The First Part of Henry the Fourth
San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1961. Item #10424
Folio. [4], 46, [2 (blank)] pp., illus. Limited edition, one of 180 copies. This copy bound by Katy Starr-Baum in full black calf with inlays of sanded aluminum and pained paper as well as onlays of buffalo, watersnake and stone veneer, all arranged in a coronal design from front board to rear; graphite top edge with sprinkled palladium; handsewn silk endbands; hand-painted endpapers echo the cover design. Housed in clamshell box.
A beautiful and fitting binding on one of the Grabhorn Shakespeare series with colored woodblock illustrations by Mary Grabhorn. A bold design using material that speaks to the time—stone and metal. The hand-painted endpapers evoke the night sky and have an iridescence that is dynamic when one opens the cover, the light catching the paint shifts as the board moves. While boldly monochromatic, what color there is in the binding, the leather onlays and the painted paper, picks up the pastels of Grabhorn's illustrations. The coronal design speaks to the backdrop of this play, Henry IV holding onto power amidst treachery and Prince Hal's coming into the crown. But as Starr-Baum notes, the design has a more potent, deeper meaning: "the circular shape … represents familial cycles: the traits and behaviors that are passed down from one generation to the next and the transformation of Prince Hal into King Henry." A powerful binding by one of the most recent recipients of the Fine Binding Diploma of the elite American Academy of Bookbinding.
Price: $4,000.00