Dromedary Dreams

One of my greatest joys of the past year has been to devote more time than ever to my book projects. For years, Dromedary Press has been a dream that I've been able to bring more and more into the waking world to share with everyone else. The gallery show is shaping up to be a grand celebration of my books and illustrations.

I hope many of you will be able to come to the book signing at Castle in the Air on February 11. But even if you can't join us, you can be a part of the adventure by getting your own copy of Commonplace Mouse through our Online Shoppe!

Commonplace Mouse is Here!

Callooh! Callay! After many adventures, Commonplace Mouse has arrived at Castle in the Air! Today a large truck pulled up alongside the store and a couple of nice fellows helped us unload box after box of the brand new book, the latest publication from our publishing company, Dromedary Press. We're still getting our little hero situated, but soon you'll be able to take this heroic story of a brave little mouse home with you. Hooray!

Mr. Marsh Speaks!

My family is taking a brief Halloween holiday to go to New York City, where we'll be checking out the fall leaves and, as fate would have it, cheering on our own Mr. Marsh at his first author appearance!

Mr. Marsh will be discussing The Mentalist's Handbook at Observatory in Brooklyn the evening of Thursday, October 29. I couldn't miss this chance to visit Observatory, especially as it is the gallery space for one of my favorite weblogs, Morbid Anatomy.

To learn more about Mr. Marsh's appearance, visit the Observatory website. Maybe we'll see you there!

Storytime

We've been planning an expansion of our bookcase at Castle in the Air for a while, and this month seemed like the right time to bring in the books. Rainy days are perfect for curling up with some hot tea and a good story.















When choosing the books for our shelf, we thought back to the writers and artists that inspired and thrilled us as children, so we've got selections from the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, T.H. White, Nick Bantock, Lisbeth Zwerger, and many more. And of course my favorite, Miss Suzy by Miriam Young and Arnold Lobel. (110 five-star reviews on Amazon!) One very special book that I hadn't seen anywhere for many years was The Neverending Story by Michael Ende printed in red and greed ink. It's storytime!

Outlander

Years ago one of the crew here at Castle in the Air gave me the book Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon, as a gift. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. It had young love, sword-fighting, botany, witchcraft, Scotland, and a wacked out cast of characters...there were so many similarities between the story and my own life. It's even got a John McRae! So when I heard there was a sequel I ran to the bookstore to buy it. I was surprised not to see it on the fiction or fantasy shelves, and when I found it in the romance section I was a little embarrassed!

Of course while I don't honestly think Diana Gabaldon had me in mind when writing the book, today it really does seem like I'm living a story out of a romance novel, as my husband is taking me to Gabaldon's signing at Books Inc. in Mountain View! I'll pick up the seventh book in the Outlander series and say hello to a writer whose work has given me so much satisfaction over the years.

Speaking of Books Inc., not only are they the oldest West Coast independent bookseller, but they've also just opened a new store across the street from Castle in the Air!

Caron's "I'll Fly Away" Fabric Book

Ever have one of those days? One where you just wanted to wing away and leave all your troubles behind? Our felting teacher Caron Dunn has shared with us a little preview of her upcoming "I'll Fly Away" Fabric Book class. It looks so sweet that probably by the time you're finished felting it, your troubles won't seem so bad after all.

Against Book Breaking

After posting about it yesterday, I thought today might be a good time to talk about where I first saw Grandville's Laurel, and the artistic conundrum it always reminds me of.

When I was 16, I caught my first glimpse into Grandville's world. I was given his Laurel as a gift. It was a plate from an antique edition of Les Fleurs Animees, and I've always cherished it. I still see it every day, too, framed and on my mantelpiece at home.

It was only later on, in botany school, when I discovered that the Laurel was part of a larger collection of images, that my real love for Grandville's caricatures was awakened. My discovery had a dark side, too, because I also realized that my plate had once been in a book that was now, obviously, in pieces.

