The Letterpress Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare

The Letterpress Twelfth Night

Your price US$495.00

Members Only

Production Details

Hand-bound in goatskin leather, blocked in gold; with hand-marbled paper sides.

Printed in 16pt 'Monotype' Baskerville, with Caslon display.

Book size: 14”x 10¾”

Buckram-bound solander box: 15”x 11”x 2¾”

Commentary volume: bound in buckram; 8¾”x 5¾”

In Tudor times, twelfth night was the feast of 'misrule' marking the end of Christmas festivities, where the natural order was often turned topsy-turvy. Shakespeare's plot includes a servant seeking to marry his mistress, women dressed as men and attendant confusions and mistakes - all favourite examples that hark all the way back to the Roman feast of Saturnalia. Shakespeare may well have written the play for a court entertainment performed in 1601 (finding his Duke's name from the Duke Orsini who had visited court that year). Many commentators believe that his portrait of the kill-joy Malvolio was intended to poke fun at the Puritans who disapproved of twelfth night festivities - and, of course, of the theatre itself. Set against Malvolio are the excesses of Sir Toby Belch, and yet his drunkenness is sympathetically viewed: 'Dost think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?'

From the witty banter of Sir Toby and Maria, the wry commentary of Feste and the foolishness of Sir Andrew to the emotionally charged moment of the discovery of the twins, this is a play whose range and humour have delighted audiences for centuries and which remains irresistibly fresh today.

"Few other plays have so consistently provided theatrical pleasure of so high an order" JONATHAN BATE
The Letterpress Shakespeare

From the choice of text and meticulously designed pages to the mould-made paper and unsurpassed art of letterpress printing, attention has been lavished on every facet of the reading experience.

The result is a fit and harmonious balance between the internal and external: a volume which is not only a delight to look at and hold, but a joy to read; formed not for mere display, but to satisfy the passion for his language felt by all those who love Shakespeare.

Produced to the highest standards, using only the finest materials and processes, each volume is a work of art in its own right.


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.


Each copy will be numbered on a limitation page, for new collectors, some early numbers are still available, which will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Total limitation 3,750,