JD'A – 11A: EMILY AND OSCAR — 1979

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JD'A – 11A: EMILY AND OSCAR — 1979

EMILY & OSCAR | by | D’Ambrosio | The Compulsive Printer | Portage, Indiana

2-1/2 x 2-7/8 inches: [i–ii]: blank, [iii]: title page, [iv]: copyright, [v–vi]: blank, 1–11: text printed around green images, [12]: image, 13–21: text printed around green images, [22]: blank, [23]: green leaf image, 24–29: text printed around green images, [30]: blank, [31]: green leaf over flower image, [32]: blank, [33]: colophon, [34]: logo of The Compulsive Printer. 

Colophon: This edition of Emily & Oscar has been set in 8pt Caslon and printed on a No.3 Vandercook proof press.

This is copy number [#] 

of 75 copies & 7 artist proofs.

[signature D’Ambrosio]

D'Ambrosio

[signature E. Mundell]

E.Mundell, printer.

Binding: quarter-bound in tree bark from a creeping fig plant.

Note: None of the images are signed or numbered. The copyright page states 1980 but in D'Ambrosio's books, he lists it as being done in 1979.

JD'A – 11B: EMILY AND OSCAR — 1979

EMILY & OSCAR | by | D’Ambrosio | The Compulsive Printer | Portage, Indiana

2-1/2 x 2-7/8 inches: [i–ii]: blank, [iii]: title page, [iv]: copyright, [v–vi]: blank, 1–11: text printed around green images, [12]: image, 13–21: text printed around green images, [22]: blank, [23]: green leaf image, 24–29: text printed around green images, [30]: blank, [31]: green leaf over flower image, [32]: blank, [33]: colophon, [34]: logo of The Compulsive Printer. 

Colophon: This edition of Emily & Oscar has been set in 8pt Caslon and printed on a No.3 Vandercook proof press.

This is copy number [#] 

of 75 copies & 7 artist proofs.

[signature D’Ambrosio]

D’Ambrosio

[printed on right] OVERRUN 

[signature E. Mundell]

E.Mundell, printer.

Binding: White paper marked with felt tip pen.

JD'A – 11C: EMILY AND OSCAR — 1980

EMILY & OSCAR | by | D’Ambrosio | Sherman Oaks, California / 1980.

6 1/4 x 8 3/4 inches: olive green endpaper, [i–iv]: blank, [v]: title page, [vi]: copyright, [vii–viii]: blank, 1–11: text printed around multicolored images, [12]: multicolored image, 13: text printed around multicolored image, 14–21: text, [22]: blank, [23]: multicolored leaf with tears, 24–29: text, [30]: blank, [31]: multicolored leaf over flower image, [32–36]: blank, olive green endpaper. 

Colophon: none

Binding: Dark brown leatherette boards with tan leatherette spine that wraps 1 1/2 inches around front and back boards. Spine printed with: EMILY & OSCAR D’AMBROSIO.

Note: This copy has 7 corrections of the text in pencil. The text is not in all caps like the earlier edition. 

JD'A – 11D: EMILY AND OSCAR — 2007

[Tiffany with teal shadow] Emily & Oscar | [black] by Joe D’Ambrosio | with the voices of Susan and Jim Nance | [Turquoise and black musical notes] |A Words and Music book ® | [Turquoise and black musical notes] | Scottsdale, Arizona 2007

4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches, CD inside clear sleeve on front cover [i–ii]: blank, [iii]: title, [iv]: copyright, [v]: A FUN WAY TO LEARN…., [vi]: blank, 1–31: text, [32]: blank, [33]: colored leaf, [34]: blank.

Cover: Beige cloth spine: [in mustard box], [red] A |, [in red fading to brown box], [white] WORDS & MUSIC, [outside red fading to brown box], [red], BOOK, | [black] ® [outside mustard box], | [Tiffany with teal shadow] Emily & Oscar | [black] by Joe D’Ambrosio | with the voices of | Susan and Jim Nance | [in mustard box], [red] A fun way to learn to read. | Read the words in this book | along with the voice on the CD | with the music in the background. On spine: Emily & Oscar. 

From 19 Years and Counting:

EMILY & OSCAR

Edition: 75 numbered copies, and /artist proofs

Size: 2-1/2 x 2-7/8 inches

Type: 8 pt. Caslon

Leaves: 20 - Paper origin unknown

Binding: Leaves from a creeping fig plant, and Japanese tree bark over boards.

1979

Los Angeles, California

This book is classed as a miniature because it is under three inches in any direction.

