Design

Books On Books Collection – Annie Cicale

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Patterned Alphabet (2013)

Patterned Alphabet  (2013)
Annie Cicale
Sewn, casebound leporello. H104 x W104 mm. 34 panels. Edition of 41, of which this 26. Artist 4 July 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Patterned Alphabet could well have been entitled Textured Alphabet. The number of different textures almost equals that of the patterns. It is the textures’ interaction with each other as well as with the patterns that particularly appeals. The cover, appropriately made of Cave Paper’s Alphabet Heavyweight, initiates the interplay. While the calligraphic style and patterned background of the copperplate engravings of A and Z do not vary, the textures around and beneath them multiply, mirror and contrast. The surface of the Cave Alphabet paper echoes that of the copperplate’s stippled background. The softness of the thick cotton string, binding the cover, contrasts with the roughness of the paper.

Before coming to the leporello, hand and eye are slowed by another texture. Like the self-referential Cave Alphabet paper cover, the flyleaf refers to itself with a leaf print. It contrasts with the cover, however, in its lightness, surface and color. While that dance of contrasting textures goes on, the flyleaf’s embedded image strikes up its own contrast with the relief technique and letters on the covers.

When the leporello comes on stage, the print pattern and paper texture exchange the roles they played at the beginning. Before, the print pattern held the stillpoint around which the cover, binding string, flyleaf and copperplate danced. Now, the smoother laid texture of the Ingres d’Arches paper becomes the stillpoint. Its weight, surface and color — very different from those of the cover and flyleaf — serve that constancy well. For each letterform (including the ampersand), different patterns make up the anatomy and background, which adds quite a number of dancers around the stillpoint.

The printing technique for all those dancers — Resingrave engraving — contributes to their variety of pattern. Invented by Richard Woodman, Resingrave is a synthetic substitute for boxwood. It consists of a thin layer of resin atop a block of MDF wood and, since the ’90s, was famously used by Barry Moser (e.g., the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible). More than lino or blocks for woodcuts, it allows for the thin lines necessary for close and fine patterns. Standing the leporello against the light offers a chance to enjoy the interaction of the “texture” of those patterns with the texture of the paper.

Like Moser, Cicale has engaged with watercolors as well as prints and embraced the abstract as well as the figurative, as can be seen in the next work.

Detritus No. 30 (2020)

Detritus No. 30: Floppy Alphabet, Brush Alphabet (2020)
Annie Cicale
Modified leporello, pasted to paper cover, bellyband closure. Closed: H95 x W80; Open: W750. 12 panels. Acquired from the artist, 4 July 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Here, Cicale has compiled and collaged cast off letters, ornaments and marks from completed works to create a modified double-sided leporello bound in painted and inked watercolor paper, held together with a belly band. The leporello’s two modifications are its variation in panel size and the cut across the mountain folds. Except for a reversal on the first panel, the upper row’s panels bear square cutouts, and the lower row’s bear circular ones. Although constant in shape and distribution, the recurrent squares and circles vary in their color and size, highlighting the variation in size of panels. With their constant black and gray, the ink-brushed letters A-H contrast with the variance of color and size of the circles and squares.

On the reverse side of the leporello, the circles and squares exchange position. They are, in fact, circular and square patches, black and white on this side of the leporello and colored on the other, supplying the color to the other side’s square and circular cutouts. The circular patches are generally consistent in size, as are the square patches, which contrasts with the varied sizes of the cutouts on the other side. The reverse side of the leporello is more muted, and with its black and white patches, it seems more abstract, but is it? Letters themselves are abstract, which may the tongue-in-cheek point of the underlying patches.

Experiment No. 2 (2023)

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Experiment No. 2: Step by Step (2023)
Annie Cicale
Pamphlet stitch book. H185 x W 130 mm. Seven folios of varying trim size and papers, one set of four folios gathered and sewn to upper fold of spine, one set of three folios gathered and sewn to lower fold of spine. Acquired from the artist, 4 July 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission.

Cicale continues her dance of contrasts and similarities with Experiment No. 2 (2023). Here are some of her comments on process and material:

Teaching watercolor for many years has allowed me to try many exuberant techniques, using good rag paper and a wide gamut of colors, shapes and techniques.… An alphabet written on another sheet of paper has been collaged on these pages. I’ve used walnut ink, watercolor and iridescent pigments, which create an interesting series of contrasts as you move through the book.

Another experimental aspect of this pamphlet stitch book is the gathering of the folios into two separate gathers and the variation in size of the folios. The exterior image of the spine above and its interior below show the attachment of the gatherings to the right and left folds of the spine. Two pamphlets in one.

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The first gathering’s title-bearing folio measures H176 x W246 mm when spread out fully. On its title-bearing page, there is one of the collage elements that Cicale mentions; three others appear on the other half, which is the final page of the first gathering.

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Of course, the full images on either side of the title-bearing folio cannot be seen all at once because of the intervening, contrasting and differently sized folded folios. It’s those different sizes and contrasts that somehow urge the reader/viewer to jump forward then back not only to see those full images for every folio but also to enjoy the magic of the contrasts and similarities. Two of the more effective spreads prompting this jumping forward and backward are these below. On the reverse side of the title-bearing folio is a colorful impasto painting of letters, some in sequence, some overlapping.

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Perhaps it’s the impasto of the verso page that prompts the jump forward to find its recto mate, but once there, the mirrored colors of the pansy and letters surely prompt a jump back to enjoy again the different colors mirrored before.

Below, the truncated alphabet prompts the leap forward to find its other half, and the contrasting wintry calligraphy facing M through Z sends us back to its other half to puzzle over those collaged thumbnail letter I’s.

Mind that all of this has occurred in just the first gathering.

The second gathering has fewer folios and perhaps fewer prompts to jump forward and back, but there is at least one prompt to jump back to the first gathering. The first page of the second gathering recalls from the first gathering the folio of wintry calligraphy — the one above with the two puzzling thumbnail letter I’s.

