Thursday 16 January 2014

Blocking on the boards of Tartarus Press books

Following the publication of Strange Tales IV, a few customers have asked about the blocking of the cloth on Tartarus Press books. Underneath the uniform yellow dustwrappers, quite a few Tartarus books have fairly austere boards, with the title and author in a frame, and the blocking inset in a cusher panel, as with Nightmare-Touch by Lafcadio Hearn:
 

Some have simple one colour blocking, such as The King in the Golden Mask by Marcel Schwob:



While others have a design and lettering in one colour, like Clarimonde by Theophile Gautier, The Snow-Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herald of the Hidden by Mark Valentine:


The nine Aickman volumes all have similar typography in gilt and silver. Here are Night Voices and The Attempted Rescue:


   

Rupetta by N.A. Sulway had a very restrained little silver clockwork key device:


While Star Kites by Mark Valentine had two colours with more exuberant silver, and ocassional little stars added in gilt:
 

Dear Dead Women by Edna Underwood had gilt and silver blocking, but with a more traditional, ornamental design:
 

We went for three matt colours for Darkscapes by Anne-Sylvie Salzman:


And then, of course, we went to town with three colours on Sourdough and Strange Tales IV





3 comments:

  1. just an fyi, my virus protection detected something called "blacklist" on your main tartarus press website.. your books look lovely!

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  2. I promise it is a "false positive" from your virus detector! (It happens to most websites from time to time--I've no idea why, and nor does my website host.)

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