Just as the botanist is prone to plucking flowers from their natural habitat and flattening them into albums, we as artists have the same opportunity to rend the beautiful works of others and use the gleanings to our own ends.

Castle in the Air offers classes on altered book techniques, but when I've taken the classes I've always been the oddball using a newly purchased blank book. I've never been able to bring myself to break or modify an existing book with another artist's text and pictures.

By the same token, Castle in the Air sells our "Vintage Ephemera Packs" stuffed with trimmings from yesteryear's books and magazines. I have to say that for the record, none of the elements in the ephemera packs we've sold have been broken from their original source by us at the store. The pieces are brought in by collectors or found already disassembled at sales and flea markets.

For many people, old books are talismanic objects with their own inherent power. The act of dissecting the book and using authentic vintage pieces is thought to put some of that power into a new piece of art. It's a potent process even if you don't believe in magic, because what's happening is a real transformation. A more or less "original" source is destroyed, and what comes from it is a new statement from a contemporary artist. I won't stand in the way of anyone who wants to break books to get at that power, but I can't bring myself to do it.

My hope for all artists who work in collage and reinterpretations of vintage publications is that they take time to consider the effects of their actions, and consciously decide what is best. An antique book is a treasure unto itself, and even though Castle in the Air could make more money selling individual plates cut from a vintage art book, we would much rather keep the book intact to sell as is, or better yet, to add to our store collection, where choice images can be reproduced using modern methods. I've scanned the Grandville images I'm sharing with you using a computer. The same computer can allow me to recreate an almost perfect replica of the artistic plate from my copy of Les Fleurs Animees, one that I can cut and paste to my heart's content -- and probably on better paper to boot. To me, none of Grandville's magic is lost in this process. In fact, you could say that the magic is enhanced, because the image is now incorporated into something new that might turn on a new person to Grandville's work, and the original remains for those who want to experience the power that it has in itself.

As artists we live in and through our imaginations. Can you imagine a world where the beautiful original works that inspired us in the first place have all been destroyed?

Grandville's Laurel

Not long ago, my dear friend (and my girls' pediatrician) Dr. Wolffe surprised me with a gift he knew I would love. It was an edition of Les Fleurs Animees, or The Court of Flora, by the inimitable illustrator J.J. Grandville. I was delighted, of course, but had to sheepishly admit to Dr. Wolffe that I was such a Grandville lover that I had an original edition from the nineteenth century! It really was beside the point though, because in Wolffe's thoughtful gift I now have a copy that I'm much more comfortable enjoying without worrying about it falling apart in my hands.

Grandville is most famous for his tete-de-bete -- animals in human clothing -- and his similarly anthropomorphic flowers. Les Fleurs Animees is, of course, about the latter, with full color plates and allegorical commentary by Taxile Delord. But I thought I'd share this particularly heraldric selection from the book. It's Grandville's picture of the Laurel, and the story that goes with it -- a conversation between a marquis and a colonel, with a closing thought by Delord -- is on a timeless subject:

"It becomes you to talk of love," said the marquis, "you who never made love to any but the burgher's dames in the small towns where you were garrisoned. You ridicule little attentions and pretty verses, because, old fox, halbardier, and pander that you are, you never experienced their charms."

The colonel grew angry in turn: "A fine woman, like a citadel, should be carried by storm."

"No, delicate attentions win the favor of the fair."

"To vanquish the most obstinate, one needs only to show a brow wreathed with laurel."

"Not so. It is with a belt of myrtle that we must bind the Loves."

Gallantry and bravery have gone out of fashion. Ridicule has done them justice. To whom should one be gallant? To women who smoke, who drink of grog, who ride horseback, who fence, and write novels?

Cooking with Mariaelisa and Friends

"Where there is no bread, there is no love."

