Circle Press ~ England
(Ronald King)

Anansi Company
By Ron King and Roy Fisher
1992. Edition of 130.

45 x 34 x11cm. Made up of 15 colorful unbound sections with thirteen screen printed removable wire and card puppets. All loosely inserted into card wraparound and held in large colour-blocked solander box. Each book involved over 500 hand workings. Introduction and accompanying verse printed letter-press in 14 & 18 pt Walbaum.

This is the seventh collaboration of King & Fisher. The content was derived from Walter Jekyll's 'Jamaican Song & Story 1907,' a contemporary rendering of some familiar tales central to Caribbean culture, brought by slaves from Africa, concerning Anansi the spiderman and his company of friends.
$4,800

The White Alphabet
By Ron King
1984. Edition of 150.

5.25 x 11.5" with colophon letter-press in 14 pt Gill Light – 56 pp – 29 x 14 cm in canvas box and slip-case. With title in gilt capital letters across spine.

A double-sided concertina alphabet book, without text, cut onto RWS hand-made paper and bound between inlaid wood boards.
$2,400

Ronald King produced three new double-sided concertina alphabet books in 2007.

Circle Press: "Each is artwork, typographical experiment, and feat of paper engineering. They utilise delightful pop-up techniques in tribute and meditation on the alphabet, the visual DNA of languages...."

ALPHABETA CONCERTINA
By Ronald King
West Sussex, England: Circle Press, 2007. Edition of 500.

56 pages, 16.5 x 11 cm. A red and white double-sided concertina alphabet book of 26 pop-out capital letters. Cut and creased onto Heritage Book paper and glued to silk screened Heritage Museum end-boards.

Circle Press: "A new version of ALPHABETA CONCERTINA, King's classic capital letter 1983 version, reprised here to correct its long 'out of print' status and updated with newly modified designs for some of the letters."
$100

alphabeta concertina minuscule
By Ronald King
West Sussex, England: Circle Press, 2007. Edition of 600.

56 pages, 16.5 x 11 cm. Blue and white double-sided concertina alphabet book with 26 pop-out small letters. Cut and creased onto Heritage Book paper and glued to silk screened Heritage Museum end-boards.

Circle Press: "alphabeta concertina minuscule with its gently unfolding letters is in a sense a 'reply' in lower case form to the original 'cap' version published in 1983."
$100

little but often
By Ronald King
Richard Price
West Sussex, England: Circle Press, 2007. Edition of 350.

56 pages, 16.5 x 11 cm (6.5 x 4.3"). A red and white double-sided concertina alphabet book with the new miniscules (designed for alphabeta concertina miniscule) combined with Richard Price's poem. Cut and creased onto Heritage Book paper and glued to silk screened Heritage Museum end-boards.

Circle Press: "... a collaboration with poet Richard Price. It pairs King at his most elegantly minimalist and sculptural with a new suite of love poems by Price at his most witty and tender."
$125

Les Bijoux
By Charles Baudelaire
1996. Second unsigned edition of 75.

7 x 11” closed. Letterpress printed in two colors and "drawn" in wire on blue-black Khadi handmade paper. Board covers and handmade paper wrapper.

With a "free variation" in English by Kenneth White entitled "The Lady of the Jewels." The text of the poem and Ron King's wire-pressed illustrations are printed on alternating panels. The accordion-fold book opens from the top to reveal the translation and images. Then the book opens further, into a triptych in which the bejeweled lady fills the large central panel. Side panels are printed in French and show the reversed images from the English side.
$300

Turn Over Darling
By Ronald King
1990. Unlimited numbered edition.

20 x 15cm. Designed and drawn in wire on Khadi pure rag-made paper. Six drawings when folded and juxtaposed in sequence, make for eleven reclining nude images which change position from front to back view. In slipcase.

Embossed and debossed images of a womanly figure reveal themselves as the reader dips through each page. Wire forms were pressed into the dampened sheets of each spread to create a delightful and lighthearted erotic sequence.
$120

Circus Turn
By Ronald King
1993. Open Edition.

20 x 15cm, with 24 pages embossed onto hand-made paper on an etching press. Six drawings in wire, folded & juxtaposed in sequence make 11 changing circus scenes. In blue paper covered slipcase.

The embossed and debossed images of circus scenes and animals create playful pages.
$90

Echo Book
By Ronald King
1994. Open Edition.

20 x 8cm. Drawn in wire & blind-embossed on an etching press. White pages and dark blue cover. Pamphlet stitched. Long, narrow format.

The words echo book are embossed into substantial handmade rag paper so that the impression gradually grows "quieter" as you advance. (3 x 7.5 inches with a play on words 'Echo Book' which reversed in capital letters 'Book Echo.' The impression fades as the pages are turned in sequence.
$20

Antony & Cleopatra
By William Shakespeare.
Guildford, England: 1979. Edition of 300.