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Curiously, the second gathering has several more of those thumbnail letter I’s than the first gathering has. In fact, due to the narrowness of the inner folios, the collaged thumbnails are also more constantly present to the eye. In general, the thumbnails and narrow inner folios make the second gathering more about the collage effect and strong contrasts across the differently sized pages and less about jumping forward and back.

When we reach the final page of the second gathering, there sits the thumbnail, almost as if it were the illuminated initial of “Incipit” — except, of course, this is the end.

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Tantalizing and enchanting as those thumbnail letter I’s are, they also draw attention to the experiment’s one jarring folio. It appears in the center of the first gathering and is quirkily the only off-center folio in the whole book. It is also the folio that, with an explicit message, forecloses the surrounding incipience. With that twee red heart beneath the red thread, out the window goes the structural and material subtlety so enjoyable in the rest of the book.

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Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“Alphabets Alive! – Calligraphy & Design“. 19 July 2023. Books On Books.

Chen, Julie. 2013. 500 Handmade Books. Volume 2. New York: Lark. Pp. 54 (Grow), 279 (Free Play).

Books On Books Collection – David Rault

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ABC of Typography (2019)

ABC of Typography (2019)
David Rault  
Casebound, sewn, illustrated paper-over-boards cover, endbands, sewn, red doublures. H265 x W195 mm. 128 pages. London: Self Made Hero [Translated from French (Gallimard, 2018)]. Acquired from The Saint Bookstore, 29 June 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

David Rault’s ABC of Typography traces 3,500 years of letters and type from pictographs and cuneiform through Roman lettering and Gutenberg to the Bauhaus and beyond. For the Books On Books Collection, it enriches the focus on the alphabet, typography and artists’ books — in particular, that subset of illustrated histories of the alphabet and type. These include Tommy Thompson’s The ABC of Our Alphabet (1952), William Dugan’s How Our Alphabet Grew (1972), Tiphaine Samoyault’s Alphabetical Order (1998), James Rumford’s There’s a Monster in the Alphabet (2002), Ada Yardeni’s A-dventure-Z’ (2003), Don Robb and Ann Smith’s Ox, House, Stick (2007) and Renzo Rossi’s The Revolution of the Alphabet (2009).

While enhancing that subset of illustrated reference works, ABC of Typography also highlights a gap in the collection. Rault and his team of invited artists hail from the Franco-Belgian tradition of les bandes dessinées (BDs), which the French and Belgians call la Neuvième Art (“the Ninth Art”). English-language readers will likely be familiar with BDs from seeing Hergé’s Tintin or René Goscinny’s Asterix. Other than Chiavelli’s Arthur R./Un Coup de DÉS Jamais N’Abolira le HASARD (1988) and its two companion volumes, the collection has no BDs. The Rault volume does, however, deliver a mini-survey of styles among contemporary bandes dessinateurs with its assignment of chapters to eleven different artists.

Artists from left to right from the top: Aseyn (“The Birth of Writing”), Singeon (“The Romans and their Writing”), Libon (“Form the Middle Ages to Frakturs”), Seyhan Argun (“The Gutenberg Bible”), Delphine Panique (“From Humanist to Didone”), Olivier Deloye “Newspapers and Machines”), Hervé Bourhis “From Gills Sans to Bauhaus”), Alexandre Clérisse (“The ‘Rencontre de Lure”), Anne Simon (“Maximilien Vox’s System”), Jake Raynal (“Letraset and Phototypesetting”) and François Ayroles (“Typography Today and Tomorrow”)

The book’s overall design by Jean-Christophe Menu simultaneously embraces and sets off the individual styles of drawing and lettering. Menu’s consistent use of a slab serif font (Lubalin Graph Std?) for chapter titles alongside oversized chapter numbers that bleed off the facing page signals his intent and success.

The variety of “strip” layouts pushes the boundaries of unity. Some, like Libon’s and Clérisse’s, float on the page. Others, like Singeon’s and Simon’s, are ruled off. Within the strip layouts, panels vary in shape, and the images within them tilt at different angles, all creating as much of a sense of movement as any action comic. Even where a strip is ruled off, sketches sometimes encroach across panels as well as the book’s margins or gutter to give depth and perspective as well as movement. as happens with the gulls in flight below from Aseyn’s chapter.

Note how the gulls in flight in Aseyn’s chapter appear within panels but also cross them and the gutter.

Evident from Clérisse’s recounting of “Les Rencontres internationale de Lure” (an influential annual forum in Provence), Simon’s homage to the typologist Maximilien Vox (one of the forum’s founders) and Ayroles’ positioning of the typeface DIN, the volume’s European roots are never far from the surface, which also makes ABC of Typography a useful and necessary addition to this collection or any shelf of Anglo-centric works about the alphabet, type or design. It’s interesting that, while the French have categorized BDs as the ninth among the ten officially designated arts, typography and design do not yet rate a category. Neither does the livre d’artiste for that matter, which raises a question:

Between the traditional BD and livres d’artistes by graphic artists, is there fertile ground for artists’ books that blend subject, material, form and metaphor into innovative works of book art? The above-mentioned BD by Chiavelli, paying homage to Mallarmé’s Un Coup de Dés, represents one end of that spectrum. Hervé di Rosa, part of the Figuration libre movement, associated with Keith Haring and graffiti artists, can provide the other end of the spectrum with his Un Coup de Dés jamais n’abolira le Hasard (2021), published by Virgile Legrand. For the work of book art between them, Nanette Wylde’s Babar Redacted: ABC Free (2020) might be a case in point. Likewise, Catherine Labio’s curated exhibition in 2013 — “From Bande Dessinée to Artist’s Book” — finds earlier exemplars in the works of Lars Arrhenius, Felicia Rice, Omar Olivera and Mamiko Ikeda.

