A King Reclaims his Crown

Some of the world’s finest designer bookbinders were commissioned to produce fifteen individual hand-bound copies. All offer exceptionally beautiful one-off examples of how each artist interpreted the book. Each has been meticulously printed letterpress by hand on traditional cast iron Heidelberg Press on paper handmade at the famous Ruscombe Mill in France. This copy was exhibited in Oxford University’s Bodleian Library.

Don likes to use his own paste papers in his design bindings. As these tend to be impressionistic, leaving the reader to use his or her imagination, Don felt that he needed something else to convey something of the violence of the combat between these two mighty bears immediately. Something that, he felt, would match the highly visual text. He achieved this using acrylics, and the result appears on the front and back boards. The binding is in Bradel style and is done in a suitably violent calf colour with red Nepalese paper employed in the endpapers.

In addition to signing the book, Philip Pullman has inscribed this copy with a line of text. Each volume is encased in its own slipcase and accompanied by a set of six woodcut images used within the book. Each print is signed by the author and artist and is produced in a format suitable for framing.