PARADISE LOST AND PARADISE REGAIN'D

San Francisco: Printed for the Members of the Limited Editions Club by John Henry Nash, 1936. No. 1,185 of 1,500 copies. SIGNED in the colophon by the illustrator. 348 x 215 mm. (13 3/4 x 8 1/2"). xiii, [1], 441, [3] pp.Introduction by William Rose Benét.
Attractive recent quarter calf over marbled boards, raised bands, green morocco label. With 16 lithographic plates (one beginning each section of the two poems) by Carlotta Petrina. Quarto-Millenary 84. ◆Two-inch closed tear in one bottom margin, otherwise a virtually perfect copy--altogether clean and bright internally, in an unworn binding.

This handsomely printed and illustrated edition of Milton's masterpiece is the first work the renowned San Francisco typographer and printer John Henry Nash created after his brief "retirement" in April of 1936. At the age of 65, Nash (1871-1947) was then a giant in his field; as ANB says, his "near technical perfection and his use of various typefaces, ornaments, and high-quality materials was esteemed by those who appreciated the craftsmanship involved in such work." He "became the clear leader of his profession in the San Francisco area and thereby helped elevate fine printing to an art form." Unfortunately, the Depression had hit the printing business hard, and Nash's patrons no longer had the funds for extravagant printing projects. His biographer Robert Harlan notes that "the typographical design of this work is unusually austere," but that this "reflected accurately Nash's state of mind." It also evokes the spirit of the Doves Press, with beautiful type, unadorned, surrounded by generous margins. Illustrator Carlotta K. Petrina (1901-97) received a Guggenheim Fellowship to fund her creation of the lithographs for the present book. While she was in the midst of the work, her husband was killed in an automobile accident, a tragedy that no doubt influenced the mournful tone of her illustrations. Milton scholars Wendy Furman-Adams and Virginia James Tufte wrote of her work: "of all Milton's visual interpreters, Petrina is the artist for whom Paradise is most decisively and tragically LOST. And it is Eve who bears the heaviest weight of grief and expiation." Typically, if a private press book like this has been rebound, the value of the volume is decreased, but this item is an exception, both because the original binding of cloth-backed boards is less attractive than what is offered here, and also because it is normally found in ratty condition..