1930, ISBN: 4dc9fde6d8e9230814dddbffb56a8c71

[SC: 19.89], One of 300 copies on paper, this number 229, with an additional 15 on Imperial Japanese paper and eight copies on vellum. 81 wood engravings by Edward Gordon Craig, title and… Mehr…

[SC: 19.89], One of 300 copies on paper, this number 229, with an additional 15 on Imperial Japanese paper and eight copies on vellum. 81 wood engravings by Edward Gordon Craig, title and half title designed and cut by Eric Gill. Titles printed in red, text in black, wood engravings in black with occasional highlights in blue. Typeface designed by Edward Johnston, after that used by Fust & Schoeffer in their Mainz Psalter of 1457 Folio, 38 x 25cm, 186pp., [2]. With Notes by J. Dover Wilson in pocket to rear as issued, 35pp. Original publisher's quarter linen with pale blue paper boards, buff paper spine label lettered in black. Weimar, Cranach Press. Good, covers rubbed and unevenly faded, spine label cracked and darkened, endpapers browned, title page with horizontal crease seemingly the result of a paper flaw, small spot of spoiling to margin of p.7, very light spotting to margin of final leaf, otherwise bright, clean and free of foxing or offsetting. Almost 20 years in the making, the Cranach Press Hamlet is one of the supreme achievements of 20th century printing. The undoubted magnum opus of both printer and artist, William Rothenstein wrote adoringly to Count Harry Graf Kessler on receiving his copy: ?I must tell you at once how magnificent I think the Hamlet. It is one of the great books? to my mind easily the most important book since Morris? Chaucer.? One contributing factor to the unique quality of the Cranach Hamlet is that its origins lay not in traditional book illustration, but rather in the world of theatre and stage design. Edward Gordon Craig had co-directed a production of Hamlet alongside Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1912, which would turn out to be ?a decisive event, for it opened the way to personal, often political, interpretations of Shakespeare and established the principle of conceptual staging?? (Lindsay Newman, The Book as a Work of Art). Craig used mobile screens of canvas and wood onto which were projected coloured lights and forms, and made use of wooden figures which he cut himself from planks, producing semi-abstract scenes of great interpretive and emotional power. Kessler recalled visiting Craig in 1911 when he was living ?in a small, old house in Smith Square, a ?haunted house?, as he said? where ?he shewed me his new scenery, a series of screens taking on every shape and mood merely by moving and lighting them differently, and some very wonderful little wooden figures for Hamlet. He is a crazy creature, but a man of supreme genius in his own art? The performance inspired Kessler, but even more important ?were the drawings and prints which he produced afterwards. He has made pulls on paper from his wooden figures, which can take their place beside the most beautiful woodcuts of the quattrocento, so perfect is their balance between line and meaning, between inner fire and fascinating decorative effect? It was this realisation, that the figures might be printed on paper as white-line woodcuts, which prompted Kessler to set about the task of printing an edition of Hamlet using Craig?s illustrations. In order to match these illustrations to type, Kessler turned to his long-serving advisor Emery Walker, who ?had convinced Kessler that type and illustration should form a unity in weight, style, and layout. His starting point was the typeface, which he believed should be monumental and simple, and which should set the tone for the illustrations? (Lindsay Newman). For this they looked to the veteran calligrapher and type designer Edward Johnston, who was commissioned in 1912 to make designs for a black letter fount based on Fust and Schoeffer?s Mainz Psalter of 1457, making use of photographic enlargements made by Walker after copies at the British Library. The resulting designs were, almost inevitably, cut by the punchcutter Edward Prince, from whom had also flowed the types of Morris, Hornby and Cobden-Sanderson. The resulting ?black letter type can be considered in stage terms as both a backcloth and proscenium frame: it provides a wonderful support for Craig?s free-standing figures which dominate the book and convey to the reader a thrilling sense of character and drama. They leap from the page and drag us into the exciting events which are unfolding? (Lindsay Newman). The choice of format, with the text of the play printed in a central column flanked by further columns of marginal notes, was again inspired by examples of early printing and allowed great flexibility and variety in the layout of Craig?s illustration. Finally, in an attempt to reproduce the theatrical effects of his movable screens, Craig designed a series of rectangular type high ?composite blocks? with lines with varying degrees of thickness, which could essentially bracket and underline his illustrations, creating the essence of scenery with a minimum of exposition. This was a genuinely avant-garde approach to printing, which lends to the book a sense of both sparseness and precision at one and the same time. ?What then is the importance of the Cranach Press Hamlet? Hamlet is a significant example of an artist?s book, for the images are not mere illustrations of the text, but interpret that text? Not easily accessible, Craig?s wood engravings challenge the spectator: they are unconventional, unexpected, and multi-layered with many undefined significances capable of a wealth of meanings? In the conception, execution, and placing of his engravings the artist displays a fertile inventiveness - their rich diversity and unpredictability transform the book into a living organism. By his use of free-standing figures as blocks and his composite blocks Craig both adapted to a traditional craft and pushed it beyond its accepted limits? (ibid.)<

