Search Results: Authors starting with M from 20 Ants Fine Books, IOBA

Tieton, Washington: Marquand Editions. Fine with no dust jacket. 2009. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Pinhead nick to paper of back cover.; This brief essay is an homage to the spines of books. Spines, at their best, convey what the author, and ultimately the publisher, want the bookstore browser to assume about the book. The width, font, face, number of words, direction of printing, color, and pattern all affect us semi-consciously and determine if we will stop and pull the book from the shelf. The author explains his views as a publisher and provides examples and anecdotes about decisions on spine content. Unpaginated, but 5 pages. This is the initial volume of a 10-volume set of essays by different authors on various aspects of books. One of an edition of 500, most of which were distributed hors commerce. Designed by the author who is the publisher of Marquand Editions. Letterpress printed in Archer Book font on stiff leaves, each with two laminations of paper, trimmed at head and tail,… Read More

New York: Pantheon Books. Near Fine with no dust jacket. 2009. First Edition; Fourth Printing. Hardcover. Slight rub to spine tail. Faintest marring to the surface of the paper belly band.; This veteran cartoonist's first graphic novel is Asterios Polyp's "...search for love, meaning, sanity, and perfect architectural proportions." It's his life presented in graphic fashion. The design and illustration reinforce and enhance, but never overwhelm the story that stands on its own as well-wrought fiction. Asterios Polyp is a middle-aged, barely successful architect, teacher, aesthete, and womanizer, whose New York City life falls apart. He moves to a small town where we follow the flowchart of his life, with side trips into philosophy, morality, religion, his identical twin Aristophanes who died at birth, and his self-examination. It's a deceptively simple story, a challenging read at times, and has a powerful ending. Author and illustrator David Mazzucchelli's… Read More

Indianapolis, IN: Privately Printed. Fine with no dust jacket. 2009. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. The only book of its kind, this covers the history of, and the art and decorative pottery works of Brown County Pottery, Martz Potteries, Brown County Hills Pottery, all in or around the town of Nashville in Brown County, Indiana. Through much of the 20th Century, Brown County, Indiana was a haven to the famous Hoosier School painters, myriad other artists, and craftspeople who appreciated the wooded environment, low cost of living, and distance from the bustle of Indianapolis. For Walter and Helen Griffiths of Brown County Pottery, later reconstituted as Brown County Hills Pottery, the growing area tourism fostered a market for handmade artwares and "gift" pottery to take back to the city. For Karl Martz and Becky Brown Martz, the area was a supportive environment for their production of creative art pottery. This is the author's privately published first edition,… Read More

Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company. Very Good+ with no dust jacket. 1954. Hardcover. Roll to the lower half of the spine, yet all board edges are parallel and properly aligned.; This book commemorates the 100th birthday of Ottmar Mergenthaler, inventor of the Linotype, a hot metal typesetting system that cast type in lines or slugs instead of individual characters. Linotype steadily replaced hand setting for newspapers, magazines, books, cards, etc. as it shortened the time required for compostion. This revolutionized daily newspaper production which was previously limited by the small number of pages that could be typeset per day. An Introduction by Lin Yutang briefly outlines the history of printing, throughout the world, that led to the need for and design of the Linotype. The main text is a chronology of printing methods, comprised of three sections: I. The Printing Industry Undergoes a Revolution. II. The Effort to Speed Up Typesetting. III. Ottmar Mergenthaler Invents the… Read More

West Branch, Iowa: Toothpaste Press. Fine. 1979. Limited Edition. Softcover. Seven, tiny poems, each creating a scenario for a mystery. Example: "You return to / your bedroom / visibly shaken / as you turn down / the covers a cobra / leaps for your throat / paralyzed you collapse // you are no longer suspect". Each is accompanied, on the facing page, by one of Ann Mikolowski's illustrations of board game pieces, objects, and textures. Signed and inscribed to Kenward Elmslie. "For Kenward - / these big enigmas / Ken Mikolowski / Grindstone City" Provenance: From the library and estate of Kenward Elmslie, prolific poet associated with the New York School of poetry, editor, performer, and founder of Z Magazine and Z press. Ken Mikolowski was a founder of "Alternative Press" in Detroit and a friend of Elmslie. Monochrome drawings and cover illustration by Ann Mikolowski. This is the letterpress edition limited to 800 copies. Designed, handset in Blado and… Read More

Binghamton, New York: The Bellevue Press. Near Fine with no dust jacket. 1973. Limited Signed Edition. Softcover. Light, horizontal creasing at the head edge of the front and back covers. Slightest bump to tail corner of the front cover. ; An author-signed, limited edition, letterpress edition of five poems by New York author David Mitchell: Symbols, Wrecks, For Whomever I Have Loved, Schmutz und Schund, and Last of the Huggermuggers. From Wrecks: "Spare the timbers of that ship/its ribs in mud/Lie with a piece of keel/half buried/When the tide is out." The recto of the page facing Wrecks has a tipped-in, woodcut illustration of Trumpetbush flowers and leaves, cut by Joan McCarty, printed from the block, and signed by her in pencil."This edition is one of 110 copies, 10 of which are signed." The author has signed in pencil on the colophon. The Bellevue Press was founded and operated by Gil and Deborah Williams as a small, fine press that published poetry, primarily, in… Read More

Boston: Little Brown and Company. Very Good with no dust jacket. 1937. 1st Separate Edition. Hardcover. Wear to all corners, spine ends rubbed, free endpapers and heads of leaves very faintly toned. Lacks the glassine wrapper, as most do.; Morley was Editor-in-Chief of the 1937 11th edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and wrote this oh-so-typically-Morley Preface. In editing with collaborator Louella D. Everett, they focused not only on inclusion, but the exclusion of quotations that had outlived their usefulness. Of "Bartlett's" he said " This is in no sense a collection of personal choices. It is foremost a salvage of those words which users of the English tongue have shown evidence not willingly to let die." "Ancient footnotes that have come downstream through former editions have often been dropped when they seemed pointless: one remembers the man (I forget who) described by Dr. Johnson as having ‘a rage for saying something when there was… Read More

Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket. 1926. Limited Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Slight wear to tips and head and tail edges of the covers. The dust jacket is sunned and has slight chipping at the rear head edge and the head and tail at the spine. ; Fourteen humorous essays from this master of the genre and novelist, journalist, and poet. Christopher Morley's style is that of a man of letters and his work is dry, subtle humor, not lowest common denominator funny. Each essay illustrated with an ink drawing by Walter Jack Duncan, a noted book and magazine illustrator who drew scenes from WWI Europe for the US government. Copy 83 of a limited edition of 365 and boldly signed by Morley on the limitation page. Backed in black cloth with festive covers of textured black cloth printed with bunches of grapes in purple and gold, over boards. Paper title label to spine. Gilt head of the text block with uncut and rough fore edges. A page… Read More