Babar Redacted: ABC Free (2020)
Nanette Wylde
Based on an altered copy of the board book B is for Babar: An alphabet book by Laurent de Brunhoff. French link exposed spine on tapes. 9″ x 9″ x .5″ closed. Edition of 3.
Photos: Courtesy of the artist.

Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“Alphabets Alive!“. 19 July 2023. Books On Books.

“Richard Niessen“. 23 April 2021. Books On Books Collection.

Library of Congress. “Bande Dessinée: Comics & Graphic Novels“, in “Reading in French: A Student’s Guide to Francophone Literature & Language Learning”. Library of Congress Research Guides. Accessed 11 August 2023.

Labio Catherine and Center for Book Arts (New York N.Y.). 2013. From Bande Dessinée to Artist’s Book : Testing the Limits of Franco-Belgian Comics. New York: Center for Book Arts.

Books On Books Collection – Kitty Maryatt and Scripps College Students

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Arch (2010)

Arch (2010)
Kitty Maryatt, Jenny Karin Morrill, Ali Standish, Alycia Lang, Jennifer Wineke, Mandesha Marcus, Catherine Wang, Kathryn Hunt, Ilse Wogau, Jennifer Cohen and Winnie Ding
Acrylic slipcase, leporello formed of self-covering booklets sewn together. Slipcase: H410 x W110 x D50. Leporello: H400 x W 90 mm (closed). 64 pages. Unnumbered copy from edition of 109. Acquired from Bromer Booksellers, 7 December 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection

Nôtre-Dame de Paris (1831), Archdeacon Claude Frollo points to the book in his hand and then to the cathedral and says, “This will kill that”. It is ironic that Hugo’s book (popularly known now by its English title The Hunchback of Nôtre-Dame) was written in large part to save the then-decaying cathedral (post-Revolution, it served as a warehouse), and it succeeded. It is also ironic that, while the fictional character’s metaphor has a point about the book’s permanence of replicability outlasting the building’s permanence of stone, it misses the collaborative foundations of both.

Arch (2010), created by ten students at Scripps College under the direction of Kitty Maryatt, reminds us that the creation of a book — even a work of book art — is a collaborative effort. All the students involved in the design, planning and production were women, a happenstance serendipitously blessed ahead of time by a Los Angeles Times article celebrating women architects. Drawing on that article and Maya Lin’s Boundaries (2000) as well as other research, the students agreed on a mission statement for the work: “Architecture, like books, is a deliberate balancing act between stability and motion, interior and exterior, aesthetic values and practicalities. Books, like buildings, are fundamentally inhabited spaces. They are incomplete without human interaction.”

Clever structural use of paper with a stone-like appearance, paired with apt choices of text matched with equally judicious choices in typography, evoke the similarities between books and buildings. Each architect/bookmaker’s contribution is a self-covering booklet in leporello format. Of different heights, the booklets are sewn together to create a tiered tower to be housed in an acrylic slipcase.

The first booklet, open below, incorporates Maryatt’s introduction, entitled “Blueprint”, all of which appears in the work’s entry in the publication Sixty over Thirty: Bibliography of Books Printed Since 1986 at the Scripps College Press (2016). The entry is reproduced in full further below.

The next booklet lists the sources of architectural inspiration, and as the lattice door on the list’s facing page turns, two sets of stairs, cutouts in contrasting colors, ascend on the verso page to the text that begins at the top of the recto page and ends at the foot of descending stairs on the next double-panel spread. Like Maya Lin, Maryatt’s students built their works by learning to think with their hands. The reader, too, has to think with the hands to experience fully this booklet and those that follow. The whole work conjures up the titles of Juhani Pallasmaa’s books — The Thinking Hand and The Embodied Image. Readers of this online entry will have to expand the images below, enjoy the words and imagine their way through with the title of another of his books — The Eyes of the Skin.

Further Reading

“‘La Prose du Transsibérien Re-Creation’ by Kitty Maryatt“. 5 October 2020. Books On Books Collection.

“Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of Steingruber’s ‘Architectural Alphabet’“. 31 December 2022. Books On Books.

Carrión, Ulises. 1975. “The New Art of Making Books”. Reprinted in Lyons, Joan. 1993. Artist’s books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook. Rochester, NY: Visual Studies Workshop Press.

Hugo, Victor, and Jessie Haynes, trans. 1831 (1902). Nôtre Dame de Paris. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Lin, Maya. 2000. Maya Lin: Boundaries. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Lynn, Greg. 2004. Folding in Architecture Rev. ed. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Academy. See for references to Mario Carpo, Gilles Deleuze and Peter Eisenman.

Macken, Marian. Binding Space: The Book as Spatial Practice (London: Taylor and Francis, 2018). A trained architect and book artist, Macken articulates and illustrates the how and why of the overlap between architecture and book art.

Maryatt, Kitty, Ed. 2016. Sixty Over Thirty : Bibliography of Books Printed Since 1986 at the Scripps College Press. Claremont, CA: Scripps College Press.

Pallasmaa, Juhani. 1996. The Eyes of the Skin. London: Academy Editions.

Pallasmaa, Juhani. 2009. The Thinking Hand. Chichester, UK: Wiley.

Pallasmaa, Juhani. 2011. The Embodied Image. Chichester, UK: Wiley.

Vyzoviti Sophia and BIS Publishers. 2016. Folding Architecture : Spatial Structural and Organizational Diagrams. 14th print ed. Amsterdam: BIS.

Williams, Elizabeth. 1989. “Architects Books: An Investigation in Binding and Building”, The Guild of Book Workers Journal. 27, 2: 21-31. This essay not only pursues the topic of architecture-inspired book art but turns it on its head. An adjunct professor at the time, Williams set her students the task of reading Ulises Carrión’s The New Art of Making Books (Nicosia: Aegean Editions, 2001) then, after touring a bindery, “to design the studio and dwelling spaces for a hand bookbinder on an urban site in Ann Arbor, Michigan”. But before producing the design, the students were asked “to assemble the pages [of the design brief and project statement] in a way that explored or challenged the concept of binding”. In other words, they had to create bookworks and then, inspired by that, create their building designs. Williams illustrates the essay with photos of the students’ bookworks. [Special thanks to Peter Verheyen for this reference.]

