It’s Fine Press Friday!
Suite Lirica: En Homenaje a Wallace Stevens is built around a poem by Spanish writer José María Martín Triana. The book opens with Wallace Steven’s poem, “Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour,” which served as Martín Triana’s inspiration; his own poem is then presented in Spanish, after which follows a translation into English by Alastair Reid. American writer and children's book illustrator Leo Lionni illustrated the book with intaglio prints pulled by Gino Berardinelli. Gabriel Rummonds and Alessandro Zanella of Plain Wrapper Press printed the book in Verona, Italy, in 1982, in a limited edition of ninety copies, each signed by Triana and Lionni.
Handset monotype Dante was printed on Cartiere Enrico Magnani handmade paper. The top edge of the paper is gilded, and the sides and bottom finish in deckles. An author’s note before the colophon was translated by Rummonds. The Plain Wrapper press printer’s mark adorns the burgundy box. The spine is quarter bound in goatskin, with dyed vellum covering the boards.
In his note, Martín Triana explains his “devotion” to Stevens, an artist after “the true meaning of things.” He contrasts this impulse with what he disparaged as the “Carnavalesque falseness” of contemporary Spanish literary trends. He suggests that the book “could easily have been called Variations on the Final Soliloguy of the Interior Paramour, not only as an homage of devotion to Stevens, but also as an indication of my complete acceptance of the ideas of the most European of American poets” of the 20th century.
This book comes to us from the collection of Jerry Buff (1931-2025).
See other books from Jerry Buff.
See other Fine Press Friday posts!
--Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern