Trans-Siberian Prosody and Little Jeanne from France

2014

Special Collections PQ2605 E55 P7613 2014

Llandogo, Monmouthshire: The Old Stile Press

The number of private press and limited edition books in Special Collections continues to grow. This is not only because Special Collections, through the Otakou Press Printer in Residence programme, makes its own limited edition books, but also because these hand-crafted items are good things to buy. Often old texts are rejuvenated in a wonderfully new and creative way. Illustrations are often included, thereby visually enhancing the end-product. One example is the Old Stile Press’s re-configuration of French poet Blaise Cendrars’s La Prose du Transsibérien, a poem about his trip in 1905 on the newly opened Trans-Siberian Express railway. The original 1913 edition – a Modernist masterpiece – was six feet in length, and according to legend, if the entire edition of 150 copies were laid end to end, they would be as tall as the Eiffel Tower.