--Italian proverb

Cookbooks are second only to travel guides when it comes to books that help you daydream your way to far-off lands. Although, since cookbooks help you recreate one of the best parts of any visit to another country -- the food -- maybe they are the best way to go on an imaginary vacation.

We recently received our latest shipment of woodblock-printed wonders from Mariaelisa Lebroni's Xilocart workshop in Perugia, Italy. Among the treasured greeting cards, journals, prints, and other goodies were copies of three cookbooks Mariaelisa published with writer friends of hers, one for breads, one for seeds and grains, and one about those plump garden favorites potato, tomato, and squash. Each of these cookbooks gives the history and traditions associated with these foods in Italy, and a cornucopia of recipes.

Mariaelisa's woodblock prints of farm scenes, rustic baker's ovens, and lucious plants decorate the pages, and the text for all three books is in both Italian and English. Talk about a way to travel without leaving the house, or even the kitchen!

Dimitri Goes to the Library

We thought we would be lonely waiting while Commonplace Mouse travels the long road to the printer's and back all by himself, but today a lovely new friend showed up. Dimitri Dinosaur--who was accompanied by his friend, author and illustrator Julie Walrand--is the main character in a new story about dreams, friends, family, good manners, and ice cream. We're helping Dimitri and Julie turn their story into a book, and it will be out later this year and available at Castle in the Air!

Setting off...

Castle in the Air's smallest hero sets off on the first leg of his adventures today -- Commonplace Mouse has gone to press! Only a month or so before the books are here! Stay tuned for news about the festivities we have planned to celebrate the publication of the second title from Dromedary Press.

Decorum

We've been having fun peeking in an 1879 copy of Decorum (subtitled A Practical Treatise on Etiquette and Dress, with no author listed) recently. It's interesting to see how times have -- and haven't -- changed over the last 130 years. From the chapter on "Conversation":

Let your conversation be adapted as skillfully as may be to your company. Some men make a point of talking commonplaces to all ladies alike, as if a woman could only be a trifler. Others, on the contrary, seem to forget in what respects the education of a lady differs from that of a gentleman, and commit the opposite error of conversing on topics with which ladies are seldom acquainted. A woman of sense has as much right to be annoyed by the one, as a lady of ordinary education by the other. You cannot pay a finer complement to a woman of refinement and esprit than by leading the conversation into such a channel as may mark your appreciation of her superior attainments.

Subjects to be Avoided
In talking with ladies of ordinary education, avoid political, scientific, or commercial topics, and choose only such subjects as are likely to be of interest to them.

Talk to People of their own Affairs
Remember that people take more interest in their own affairs than in anything else which you can name. If you wish your conversation to be thoroughly agreeable, lead a mother to talk to her children, a young lady of her last ball, an author of his forthcoming book, or an artist of his exhibition picture. Having furnished the topic, you need only listen; and you are sure to be thought not only agreeable, but thoroughly sensible and well-informed.

Avoid talking too much of their Professions
Be careful, however, on the other hand, not always to make a point of talking to persons upon general matters relating to their professions. To show an interest in their immediate concerns is flattering; but to converse with them too much about their own arts looks as if you thought them ignorant of other topics.

Slang
Remember that all "slang" is vulgar. It has become of late unfortunately prevalent, and we have known even ladies pride themselves on the saucy chique with which they adopt certain cant phrases of the day. Such habits cannot be too severely reprehended. They lower the tone of society and the standard of thought. It is a great mistake to suppose that slang is in any way a substitute for wit.

Using Proverbs and Puns
The use of proverbs is equally vulgar in conversation; and puns, unless they rise to the rank of witticisms, are to be scrupulously avoided. There is no greater nuisance in society than a dull and persevering punster.

Witticisms
Do not be always witty, even though you should be so happily gifted as to need the caution. To outshine others on every occasion is the surest road to unpopularity.

Interrupting a Person while Speaking
Never interrupt a person who is speaking. It has been aptly said that "if you interrupt a speaker in the middle of his sentence, you act almost as rudely as if, when walking with a companion, you were to thrust yourself before him, and stop his progress."

