Seattle, 22 February 2005. Fine book publisher Incunabula has announced a major project to publish a deluxe 25th Anniversary Edition of John Crowley’s classic 1981 novel, Little, Big, in September 2006. The new edition will feature close to 100 reproductions of art by the world-renowned engraver and printmaker, Peter Milton, plus an in-depth critical introduction written especially for the edition by Yale humanities professor and bestselling literary critic, Harold Bloom. Copies are being pre-sold on a subscription basis.
Incunabula has brought together the production team of editor Ron Drummond and award-winning book designer John D. Berry to create, in close consultation with author John Crowley, the ideal edition of Little, Big.
“We want to fulfill the author’s dream of how the book should be presented,” Drummond says. “Our goal is to create an edition that in every respect, from beauty of design to accuracy of text to excellence of manufacture, will reflect all the artistry, insight, imagination, and care that John Crowley poured into every sentence of Little, Big. We want to create an edition that fans of the book will cherish, a book that is a joy to behold and to read, and that’s built to last several lifetimes.”
“The project has my full and enthusiastic support,” says Crowley. “I will be working with them on every aspect of the publication. What a treat!”
Yale humanities professor Harold Bloom counts himself among the novel’s most ardent fans. “Little, Big seems to me as miraculous as Shakespeare or Lewis Carroll,” he writes. “It is as if the book had always been there... as though John Crowley found it, and brought it home with him and to us.” Of Incunabula’s edition, Bloom says, “It will be a great honor to write a full-scale introduction.”
Crowley and Drummond discovered the work of artist Peter Milton during a visit to the Seattle Art Museum in 1995. “We immediately felt that Milton’s vision and sensibility was an ideal match for Little, Big,” Drummond recalls. “That conviction only grew with familiarity. Some of Milton’s works seemed uncannily apt, as if Milton had unknowingly been illustrating Little, Big all along. It turns out that many of those very works were created during the same years that Crowley was working on the novel.” Yet until relatively recently, neither man knew the other existed.
The edition will feature superb reproductions of up to fifteen of Milton’s preexisting works, and as many as eighty details from those works, carefully selected and placed throughout the text as a visual counterpoint to Crowley’s tale. Though the approach is unusual, both Crowley and Milton are intrigued by the possibilities of having their art and prose intertwined.
“I discover in John Crowley’s work the lightness of touch and extravagance of scale I find the most satisfying in any artistic enterprise,” Peter Milton writes. “That paradox of gesture and content combined with John’s inventiveness and elegance of writing makes this project a gift from heaven.”
“In the arts there are no equivalences,” Crowley points out. “But I recognize many of my own impulses, especially those that shaped Little, Big, in Milton: in the way his images repeat themselves with variations, like musical themes, or like musical themes are inverted or reversed; in the way they reflect one another, or remember one another; and in the way they fade without disappearing.”
As part of its commitment to quality, Incunabula is contracting with one of the finest book printers in the U.S., Stinehour Press of Lunenburg, Vermont, to print and bind the edition.
The 25th Anniversary Edition will actually consist of three editions: a 1500-copy trade edition selling for $95, a 600-copy numbered edition signed by Crowley and Milton and selling for $250, and a 26-copy signed lettered edition selling for $900. All three editions will feature the finest book papers, full cloth covers, and sewn bindings. Ron Drummond, who doubles as Incunabula’s publisher, found a way to make each of the 26 Lettered copies unique: each purchaser will be asked to specify his or her favorite short passage from the novel, which John Crowley will then copy out in his exquisite italic hand on a special two-page blank spread inside the book.
The project will be financed in a time-honored way: by subscription. “For centuries, writers and composers have called on supporters to help them publish their works,” Drummond says. “It’s a great tradition. Beethoven published his three piano trios, Opus 1, by getting members of Vienna’s aristocracy to pay for their copies up front, which in turn paid the costs of engraving and printing the music.”
In a similar way, Incunabula is asking fans of Crowley and Milton and Bloom, as well as booksellers and art galleries, to pay for their copies in advance of publication. The money goes into an escrow account; when the minimum financial goal is reached, the funds will be released. If the goal isn’t met, subscribers will get their money back.
Ron Drummond is confident of the project’s success. “Both Crowley and Milton have serious cult followings, fans who are passionately dedicated to their work. What’s fun is that until now, there has been almost no overlap between Crowley’s fans and Milton’s fans. We hope to change that.”
John Crowley is a recipient of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. His novels include Engine Summer, the Ægypt Quartet, and The Translator. Crowley teaches fiction and film writing at Yale.
Peter Milton’s work has won numerous awards and can be found in the collections of virtually every major art museum in North America and Europe. Examples of his work can be seen on his website, www.petermilton.com.
Incunabula was founded in 1992. Among the books they’ve published are John Crowley’s Antiquities: Seven Stories (1993) and Samuel R. Delany’s Atlantis: Three Tales (1995).
For more information on the 25th Anniversary Edition of Little, Big, visit the project’s website, www.littlebig25.com.