1930, ISBN: 4dc9fde6d8e9230814dddbffb56a8c71

[SC: 19.86], One of 300 copies on paper, this number 229, with an additional 15 on Imperial Japanese paper and eight copies on vellum. 81 wood engravings by Edward Gordon Craig, title and… Mehr…

[SC: 19.86], One of 300 copies on paper, this number 229, with an additional 15 on Imperial Japanese paper and eight copies on vellum. 81 wood engravings by Edward Gordon Craig, title and half title designed and cut by Eric Gill. Titles printed in red, text in black, wood engravings in black with occasional highlights in blue. Typeface designed by Edward Johnston, after that used by Fust & Schoeffer in their Mainz Psalter of 1457 Folio, 38 x 25cm, 186pp., [2]. With Notes by J. Dover Wilson in pocket to rear as issued, 35pp. Original publisher's quarter linen with pale blue paper boards, buff paper spine label lettered in black. Weimar, Cranach Press. Good, covers rubbed and unevenly faded, spine label cracked and darkened, endpapers browned, title page with horizontal crease seemingly the result of a paper flaw, small spot of spoiling to margin of p.7, very light spotting to margin of final leaf, otherwise bright, clean and free of foxing or offsetting. Almost 20 years in the making, the Cranach Press Hamlet is one of the supreme achievements of 20th century printing. The undoubted magnum opus of both printer and artist, William Rothenstein wrote adoringly to Count Harry Graf Kessler on receiving his copy: ?I must tell you at once how magnificent I think the Hamlet. It is one of the great books? to my mind easily the most important book since Morris? Chaucer.? One contributing factor to the unique quality of the Cranach Hamlet is that its origins lay not in traditional book illustration, but rather in the world of theatre and stage design. Edward Gordon Craig had co-directed a production of Hamlet alongside Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1912, which would turn out to be ?a decisive event, for it opened the way to personal, often political, interpretations of Shakespeare and established the principle of conceptual staging?? (Lindsay Newman, The Book as a Work of Art). Craig used mobile screens of canvas and wood onto which were projected coloured lights and forms, and made use of wooden figures which he cut himself from planks, producing semi-abstract scenes of great interpretive and emotional power. Kessler recalled visiting Craig in 1911 when he was living ?in a small, old house in Smith Square, a ?haunted house?, as he said? where ?he shewed me his new scenery, a series of screens taking on every shape and mood merely by moving and lighting them differently, and some very wonderful little wooden figures for Hamlet. He is a crazy creature, but a man of supreme genius in his own art? The performance inspired Kessler, but even more important ?were the drawings and prints which he produced afterwards. He has made pulls on paper from his wooden figures, which can take their place beside the most beautiful woodcuts of the quattrocento, so perfect is their balance between line and meaning, between inner fire and fascinating decorative effect? It was this realisation, that the figures might be printed on paper as white-line woodcuts, which prompted Kessler to set about the task of printing an edition of Hamlet using Craig?s illustrations. In order to match these illustrations to type, Kessler turned to his long-serving advisor Emery Walker, who ?had convinced Kessler that type and illustration should form a unity in weight, style, and layout. His starting point was the typeface, which he believed should be monumental and simple, and which should set the tone for the illustrations? (Lindsay Newman). For this they looked to the veteran calligrapher and type designer Edward Johnston, who was commissioned in 1912 to make designs for a black letter fount based on Fust and Schoeffer?s Mainz Psalter of 1457, making use of photographic enlargements made by Walker after copies at the British Library. The resulting designs were, almost inevitably, cut by the punchcutter Edward Prince, from whom had also flowed the types of Morris, Hornby and Cobden-Sanderson. The resulting ?black letter type can be considered in stage terms as both a backcloth and proscenium frame: it provides a wonderful support for Craig?s free-standing figures which dominate the book and convey to the reader a thrilling sense of character and drama. They leap from the page and drag us into the exciting events which are unfolding? (Lindsay Newman). The choice of format, with the text of the play printed in a central column flanked by further columns of marginal notes, was again inspired by examples of early printing and allowed great flexibility and variety in the layout of Craig?s illustration. Finally, in an attempt to reproduce the theatrical effects of his movable screens, Craig designed a series of rectangular type high ?composite blocks? with lines with varying degrees of thickness, which could essentially bracket and underline his illustrations, creating the essence of scenery with a minimum of exposition. This was a genuinely avant-garde approach to printing, which lends to the book a sense of both sparseness and precision at one and the same time. ?What then is the importance of the Cranach Press Hamlet? Hamlet is a significant example of an artist?s book, for the images are not mere illustrations of the text, but interpret that text? Not easily accessible, Craig?s wood engravings challenge the spectator: they are unconventional, unexpected, and multi-layered with many undefined significances capable of a wealth of meanings? In the conception, execution, and placing of his engravings the artist displays a fertile inventiveness - their rich diversity and unpredictability transform the book into a living organism. By his use of free-standing figures as blocks and his composite blocks Craig both adapted to a traditional craft and pushed it beyond its accepted limits? (ibid.)<

