume 3: Paradiso. Translated by Robert and Jean Hollander, Illustrated by Monika Beisner.
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Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is one of the leading figures of world literature. His Commedia, probably written during the last 15 years of his life is - by common consent - the greatest literary work in the Italian language; it is also one of the towering achievements in any field of human endeavor. Often translated (and into many languages), the Comedy (the adjective "Divine" was added by an editor to the author's title in 1555) attracts new readers every year. This translation--a labor of love and the first ever by two poets--was begun in Florence in 1997 and completed in Hopewell in 2006.
This new edition of Dante's great work brings together for the first time the three volumes of the Hollander translation with the art of internationally recognized illustrator Monika Beisner. Beisner has created 100 detailed paintings for this publication, making her the first woman credited with illustrating the entire work. The set begins with an introduction by Carlo Carena and a foreword by Academy Award winning actor Roberto Benigni, known for his lectures and dramatic recitations of Dante's poem. The third volume ends with an appreciation by writer and cultural historian Marina Warner entitled "Monika Beisner: Illuminating Stories." Warner writes, "The hundred miniatures took her seven years to complete and the achievement is dazzling. The present volume reproduces her work full-size, with no strokes or drawing visible, but a pure glow of dense color, applied with brushes so small they consist of a half-dozen sable hairs. Monika Beisner has been scrupulously loyal to Dante's text, rendering gesture and position as described in the poem as well as its unsurpassed precision of spatial, geographical and temporal coordinates."
Monika Beisner was born in Germany, where she studied painting in Braunschweig and Berlin. Fellowships allowed her to continue her studies in New York and London, where she now lives. Her illustrations for children's books have earned her an international reputation and she has exhibited worldwide. Her illustrations of Dante's Commedia have been published in Germany and Italy. She has completed illustrations for Ovid's Metamorphoses. Her next step will be into the world of Gilgamesh.
Jean Hollander has taught literature and writing at various colleges and universities. Her third book of poems will be published later this year. In addition to this translation, she has published translations of works by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. Robert Hollander, Professor in European Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton University, has published a dozen books and some eighty articles on Dante and/or Boccaccio. He is founder and director of two Internet sites, the Dartmouth Dante Project and the Princeton Dante Project.
The three volumes-Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso-are bound in full cloth with a dust jacket and are in a cloth-covered slipcase. The work has been set in Centaur and printed in a limited edition of 500 numbered copies. The first seventy-five are available as a deluxe issue, accompanied by an extra suite of illustrations, on Gardapat Kassica paper by Cartiere del Garda, numbered with roman numerals, signed by the artist, and boxed in a portfolio. The complete production has been carried out in Verona by Stamperia Valdonega Group. Distributed for Edizioni Valdonega, Verona.
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PRIVATE TYPECASTERS, PRESERVING THE CRAFT OF HOT-METAL TY...
by Hopkins, Richard L. (editor)
First edition, limited to 150 numbered copies. The private press has been with us in one form or another for 200 years or more. The equipment for a small private press was inexpensive, required little space and almost anyone could learn to do basic printing in a short time. Private typecasting is entirely different. A single machine weighs almost a ton and a lot of practice and experience is required in order to decently produce the most basic work. This once-costly equipment came into the hands of printing enthusiasts when hot-metal typesetting was forced into decline by the computer. The members of this hot-metal fraternity comprise a network of small shops using the machines and matrices which once supported the hot-metal letterpress era. They are, in effect, a group of small, working museums. The work of fifteen of these typecasters has been gathered into the pages of this book. Here you will see unknown, newly-created types, ancient types cast from 200-year-old matrices, proprietary types and a beautiful Civilité face designed by Hermann Zapf, which was never released to the commercial market. There are five fold-out pages, two of which open together to make a 32-inch spread. One of the fold-outs is a recreated page from the 36-line Gutenberg Bible with rubrication. It took six months to turn the printed images on the original page into a complete font of hand-fitted metal types. Printed on dampened handmade paper, this leaf required a week's work, and handling it is as close as most of us will get to experiencing the genuine page.
A biographical sketch of each contributor precedes his alphabets and the specimen pages which show the alphabets in use. Produced over a 14-month period, the labor and expense lavished on this work exceeds any previous book from Bird & Bull Press.
The Private Typecasters, a 194-page small folio printed on Zerkall mould-made paper, is beautifully bound in quarter morocco with Japanese cloth sides and leather spine label. The same cloth and spine label are used on the clamshell case which houses the book.
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