Books On Books Collection – Kevin M. Steele

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The Movable Book of Letterforms (2009)

The Movable Book of Letterforms (2009)
Kevin M. Steele
Pop-up book. 210 x 210 mm. 22 pages. Edition of 3. Acquired from the artist, November 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the artist.


Letterforms have a tangibility that exceeds their two-dimensional representation on paper and even on screen. How better to educate the viewer to their tactility and three-dimensionality than with movable book techniques such as the volvelle, pop-ups, flaps and tab pulls?

The Movable Book of Letterforms (2009) is a work of art that does just that: it enacts a basic introduction to the origins and unique characteristics of letterforms. A limited edition of three, all of its movable parts have been cut and assembled by hand. The printing is digital on Mohawk Superfine 80lb, and the box and book are covered in Laval velour bookcloth debossed with polymer plate. The only element the artifact is missing is metal.

For a monumental display of Steele’s book and paper engineering, a visit in the UK to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich is urged. It can also be found in the following collections:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg
University of Iowa, Iowa City
Indiana University, Bloomington
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo
Michigan State University, East Lansing

Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“BOOKNESS speaks to Kevin Steele“. 18 December 2023. Oxford: Bodleian Libraries.

Chen, Julie. 2013. 500 Handmade Books. Volume 2. New York: Lark. P. 29 (The Deep).

Lawson, Alexander S. 2010. Anatomy of a Typeface. 5th print ed. Boston: David R. Godine.

McNeil, Paul. 2017. The Visual History of Type. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Salamony, Sandra, and Peter and Donna Thomas. 2012. 1,000 Artists’ Books : Exploring the Book as Art. Minneapolis: Quarto Publishing Group USA. P. 181 (Le Meschere della Commedia dell’Arte).

Books On Books Collection – William Dugan

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How Our Alphabet Grew (1972)

How Our Alphabet Grew: The History of the Alphabet (1972)
William Dugan
Casebound, illustrated paper on board, illustrated endpapers and pastedowns. H320 x W227 mm. 72 pages. Acquired 14 March 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Curiously, little information about William Dugan appears online. He was a prolific illustrator of children’s books — especially those published by Golden Press in the 1960s and 1970s. He also authored as well as illustrated several early childhood books — on insects, signs, machines and vehicles. Two of his books, however, are meant for older children — this one and All about Houses (1975), which is a forerunner to Dorling Kindersley‘s children’s reference books.

Dugan’s ability to alter his style as writer and illustrator to the ages of his audience is notable. Even more notable is the diversity and inclusiveness of his reference works for older children. Despite the date of publication, a young girl occupies the foreground of the illustration of archaeologists, a feature that would have brought a smile to Ada Yardeni and still might to Tiphaine Samoyault.

Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“Lanore Cady“. 16 December 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Lyn Davies“. 7 August 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Timothy Donaldson“. 1 February 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Cari Ferraro“. 1 February 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“David J. Goldman“. Books On Books Collection. [In progress]

“Rudyard Kipling and Chloë Cheese“. 15 February 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Abe Kuipers“. 15 February 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Don Robb and Anne Smith“. 26 March 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Renzo Rossi“. 10 July 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“James Rumford. 21 November 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Tiphaine Samoyault“. 10 July 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Ben Shahn“. 20 July 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Tommy Thompson“. 21 August 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Ada Yardeni“. 10 July 2023. Books On Books Collection.

Bernal, Martin. 1990. Cadmean Letters : The Transmission of the Alphabet to the Aegean and Further West Before 1400 B.C. Winona Lake IN: Eisenbrauns.

Diringer, David, and Reinhold Regensburger. 1968. The alphabet: a key to the history of mankind. London: Hutchinson. A standard, beginning to be challenged by late 20th and early 21st century archaeological findings and palaeographical studies.

Drucker, Johanna. 1999. The alphabetic labyrinth: the letters in history and imagination. New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson.

Ege, Otto. 1921/1998. The Story of the Alphabet, Its Evolution and Development… Embellished Typographically with Printer’s Flowers Arranged by Richard J. Hoffman. Van Nuys, CA: Richard J. Hoffman. A miniature. The type ornaments chosen by Hoffman are arranged chronologically by designer (Garamond, Granjon, Rogers) and printed in color.

Firmage, Richard A. 2001. The alphabet. London: Bloomsbury.

Fischer, Steven Roger. 2008. A history of writing. London: Reaktion Books.

Jackson, Donald. 1997. The story of writing. Monmouth, England: Calligraphy Centre.

Moziani, Eliyahu. 1984. Torah of the Alphabet or How the Art of Writing Was Taught Under the Judges of Israel (1441-1025) : -The Original Short Course in Alphabetic Writing Conceived by Israel in Sinai. Herborn: Baalschem.

Pflughaupt, Laurent. 2008. Letter by letter: an alphabetical miscellany. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Robb, Don, and Anne Smith. 2010. Ox, house, stick: the history of our alphabet. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge. Children’s book.

Robinson, Andrew. 1995. The story of writing. London: Thames and Hudson.

Rosen, Michael. 2014. Alphabetical: how every letter tells a story. London: John Murray.

Sacks, David. 2003. Language visible unraveling the mystery of the alphabet from A to Z. New York: Broadway Books.

Shaw, Gary. 15 April 2021. “Ancient ABCs: The alphabet’s ‘missing link’ discovered in Israel“. The Art Newspaper.

Books On Books Collection – Alan James Robinson

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A Fowl Alphabet (1986)

A Fowl Alphabet (1986)
Alan James Robinson (etchings), Suzanne Moore (calligraphy)
Casebound. Marbled paper over boards. Doublures and flyleaves. H218 x W145 mm. 26 Folios untrimmed at head. Four-page prospectus loose. Acquired from Bromers Bookseller, 16 August 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the artists.

