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Shackman Press
56 School St. #2
Somerville, MA 02143
Shackman Press is a smallish outfit and we like it that way. For a year or so, we happily labored in Deutschland (how history twists and turns)—first at the Druckladen of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, and then in Berlin, because, well, that's just what you do.
The real base of operations, though, is dear Cambridge, Massachusetts, the cradle of liberty, which has been an off-and-on again home for some time now. Though this is a largely analog operation, we're at least as familiar with Turing Machines as we are with Vandercooks.
5.16.2012 I'm working with paper again. Feels good.
4.6.2012 It's still winter.
3.4.2012 Sarah Creighton's starting the binding. They're going to be gorgeous.
2.29.2012 Morris Dickstein put his signature down too! Onward.
2.18.2012 Met with Linn Meyers to get the colophons signed for the Delmore Schwartz book. Inching along.
1.7.2012 illusions of motions. Been all over the place. 2012.
12.22.2011 Los Angeles.
11.24.2011 Gobble, Gobble.
10.20.2011
We've got another world going on here:
Genuine suntank.
9.15.2011 Say hello at the MIT Media Lab.
9.1.2011 Schwartz book heading towards wrapped-up. Just some lagging details.
8.28.2011 Hurricane Irene. Wow. Lotta water.
8.23.2011 Not to make a big deal out of anything, but printing is underway.
8.4.2011 Thunderstorms over Georgia. Paradise in Kobernick.
7.20.2011 A good post office is hard to find.
7.14.2011 The manuscript for In Dreams Begin Responsibilities is off! It will return, transmuted, courtesy of MWBixler, into 200lbs of lead.
6.28.2011 Okay! Here is—available in a German & English edition for your perusing pleasure. Or both, if you're the gotta-have-a-complete-library type.
6.23.2011 The Weiss book's back from Sarah Creighton—and it's spectacular. i'll throw it up for sale as soon as i get some photos.
6.16.2011 Trekked up to the Museum of Printing for their type sale—I'm prowling for some mint display Futura.
6.1.2011 And the Weiss book is off to Easthampton for binding—look for it some time in July.
5.7.2011 Congrats to the Shriners of Wilmington, Mass. for one mean Book & Paper Expo!
4.24.2011
This is a reprise of a ten-minute linocut from some years ago, pumped out in a sparkling new edition and bound for Humboldt County.
Printed on hemp paper for a real earthy feel.
4.12.2011 Plans for properly binding the Weiss book are limping along. We hope to have something for you in the next month or two.
4.3.2011 The fair was lovely — we'd definitely head down again next year, as much for the books, as for the Maine Diner.
3.26.2011 We'll be heading up to Portland, ME, on April 3rd for the Maine Festival of the Book, as much to visit Maine for the first time, as to flog our wares.
3.24.2011
Ok! Courtesy of Acme Bookbinding and the fine trimmer at the Bow & Arrow Press, we've put together a new edition of The Awful German Language.
Square-backed & saddle-stiched.
2.28.2011
Acquired: the paperback edition if Zapf's Typographic Variations. TODO: a new edition (sort of) of Twain's The Awful German Language is in the works.
It's 6 × 9—tiny!
2.24.2011 We won't kid you—running a private press is wildly lucrative—but we can never get enough. In that spirit, the royal We is joining the team over at Threepress Consulting. Onward!
1.02.2011
Oh, Los Angeles. More beautiful than they say.
12.19.2010
Getting clean!
Homemade soap!
A Few Faces of Emil Rudolf Weiß or
Augewählte Schriften von Emil Rudolf Weiß
A small specimen of typefaces designed by Weiß, bound by Sarah Creighton in dashing pastepapers. The typefaces used all come from the spectacular collection of the Druckladen of the Gutenberg Musuem in Mainz. Weiß's designs—Antiqua Kursiv, Antiqua Fett, Kapitale, Lapidar Halbfett and Kapitale Halbfett—are reproduced in two colors and printed on mould-made Zerkall paper.
Available in a limited bilingual edition: twenty-five copies in an English edition and 10 in a German. $10 off if you buy them both. Get em' while they're hot! 20 pp. 5½ × 3¾"
| $60 via paypal for the English edition. | |
| $60 via paypal for the German edition. | |
| $110 via paypal for the English & German edition. |
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.
Ieronim, from On Easter Eve and The Student from Easter Week. 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 40* 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. All copies are signed by the translator and artist.
A downloadable PDF prospectus is available here.
Regretfully, this book is out-of-print.
*Note the edition-size revision.
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.
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 were signed by both the translator and the artist, and made available for sale. 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".
Regretfully, this book is out-of-print.
Mark Twain
The Awful German Language
The Press is blushingly-pleased to present a classy 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 book's contents were laid-out digitally in Trump Mediaeval and printed with considerably more speed (but no less care) by the fine men & women of Acme Bookbinding. 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 a jaw-dropping $28, for which purpose the handsome red button (paypal) at right may be used. 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.
While we fully vouch for the usefulness of this small guide, we cannot guarantee 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". This vital resource, unfortunately, is out-of-print.
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.