THE FOLIO SOCIETY

The Letterpress Shakespeare

Beauty of Typography

The layout of words on a printed page is as much an art as such ancient techniques as Chinese or Arabic calligraphy. Here, the text is designed by eye and set on a manual machine, not a computer. Each letter of type has been created from hot metal in the rarely used 16-point font of 'Monotype' Baskerville, chosen for its clarity and elegance of form. Tiny irregularities testify to the hand-crafted nature of the process, since the shape of each line, the very gap between letters, is adjusted by hand to create the most pleasing overall effect.

Quality You Can Touch

Letterpress printing today is used only for the very finest, private press publishing. Running your fingers over the rag-content paper, letterpress is instantly distinguishable from commercial litho printing. You can feel the indentation where each letter has been impressed into the mould-made paper.

Creating The Letterpress Shakespeare

To make these beautiful books The Folio Society is calling upon the full resources of a range of artist-craftsmen. Cotton mixed with pure wood fibres dries slowly on a cylindrical mould to make this specialist paper. When the sheets are removed, the feathered edge at the sides is called the 'deckle'. The high cotton content ensures the paper is stronger and will retain its distinctive quality for generations, which is why artists and galleries choose it for fine art prints and etchings. The pages are folded in sections of eight for a perfectly flat opening to the spine, and only the top edge is trimmed.

Top edge gilding is a traditional finish, protecting books' exposed tops from dust, moisture or atmospheric pollution. The three-quarter binding of finest Nigerian goatskin leather is dyed for an exact match, but the gold and scarlet pattern on the hand-marbled paper sides is unique to each volume, since the exact pattern of droplets can never be repeated. For Ann Muir, marbling the paper for the individual books of Shakespeare's four great tragedies will take nearly half a year of continuous labour.

The small craft bindery of Lachenmaier in Germany has won a record number of prizes in the 125 years it has been binding fine art and speciality books. There, an experienced team of craftsmen sew, case in and bind the book. Both the spine and separate leather label for the solander box are hand-blocked in 22-carat gold.

Allowing the beautiful reading volume to remain uncluttered by notes, this commentary volume reproduces the Oxford University Press text with full glossing and explanatory comments. Edited by Professor G. R. Hibbard under the General Editor Stanley Wells, this text has become a byword for rigorous scholarship. Professor Hibbard's illuminating introduction provides an exceptionally thorough textual and historical overview of King Lear, making this one of the most highly respected of all academic editions.

‘It looks and feels like an absolute work of art, redolent of the craftsmanship which has been dedicated to its production’
ROGER BING