Oak Knoll

Limited to 26 numbered copies signed by the author. Previously published in Parenthesis, No. 3, May 1999. Edited by Mike Koppa. Handset in 10 pt Century Oldstyle. Title pages feature 18 & 36 pt Huxley Vertical. Printed on Zerkall Laid and Classic Crest uv/ultra II with Vandercook SP-15 s.n. 29950. Bound by hand and tucked in one-of-a-kind covers, constructed without adhesive, featuring folios from the 1923 Specimen Book and Catalogue of the American Type Founders Company. Prospectus loosly inserted.

From the press: Typesetting on a Winters Afternoon is built around a manuscript found enclosed in a letter received from Stan Nelson, then Curator of the Print and Graphic Arts Collection at the Smithsonian, in 1998. The story has been previously published in Parenthesis No. 3, in May 1999, within a section titled Fine Presses in the Next Millenium.

For almost 20 years, Stans story has been in mind as something that would make a great book project. The shop had been idle in storage since 2004, and finally resurrected in its new home, dubbed Der Klubhaus at Holy Hollow, in 2016. Seasonal full time summer employment allows The Heavy Duty Press to be active only in the winter months, and serendipitously, Typesetting on a Winters Afternoon became the perfect project to resurrect the letterpress operation.

With permission, the original story has been slightly edited, omitting some of the more bleak perspectives regarding the outlook for the fine press movement in 1999. True to the title, all of the typesetting has been conducted on winter afternoons.

The book required three winters of production, totaling 320 shop hours. First proofs were pulled in February 2017. The prototype book block and cover were built in January 2018, and most of the printing had been completed by the end of March 2018. The last bit of printing wrapped up in December 2018, and the binding was executed between the winter solstice of 2018 and the spring equinox of 2019.