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Bridwell Library Announces a Call to Competitors for The Third Helen Warren DeGolyer Triennial Exhibition and Award for American Bookbinding
“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. . . . all American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.” Ernest Hemingway Huckleberry Finn is one of the most influential and controversial books ever written. Some libraries banned it as soon as it appeared because of its earthy characters and use of dialect. Over a hundred years later, it was banned again for far different reasons. Modern critics continue to debate whether Huck Finn depicts or embodies racism, but no one disputes the central and defining role this book has played in the shaping of American literature and of American character. Despite the enduring fame and notoriety of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, bookbinders have had few opportunities to bind an important edition of this American classic because the first edition of 1885 is most coveted in its original publishers’ cloth binding. The 2003 DeGolyer prize commission provides the opportunity to design and bind the first significant edition since 1885: Mark Twain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Illustrated by The Pennyroyal Press edition was prepared from the extant portions of Twain’s final manuscript, correcting errors and omissions in the first edition that have crept into every subsequent printing. Moreover, this edition features forty-nine original wood engravings crafted by one of America’s foremost book designers and engravers, Barry Moser. The inspiration for his illustrations of Huckleberry Finn comes from the earliest period of American portrait photography, the time in which Twain himself set the scene of this novel. Many of the images borrow directly from this tradition, setting memorable faces within ovals and arched frames. Moser’s bold contrasts of black against white enliven the narrative scenes, evoking sun-drenched days and moonlit nights along the Mississippi. |
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