Under his Cheloniidae Press imprint, Alan James Robinson created three artist’s alphabets: A Fowl Alphabet with Suzanne Moore; An Odd Bestiary (1982) and The Birds and Beasts of Shakespeare (1990), arranged as a double abecedary, first the birds and then the beasts. Although this copy of A Fowl Alphabet comes from the regular edition and does not have the color of the deluxe editions of all three abecedaries, it does demonstrate the extraordinary fineness of Robinson’s wood engraving as well as his compositional talent, which also informs the book’s design. The positioning of the birds’ heads in their printed black frames conveys a sense of movement and three dimensionality on the individual page, but notice how Robinson varies the positioning from page to page and across double-page spreads to enhance the sense of movement.

With its core thick strokes shadowed and entwined with thinner flourishes, Suzanne Moore’s calligraphy creatively complements the way that the heft of Robinson’s engraved heads plays against those compositional features.

“Cheloniidae” is the scientific term for the family of sea turtles, and much of Robinson’s art is marine related. But the dominant and consistent impression conveyed by the ouput of Cheloniidae Press is that of Robinson’s artistic skill as an impresario and conductor of artistic talents. Added to the background of his duet with Moore are Master Printer Harold Patrick McGrath, Faith Harrison and her hand marbled paper, Arthur Larson and his hand typesetting and the binding skills of Claudia Cohen.

Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“Gerard Brender à Brandis.” 29 November 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Brian D. Cohen“. 28 December 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Suzanne Moore“. 6 June 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Shelli Ogilvy“. 28 December 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Gaylord Schanilec“. 16 September 2019. Books On Books Collection.

“Carol Schwartzott“. 28 December 2022. Books On Books Collection.

Books On Books Collection – Dave Wood

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Alphabetica (2002)

Alphabetica (2002)
Dave Wood
Bound in vellum; open-spine binding sewn on vellum strips. H210 x W290 x D30 mm. 54 pages. Loosely inserted colophon. Edition of 26. Acquired from the artist, 27 July 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the artist.

From Alphabetica‘s description as an exploration of the alphabet’s “diverse development from historic shapes to the infinite variations we see today in typefaces and calligraphic forms of the Western alphabet”, the reader might expect an academic work. The deeply embossed and debossed royal purple cover presenting the title in landscape format suggests otherwise as do the marbled endpapers and embossed gold foil title page. The cover is built up with a very strong paper made in Nepal, painted with acrylic then sprayed with semi-matte varnish. Inside, the reader finds a portfolio of twenty-five distinct “canvases” in which Wood demonstrates both historical sensitivity and artistic inspiration.

Across the twenty-six spreads, Dave Wood has captured each letter’s distinct story with multiple styles of calligraphy in Sumi ink and gouache paints as well as varying textures and techniques (Canson and Arches paper, glassine, foil, embossing, stamping, feathering and cutting), colors and layouts.

The letters’ developing shapes and periods are labeled. Starting with the letter B, Wood adds names of typefaces, structural terms for type, palaeographical terms and terms from the crafts of calligraphy, typesetting and printing — all beginning with /b/. Similar labeling occurs for the letter C but with a different layout. Across the twenty-five canvases, Wood excels at this balancing of difference and similarity. Notice, for example, how letters B and C incorporate the Renaissance style of illumination called bianchi girari (white vine stem decoration).

The ways in which uppercase-to-lowercase movements interact with the layout’s variations make for a dynamic experience. Sometime it’s subtle, sometimes vigorous. Note, for example, how the letter D de-emphasizes the gutter whereas the letter E emphasizes it.

With letters H through Q, a shift from Arches white to Canson black paper and back adds to the overall dynamic movement. Yet Wood is attentive to elements of unity; for example, his playful handling of the gutter in the transition from letter H to letters I/J echoes that from letters D to E.

Only six letters perform the trick of extending across the gutter — lowercase H and uppercase K, M, O, U and X. While O, U and X take the similar approach of almost evenly straddling the gutter, each of the other three succeed differently. M is perhaps the most striking and interesting of them all. M derives from the Semitic word for “water” mem. As Wood points out in the loose insert colophon, the watery blue that fills the letter is intentional — as must be the precise alignment of the inner peaks of the letter with the gutter. Such attention to detail in the midst of so much activity on the page demands a similar attentiveness from the reader.

For example, the long tail of the Q does not show up until the bottom of the spread. And the reader may need to pick out the the word “or” in the text to spot the lowercase r in the textured, oversized written word “or” directly below the text.

Visual puns abound. Celtic knots in a capital L (for the Lindisfarne gospels). An S formed of stones. Leaves falling from a lowercase t (for tree or tea, of course). A U growing underground.

Fortunately, the accordion-fold colophon loosely inserted in the book offers pointers to some (not all) allusions. For example, the beginning of the third line for the letter V pays homage to Titivillus, the 13th-century patron demon of scribes’ mistakes. The illustrated W is an homage to Ben Shahn’s letter design. The highly contrasting thicks and thins in the letter X allude, in calligraphic terms, to the thick mark’s determining the number of pen widths making up the x height (the body of the miniscule).

And while the colophon may be necessary to know that the typefaces written in color below were created by Hermann Zapf, any viewer can enjoy Wood’s incorporating the entire alphabet in the Sumi ink design culminating in the letter Z as a fitting self-referential conclusion to Alphabetica.

Further Reading and Viewing

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“Lyn Davies“. 7 August 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Timothy Donaldson“. Books On Books Collection.

“Cari Ferraro“. Books On Books Collection.

“David J. Goldman“. Books On Books Collection.

“Rudyard Kipling and Chloë Cheese“. Books On Books Collection.

“Abe Kuipers“. Books On Books Collection.

“Don Robb and Anne Smith“. Books On Books Collection.

