Back to the Books ~ The Colophon

In the heart of the Great Depression, when art pottery companies like Rookwood and Roseville very nearly went under and book publishers weren't doing so well either, Elmer Adler and the Pynson Printers began a quarterly magazine dedicated to books and book collecting, The Colophon.

But The Colophon was not merely a glossy or newsprint periodical. Each edition, limited to two or three thousand copies, was folio sized, contained articles each printed on different papers and with different type styles by different small presses around the country, featured a cover and colophon designed by a wide variety of contemporary graphic artists such as Dard Hunter and Frederic W. Goudy and featured at least one limited edition print or lithograph by Stow Wengeroth, Rockwell Kent or Carlotta Petrina, among others. Each edition being unique in style and format, it's no wonder that the first twenty editions of The Colophon are highly collectible among bibliophiles and have become another nifty book sideline for me.

The Colophon, A Book Collector's Quarterly, Part Two, 1930.
Folio sized, includes the original glassine wraps. This second volume contains articles on Robert Frost and His Books, Book Collecting For All Purses, Mr. Poe At His Conjurations as well as other articles specifically dedicated to book collecting. There's also a fascinating article on the line-engravings of Stephen Gooden. Gooden was a graphic artist of the 1920s whose style is straight out of the visually complex allegoric designs of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, yet unmistakably modern. This volume features an hitherto unpublished drawing by Rockwell Kent and an original illustration by Carlotta Petrini.

The Colophon, A Book Collector's Quarterly, Part Nineteen, 1934.
1934 was the last year that The Colophon would be published in its original widely-varied format. 1935 would see the beginning of The Colophon: New Series and a more standardized format. Part Nineteen features a cover and colophon by Kirk Wilkinson, a bibliography of the works of William Faulkner, a remembrance by a classmate of Emily Dickinson and Dentistry and Dentists As Portrayed By Shakespere (no kidding). Also featured is a lengthy article a accompanying illustrations on Peter Newell whose Edwardian style and gruesome sense of humour remind me of Charles Addams and Edward Gorey.