Heritage Press Gulliver's Travels

I was browsing on ebay and fell upon this book at a fairly ridiculous price. Any thought's? What edition, I've seen a 1940 and a 1960's version. Is it worth buying or should I aim for the LEC version?

I've got the 1940 HP which I picked up for the Eichenberg illustrations. I'm quite pleased with it. I paid $12 including the Sandglass - a steal like most HP purchases.

1) The Heritage Gulliver is unique to the Heritage Press in that Fritz Eichenberg provided the art. The two LEC editions were not released as Heritage editions. The first had Alexander King's illustrations, the second was niftily designed by Bruce Rogers to have an extremely large book and an extremely small book, to properly represent the stories it contained. I don't think it's extraordinarily rare, so I wouldn't spend a ton on it. kdweber's price ought to be the average for it.

Thanks for this, I will look into an edition from 1940s.

Incidentally, the Heritage edition, like the Alexander King-illustrated LEC, is the complete Gulliver--the Bruce Rogers-designed LEC from the 1950's is quite a feat, as Jerry points out, but only has the first two travels, omitting the Voyage to Laputa and the Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms. The first LEC was the first LEC, and is great, and fairly expensive to obtain in good condition. The HP version from the 1940s is incredibly underpriced for a beautifully printed (letterpress) edition with illustrations by Eichenberg, for crying out loud!

5) Whoops, forgot to mention that.

Thanks Robert, what is the difference between this version and the red binding?

Faisel, the first, and most desirable issue of the HP Gulliver was bound in cream-colored coarse linen. Later editions are in smooth linen that can be cream-colored, red, or blue. In all these later editions the medallion design on the front cover is an inverse of the original design which had dark lines embossed in the cream-colored binding. The medallion in all the later printings had the medallion's field as a black oval with the lines incised to let the binding show through.

In addition to the coarse linen binding, which seems more appropriate and which I find more attractive, the first issued Gulliver had really wonderful buff-toned paper with colored threads running through it. Again, the paper is worthy (no pun intended, though it was produced by the Worthy Paper Company) of being used in an LEC.

>3 WildcatJF: The Heritage Gulliver is unique to the Heritage Press in that Fritz Eichenberg provided the art.

Easton Press, in 1976, as part of its The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written series, re-issued this HP version with the Fritz Eichenberg illustrations.

9) True enough, but I don't tend to think about Easton Press books when I talk about the George Macy Company's output. What I had meant is that for collectors of Macy's books, the only way to get all of Eichenberg's Gulliver illustrations is through the Heritage Press.

>9 civitas:, 10
Was this another of those many instances in which the Easton Press reproduction of a Macy press book (either HP or LEC) is clearly inferior to the original?

>8 Django6924: Thanks Robert, I will see if I can find this cream-colored coarse linen edition. I've tried to run through the list on Abebooks and sent some emails to ask for pictures of the fine/near fine editions. Let's see if I can find the 1940 HP edition. It seems that many are 1940 but later reprints?

11) I couldn't tell you, I'm afraid, as I don't collect Easton books nor look at them too often. It's probable, and that's the best I can say.

Robert, is this the later or earlier printing. It seems to be a later printing according to your statement:

"The medallion in all the later printings had the medallion's field as a black oval with the lines incised to let the binding show through."

Yes Faisel, that is a later printing. The medallion on the front has a black field with the ship and fish designs in gilt. The first printing is the reverse of this. This is also the smooth linen--the original is much coarser textured.

>11 UK_History_Fan:

I have neither the HP, nor the LEC edition with which to compare. While it may in fact be inferior, the Easton Press edition is pleasing enough that I can resist the urge to go out and find its replacement (for now).

One thing that I think we all should keep in mind is that books are meant to be read for pleasure, and whatever gives you the most pleasure should satisfy you. Otherwise, you're on a treadmill of always hunting for a better copy, or a rarer copy, or an alternate version. If you have the money, time and interest in such pursuits, that's great and my hat's off to you. But if you have a nice EP, HP, LEC, or whatever edition of a book that gives you pleasure, beware of the trap of being an obsessive collector and falling prey to book envy. It's putting the cart before the horse.

Thanks Robert, I really appreciate the help from you and others here in the group. I will look into it :-)

> 17 beware of the trap of being an obsessive collector and falling prey to book envy.
C S Lewis would have agreed with you. In his whimsical (too whimsical for my taste) after-life fantasy The Great Divorce, one of the ghosts whose obsessions prevent them exchanging hell for heaven is a book collector who doesn't read.

I just stumbled across a Heritage Gulliver for $8, and, because of this thread, was able to identify it as the first, linen-bound version. Thanks Django! I didn't see anything in the Sandglass about letterpress, though - perhaps I am missing something?

Well your quite lucky, congratulations! It was on ebay right? I found it too late, I ended up buying it for a bit of a premium for a volume without slipcase and sandglass which unfortanately in the hype I was in totally forgot about when I ordered it through abe. Oh well :-)

Ironjaw, it was! I apologize if I snagged the one you were looking at! We should set up some sort of a 'dibs' system on here or something.

You don't need to apologise, not at all, I'm happy that you have found a book you'll appreciate and that will provide much learned discussion

>20 aaronpepperdine:

aaronpepperdine, you are only missing the following bit of trivia--the type, Caledonia, was created by W.A. Dwiggins in 1938 for the Mergenthaler Linotype company, which had exclusive rights when Gulliver was first published. Later editions, from 1959 on, were printed from electroplates of the original printing.