Avoid Unfamiliar Subjects
Never talk upon subjects of which you know nothing, unless it be for the purpose of acquiring information. Many young men imagine that because they frequent exhibitions and operas they are qualified judges of art. No mistake is more egregious or universal.

Interjections
The interjection of such phrases as, "You know," "You see," "Don't you see?" "Do you understand?" and similar ones that stimulate the attention, and demand an answer, ought to be avoided. Make your observations in a calm and sedate way, which your companion may attend to or not, as he pleases, and let them go for what they are worth.

Conversing with Ladies
If you are a gentleman, never lower the intellectual standard of your conversation in addressing ladies. Pay them the compliment of seeming to consider them capable of an equal understanding with gentlemen. You will, no doubt, be somewhat surprised to find in how many cases the supposition will be grounded on fact, and in the few instances where it is not the ladies will be pleased rather than offended at the delicate compliment you pay them. When you "come down" to commonplace or small-talk with an intelligent lady, one of two things is the consequence, she either recognizes the condescension and despises you, or else she accepts it as the highest intellectual effort of which you are capable, and rates you accordingly.

Introducing...

...Commonplace Mouse! I've made a new friend, and I want you all to meet him. Commonplace Mouse has been sharing his story with me for a while now, and just last night I put the final touches on a book of watercolors illustrating them. The book is dedicated to my younger daughter, as she and Mr. Mouse have a lot in common.

In the not-too-distant future, Commonplace Mouse will be the second title from the Castle in the Air publishing imprint, Dromedary Press.

A Booked Schedule

Bay Area book-lovers have had the privilege of being able to attend not one but two world-class book expos over the past few weeks. I visited the second biennial Codex International Book Fair just a week ago in Berkeley, and over the weekend I went to San Francisco to take in the 42nd California International Antiquarian Book Fair.

The Codex Fair, led by letterpress ringmaster Peter Koch, hosted nearly 150 book artists and small presses, and their works are simply amazing. The book arts medium continues to develop well into the digital age, and it almost seems to me that the growth of online publishing (Hello, Blogger!) has encouraged artists to go even further with innovative printing and binding in the world of paper and ink.

The Antiquarian Book Fair was a fabulous horse of a different color, with almost 250 dealers in antique, fine press, and collectible books. It was astounding to be able to walk from booth to booth there and hold Renaissance-era tomes, see book projects from favorite artists (I have a weakness for Warhol), and find copies of treasured books from childhood. I went with my family, and my little girls ended up talking shop with some of the vendors about woodblock printing and special kinds of paper. A family favorite that we didn't end up bringing home was a series of tiny books recounting Japanese fairy tales, printed on fantastic crepe paper.

The Thief of Love

Calla Editions just keeps amazing me. We carry their amazing line of illustrated classics at Castle in the Air, and their latest -- Louise Saunders and Maxfield Parrish's The Knave of Hearts -- sang its love song to me from the shelf this week.

I remember reading an earlier edition of this fable as a child, each of Parrish's timeless, lush illustrations drawing me deeper into the whimsical and dramatic world of the King and Queen of Hearts. Whether or not someone's stolen your tarts, you can dive in and lose yourself there, too.

Happy Valentine's Day!

One World - One Heart

Before I started this blog, I was convinced that it was the perfectly wrong thing to do. Here I was, running a bricks-and-mortar store where I get to have face-to-face conversations with all of the wonderful artists who visit Castle in the Air. What sort of online experience could hope to match that?

While there isn't anything that can truly compete with real world friendships, it didn't take long for me to see that the store's blog was putting me in touch with all sorts of people whom I would never get to meet otherwise. Alongside our Online Shoppe, the blog lets people from around the world get a taste of what we do at Castle in the Air, and we can get to know each other through email or through visiting each other's blogs.

