“The most beautiful of all printed books,” the Kelmscott Chaucer
openculture.com
openculture.com
> Given how few copies of the Kelmscott Chaucer were originally produced, thirteen copies on vellum, and another 58 on pig’s skin, “any special collection’s library who are lucky enough to own an original copy are likely to be very reluctant to embark upon any form of digitization due to the significant risk of damage that the process could inflict upon the book.”
Huh? Damage from leafing through the book with gloves and snapping a photo of each page? For a book printed on animal hide (which can last millennia) in the late 19th century?
Meanwhile, papyrus scrolls, which are infamous for crumbling to dust from a sharp look, are routinely digitized around the world.
That makes no sense at all.
This book is absolutely the best: http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/rndwar/index.html
Also, as the author doesn't have access to an original copy, what should they do?
Rare books are typically handled with bare hands rather than gloves. Gloves increase the risk of damage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/arts/rare-books-white-glo...
> Contrary to popular belief, gloves are generally not recommended as proper handling for rare books! The best way to prepare for handling rare materials is to simply wash and dry your hands thoroughly.
https://ask.loc.gov/rare-books-special-collections/faq/30590...
It's all trade-offs, I'd argue. The nonsense with cotton gloves is clear rubbish*, but, there's no question that human skin is FULL of ... well, everything. Bacteria, "chemicals" (incl. oils), etc. And, skin varies dramatically between people along even "basic" axes like acidity**. Usually, when I work in a lab, I wear gloves not to protect myself, but to protect samples (more accurately, to minimize transfer from myself to said samples, and sometimes even potential transfer between samples etc.).
Even the concept of "clean dry skin" can vary markedly between people.
This isn't my field at all, so, I'm absolutely not disputing this guidance. I'd follow their recommendations were it relevant. Rather, just raising some points that perhaps others might even correct my thinking on ... I may take a look in the literature at some point to see if there is specific empirical research providing some real strength to this conclusion / guidance.
(I see that the NY Times article touches on extraction of DNA, for example, from past handlers / owners / etc. Is this "yet another attempt to _catalog us??_ ... In Soviet Russia, book catalogs you!)
* Though, easy to imagine the case for using such gloves - barring experience and better understanding / dissemination of relevant science
** Ugh - "punintended" ... seriously, only caught as I was typing
I had seem some articles about replication from limited sets; the 87 drawings in the PDF found at https://www.kelmscottchauceronline.org/colouring-book should be enough.
There is probably some model already available at https://replicate.com/
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Edit: I cannot find the article I was thinking of, nor online implementations:
does anyone remember studies which spawned from the 2017 "Neural Style Transfer" cone, but were based on giving a limited set of source images to the engine to study the source style thoroughly?
edit: actually read words of the article, which says "But thanks to Goodman, younger readers — even much younger readers — can enjoy it in coloring-book form."
The Book of Kells is also a candidate. [edit: though it wasn't printed as such]
(It also reminds me of that quote from Rick McCallum, producer of the Star Wars prequels, who praised the prequels by saying "it's so dense, every single image has so many things going on.")
But I do enjoy the book's physical size. I have a thing for giant books.
It’s just so called as Yeats said so.
> The only aspect they cannot investigate fully is the whole text. The Kelmscott Chaucer is very much a book to be looked at rather than read.
I do feel the need to comment on one particular line of hyperbole though:
> the likes of which we seldom, if ever, see in the printed books of our own, infinitely higher-tech century.
Advances in technology have generally been used to increase the availability of books and lower their cost.
Yesterday I purchased "The Hogwarts Library" for I think $40 and it included 3 large books full of hundreds of pages of full color images. That type of quality, especially at that price, would be unheard of in the 1800s.
And if you want books with similar features (and more!) to those this article describes you can get them:
Folio Society: https://www.foliosociety.com/usa
Easton Press: https://www.eastonpress.com/home
Amaranthine Books: https://amaranthinebooks.com/
Lyra's Books: https://www.lyrasbooks.com/
Suntup Editions: https://suntup.press/
(Also Arion Press, Centipede Press, Curious King, Subterranean Press, and St. James Park Press)
Books with those features are far more common today than they were when the Chaucer book was published.
And if you ever want to get into collecting rare, limited edition, and antique books come join us! We're a fun community (though like all things collectable bank accounts will suffer the consequences).
Vintage, Rare, & Antique Books: https://www.facebook.com/groups/657123184415628
Small Press Limited Book Collectors: https://www.facebook.com/groups/193517360836341/
Fans Of The Folio Society: https://www.facebook.com/groups/60943174501/
(^ Each press typically has their own following so you can find groups for Fans of Amaranthine Books, etc.)
+ dozens of more groups.
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Maurice is working on building out a more cross platform community for collectors, still early days there:
https://www.collectiblebookvault.com/
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There is a Reddit: r/BookCollecting but I don't go there often.
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Edit:
Oh and Youtube! Booktube is a real corner of the internet and lots of discussion happens in the discords of individual creators people enjoy.
Just compare role playing rule books from 30-40 years ago with those today. Back then they were mostly text with the occasional b/w line art and 10-ish full color pages on the middle.
Today every single page is full color and most of them feature some sort of art piece.
Oh, god. Some of those links and names are new to me. I'm not sure whether to thank you or curse you. I've bought Easton Press and Folio Society books for years, and that was bad enough.
Still...there's nothing quite like sitting down and reading a really well-made book. It's a totally different experience.
This is the main reason that these shops will always have 'the classics' in rotation but their printings of more recent books are typically one and done.
This is not my area of expertise but my understanding is that publishers are generally happy to have these collectors editions of books made, the limitation is typically with the prestige makers themselves needing to sell 800 to 1,000 copies to make their economics work. Keep in mind they typically commission illustrators to make art for the books in addition to acquiring the rights and the actual production costs.
One thing I will say is that if what you're after is a single personal copy then there is an entire community of amateur bookbinders, similar to woodworkers, some of whom make truly beautiful works of art. If you're willing to pay an illustrator, a designer, and commission one of these bookbinders you can get yourself a bespoke copy that's exceptional.