Mr. Mundell had been urging me to do a miniature, and since we now would be shipping stacks of paper across the country, a miniature size seemed ideal. Mr. Mundell printed the text in Portage, Indiana, and I printed the graphics in California on my resurrected Adana press. & Upon reading the explanation for the story of Emily & Oscar, on page 27, the choice of binding materials becomes evident. The creeping fig leaves were mounted on the cover board with wax to stabilize the design, and then coated with three layers of clear lacquer. At one point, the binding process was halted and sales suspended while I waited for the two plants that I had denuded to grow new leaves. An extension of the back cover wraps around the fore edge of the book and protects the lacquered leaves on the front cover from any damage which may occur when the book is wedged between other books.

From A Memoir of Book Design:

This book is classed as a miniature because it fits the criterion of being under three inches in any direction. Mr. Mundell had been urging me to do a miniature, but I resisted because I felt the small size made it difficult to read and thus less easy to comprehend. However, a new condition now was placed on my working with Mr. Mundell. I had just relocated from Chicago to Southern California and a miniature book seemed like the logical way I could continue to work with him-it would be easier to ship a load of miniature pages across the country than a full-sized book. This book also taught me another lesson: some things are better suited to the diminutive size simply because the text is short and/or light and charming. With miniatures, I try to keep the size close to the maximum for easier readability.

I have explained this story as the botanical retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Consequently, the illustrations are pretty predictable. Trees, leaves, and script-like letter roots are used throughout. The binding is more important because it is the first time that I extended the subject matter of the text from within to the outside container. Previously I decorated the cover to illustrate what the reader would find inside, much as a dust jacket illustration would do for a commercial book. This time I projected the essence of the story to the outside. Not only does the reader get a sense of what is inside, but the reader's emotions also get transported over the gap between the cover and pages of text. The book is quarter-bound in tree bark and actual leaves from a creeping fig plant. The thinly sliced bark is Japanese-made, using only the bark of the mulberry tree, which is naturally nonacid.

With wax and tweezers, I coated the back of the tiny leaves and set them on the front cover board in a sunburst pattern. The wax held them in place until the design was completed and then the board was coated with three coats of lacquer for permanence. (The leaves were green when applied; they have since turned to light brown but are yet in their captive positions.) Then the tree bark was applied. Because I knew that the book would probably be shelved between other books, thus chafing the cover when removed and replaced into its storage space, an extension of the back cover folds around the fore edge of the book to protect the lacquered leaves.

The endpapers are made up of what is commonly thought of as "rice paper" but are actually rough mulberry fibers incorporated into the paper when it is made. I stretched the white paper much as a watercolor artist must stretch the paper on which to paint (so that the water used with the pigment does not bubble the paper surface), and then applied light green paint to only a portion of the paper. The green then bled into the white area, revealing a gradual tone from dark to light. When the paper dried, it dried taut because it had been stretched. (I learned how to do this when I attended a watercolor class at the American Academy of Art in Chicago.) The endpapers were then purposely cut out of the paper so the bleed from green to white would be exactly in the fold of the paper. Thus the viewer's eyes could maintain a transitional color change from cover (brown and green) to the endpaper (green and white) to pages of tex (white). The back endpaper was created in the same manner.

Once again, Mr. Mundell printed the pages in Indiana and then shipped them to me in California so I could print the illustrations. He made plastic printing plates from my drawings and I mounted them on wood so that they would be type high for letterpress printing. His press work on this book was very poor. (What I did not know at this time was that he was dying of cancer and unquestionably quite concerned about

it. He did not confide in me.)

I was so concerned about the poor printing of the text that I sought the judgment of another bibliophile: Jim Lorson of Lorson's Books in Fullerton, California. My question was, "Should I abandon the book and not bind the edition because the printing is so poor?" Jim's answer seemed logical: "No. Issue it at a very reasonable price." We did just that and the book sold out almost immediately. So, if credit is due, it should go to Jim Lorson, for without his sage advice there never would have been a miniature version of this book.

Production of the binding was held up for a while because at one point I ran out of creeping fig leaves for the cover. I was working from two small potted plants and I had denuded both. It was necessary to wait for new growth before binding could continue. Book dealers were quite amused when they found out the reason for the delay.

This book carries a printer's mark which Mr. Mundell asked me to design for him, and this is the first time that it was used. It depicts a devil spurring him on with a pointed tool while he works at an antique printing press (which he did not have). Hence his title, "The Compulsive Printer" For a line drawing. the rendering of the printer is a pretty

good likeness of Mr. Mundell.

©Book Club of California