Someone who understands this power of the Internet to bring artists together is Lisa "Oceandreamer" Swifka. For three years now, Lisa has organized One World-One Heart, an annual festival that takes place across any number of blogs. Participants simply list an item they'd like to give to a lucky reader, then go and enter similar drawings for prizes at other participants' blogs.

For our entry, we're giving away a signed and numbered copy of Castle in the Air, the first book from my publishing company, Dromedary Press. The story in the book was a surprise gift from my husband on our first wedding anniversary (the paper anniversary). It tells the tale of a queen who has countless suitors, but pledges to give her heart only to the one who can build her "a castle in the air." While Duncan was secretly writing the story, I was furtively painting a picture for him, a picture of a queen waiting to meet the one who would sweep her off her feet.















When we exchanged gifts and saw how well they went together, Duncan and I decided to celebrate by combining the story and the painting into the most romantic little book. We engaged letterpress printer Richard Seibert and bookbinder Victoria Heifner to create it in limited hardcover and pamphlet editions. The forty-page book includes the full-color image of the queen and five line illustrations of the marvelous castles proposed to her.

Do you want your very own copy? We sell them at Castle in the Air as well as through our Online Shoppe, of course, but we're giving away one copy of the Castle in the Air hardcover to a lucky reader -- it could be you!

All you have to do to enter the drawing is to leave a (non-anonymous) comment on this blog post. You don't have to be a fellow participant in One World-One Heart, you don't even need to have your own blog -- the festival is just about getting people to say hello and get to know each other in this brave new online world. We'll draw a winner's name at random on Thursday, February 12 and announce it here!

To learn more about One World-One Heart and see who else is participating, please visit Lisa's blog.

All worship at the Temple of Flora!

Leave it to Taschen. It's not every day that a book floors me not only with its over-the-top production quality and subject matter, but also with its connection to my artistic past.

Taschen Books is, of course, the premier publisher of "art, anthropology, and aphrodisia," printing new works of provocative painters and photographers as well as reissuing long out-of-print, highly sought volumes from the history of the book trade. One of this season's offerings is The Temple of Flora, one of the masterpieces of botanical illustration.

In 1799, English physician and botanical writer Robert John Thornton commissioned the world's most renowned painters to create 33 plates showing exotic plants in unusual, romantic settings. The resulting folio, The Temple of Flora, took nine years and all of Thornton's wealth before it could be published in a print run of only 300 copies. He died penniless but will forever be a hero to those who appreciate the life and sense of wonder he brought to this early scientific work.

When I was in college studying botany and the history of art, I had the good fortune to glimpse a miniature reproduction of this rare work. Ever since then, I've scoured rare book libraries and collections looking for a full-sized copy. And so today, when I visited Builders Booksource here on Fourth Street, my jaw dropped when I saw the new Taschen edition of this holy grail of botanical illustration. Fantastic undertakings such as this renew my faith in publishing and in the ability of beautiful art to bridge the gap between art and science. Thank you, Taschen!

The Bohemian Cup

This fall, Castle in the Air began what we hope will become an annual tradition -- the awarding of The Bohemian Cup. This prize recognizes a person or organization for, as the gilded certificate states, "extraordinary Imagination, Decency, Wit, Artistry, and Love," traits that we can all agree are exemplary but aren't often ceremonially reinforced. That's all changed now!

Many of you have heard of St. George Spirits, the Bay Area distiller largely responsible for bringing absinthe back to America after a century-long ban. We stood in line for hours last December to buy two bottles of their Absinthe Verte on its debut day, and we fell in love with the elixir immediately.

Through a series of happy coincidences, St. George co-owner Lance Winters contacted us earlier this year to ask if we might help him with a bookbinding project. He described what he was working on, a special, one-of-a-kind book he intended to give as a gift. We were intrigued and excited by the offer, and agreed to do whatever we could to help him make it happen.