1930, ISBN: 4dc9fde6d8e9230814dddbffb56a8c71

[SC: 19.97], One of 300 copies on paper, this number 229, with an additional 15 on Imperial Japanese paper and eight copies on vellum. 81 wood engravings by Edward Gordon Craig, title and… Mehr…

[SC: 19.97], One of 300 copies on paper, this number 229, with an additional 15 on Imperial Japanese paper and eight copies on vellum. 81 wood engravings by Edward Gordon Craig, title and half title designed and cut by Eric Gill. Titles printed in red, text in black, wood engravings in black with occasional highlights in blue. Typeface designed by Edward Johnston, after that used by Fust & Schoeffer in their Mainz Psalter of 1457 Folio, 38 x 25cm, 186pp., [2]. With Notes by J. Dover Wilson in pocket to rear as issued, 35pp. Original publisher's quarter linen with pale blue paper boards, buff paper spine label lettered in black. Weimar, Cranach Press. Good, covers rubbed and unevenly faded, spine label cracked and darkened, endpapers browned, title page with horizontal crease seemingly the result of a paper flaw, small spot of spoiling to margin of p.7, very light spotting to margin of final leaf, otherwise bright, clean and free of foxing or offsetting. Almost 20 years in the making, the Cranach Press Hamlet is one of the supreme achievements of 20th century printing. The undoubted magnum opus of both printer and artist, William Rothenstein wrote adoringly to Count Harry Graf Kessler on receiving his copy: ?I must tell you at once how magnificent I think the Hamlet. It is one of the great books? to my mind easily the most important book since Morris? Chaucer.? One contributing factor to the unique quality of the Cranach Hamlet is that its origins lay not in traditional book illustration, but rather in the world of theatre and stage design. Edward Gordon Craig had co-directed a production of Hamlet alongside Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1912, which would turn out to be ?a decisive event, for it opened the way to personal, often political, interpretations of Shakespeare and established the principle of conceptual staging?? (Lindsay Newman, The Book as a Work of Art). Craig used mobile screens of canvas and wood onto which were projected coloured lights and forms, and made use of wooden figures which he cut himself from planks, producing semi-abstract scenes of great interpretive and emotional power. Kessler recalled visiting Craig in 1911 when he was living ?in a small, old house in Smith Square, a ?haunted house?, as he said? where ?he shewed me his new scenery, a series of screens taking on every shape and mood merely by moving and lighting them differently, and some very wonderful little wooden figures for Hamlet. He is a crazy creature, but a man of supreme genius in his own art? The performance inspired Kessler, but even more important ?were the drawings and prints which he produced afterwards. He has made pulls on paper from his wooden figures, which can take their place beside the most beautiful woodcuts of the quattrocento, so perfect is their balance between line and meaning, between inner fire and