PRIMITIVE PAPERMAKING: An Account of a Mexican Sojourn and of a Voyage to the Pacific Islands in Search of Information, Implements, and Specimens Relating to the Making & Decorating of Bark-Paper by HUNTER, Dard - 1927

Chillicothe, Ohio: Mountain House Press, 1927. # 24 of an edition of 200 copies signed by the author. 43 x 31 cm. Original half linen and grey boards, paper cover label, cloth ties. 48 pp text and 29 unnumbered pages of mounted specimens with captions and a few photographs. Some of the mountings are facsimiles, as issued. There are also many of his drawings in the text. Two blank bifolia at front and one at rear. Sepia photogravure of Mountain House at front. The leaves laid in loose, as issued. >>> Minor soiling, aging, to the covers; small worn spot to one lower spine corner, a few leaves puckered by the mountings, as always, else fine, no creases to the mountings.>>> William Joseph "Dard" Hunter, the great authority on papermaking, spent ten years gathering the specimens for this, his first book on non-Western papermaking. He traveled to Mexico, Hawaii, the East Indies, and many Pacific islands. The focus of the book is on "tapa", made from pounding inner barks. As the craft has already disappeared in some places he visited, some of the specimens were old. Many colour patterns. The book was printed with a type face of his own design, and partly printed in Tonga brown, an ink original to him. A magnificent book, one of Dard Hunter's rarest and most desirable. . Signed by Author. First printing. Hardcover. Folio.