We have two books that are so different but so similar we don't know what to make of them together. The first is T. J. Cobden-Sanderson's attempt to define perfection with his
The Ideal Book or Book Beautiful. Lovingly printed by Cobden-Sanderson at his Doves Press in 1900, it obsesses over the role of typography in creating a transparent window into the mind of the author through its purity of form and execution. Flip the title a bit and you get Jack Smith's infamous
The Beautiful Book printed by Piero Heliczer's Dead Language Press in 1962. Smith presents 19 original photographic contact prints that kinda sorta tell a cinematic story. It is very avant-garde and drops you into New York's queer subculture, but we aren't sure what the story is. One thing for sure, this one gets you pretty deep into the mind of the author!
Both T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and Jack Smith had a profound influence within their spheres. The publishing world owes a deep debt to Cobden-Sanderson for creating the modernist page layout, and Andy Warhol and John Waters were both major fans of Jack Smith's camp experiments in film and photography.
To see them side by side ask for
Presses D751cs and
Rare TR675 .S6355.
