Nawakum Press

Nawakum Press ~ California (David Pascoe)

Norfolk Isle & The Chola Widow By Herman Melville wood engravings by Rik Olson introduction by John Bryant Santa Rosa, California: Nawakum Press, 2011. Edition of 100. 9 x 11.5"; 38 pages. Letterpress printed directly from the blocks with fourteen wood engravings. Edition paper is mouldmade Rives Heavyweight, with Bugra endsheets, and a patterned paper cover designed by the artist. Cover paper is handmade. Set in Bembo, originally crafted by Francesco Griffo for Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius and later modified by Stanley Morison. Wood engravings by Rik Olson. Letterpress printed paper label affixed to the spine. Each copy is signed by the artist. Of the edition 10 copies are reserved for the press. Standard (21 - 90): Bound in green patterned paper covered boards with black cloth spine. In cloth covered slipcase of black and green with paper title label on spine. Deluxe (1- 20): Bound in green patterned paper covered boards with black leather spine. Housed in a drop spine box of green Japanese book cloth with goatskin cover label. Additional signed and numbered wood engravings of Herman Melville, printed by the artist in two colors, housed in a foil stamped paper chemise. Prospectus: "Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow first appeared in the May, 1854 issue of Putnam's Magazine, as the eighth of a ten-sketch work, set in the Galapagos Islands and titled The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles. It is the longest by far of the ten Encantadan sketches, and it is the work's climax and heart. It has been described as an ignored gem for its sparse narration, feminist focus, and complex position of faith. "A cherished assumption among those who love Moby-Dick is that this masterwork is all that Melville wrote, or needed to write. When reminded that Melville also wrote smaller novels like Typee and the beggarly Israel Potter, or familiar tales like 'Bartelby' and 'Benito Cereno', - all quite different from the whaling book, and each a masterpiece of concision - readers who love the massive Moby-Dick will soon enough marvel that this writer of the sea also wrote shorter works, for the magazines, and in voices other than Ishmael's. Postwar readers, especially since the 1960s, have come to learn that this writer of America's greatest sea-epic could write quite impressively on a small scale. "Norfolk Isle and The Chola Widow was published in 1854, some three years after Moby Dick, at a time when Melville continued to struggle with public acceptance of his writings. He was never to benefit much financially from his work, and it had been suggested at the time that he get back to writing based on his island adventures and not metaphysical inquiries. Melville sent one of the original drafts, from which the character Hunilla was later drawn, to his friend at the time Nathaniel Hawthorne, as he thought it might better suit his style. Hawthorne returned it soon after with little comment. He would later say of Melville, "He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other." $450 slipcased $680 deluxe (Last Copy)	Standard Slipcase Click image for more Deluxe Box Click image for more


the Indigo Bunting 15 Love Poems By Robert Bly foreword by Thomas R. Smith wood engravings by Keith Cranmer Santa Rosa, California: Nawakum Press, 2010. Edition of 100. 6.25 x 10.5"; 32 pages. Two-color wood engraving frontispiece by Keith Cranmer. Tipped on wood engraving on front board. Engravings printed letterpress on Hahnemühle Biblio paper. Walbaum typeface. Designed and letterpress printed by Norman Clayton of Classic Letterpress on a KSBAZ Heidelberg Cylinder. Signed on colophon by Bly. Edition of 100: 80 standard; 20 deluxe. Standard copies case bound with burnt orange Cave Paper over boards and quarter bound in dark brown Italian book cloth with paper label on the spine. Housed in a slipcase of Italian book cloth. Deluxe copies (numbers 1 - 20) case bound with burnt orange Cave Paper over boards, and quarter bound in foil stamped dark brown leather. Housed in a drop spine box of Japanese book cloth and accompanied by a paper chemise containing a signed and numbered wood engraving of the Indigo Bunting used for the cover. Prospectus: "Robert Bly is an American poet and the author of more than thirty books of poetry, including The Light Around the Body, which won the National Book Award. He has translated the works of such notable poets as Pablo Neruda, Hafez, Rainier Maria Rilke and Kabir, and is the author of numerous nonfiction books as well, most notably his bestselling Iron John exploring modern masculinity. It has been said that Bly has taken on many roles, among them groundbreaking poet, and remains one of the most hotly debated artists of the past half century. The psychologist Robert Moore has said that, when the cultural and intellectual history of our time is written, Robert Bly will be recognized as the catalyst for a sweeping cultural revolution. "Bly, best known in the 1960s and 1970s for reflective poems of the Midwestern landscape and caustic, historically-based surrealist poems indicting the Vietnam War and American culture in general, had thus far said relatively little regarding intimate human matters. His two major collections of the early Eighties changed all that, revealing aspects of his personality barely hinted at in his earlier work. The Man in the Black Coat Turns (1981), with its focus on masculine relationships, foreshadowed the men's work that would earn him public acclaim later in the decade. Bly's volume of love poems, Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, similarly sounded new notes of personal openness and vulnerability. Robert Bly's evolution as a poet has been defined by dynamic change in style and subject matter, often from book to book. Following the arc of that development constitutes one of the long-term pleasures of reading Bly. Even so, Bly's 1985 collection, Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, took many readers by surprise. It is from this book that the poems of the Indigo Bunting are drawn. Bly is first and foremost a lover. In this exquisite gleaning from that collection, Bly continues to delight readers with his clarity and warmth in poems unlike he or anyone else has written." The poems in this volume have been selected from the collection Loving a Woman in Two Worlds published by Dial Press, 1985. $285 standard (Last two copies) $475 deluxe (Last Last two copies)	Standard Slipcase Click image for more Deluxe Box Click image for more


