 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
Whitman
Making Books
Books Making Whitman
Symposium
November 10-12, 2005
UI Museum of Art, Lasansky Room
Exhibition: U. I. Museum of Art
November 5, 2005 to February 12, 2006
Exhibition • Schedule • Participants •
Free Registration • Maps,
Food, Lodging, etc.
“I sometimes find myself more interested in book making than in book writing,” Walt Whitman said toward the end of his life; “the way books are made—that always excites my curiosity: the way books are written—that only attracts me once in a great while.”
This symposium will be the first ever to address Whitman as a bookmaker. Trained as a printer while in his early teens, Whitman developed his printing skills while working as a typesetter on numerous New York area newspapers. As an editor of several newspapers, Whitman honed his layout skills and carried that knowledge and interest into his bookmaking when he designed his the first edition of Leaves of Grass , the first few pages of which he set into type while overseeing the project at the small printing establishment of his friend Andrew Rome. This first edition set the pattern for all of his subsequent books, with each of which he was intimately involved in choosing typeface, paper size, binding design, and layout. Even when his work was published by commercial presses, Whitman sat down with the typesetters to oversee the production.
“I in the main like traders, workers, anyone, better than authors,” Whitman once said; “The author class is a priest class with esoteric doctrines: I do not easily mix with it—I refuse to condone it.” “Having been a printer myself,” he told Horace Traubel, “I have what may be called an anticipatory eye—know pretty well as I write how a thing will turn up in the type—appear—take form.” This symposium, bringing together established Whitman scholars, promising younger scholars, and experts in bookmaking, will offer an innovative new look into Whitman's work by focusing on his bookmaking skills, his relationships to his publishers, and the material qualities of his books.