Books Are My Utopia. Calligraphic Aphorisms Chosen & Rendered by Wm. Reuter.
[ Vancouver, B.C.:]: Heavenly Monkey, 2020. One of thirty-six copies handpress printed by Rollin Milroy, bound by Claudia Cohen, and signed on the colophon by Aliquando Press proprietor William Reuter. Along with providing the original calligraphy and the hand-embellishments, Reuter also printed the three fold-out leaves at his own studio in Dundas, Ontario. With 16 aphorisms on the theme of books, each printed on a separate leaf (rectos only) from polymer plate reproductions of William Reuter’s calligraphy and hand-embellished by Reuter. Featuring over a dozen different handmade and mold-made papers. Pale green endpapers. A fine copy, as new, in its original gold cloth clamshell case. Blue-green stiff paper wrappers with gilt-stamped paper label. Pale green endpapers. 5 inches by 7 inches. [20] ff., including three fold-out leaves. Item #16747
Along with the aphorism by Helen Keller that serves as the title of Books Are My Utopia, the collection includes aphorisms by Bohuslav Martinu, Stefan Zweig, George Santayana, William Morris, Martin Luther, Richard Rodriguez, Paul Auster,T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, Raul Mario Rosarivo, Rabbi Nachman, Joseph Conrad, Herman Koch, John Ruskin, William Blake, Francesco Petrarcca, and Tertullianus. The Richard Rodriguez aphorism reads: “Books should confuse. Literature abhors the typical. Literature flows to the particular, the mundane, the greasiness of paper, the taste of warm beer, the smell of onion and quince.”.
Calligrapher, printer, and book designer William Reuter began publishing books and broadsides under the auspices of his Aliquando Press in 1962. Reuter was a founding member of the Society of Canadian Book Designers and has designed stamps for Canada Post. Books Are My Utopia represents a long-distance collaboration between Reuter in Ontario and Heavenly Monkey in Vancouver, Canada.
Price: $1,350.00