40 x 32cm. Designed and produced by Ronald King with notes & introductory essay 'The Elusive Absolute' by Keith Please. Text in 10 pt Baskerville. Paper is pure rag-made 250 gsm. Velin Cuve Rives Blanc. 11 eight-page unstitched sections contained in a specially designed canvas cover portfolio. Production involved over 200 hand printings. In beige & blue folding box designed by Paul Haskell.

A beautifully rendered edition of Shakespeare's play with King's own marginal notes and lustrous contemporary illustrations.
$1,800 (Last Copy)

Macbeth
By William Shakespeare
1970. Edition of 150, 15 proofs.

50 x 35 cm, 60 pages in 15 unstitched four page sections. Printed on J. Green mould-made paper. Housed in a natural canvas covered folder and black slipcase. Ten silk screen mask designs, all titled and initialed with the entire text of the play printed letter-press in 14 pt Plantin.

William Shakespeare's tragedy with King's illustrations make a wondrous combination.
$1200

The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
[Geoffrey Chaucer]
1978. Proof

11 x 16'" Illustrated with original screenprints in color by Ronald King. One of 50 Artist Proofs SIGNED by Ron King. The Artist Proof has a separate portfolio containing one of 20 prints in their related folders. This Artist Proof edition contains The Nonne. The book has been hand-set & printed letterpress in Monotype Plantin series 110. Paper is 190 gsm Queen Anne Antique White. Separate folder of The Nonne is Buckler Light Grey Plain and was hand-set & printed letterpress. The screen-prints are printed on Bockingford 190gsm. The Nonne poem is by Kevin Power with lithograph in two colours. Included is a page of mock ups for the Nonne's figure. Fine, in very good slipcase. Boards and slipcase covered in blue cloth.
$500

Tabernacle
By King, Ronald
2001. Edition of 50.

33 x 23 x 23 cm., seven-drawer black cabinet.

Designed to celebrate seven generations of printing in the King family.

Case I: "Hole", a bound book with verse, graphics, and history concerning the first three generations and a foreword by George Szirtes (44 pages, signed , 28 x 21 cm).

Case II: "Horse", a double-sided folding print with verse, graphics and history covering the remaining generations (in 16 sections, 71 x 54 cm).

Cases III & IV: Contains two sets of magnetized letters one black (50 magnetized letters reproduced from the original 'found' box of type onto a 10mm base) and one red (60 magnetized letters reproduced).

Case V: Contains a set of rubber-stamp letters (64 rubber-stamp letters cast from the originals and glued to a solid base 16mm high for printing with dye ink or oil paint).

Case VI: A Folding double-sided metal-based display and storage box for use with the magnetized letters.

Case VII: "Hell-box", a folding display box for one of 56 unique montage designs made from left- over material.
$6,000

The Looking Book:
A pocket history of the Circle Press 1967-96
By Cathy Courtney
1996.

4.5 x 6.5" 180 pp. Contains 70 pages of full color plus 80 black and white illustrations of Circle Press work.

In 1996 Circle Press was 30 years old and to mark the occasion a double retrospective exhibition was organized in the Lyttelton at the Royal National Theatre and in the Poetry Library at the Festival Hall. Cathy Courtney has written a lively history of the Press. Published in a limited edition of 1000 it is full of illustrations, has a signed hand-printed cover and a pop-up insert of an alphabet poem by Roy Fisher.
$40

Cooking the Books. Ron King and Circle Press
Commentary by Ron King
Essay by Andrew Lambirth
2002.

6 x 9" with 179 pages. In stiff pictorial wraps with inside flaps.

With essay by Andrew Lambirth. Descriptions and Commentary by King. Published on the exhibit of King's work at Yale June 15 — September 8, 2002. Includes an example of his pop-up alphabet with one black letter E. Lots of illustrations and commentary on his work and methods.

A nice presentation of Ron's work and career in fine press and book arts showing his inventive and creative spirit through the years.
$115 (Two copies available)

Mirrors
By George Szirtes
2005. Edition of 100.

11.75 x 8.5" 8 pages with foil head shaped insert.

Szirtes' poem reflects on what it will be like to be 98. The poem is accompanied by a reflection by Ron King. The mid section of the book opens to a foil silhouette of a head. An open eye is on the left page which is reflected in the silhouette to show a pair of open eyes. On the right page is a closed eye so that the reflection then shows a pair of closed eyes. The reflecting silhouette is non-gender.
$120

       When I am ninety-eight I shall listen to music
       For a very long time and I will think
       Of your shoulder as you stand in the doorway.

       Whether I will be man or woman then
       Will not matter much because at ninety-eight
       A person's gender is of little importance, ...

Mirrors, by George Szirtes, winner of the Eliott prize 2005, designed and produced by Ron King.

Circle Press Out of Print Title:
• Matisse's Model
• Lettre De La Mer Noire: Black Sea Letter
• Alphabeta Concertina
• Bluebeard's Castle