Miniature Book Society
Distinguished Book Award, 2019

With ink-colored velvet book cloth and hand-beaded Venice lace over boards, The Mourning Fan rests in an enclosure covered with black Harmatan goatskin and black lokta handprinted with vintage Indian woodblocks. The box lid is foil-stamped with title art resembling a 19th century decorative book cover, created by me especially for this project.  The modified clamshell’s interior is lined with black duchess silk, black moire book cloth, Venice lace and a wooly mammoth ivory medallion. The styling as a memento mori is my tribute to the delightful, prolific author and illustrator.

A particularly wordy work for Gorey, the poem consists of thirty quatrains, each accompanied by a fan-shaped illustration. Letterpress printed on Mohawk Superfine text weight paper, the 8 pt Perpetua text curves against the arc of the page. Edition lettered A to Z (26 copies) for sale with three out-of-series nfs.

Dimensions: 2 1/4″ high and wide (book); 4 1/4″ square x 2 1/4″ high (enclosure).