End of Year Gyaff - 2023
Before I dive into the production update, my sincere thanks to every collector who acquired, reserved or considered picking up a Conversation Tree Press book this year. Your support, patience, kind words, and feedback have all helped the Press grow this year. While I’ve worn a few different hats over the course of my career, being able to make books has been the most fulfilling work I’ve ever done, and I truly appreciate the opportunity.
Peter Pan
As mentioned in the Peter Pan Shipping Update post, copies of Peter Pan will be shipping in January with every collector receiving a letterpress-printed broadside.
Joe Hill’s Faun
Standard and Deluxe
All copies of the Standard and Deluxe from the first pallet, over 300 books, are already in the hands of collectors or will soon be. The second set of Faun books will be arriving in January along with Peter Pan, and outstanding orders will be sent out then.
Lettered and Roman Numeral
Printing of the Lettered and Roman Numeral states on the Gangolf Ulbricht handmade paper is now complete. These two states saw a number of upgrades, including larger, completely redrawn line artwork with greater detail from Francois:
The Lettered has drop caps in a second colour, while the Roman Numeral state leaves this area blank so that illuminated capitals can be hand-drawn and painted in each copy of the book by Svetlana Molodchenko. Svetlana is also illuminating the title page of the Roman Numeral copies:
The signature sheets are on their way to Francois, and from there they will make their way to Joe Hill, with the Roman Numeral copies making one more extra trip to Svetlana.
Materials for both states have already been ordered and we expect binding to begin on the Lettered books soon after signature sheets have arrived at Ludlow. While this is happening, Svetlana will begin drawing and painting the title and illuminated capitals in the Roman Numeral copies.
While all Lettered copies are reserved, Roman Numeral copies are still available, and include a custom, watercolour painting by Francois.
Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon
Thank you to everyone who reserved copies, and with all Lettered and Deluxe copies spoken for, only Standard books are now available.
I am still working on record-keeping for the Deluxe Flowers for Algernon orders, and will be sending an email to everyone who acquired a copy with rights by the first week of January. Thank you for your patience on this.
Phil at Hand and Eye has been keeping his Heidelberg cylinder busy over the last few weeks with our edition of Daniel Keyes’s award-winning novel:
We’ve started work on proofs for the artwork and materials have been ordered as we get ready to begin binding at the end of January/early February.
Marc Castelli Book
Coming in February! The enclosure for the Lettered state is quite intricate and has a months-long lead time, so we’ve begun production on these. Here’s a sneak peak at the prototype:
Weird.
Work continues on Weird., our series of weird fiction curated and edited by S.T. Joshi. As we’ve mentioned before, these volumes are not meant to be exhaustive tomes collecting all the works of the individual authors, but only their finest tales. Each volume includes around 70,000 words of fiction plus a new introduction by S.T. and an appendix of additional material.
The House on the Borderlands & Others
Dave McKean has already turned in a number of full colour illustrations and line drawings, the latter of which will be printed letterpress, for our upcoming edition of The House on the Borderland & Others. Each of them is as splendid as we’ve come to expect from Dave and this volume promises to be the most lavishly-illustrated book we’ve done yet with over twenty full colour pieces.
Here are two of them:
The Great God Pan & Others by Arthur Machen
Vladimir Zimakov will be producing linocuts for two Arthur Machen volumes, the first of which is The Great God Pan & Others, and these will be printed letterpress. Here is one of his early pencil sketches, masterfully capturing Machen’s haunting and atmospheric world in his distinctive style.
Other titles
We have a number of other titles contracted and in the works, some of which I will be sharing over the course of 2024, including the trilogy I will talk about more in January. Thank you again for your support and best wishes over the holidays and the new year.