Oak Knoll

Privately printed in an edition limited to 100 numbered copies signed by William Everson. Lacking the wooden base, slipcase with very small scratches, else a fine copy in fine slipcase. The very scarce prospectus is loosely inserted.

Printed from Goudy Newstyle and Castellar type on handmade Hayle paper at Everson's Lime Kiln Press. Housed in a Monterey Cypress slipcase inlaid with a square of granite from Jeffers' own stoneyard. Bound by The Schuberth Bookbindery of San Francisco in linen with open-laced deerskin.

This is Everson's homage to his poetic muse, Robinson Jeffers. Everson reprinted poems by Jeffers whose central image was stone, a reference to the transformation Jeffers underwent building Tor House and Hawk Tower from stone on his seaside Carmel property. As Everson notes in the announcement for the volume, the construction of the house and tower was a religious experience that allowed Jeffers to rebuild "a shattered world...on the lonely Carmel headland." The transformational power of stone is suggested by Everson's choice of type, paper and binding, and is indicated in the book's subtitle: Poems Gathered From His Stonemason Years When Submission to the Spirit of Granite in the Building of the House & Tower & Wall Focussed His Imagination & Gave Massive Permanence to His Verse. The poems are written in Jeffers' characteristic long line, which Everson preserves by choosing a horizontal format.

Title page woodcut is by William Prochnow. Index of poems at rear.

Fine printing historian Michael Peich has called the book "an unparalleled example of craft-one of the greatest examples of American fine printing. It is an exemplar of the potential for bookmaking when the designer is an informed and sensitive reader," (American Printing History Journal).