“James Rumford. 21 November 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Tiphaine Samoyault“. Books On Books Collection.

“Ben Shahn“. 20 July 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Tommy Thompson“. 21 August 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Mark Van Stone“. 1 June 2023. Books On Books Collection.

Demeude, Hugues. 1996. The Animated Alphabet. London: Thames and Hudson.

Shaw, Henry. 1845. Alphabets, Numerals and Devices of the Middle Ages. London: W. Pickering.

Books On Books Collection – Rose Sanderson

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An Unusual Animal Alphabet (2021)

An Unusual Animal Alphabet (2021)
Rose Sanderson
Casebound with illustrated paper over boards and patterned doublures, perfect bound. H155 x W215 mm 54pages. Edition of 100, of which this is #89. Acquired from the artist, 17 April 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artist’s permission.

Written and illustrated by Rose Sanderson, this abecedary introduces children to the alphabet with humorous clashes of colors and animals (a pink bear or blue and white impala?) as well as odd combinations of concepts (topiaries and mammals, skyscapes and kangaroos). It all tips over into the surreal, which, with the vocabulary (spirograph, topiary, uakari), implies an audience of older children and adults.

Adding to the humor are other incongruities such as a paisley-patterned dingo and a camouflaged goat. The many half- or near-rhymes also enhance the humor: “Elephant Etta looks good in a sweater” and “Impala Ivar is as fragile as china”).

The production is of high quality. The text is printed on 170gsm silk paper and in full color. The cover comes from a scan of linen/canvas overlayed with a color layer with a balanced transparency that softly merges the two together. Whether or not inspired by the book’s half-rhymes, the designer (Emrys Plant) contributes an effective visual “half rhyme” of Arca Majora for the text type with Futura for the display type. Along with Sanderson’s conceptualization, imagination and craft, such touches nudge this work toward the category of artist’s book or, at least, sophisticated alphabet book.

Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“Leslie Haines“. 4 November 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Rudolf Kur“. Books On Books Collection. In progress.

“Judy Pelikan“. Books On Books Collection. In progress.

“Annie Newnham“. Books On Books Collection. In progress.

“P.K. Page“. Books On Books Collection. In progress.

Books On Books Collection – Sam Winston

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One & Everything (2022)

One & Everything (2022)
Sam Winston
Casebound with illustrated paper over boards. H265 x W255 mm. 48 unnumbered pages. Acquired 23 November 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artist’s permission.

Sometimes you just know that you have read a classic. This is one of those times. Winston and Candlewick Press (Walker Books in the UK) have worked a fresh tale, tone and meaning together with image, color, design and production values to an extraordinary level. Inspired by Tim Brookes’ “Endangered Alphabets Project“, Winston uses the striking shapes of letters and scripts from the Latin, Ogham, Cherokee, Armenian, Hebrew, Tibetan and dozens more alphabets and syllabaries to create the characters in his fable about the story that decides one day that it is the One and Only story.

Shapes like single-celled creatures (each filled with a different alphabet) represent the many stories existing before “The One” arrives.

“The One” is made of the English (i.e., Latin or Roman) alphabet. Will it listen to and make sense of all these other stories?

The fable of One & Everything does more than support the notion that alphabets and languages can be endangered. Implicit in the fate of the “One & Everything” story” is the message that Babel was more of a blessing than a curse.

Readers familiar with Winston’s A Dictionary Story and his collaboration with Oliver Jeffers in A Child of Books (both below) will recognize a growing refinement and, now, breadth and depth in Winston’s storytelling. The youngest audience and beginning readers will be held by the shapes, colors and simplicity of the story. Older readers will easily grasp its underlying meanings and be intrigued by the variety of letters and scripts and the idea that languages and alphabets can die. Still older readers and teachers will appreciate the helpful resources following the story’s ending invitation. At all levels, the audience will delight in Winston’s creation of his characterful abstractions with letters from the alphabets and scripts identified in those resources. Those with an eye for such artistry will appreciate Winston’s extension of a tradition embraced by Paul Cox, Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich, Sharon Forss and Nicolas McDowall.

A Child of Books (2019)

A forest made of fore-edges. A raft made of spines and its sail a book page. A wave and a path made of excerpts from books. In this fabulous world made from the features of books, the simpatico imaginations of Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston deliver a heroine and an invitation that are hard to resist.

Promotional poster. Displayed with permission of Sam Winston.

In addition to the poster above and the trade book it promotes, Winston created an artist’s book edition celebrated by this hallway gallery below mounted by the British Library shortly after its appearance.

A Child of Books prints displayed at the British Library, 9 August – 27 September 2019.

Winston’s abiding love of letters, words and stories shines through in A Child of Books. Arguably, it has its origins in an earlier work whose story is told by his invention of a very different “child of books”.

A Dictionary Story (2001 – 2020)

Since its origin as a student project in 2001, A Dictionary Story has appeared in an accordion book form as a fine press edition and two trade editions and as single-sheet prints. The Books On Books Collection holds the fine press edition and the second trade edition, both of which have in common a vertical flush-right single-word column that tells the story and the immediately adjacent vertical flush-left column of definitions of the words in the story. In the fine press edition, the two columns meet at each mountain peaks of the accordion fold.

A Dictionary Story (2006)

A Dictionary Story (2006)
Sam Winston
Slipcased leporello between cloth-covered boards.H360 x W140 mm, 25 panels. Story text set in 9 point Times Roman by Sam Winston. Book designed by Richard Bonner-Morgan and Sam Winston. Printed by David Holyday at Trichrom Limited. Bound at Quality Art Reproductions, England. Published by Circle Press. Edition of 100, of which this is #68. Acquired from the artist, 30 May 2018.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artist’s permission.

“Once there was a time when all the books knew what they were about. But there was one book that was never sure of itself.”

Panels 2-5 from the fine press edition; detail of panels 2-3.