Was the first printing -- the one bound in coarse linen -- definitely letterpress? As much is suggested above in 5, but there seems to be uncertainty on this point, with the Sandglass talking about linotype. What is the impression depth? Many thanks from an Eichenberg nut.

>25 NYCFaddict:

Linotype is letterpress. The linotype differs from what most people think of as "letterpress" in that the hot metal type is cast in a "slug" which contains an entire line of type rather than each character being put into the printing form one at a time--which is the case with hand-set type.

There are those who feel that the linotype method--and the somewhat similar monotype method--are inferior to handset type. I think, as the saw goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. It's more the skill of the typesetter--whether hand setting or machine setting--than the method which produces the superior result. Having handset type myself, and having worked at a printshop in the past that got the printings forms for their Heidelberg "Windmill" printer from a separate company that produced them on linotype, I can say there is no inherent superiority in one method over the other as far as print quality is concerned.

In fact, when it comes to your question about impression depth, I think you will find that handset type generally has a greater depth impression because handset type these days, especially in the more common type fonts, is often worn from usage, with the result that some letters such as "e"s generally are slightly shorter than infrequently used letters, say "q"s. When I was hand setting type in a shop with some 90+ year-old type, every form was first proof-printed on a Vandercook press to check for uneven impression. Frequently type had to be replaced in the form--a painstaking and time-consuming task--and reproofed until impression was uniform before the form was transferred to a motorized Chandler & Price for actual job printing. The owner of the shop was a stout adherent that a "kiss" impression was what made god printing, and the paper was always printed dry, not wet, and there was no deep indentation. I remember taking in one of my books printed by the Grabhorn Press to impress her (no pun intended), and she almost sneered at the deep indentation which was clearly obvious on the reverse side of every page. She said that when printers print with a deep indentation on wet paper, they are shirking their duty to get an even impression from their type and wearing out their type even more.

Well, I know many like a "bite" impression because it clearly says "letterpress" and I admit a tactile pleasure is had from running one's fingers over a page of indented type on all-rag paper, but I do know that the linotype forms we would use on that Heidelberg printer made a beautifully even impression on dry paper with just a "kiss" impression.

Many, many thanks for the detailed reply. I greatly appreciate it.

When I did some letterpress work a few years ago, the instructor told me that you were considered a "good" bookmaker if your punch was minimal. Well, I told him to heck with that! I like me a nice punch! To which, he was not all that pleased...

5: "omitting the Voyage to Laputa and the Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms"
Seriously? You can NOT consider that Gulliver's Voyages if you omit important voyages... who comes up with these "ideas"? :/

To NYCFaddict

I have that HP edition, and I would say the impression depth is more then just a kiss, considering its thin paper, but not so much as the 80s LEC.

>29 kafkachen:

The Gulliver's Travels pictured with your LEC Sartor is not the first HP printing of this title. I am including two pictures for reference.

Thanks , I didn't know that , but it is clearly letterpress too .
The illustration is not as bright as the text though. can you show a page with illustration ?

This is an old picture. I can get you more if interested tomorrow. I don't remember finding an issue with the illustrations.

I have four favorite Heritage Press Books (excluding the six special editions from 1935):

Green Mansions 1936 - The first Heritage Press book from the first series
Penguin Island 1938
Crime & Punishment 1938
Gulliver's Travels 1940

These are not as flashy as your other fine press books. But they are just right. Quality material, careful design, wonderful printing and illustrations. Note that these were reprinted multiple times and finding the first printing is not straightforward. But in these four cases, in my opinion, the first printing means higher quality.

Thanks to WildcatJF, these photos of the first state of the HP Gulliver's Travels should confirm a few identifiers mentioned in >8 Django6924:
* cream coarse linen
* medallion design imprinted directly on linen
* paper with coloured threads
* spine label dark brown
* speckled page edges (per link below)

A later edition with cream boards, gilt-on-black medallion and speckled page edges is more readily available and photographed here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/156886#4215107

ETA: Just found a post with photos of the 1940 HP Gulliver's Travels: https://www.librarything.com/topic/266944#:~:text=1940%20Gulliver's%20Travels - with speckled page edges as well.

>33 mr.philistine: Nice find, congratulations! My copy, in addition to the "banknote" paper you've described, has speckled page edges -- does yours?

>34 kermaier: As mentioned in >33 mr.philistine: these photos were provided by WildcatJF. I posted them for reference since I could not find any photos on this forum, in addition to photos I just found (link added to >33 mr.philistine:). But I have a later edition with speckled page edges enroute to me.

>33 mr.philistine: The binding cloth used here is often referred to as 'oatmeal buckram.'

>35 mr.philistine:
Oops, I failed to read attentively -- my apologies! Alas, I guess I must recant my congratulations....

Just to add, this is not a copy of mine, haha. I have a red cloth reprint. Just found these online and shared :)

For what it's worth, I have a copy of the smooth vellum binding and it seems to use the same paper as the oatmeal buckram edition( or very similar). I got mine for $5 with free shipping (complete) and it's extremely high quality, with the caveats that come with the cream colored bindings they did. A couple spots of light soiling, and slight sunning to the spine. For $5, can't complain. You can't get a cheap paperback for that.