When the project was complete a few weeks later, we were all so happy with the results, and with the grace and generosity Lance had brought to the project, that we felt like showing our gratitude in an official sort of way.

As such, we're very happy to announce Lance Winters and St. George Spirits as winners of the 2008 Bohemian Cup. Congratulations! We are already on the lookout for next year's winner!

"Secondhand Handshakes"

Alan Pryor of the Kent-based Pryor Publications is perhaps the world's foremost preserver and distributor of charming reprints of the pamphlets of yesteryear. Topics common among the Pryor library include history, vintage cookery, courtship, and recreational pastimes like magic lanterns and optical illusions. Alan publishes the works of other authors far more often than his own, but he took pen to paper recently and the resulting pamphlet is destined to become a classic in its own right for its practicality and genius.

Secondhand Handshakes is a booklet small enough to fit in any jacket pocket or handbag, and that's exactly where you should keep your copy, because it acts as a sort of passport to the social world. As Alan writes in the introduction to the booklet, "Few of us ever personally get to meet the great, the good, the famous or indeed the infamous in our everyday lives, though strangely enough we may be a lot closer than we think."

Like an autograph book, Secondhand Handshakes has pages dedicated to recording the handshakes you accumulate during the course of life, with space to write the name of the person you met, the date, and anything noteworthy about the encounter. Turning to the next section in the book, you can enter the handshakes they have acquired, and the handshakes those people have acquired, until you've got a several-generations association with someone you never might get to meet personally. It's amazing how easy it is to populate your pages with popes, presidents, and other world-famous individuals this way!

















Alan gives a graphic example of such a tree of handshakes in the booklet, starting with a Great War-era photograph featuring T.E. Lawrence, the King of Jordan Abdullah I, and other British military officers. Alan then traces a line of meetings across the decades until he comes to a photograph of (then) Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown shaking hands with young entrepreneur Tristan Cowell, followed by a photograph of Cowell meeting Pryor himself.
















Anyone who is more chuffed to having shaken hands with Lawrence of Arabia--albeit five times removed--over shaking hands with the Prime Minister once removed is tops in our book. And just think, we've shaken hands with Alan!

History Lesson: Letterpress

After losing myself in Mariaelisa Lebroni's xilographic wonderland yesterday, I thought I might learn more about the history of printing, especially letterpress, which is the most widespread recognizable descendant of woodblock printing.

The story goes that in 175 CE, the Chinese emperor decreed that the six most important lessons of Confucianism be carved in stone, such that an authentic text could be preserved for future generations. Scholars who wanted their own copies used graphite or charcoal to make rubbings of the stones, the way people today might take a rubbing from a gravestone or a bronze plaque.

Sometime before the eighth century, an industrious person tried carving such texts in relief, cutting away the stone around each letter, then inking the remaining surface before applying and peeling away a sheet of paper to it. The result was the first example of printing. Whole pages of religious texts were carved into stone and wood blocks, then printed on single sheets and scrolls, as printing flourished throughout what is now modern China and Korea. The market for these works was mainly among religious pilgrims.

The Koreans excelled at printing, and near the end of the 14th century realized that they could save time by producing individual, moveable letters, eliminating the need to carve an entire page. Interestingly, Korean printers were so daunted by trying to produce the variety of characters in the Chinese language that they invented their own national alphabet, known as han'gul.

Just as this was happening in Asia, the German goldsmith Johann Gutenberg began his own experiments with moveable type, using a wine press he converted to press the letterforms onto paper. As with Asian printers, Gutenberg found a ready audience for religious texts. His first works were a Bible and a psalm-book.

As printing technology grew more sophisticated, it allowed for type and drawings to be reproduced on the same page, and the rise of the religious press was paralleled, then overshadowed, by political and commercial printing in the early 17th century. Mechanical rotary presses and automated typesetting were invented in the mid-19th century, enabling newspapers to print daily editions for entire cities. Throughout the 20th century, the faster, more reliable technology of offset printing slowly edged out letterpress as the preferred means of printing.