Undersea By Rachel L. Carson Illustrated by Dugald Stermer Introduction by Linda Lear Afterword by Julia Whitty Santa Rosa, California: Nawakum Press, 2010. Edition of 110. 9.5 x 13"; 30 pages. Illustrations (5 including the frontispiece) made by graphite and watercolor, then digitally reproduced and printed using archival inks by an Epson Stylus Pro 11880 on Hahnemühle Biblio paper. Text set in Granjon and Burgues Script typefaces then letterpress printed from photopolymer plates. Of the edition 10 are press copies, 20 deluxe, and 80 slipcased. Slipcased: Bound in Cave Paper covers over archival boards. Quarter-bound with silver-stamped, black Italian book cloth. Housed in a slipcase with Italian book cloth over archival board. Signed and numbered by the artist. Deluxe: Quarter-bound in blue goatskin and handmade papers over archival boards. Accompanied by one additional hand-colored Stermer print, numbered and signed by the artist, set in a paper chemise. Book and print housed in a clamshell box of blue Japanese book cloth over archival boards. Book gold stamped on the spine, numbered and signed by the artist. Prospectus: "The September issue of The Atlantic Monthly for 1937 included an essay titled simply, Undersea, by R. L. Carson. Those who read it were uniformly impressed with its lyric quality and by the scientific understanding of its author. Later, the literary world would remember this essay as the unassuming debut of one of the greatest narrative writers and ecologists of the 20th century, Rachel Carson. "... Although a scientist by training, Rachel loved to write, especially about the sea and coastline. It was from Undersea, her first work to reach national attention, that she later admitted, everything else followed. "It was Carson's particular genius that she does not tell us what goes on undersea, rather she shows us – inviting us to join her as guide. Seeing through an underwater eye, each level of the sea is apprehended scientifically, yet with such wonder and delicate delight that the beauty and mystery of the underwater world she has discovered is fully accessible. Carson's goal was not mere identification of the sea's inhabitants, but the apprehension of the unity of life. Individual creatures come and go, but lives lived in water partake of the eternal." Dugald Stermer, the artist, was Art Director of Ramparts from 1964-71, designed the official medals for the 1984 Olympic Games, illustrated a wildlife series for The Los Angeles Times, and has created editorial illustrations for publications that range from Esquire to Rolling Stone. Linda Lear (Introduction) authored the prize-winning Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature and was the editor for Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, an anthology of Carson's little known and unpublished writing. Julia Whitty (Afterword) authored Deep Blue Home: An Intimate Ecology of Our Wild Ocean and The Fragile Edge, a book on coral reefs, winner of a PEN USA Literary Award, the John Burroughs Medal, and the Kiriyama Prize. $425 Slipcased $840 Deluxe	Deluxe Click image for more Slipcased Click image for more

Page last update: 03.31.12