So begins Winston’s tale about this uncertain book. The book never sure of itself is the Dictionary, which of course it must be, otherwise the tale would not be called “A Dictionary Story”. The Dictionary is jealous of all the other books because they are “properly read”, whereas she is just flicked through from time to time. A bit like the “One” in One and Everything, the Dictionary seems to think she contains all the stories imaginable, because she contain all the words — just not in the right order. So she decides to bring her words to life as characters to see what will happen. Words and letters fly about, enacting the story as if in a concrete poem. A meaningful tussle between text and image is a frequent feature for artists’ books as well as visual poetry.

Another defining aspect of book art is its self-referential nature. In an interview with Typeroom, Winston captures this in his response to the question “What is Dictionary Story all about?”:

Dictionary Story is a playful way of exploring some of our presumptions around the printed word. Or you could say that it looks towards a tool we are given at a very young age – the Dictionary – and invites us to actually think about how that works. Here’s a device that is designed to explain a word’s meaning by offering further words in its place – to me that is remarkable. This is a type of knowledge that can only explain itself through referencing itself. As a visual person the image that comes to mind is a giant, never ending, Möbius strip of language twisting back on itself.

Of course for less visual persons, the Dictionary’s whim engenders chaos, which Winston, a dyslexic, can appreciate. So he brings onstage (or “onpage”) the Books, of whom the Dictionary was jealous, to remonstrate that if words become disconnected from their definitions, how will they the Books know what they are about? Insisting that she tame her words, they have the Dictionary’s Introduction introduce her bewildered words to the character “Alphabet”.

Making the journey over the hills and valleys of A Dictionary Story is satisfying, and re-making it is even more satisfying and delightful each time. The making and re-making of A Dictionary Story must also have been satisfying and delightful for Sam Winston; he has done it so many times.

A Dictionary Story (2013)

A Dictionary Story (2013)
Sam Winston
Three five-panel accordion folded sections in a plastic sleeve cover. Second trade edition. Sleeve: H205 x W160 mm. Sections: H200 x W150 mm, 15 panels. Acquired from the artist, 13 December 2020.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Watching the artist adjust the typography of A Dictionary Story to changing dimensions is like watching a star tennis player who is also a star basketball player and star soccer (football) player. There’s always a ball, there’s always a net, there’s always genius.

The trade edition splits the fine press edition into three less narrow leporellos and nudges some of the two columns (story/definition) into the valley fold. Below, in the trade edition across panels 3 and 4 is where the Dictionary decides to bring her words to life, and on the right side of the fourth panel, the words begin to slip away from the fold.

The same part of the story in the fine press edition occurs on the fourth panel below, and the words tilt against the fold.

These variations create subtly different narrative paces and visual impressions in the two editions. Not one better than the other, just different. The poster variations, however, subordinate narrative pace entirely to visual impression. At present, the posters are not in the collection, but the images below help to make the point. As with movie goers, some will like the prints more than the books, others the books more than the prints, and still others will marvel at the genius in all of them.

Further Reading

“‘Darkness Visible’, Sam Winston’s performative installation”. Books On Books, 30 December 2017.

“Sam Winston”. Bookmarking Book Art. 22 June 2013.

Howard, Alex. 16 February 2015. “Sam Winston – Art as a Spiritual Practice“. Conscious Life. Interview.

Jeffers, Oliver, and Sam Winston. 31 August 2016. “A Child of Books“. Entry at Picturebook Makers. Ed. dPictus. Accessed 30 July 2023.

Lambert, Léopold. 9 February 2011. # Fine Arts /// Dictionary Story by Sam Winston“. The Funambulist. Accessed 20 April 2018. Brief note.

Perkins, Stephen. 11 March 2021. “Sam Winston, A Dictionary Story, Arc Artist Editions, London, 2005/2013“. Accordion Publications. Accessed 26 March 2023.

Russell, Lindsay Rose. “Dictionary, Shaped: Artists’ Books and Lexicography”. Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America, Volume 41, Issue 2, 2020, pp. 115-146

Sant’Ana Pereira, Felipe. 27 August 2020. “The World’s 5 Most Beautiful Alphabets You’ll Never Learn To Read“. Matador Network. Accessed 26 March 2023. Re One and Everything.

Sperling, Matthew. 28 November 2013. “Open Book“. Apollo Magazine. Mention of Folded Dictionary. Accessed 20 April 2018. Re Folded Dictionary.

Valentino, Andrea. 21 January 2020. “The alphabets at risk of extinction“. BBC Future. Accessed 26 March 2023. Re One and Everything.

Typeroom. 15 July 2016. “An interview with Sam Winston“. Typeroom. Accessed 17 September 2017. Accessed 20 April 2018.

Typeroom. 25 November 2020. “Dictionary Story: Sam Winston’s letterpress classic typographic tale just got upgraded“. Typeroom. Accessed 1 December 2020.

Wood, Heloise. 15 February 2017. “A Child of Books wins Bologna Ragazzi Award for fiction“. The Bookseller. Accessed 2o April 2018.

Yin, Maryann. 26 May 2016. “Book Trailer Unveiled for ‘A Child of Books’”. GalleyCat, Adweek. Accessed 20 April 2018.

Images: Courtesy of the artist.

Books On Books Collection – David McLimans

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Gone Wild (2016)

Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet (2016)
David McLimans
Casebound, illustrated paper over boards, illustrated doublures, sewn book block. Illustrated, debossed glossy paper dustjacket. H255 x W285 mm. 36 unnumbered pages. Acquired from Gargoyle Books, 25 August 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

In the history of children’s books, the alphabet looms large, and among alphabet books, animal alphabets make up the largest category. But why animals?

