Excerpts from The Diaries of Adam & Eve
[San Francisco]: Pacific Editions, 2003. Hobson, Charles. Limited Edition. Hardcover. No. 35 of 38 copies, folio size, 46 pp., signed by Charles Hobson. Fine. Item #CNJL502
Charles Hobson, book artist extraordinaire, has brought together a perfectly lovely tale of love by Mark Twain, personified with images of a running man and woman based on the human motion studies by Eadweard Muybridge made in 1901. Twain wrote two separate stories, "Extracts for Adam's Diary" and later "Eve's Diary", with much of the sentiment of the two for each other derived from the deep love he and his wife, Livy, shared throughout their lives. The French Door design of the binding of this book enables the reader to compare Adam's and Eve's "diaries" while the two figures race towards each other.
___DESCRIPTION: Made as a limited edition of 38 copies; 13 x 5 3/4 x 1 1/2 inches, 46 pages, signed by Charles Hobson on the colophon page, the pages contained within a traditional book-style binding of paper decorated with red apples and green concentric circles on a black background, black cloth spine with gilt lettering, publisher's matching slipcase covered in grey cloth with a front pastedown of a small piece of decorate paper matching the boards. The diaries have been published here in a French door style of binding with a concertina fold which allow each diary to be read as single, integral work while at the same time allowing passages from each to be easily compared; the concertina also provides a place to print the verses from Genesis that were Twain's source and, on the inside fold, the handwriting of Twain and his wife, Livy. Adam and Eve draw closer to one another and ultimately embrace. This movement toward an embrace has been given a visual counterpoint by use of the running figures based on the photographs of Eadweard Muybridge published in 1901.
Each page of the diaries contains a folded and collaged image and a scrap of the handwriting of Mark Twain and Livy from letters they exchanged during a two year period when doctors forbade Twain to see Livy in her sickroom. The final drawings have been made as monotypes with pastel and have been printed as digital pigment prints. The prints have been cut out so that they can be opened across one another to overlap and to form a visual embrace. A separate print made as a composite of the last images in the book has been folded into an accordion and included in a pocket at the back of the book, this print is also signed by Charles Hobson. The digital pigment prints have been printed on an Epson 2200 pigment based digital printer which produces images which are water-fast and resist fading. The concertina and French door structure with cut-out pages and collaged folded sheets has been designed by Charles Hobson and assembled with the assistance of Alice Shaw. John DeMerritt made the board covers and slipcase (N.B., description from Charles Hobson's web site).
___CONDITION: Fine, clean and crisp; in a like slipcase.
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Price: $2,500.00