It's Fine Press Friday!
On this Fine Press Friday we present a collection of poems by Sappho entitled Sappho Revocata, compiled and translated by poet, English classicist, and Cambridge lecturer J.M. Edmonds with two drawings printed in collotype by British artist Véra Willoughby, and published in 1928 by Peter Davies in an edition of 350 copies.
Sappho Revocata includes Sappho’s complete and fragmentary poems in two sections; the first half records her poetry in Greek, while the second half has the corresponding English versions of the same works. Sappho is particularly lauded in popular culture for her frequent discussion of romantic love between women. Her poetry was so admired in the ancient world that Plato referred to her as “the tenth muse” in his writings.
This book is the first to use Jan van Krimpen’s Greek type Antigone, with his Lutetia type for the preliminary pages and English section of the text. It was printed by the distinguished Dutch printing house of Joh. Enschedé en Zonen in Haarlem, Holland. The two illustrations by Véra Willoughby were printed at the Chiswick Press in London. 150 copies were reserved for the United States and distributed by Random House.
Our copy, another gift from our friend Jerry Buff, bears the bookplate of Joan Whitney. We're not sure who that may be, but we know this copy was acquired in New York, so we're hoping that it belonged to American heiress, art collector, and co-founder and former majority owner of the New York Mets, Joan Whitney Payson (1903-1975).
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– Sarah S., Special Collections Graduate Intern