Fine Press: Compare the Publication, Not Just the Label
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When comparing fine press publications, begin with what the publisher actually produced. The text, printing, paper, images and binding form a whole; the particulars of the edition are more useful than the label alone.
Look at three distinct examples
Our 1955 Trianon Press Blake is a facsimile publication. The 1988 Limited Editions Club O’Hara–de Kooning Poems is described with seventeen lithographs, a morocco binding and a clamshell box. Loujon Press’s 1970 Insomnia, Edition G combines a spiral-bound book, twelve reproduced-art broadsides and a wooden portfolio case.
These examples call for different checks. For the facsimile, identify the source copy and reproduction publication. For Poems, read the limitation and the explicit facsimile-signature qualification. For Insomnia, compare the book, loose components and case, retaining the catalog’s qualification about the undetermined medium of the additional image.
Separate book and portfolio issues
The Cartier-Bresson Vowels portfolio is described as a separate issue of three individually signed woodcuts, numbered 28/60. It should not be treated as the 300-copy book issue described in the catalog’s comparison.
Inspect the copy
Check the colophon, any handwritten limitation and the contents. Note wear to bindings and cases separately from condition of the pages or prints. When a title has several issues, request evidence for the issue offered rather than applying another copy’s description.
Browse Fine Press and Prints & Portfolios.
Questions about a particular copy? Email breethingbooks@gmail.com with the title and the detail you would like to see.