Friday, November 9, 2012

E-catalogue 30: Miniature Books

In his text announcing "A Miniature Lesson in the History of the Book" -- a 2005 exhibition of miniature books at Harvard University's Houghton Library -- Julian Edison declared that "Miniature books have been produced for reasons of practicality, curiosity, and aesthetics, and are limited in design only by the scribe's and printer's skill and the binder's imagination." Just as we admire Ginger Rogers because she did everything Fred Astaire did, only backward and in high heels, miniature books rise in our estimation because their creators can explore diverse subjects and design possibilities while working with a canvas of under three inches. Edison's elegant and effective summary is an appropriate epigraph for the books that make up our 30th e-catalogue, which is comprised of nearly 45 recent acquisitions.

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