st james park press
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st james park press
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george orwell
NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR
Subscriptions for a new illustrated letterpress edition of George Orwell's masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, which plans to be the magnum opus from the Press to date, are open.
THE EDITION
The edition is printed on white 120gsm Zerkall ohne-Silurian mould-made paper, across c.350 pages, each measuring 350mm x 245mm (c.14 x 10 inches). In addition, there are twenty-four sewn-in hand-made papers, on which the illustrations will be printed.
The edition is limited to 60 individually numbered copies, with no possibility for more to be printed.
[Eight of these will be set aside for a special edition].
PAGE DESIGN
The text is set in 12D Lutetia, regarded as classic, restrained and beautiful. It is the most famous face designed by Jan van Krimpen, the influential calligrapher, book and type designer.
Bordering the text is The Principles of Newspeak, the fictional language of Big Brother, printed across eight consecutive pages, repeated through the entirety of the book. As "the leading articles in the Times were written in" Newspeak, this too is set in Times, 8-pt italic (a face conceived by Stanley Morison in 1931). This often neglected ending to the novel is here imposed upon the reader, albeit subtly by virtue of the text size and being printed in light-grey. It is presented as both a footnote to the tale, as well as a constant reminder of the pervasiveness of language manipulation as a means to control.
An illustrative set of eyes is also present on every page-spread, embossed in each page, as a further form of invasion on the reader.
The edition opens with the title page and frontispiece, a dizzying vortex displaying Winston's withered body, and beyond the title page, the bordering text slowly starts to reveal itself behind redacted lines, until the novel begins with the infamous first line.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Whilst many books employ illustrations that can be easily rendered via alternative printing methods, or by mass production, this edition specifically seeks to include an illustrative form that can only be presented in the most limited of means, as each illustration is printed by letterpress, using wood and metal types and ornaments, and on hand-made paper.
There are twenty-four sewn-in broadside posters, each printed one at a time by hand, on an Albion iron hand-press, limited in number. Each setting is then dismantled. The hand-made papers, many watermarked, include those from a range of paper mills no longer operating as well as those still making paper by hand. A short-list of the papers included can be found by opening the below attachment.
click to open
short-list of handmade papers used in the edition
These posters feature both representations of imagined posters that may exist in the world of the novel, or specific posters featured in the text of 1984, such as the very opening of the story, where the second paragraph starts:
‘The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features’;
whilst others are imagined settings or aspects of the text presented in illustrative form.
In this manner, these illustrations immerse the reader into the story as real and tactile ephemera, inspired or from the events of the novel. In addition, as a result of the nature of the medium of letterpress, each poster in every copy is to an extent unique.
the broadsides (in order of appearance in the edition)
FRONTIS - WINSTON
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
WAR WITH EAST/EURASIA
PUBLIC HANGING
BE A CHILD HERO
TRIUMPH OF COMMAND
VICTORY MANSIONS
ARTSEM
MINIPLENTY
ECONOMY DRIVE
AIRSTRIP ONE
GOLDEN COUNTRY
JULIA
O'BRIEN
UNDERSTANDING
NOTICE BOARD
EURASIAN SOLDIER
MINITRUE
MINIPAX
MINILUV
LEARNING
ACCEPTANCE
ROOM 101
(DOUBLE PAGE)
VICTORY STORES
'OUR NEW, HAPPY LIFE'
SPECIAL EDITION
Eight copies will constitute a Special Edition.
Full details of the Contents of these Specials are found in the attachment below.
click to open
examples of additional artwork from the specials
Two example sets of the unique hand-painted end-papers that will be used in one volume of the Special Edition, by Jack Kitchen,
following the theme of his Room 101 illustration.
Specially commissioned marbled paper from Four Keys Book Arts, Canada, continuing the 'eye' motif of the novel, with Tiger Eye design, to be used for binding one of the Special Edition's additional volumes.
SUBSCRIPTION & RELEASE DATE
The subscription price per copy is £2,284 plus p&p. On release, the price per copy will be £3,500 plus p&p. The edition is expected to be released in late 2023 and will hopefully be the definitive letterpress edition of this influential text for the foreseeable future.
(2021)
SOLD OUT