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Shackman Press
4132 Mildred Avenue
Los Anglees, CA 90066
Shackman Press is a smallish outfit, at present, a bit lost in the world. For the last year, we happily labored in Deutschland (how history twists and turns) &mdash first at the Druckladen of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, and then in Berlin, because, well, that's just what you do.
At present, we've re-camped to the New World (though some would say the Old New World &mdash sorry Charles C. Mann), but what that means is (like so much else) unclear.
27.7.2010 America! America! I'm putting my shoulder to the wheel!
3.7.2010 What do you know! There is somewhere to get pillow-soft letterpressed stationery in Berlin. And just when we've got a foot out the door. (Thanks Kat Ran!)
20.6.2010
At the journey's end
Berlin is a summerless city
But nice all the same.
12.6.2010 All is in disarray! Travel! Space! Time! We're going to Istanbul!
2.6.2010 We just wanted to let you know (well, well in advance), that we'll be making an appearence at the Oak Knoll Fest in October. The team's wardrobe is being meticulously planned.
21.5.2010
We've put up "The Student," a story in Easter Week, for your perusing pleasure.
A spread from Easter Week.
19.5.2010 We've got a new webhost! Undoubtedly, that will mean nothing at all—but we're pleased, and looking forward to improving the Shackman website with an area where visitors can post pictures of their cats.
15.5.2010 Brainstorming is underway for the Delmore Schwartz book. Right now, I'm thinking laser cutting, mostly inspired by the Olafur Eliasson house-in-a-book boondoggle. It is almost exactly what it sounds like.
4.5.2010
In an unlikely flash of mechnical genius, the Press has repaired its wheels!
The Shackman Cruiser's jury-rigged crank.
26.4.2010
Shackman Press hits the media circus! Easter Week makes a modest appearance in the Times Literary Supplement. 
23.4.2010
A re-print of Delmore Schwart'z classic short story In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, a long-time favorite, is in the (distant) offing. Thanks to the generous folks at New Directions, keep an eye out, for oh, who can say, 2012?
Published in the first issue of The Partisan Review.
19.4.2010
Promise aside, we've only now managed to snap a casually artful composition of the signatures for the Weiß specimen book. One of these weekends, there'll be a binding marathon.
14.4.2010
We made a postcard. Drop us a note and we'll mail you one.
12.4.2010 And the flogging begins in earnest! Take a look at the latest American Printing History Association newsletter, for an inspirational advertisement from our hardworking marketing department.
7.4.2010 The first copies of Easter Week have shipped! Euphoria! Glee! Onward!
2.4.2010 The Press has moved quarters, with a lovely view of a local soccer field. It's around (or exactly) here.
26.3.2010
Mainz is the Stadt der Wissenschaft 2011. What a coup — and just as we're leaving! At least it's beautiful in Berlin! 
24.3.2010 Astonishingly, we made it to Berlin without mishap. The press's sharp little gangschultung Fiat stalled a dozen or so times, but miraculously, we escaped disaster.
21.3.2010 Mainz, Mainz, Mainz. Wir sind weg gegangen. It treated us well.
16.3.2010
Overtime at the Druckladen this week, trying to finish up an type specimen book on Emil Weiß before the move to Berlin. Frantic!
UPDATE: It's done, but all the sheets are packed away. I'll get photos up at some point. Still have to figure out the covers, and how to bind three tiny signatures.
Ieronim, from On Easter Eve and The Student from Easter Week. Engravings by Barry Moser
Anton Chekhov
Easter Week
Translated by Michael Henry Heim
Engravings by Barry Moser
We’re thrilled to announce the publication of Easter Week, a collection of new Anton Chekhov translations and engravings. Two stories, “The Student," Chekhov’s own favorite, and “On Easter Eve,” appear in a superb new translation by Michael Henry Heim. Both stories, as well as an accompanying letter, are illustrated with original engravings by Barry Moser.
Easter Week was hand-printed on the “Edwina Ellis” make of Zerkall paper from Dante types cast by Michael & Winifred Bixler. Sarah Creighton is binding 110 books in cloth, of which 95 are offered for sale at $200. An additional ten copies, lettered A-J, are bound in full leather and include three signed stand-alone prints. They are offered at $650. All copies are signed by the translator and artist. A downloadable PDF prospectus is available here.
| $200 via paypal, for the cloth edition. Please contact us () for inquiries about the leather edition. |
Paul Celan
A Reading for Group 47
Our first proper publication — that is, the first we really sweated over — came off of the press in the spring of 2009. A Reading for Group 47 reprints four of Celan's earliest poems in his original German, and John Felstiner's powerful English translations. An original portrait of Celan by Dirk Hagner appears as frontispiece. Fifty copies were letterpress printed from Monotype originals, and handsewn. Available for $45.