fascinating decorative effect? It was this realisation, that the figures might be printed on paper as white-line woodcuts, which prompted Kessler to set about the task of printing an edition of Hamlet using Craig?s illustrations. In order to match these illustrations to type, Kessler turned to his long-serving advisor Emery Walker, who ?had convinced Kessler that type and illustration should form a unity in weight, style, and layout. His starting point was the typeface, which he believed should be monumental and simple, and which should set the tone for the illustrations? (Lindsay Newman). For this they looked to the veteran calligrapher and type designer Edward Johnston, who was commissioned in 1912 to make designs for a black letter fount based on Fust and Schoeffer?s Mainz Psalter of 1457, making use of photographic enlargements made by Walker after copies at the British Library. The resulting designs were, almost inevitably, cut by the punchcutter Edward Prince, from whom had also flowed the types of Morris, Hornby and Cobden-Sanderson. The resulting ?black letter type can be considered in stage terms as both a backcloth and proscenium frame: it provides a wonderful support for Craig?s free-standing figures which dominate the book and convey to the reader a thrilling sense of character and drama. They leap from the page and drag us into the exciting events which are unfolding? (Lindsay Newman). The choice of format, with the text of the play printed in a central column flanked by further columns of marginal notes, was again inspired by examples of early printing and allowed great flexibility and variety in the layout of Craig?s illustration. Finally, in an attempt to reproduce the theatrical effects of his movable screens, Craig designed a series of rectangular type high ?composite blocks? with lines with varying degrees of thickness, which could essentially bracket and underline his illustrations, creating the essence of scenery with a minimum of exposition. This was a genuinely avant-garde approach to printing, which lends to the book a sense of both sparseness and precision at one and the same time. ?What then is the importance of the Cranach Press Hamlet? Hamlet is a significant example of an artist?s book, for the images are not mere illustrations of the text, but interpret that text? Not easily accessible, Craig?s wood engravings challenge the spectator: they are unconventional, unexpected, and multi-layered with many undefined significances capable of a wealth of meanings? In the conception, execution, and placing of his engravings the artist displays a fertile inventiveness - their rich diversity and unpredictability transform the book into a living organism. By his use of free-standing figures as blocks and his composite blocks Craig both adapted to a traditional craft and pushed it beyond its accepted limits? (ibid.)<

1930, ISBN: 4dc9fde6d8e9230814dddbffb56a8c71

[SC: 19.9], One of 300 copies on paper, this number 229, with an additional 15 on Imperial Japanese paper and eight copies on vellum. 81 wood engravings by Edward Gordon Craig, title and … Mehr…

