BOOKS

20 VOXMAGAZINE.COM • 10.31.13

EVERY DAY, ILLUSTRATOR BARRY MOSER would wake up at 5 a.m., feed his dogs, make coffee and then get started on his day’s work. Between 1995 and 1999, he spent up to 12 hours a day at his workstation and carved engravings or set type. From his efforts came the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible.

Bruce Kovner, founder of the Kovner Foundation in New York, donated to Moser’s Pennyroyal Press. Kovner then gave copies of this Bible to colleges around the country, including to Ellis Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections division this summer. The reason for his donation is unclear, but a letter from Kovner praised the collection at Ellis, and he thought the Bible would be a good addition. With only 400 copies in the world, the two-

volume Bible is the first illustrated King James Bible by a single artist since Gustave Dore’s 1865 La Sainte Bible. It will be on display in the library around Christmas.

“The Bible is an unforgettable effect of sophistication and humility,” Alla Barabtarlo, head of Rare Books and Special Collections at Ellis Library, wrote in an email. “Consider what people are willing to pay for a rare baseball card or Andy Warhol’s personal toothpick set, and you would perhaps agree that a book of this content and form should be worth more.” Each Pennyroyal Caxton Bible is worth an estimated $10,000. The rare materials and ancient and modern techniques make this a treasured acquisition.

+ ALICIA TAN

BOUND IN BRILLIANCEMU Rare Books Collection’s newest addition is a testament to the arts

TITLE AND BINDINGThe titles on the front cover and side binding are stamped in 24-carat gold. After exploring several binding options, Moser came across the choice of full limp vellum binding, which he adored. “(Kovner and I) both started salivating, and we decided right there,” Moser says. Vellum, a type of leather, uses animal skin, and the binding is hand-sewn and nonadhesive. The process dates back to the 14th century, but it is rarely used in modern book binding.

ILLUSTRATIONSAll 233 illustrations are carved into Resingrave, a smooth plastic material invented by Richard Woodman in California. “I made fun of it for a while because it was plastic,” Moser says. But one day he cut into it, and it was just like wood. “If it hadn’t been for that, the Bible would’ve never come about,” he says. Each engraving took anywhere between a few hours to a few days to complete. The images depict religious scenes based on the text. Moser made an effort to be as realistic in his depictions as possible, even if that meant including more raw images. “Most biblical illustrations are a bit soft and idealized, and these are just so hard and guttural,” says Matthew Gaunt, director of development at Ellis Library.

RUBRICSRed capital letters, also known as rubrics, mark the openings of the Old and New Testaments with the words “GOD” and “CHRIST” and the final word of the bible, “AMEN.” John Benson, a stonecutter who carved the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., drew the letters by hand. “The reason for those three words is purely for design purposes,” Moser says. “But of course the design purposes are serving a theological purpose.”

PAPERThe Zerkall Paper Mills, located in the small village of Zerkall, Germany, made the white mould-made vellum. The paper has a smooth finish to it, and it is pressed one sheet at a time. The sheets are extra thick to accommodate the heavy ink. Each 22-by-32-inch piece of paper weighs 120 grams — a little heavier than an iPhone 5s . These sheets are then folded to create four pages of text. Some pages bear the watermark of Pennyroyal Caxton: a pomegranate with the initials P and C. “It is a Christian symbol having to do with the spreading of the gospel,” Moser says.

TYPOGRAPHYType designer Matthew Carter created the three typefaces used in the text: Galliard, Mantinia and Hebrew Le Bé. Moser says the typography design took six months to develop. “I hope it didn’t look like that,” he says. “It should look easy. It should look inevitable. It should look like there is no other way that book could look, even though there are thousands of ways that book could look.”

PHOTOS BY MACKENZIE BRUCE