But as the cast-off letterpress machines were retired, a number of them were rescued by smaller print shops and amateur printers. These groups have found a growing market of people enthusiastic about letterpress. Today, the bread and butter for independent letterpress printers lies in wedding invitations, but customers increasingly ask for letterpressed fliers, stationery, business cards, and art editions of books. Printers now often incorporate state-of-the-art technology in their work, foregoing the chore of setting type letter by letter by using photopolymer plates made from images typeset on a computer.

Castle in the Air has benefited from the flourishing of modern letterpress through our association with our dear friend Richard Seibert, who printed our first book, Castle in the Air, using vintage letterpress machines.

An interesting piece of letterpress trivia: When printers organized their individual pieces of type, they put the "big" letters in the top, or upper set of cases, and the "little" letters below. Hence the alphabetical terms "upper-case" and "lower-case" today!

The Prints of Mariaelisa Lebroni

One of the most beloved collections we carry at Castle in the Air is the line of journals, albums, prints, and other beautiful objects from Italian artisan printmaker Mariaelisa Lebroni. Under the name Xilocart, Mariaelisa uses xilography (xilografia in Italian) printmaking tools and techniques that have been found in the artifacts of particular cultures reaching back across the millennia.

Xilography is a method of printing first employed by ancient Egyptians and later by the Chinese, who expanded from single block carving to moveable type as early as the 8th century, 700 years before Europeans began using similar techniques. Artists carve away parts from the surface of a block of wood, leaving intact the shapes they would like printed. Ink is applied to the carved surface, which is then pressed onto paper or cloth. A xilographic artist may print using a single impression, or let the first impression dry and add others using different blocks or colors of ink.

Perhaps more than for the sense of history conveyed by Mariaelisa's books, people love her work for its whimsy. Contented frogs, cheerful cityscapes, smiling suns, and simple pictures of trees in autumn grace the covers of her books, all in lovely color combinations. Because each print is handmade and one-of-a-kind, no two books will have exactly the same image, although it is easy to recognize pieces from the same "family."

Mariaelisa is truly a treasure for the beauty of her works and for her preservation of an ancient art form, and we are honored to know her and carry her books and prints.

East of the Sun...

One of the most exciting book catalogs to find its way to Castle in the Air this fall is from a publisher that is both brand new and an old friend. Calla Editions was launched this year as a division of Dover Publications, whose miraculous trove of line drawings and full-color Victorian vignettes has been a godsend to artists for over 60 years.

Whereas Dover caters to the clip-art crowd, Calla takes advantage of the company's superb library to publish new editions of titles from the golden age of book illustration. We've received two titles from Calla's inaugural line--East of the Sun and West of the Moon, illustrated by Kay Nielsen, and Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, illustrated by Harry Clarke--with more on the way as they are published. These hefty volumes are a bibliophile's dream, with clean text reproduction and vibrant illustrations printed on thick pages. In an age when so much of publishing seems to be disposable, these books are instant classics.

Castle in the Air -- A Love Story

Dromedary Press, the in-house publishing imprint of Castle in the Air, is very happy to announce the publication of its first title. Castle in the Air is a love story beautifully written by Duncan Brown and lyrically illustrated by Karima Cammell. The book tells the tale of an itinerant traveler who attempts to win the heart of a young queen. Awash in suitors, she has declared that she will only marry a man who can build for her a castle in the air.

Castle in the Air is letterpress printed by Richard Seibert and hand-bound by Victoria Heifner. Forty pages, 5 1/4" by 7 1/8". Includes one full-color and five one-color illustrations. Produced in two limited editions: 100 numbered copies case-bound with red Japanese mohair cloth over archival boards, and 200 numbered copies pamphlet-bound in paper cover with red button-twill silk thread.