For learning and teaching letters, they are easily recognized and mnemonically effective. Illustrators can wrap them around letters, make them twist themselves into letters or hide them behind letters. Designers can hide them on tabs behind letters, make them pop out, parade them across leporellos (accordion books), let them lurk in tunnel books or put them on a paper disk to appear and disappear in a volvelle’s window. Writers can weave stories with animals and letters, put animals and letters together in puns and surprising scenarios or use alliteration and rhyme with them to reinforce letter recognition and reading. For authors more paleographically and philosophically inclined, the answer to “Why animals?” might be sought in the origins of the alphabet’s first letter as James Rumford does in There’s a Monster in the Alphabet (2002) and Don Robb and Anne Smith do in Ox, House, Stick (2007).

A Methode or Comfortable Beginning for All Vnlearned Whereby They May Be Taught to Read English : In a Very Short Time Vvith Pleasure: So Profitable As Straunge Put in Light by I.h. Chester Heralt (1750)
John Hart
Image from Folger Shakespeare Library

Whatever the cause, ever since John Hart’s A Methode, or Comfortable Beginning for All Unlearned (1570), which appears to be the first example of teaching the English alphabet with illustrations, we have had an explosion of imagination and wit choosing, finding or making up animals, birds, fish, insects and reptiles with which to decorate the letters, to make from letters (or make letters with), to be disguised with abstractions or to be hidden, revealed or popped out from behind letters. Now, in reverse over four centuries later, the alphabet has been mustered for teaching the endangered state of those creatures.

While E.N. Ellis, Bert Kitchen, the team of Alan Robinson and Suzanne Moore all allot only one letter and the dodo to make the point, Dick King-Smith and Quentin Blake together devote almost all of their Alphabeasts (1990) to examples of extinction, as do Jerry Pallotta and Ralph Masiello in The Extinction Alphabet Book (1993).

Left to right: from E.N. Ellis’s An Alphabet; Bert Kitchen’s Animal Alphabet; Alan Robinson and Suzanne Moore’s A Fowl Alphabet.

Quentin Blake’s page-by-page visual narrative married to Dick King-Smith’s opening verses in Alphabeasts.

With Gone Wild, David McLimans adds a complex and subtle device to the explosion. The book is not so much about learning the alphabet with animals as learning about animals with the alphabet — or rather with “alphabetic art”. Wielding computer, pencil, pen, brush and India ink on bristol board, David McLimans redraws the alphabet’s capital letters to look like animals not yet extinct but on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Even the design of the traditional alphabet book subtly serves as a teaching tool about these animals. Notice how McLimans and John Candell, the book’s designer, turn the traditional presentation of uppercase and lowercase letters into a kind of running head that underscores the common and scientific names of each animal. Even the list of facts on each species — their habitats, geographic ranges, threats to survival and statuses — receives meaningful thematic design touches from the use of two-color printing — blood red and extinction black.

After the brief red-on-black thumbnails and descriptions following Grevy’s Zebra, McLimans provides further reading (online and in print). You have to go beyond a quick dive into the address he provides for the IUCN to find the Red List (see address above). There you will learn how up to the minute this book was in 2016 — and, unfortunately, still is.

Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“Marie Angel“. 18 June 2021. Books On Books Collection. For letters decorated with animals.

“Paul Cox“. 18 October 2021. Books On Books Collection. For an abstract animal alphabet.

“E.N. Ellis“. 30 October 2022. Books On Books Collection. For letters decorated with animals other than the dodo.

“Dick King-Smith and Quentin Blake“. In progress. Books On Books Collection. For letters in aid of animals rather than vice versa.

“Miarko“. 27 August 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Suzanne Moore“. 14 January 2020. Books On Books Collection. For letters associated with other birds besides the dodo.

“Don Robb and Anne Smith“. 26 March 2023. Books On Books Collection. For the animal-related origin of the alphabet.

“James Rumford“. 21 November 2022. Books On Books Collection. For the animal-related origin of the alphabet.

“Sharon Werner and Sharon Forss“. 30 December 2022. Books On Books Collection. For animals made from letters.

“Chinese Alligator (Alligator sinensis Fauvel 1879)“. Encyclopedia of Life. Accessed 17 February 2023.

“Grevy’s Zebra Equus grevyi Oustalet 1882“. Encyclopedia of Life. Accessed 17 February 2023.

Cossins, Jennifer. 2017. A-Z of Endangered Animals. Sydney N.S.W: Lothian Children’s Books. For letters in aid of animals rather than vice versa.

Haines, Mike. 2010. Wild Alphabet : An A to Zoo Pop-Up Book. New York NY: Kingfisher Books. For animals popping out from behind letters.

Hunt, Peter, and Butts, Dennis. 1995. Children’s Literature : An Illustrated History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. See, in particular, pp. 6-7.

Kitchen, Bert. 1991. Animal Alphabet. London: Walker Books. For letters decorated with animals other than the dodo.

Mackey, Bonnie and Hedy Schiller Watson. 2017. Alphabet Books : The K-12 Educators’ Power Tool. Santa Barbara California: Libraries Unlimited. For a brief history and extended categorization of alphabet books.

Markle, Sandra; Markle, William; and Dávalos, Felipe. 1998. Gone Forever! : An Alphabet of Extinct Animals. 1st ed. New York N.Y: Atheneum Books for Young Readers. For letters in aid of animals rather than vice versa.

Mullins, Patricia. 1995/1993. V For Vanishing : An Alphabet of Endangered Animals. Sydney N.S.W: Margaret Hamilton Books. For letters in aid of animals rather than vice versa.

Pallotta, Jerry, and Masiello, Ralph. 1993. The Extinct Alphabet Book. Watertown Mass: Charlesbridge. For letters in aid of animals rather than vice versa.

Twinem Neecy. 1994. Aye-Ayes Bears and Condors : An Abc of Endangered Animals and Their Babies. New York: W.H. Freeman.

Wakefield, D. R. 2009. An Alphabet of Extinct Mammals. Goole: Chevington Press. For letters in aid of animals rather than vice versa.

Wakefield D. R. 2010. Alphabet of Endangered Mammals : A Collection of Etchings Depicting Animals Considered Extinct in the Wild 2050. Goole: Chevington Press. For letters in aid of animals rather than vice versa.