[SC: 19.9], One of 300 copies on paper, this number 229, with an additional 15 on Imperial Japanese paper and eight copies on vellum. 81 wood engravings by Edward Gordon Craig, title and half title designed and cut by Eric Gill. Titles printed in red, text in black, wood engravings in black with occasional highlights in blue. Typeface designed by Edward Johnston, after that used by Fust & Schoeffer in their Mainz Psalter of 1457 Folio, 38 x 25cm, 186pp., [2]. With Notes by J. Dover Wilson in pocket to rear as issued, 35pp. Original publisher's quarter linen with pale blue paper boards, buff paper spine label lettered in black. Weimar, Cranach Press. Good, covers rubbed and unevenly faded, spine label cracked and darkened, endpapers browned, title page with horizontal crease seemingly the result of a paper flaw, small spot of spoiling to margin of p.7, very light spotting to margin of final leaf, otherwise bright, clean and free of foxing or offsetting. Almost 20 years in the making, the Cranach Press Hamlet is one of the supreme achievements of 20th century printing. The undoubted magnum opus of both printer and artist, William Rothenstein wrote adoringly to Count Harry Graf Kessler on receiving his copy: ?I must tell you at once how magnificent I think the Hamlet. It is one of the great books? to my mind easily the most important book since Morris? Chaucer.? One contributing factor to the unique quality of the Cranach Hamlet is that its origins lay not in traditional book illustration, but rather in the world of theatre and stage design. Edward Gordon Craig had co-directed a production of Hamlet alongside Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1912, which would turn out to be ?a decisive event, for it opened the way to personal, often political, interpretations of Shakespeare and established the principle of conceptual staging?? (Lindsay Newman, The Book as a Work of Art). Craig used mobile screens of canvas and wood onto which were projected coloured lights and forms, and made use of wooden figures which he cut himself from planks, producing semi-abstract scenes of great interpretive and emotional power. Kessler recalled visiting Craig in 1911 when he was living ?in a small, old house in Smith Square, a ?haunted house?, as he said? where ?he shewed me his new scenery, a series of screens taking on every shape and mood merely by moving and lighting them differently, and some very wonderful little wooden figures for Hamlet. He is a crazy creature, but a man of supreme genius in his own art? The performance inspired Kessler, but even more important ?were the drawings and prints which he produced afterwards. He has made pulls on paper from his wooden figures, which can take their place beside the most beautiful woodcuts of the quattrocento, so perfect is their balance between line and meaning, between inner fire and fascinating decorative effect? It was this realisation, that the figures might be printed on paper as white-line woodcuts, which prompted Kessler to set about the task of printing an edition of Hamlet using Craig?s illustrations. In order to match these illustrations to type, Kessler turned to his long-serving advisor Emery Walker, who ?had convinced Kessler that type and illustration should form a unity in weight, style, and layout. His starting point was the typeface, which he believed should be monumental and simple, and which should set the tone for the illustrations? (Lindsay Newman). For this they looked to the veteran calligrapher and type designer Edward Johnston, who was commissioned in 1912 to make designs for a black letter fount based on Fust and Schoeffer?s Mainz Psalter of 1457, making use of photographic enlargements made by Walker after copies at the British Library. The resulting designs were, almost inevitably, cut by the punchcutter Edward Prince, from whom had also flowed the types of Morris, Hornby and Cobden-Sanderson. The resulting ?black letter type can be considered in stage terms as both a backcloth and proscenium frame: it provides a wonderful support for Craig?s free-standing figures which dominate the book and convey to the reader a thrilling sense of character and drama. They leap from the page and drag us into the exciting events which are unfolding? (Lindsay Newman). The choice of format, with the text of the play printed in a central column flanked by further columns of marginal notes, was again inspired by examples of early printing and allowed great flexibility and variety in the layout of Craig?s illustration. Finally, in an attempt to reproduce the theatrical effects of his movable screens, Craig designed a series of rectangular type high ?composite blocks? with lines with varying degrees of thickness, which could essentially bracket and underline his illustrations, creating the essence of scenery with a minimum of exposition. This was a genuinely avant-garde approach to printing, which lends to the book a sense of both sparseness and precision at one and the same time. ?What then is the importance of the Cranach Press Hamlet? Hamlet is a significant example of an artist?s book, for the images are not mere illustrations of the text, but interpret that text? Not easily accessible, Craig?s wood engravings challenge the spectator: they are unconventional, unexpected, and multi-layered with many undefined significances capable of a wealth of meanings? In the conception, execution, and placing of his engravings the artist displays a fertile inventiveness - their rich diversity and unpredictability transform the book into a living organism. By his use of free-standing figures as blocks and his composite blocks Craig both adapted to a traditional craft and pushed it beyond its accepted limits? (ibid.)<