Saturday, November 24, 2007

 

Peter Pauper Press

They printed some sweet little books, didn't they, and most sold for a mere buck apiece. I'm looking at one today entitled Thoughts for a Good Life (1959), a collection of daily epigrams and aphorisms, all unattributed, some trite and some I'd never heard before.

July 21st: "Rather thy study full of books, than thy purse full of money."

October 13th: "A book that is shut is but a block of wood."

November 12th: "Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun within us."

What a great day at the shop today, very busy with happy people buying books and telling me, "I shouldn't be getting these books, they're not gifts, they're for me!" Feeling aphoristic, I reply, "Well, you know, charity begins at home..." Have I mentioned lately how much I love selling books?

Comments:
Is there a bibliography on Peter Pauper Press? Does anyone collect them? There should be a collector site... That would be funny.
 
Why funny?

You might also be interested in: _Recalling Peter: the life and times of Peter Beilenson and his Peter Pauper Press_, edited by Paul A. Bennett, New York: The Typophiles, 1964.
 
I like Peter Pauper Press - their books were inexpensive but not cheap, a neat distinction. I've never heard of a bibliography - but thanks, anon, for the Typophiles information - I have several other books with the Typophiles imprint, but not this one. Exile - nice blog! Classic letterpress-equipment recovery story, I loved it...
 
Hi Sarah...

Do you ever read Ronald Blythe(Akenfield, Divine Landscapes,
Out of the Valley, et al)? He always seems like your cup of tea.
He writes from, and of, Bottomgoms
Farm, Wormingford, Suffolk/Essex
border. His 'Word From Wormingford'
column in this week's Church Times
sounds so much like something of
your creation.

(I know, I know--you REALLY need something more to read)

Church Times>'Pastimes' in Con-
tents menu>Word From Wormingford

Marci
 
Marci, I've never read him until now - I just googled and read the piece you mentioned, and how lovely it is... he covers all of the bases - encounters with acquaintances, old books, homesickness, precisely-put rural observations, deeply-felt wordless moments. I see I must now read entire books by this Ronald Blythe.

Looking for used copies, I notice that one of his books was reprinted as a Common Reader edition - a sign of a good book, if there ever was.

Thanks. Great. As you say, more to read.
 
For any other interested parties, here's the Blythe article I read first:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=29344

And the one Marci is referring to:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=47271
 
RE: Peter Pauper Press.

There is a piece about them in the Materialworld blog.
http://blogs.nyu.edu/projects/materialworld/2007/04/the_pleasures_of_the_used_text.html
 
Great article indeed - thanks for telling me about it, anon.
 
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