Title spread. Portrait by Dirk Hagner, adapted by the artist from a large-scale woodcut.
Celan read the four poems printed here — "In Egypt," "A Song in the Wilderness," "Deathfugue," and "Count up the Almonds — at a meeting of the German literary club, Group 47. After their publication later that year, Celan catapulted to prominence. Written when he was in his early twenties and grieving the death of his parents, "Deathfugue" is a transformative elegy to the horrors of the Holocaust. The curious can listen to Celan reading the poem on this technicolor website.
A Reading for Group 47 is hand-printed on mouldmade Zerkall paper. The type—Eric Gill's Joanna—was cast and set by Michael & Winifred Bixler. Take a look at the Kat Ran Press's classy video collection of the Bixlers' Monotype machine's in action, to get an idea how that works. An unusual typeface — especially in German — Joanna was a privately-distributed until Monotype's reissue in 1958.
Fifty numbered copies are signed by both the translator and the artist and are offered at $45, for which the handsome red (paypal) button at right may be used. An additional 15 copies are withheld for the artist, translator, and publisher. This book was made possible by the generous support of the Katherine Russem Memorial Residency for Young Printers at Kat Ran Press.16 pp. 7 × 10½".
Mark Twain
The Awful German Language
The Press is blushingly-pleased to present our (second-to) latest: a fine edition of Mark Twain's chuckle-inducing (and mildly-insulting) essay about his trials and trevails learning the German language. Snappily-designed, with handprinted & handbound covers, this is an unusual stand-alone version of Twain's famous essay. Available to anyone in the same predicament for $28.
The Awful German Language is handbound in Hahnemühle wrappers printed on a Korrex cylinder-press — the continental analogue of the American Vandercooks. The types used are foundry originals (see photo) from the spectacular collection of the Druckladen des Gutenberg-Museum in Mainz, Germany. Mainz, of course, is where printing all began. It's also not so far from where Samuel Clemens was wandering about in Heidelberg, complaining about seperable verbs and such. If that doesn't grab you, I don't know what will. This is history!
Tied-up form, Rudolf Koch's Wallau & Jessen, with authentic flash highlight.
The books contents were laid-out digitally in ITC Bitstream's version of Weiß-Antiqua, and printed with considerably more speed (but no less care) using the latest in personal publishing technologies. For those curious about what the essay is about, the book is available for your kostenlos persual here. The 1906 edition is available on Google Books too, but you'll have to find that yourself.
Forty numbered copies are available, and are offered for the affordable (but not too affordable) price of $28, for which purpose the handsome red button (paypal) at right may be used. These are coming aus Deutschland, so shipping is not included. 32 pp. 5 × 8¼".
Useful Words & Grammar
An Eccentric's Guide to the German Language
Composed with great pains by the staff of the Shackman Press, and printed in preparation of a certain young lady's arrival in the City of Mainz. The wrappers are handbound and letterpress-printed from Walbaum types. The contents were spewed out with gusto by a trusty Korean engineering marvel. In keeping with the great American Everything-Is-For-Sale ethos (one we love dearly), one of these treasured keepsakes can be yours for a meager $14. In the downright un-American kostenlos ethos, the PDF is here provided.
The pleasant red button at right will ferry you to a reputable e-commerce site. While we fully vouch for the usefulness of this small guide, we cannot garauntee its accuracy: verbs & conjugations have a wily way of escaping us. If you notice anything amiss, please drop us a note, so that subsequent editions can be corrected. One self-addressed errata sheet is included for this purpose. An edition of ten, 24 pp. 4 × 6".
Sesquipedality
A Primer for the Aspiring Pedant
A small collection of difficult words culled from a variety of eccentric dictionaries: ioblepharous, violet-lidded, or perhaps totipalmate, web-toed. Letterpress printed on Zerkall paper and handbound in wrappers. Regrettably, this book is out-of-print, which somewhat paradoxically (I'm told), only increases its desirability. So be it. Make me an offer!