Limited Edition Books with Original Art

Watercolor by Wendy Artin for Stone from Delphi by Seamus Heaney.

Just Released: Spring Newsletter

New Publications

Stone from Delphi by Seamus Heaney, with illustrations by Wendy Artin; The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, with illustrations by Stan Washburn; Thomas Jefferson's Paris Walks with Michael Kenna, Sappho with Julie Mehretu.

Forthcoming: Porgy & Bess, the libretto by Du Bose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, with illustrations by Kara Walker; Bouvard and Pécuchet, a Flaubert classic illustrated by William Kentridge; and The Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West, with an essay by David Thomson. Read more and reserve.

Arion Press
Founded by Andrew Hoyem in 1974, the Arion Press publishes deluxe, limited-edition books, many of them printed by letterpress, illustrated by prominent artists, and some accompanied by separate editions of original prints. Arion Press is a cultural tenant at the Presidio, the new National Park in San Francisco, where it shares a handsome industrial building with its second division, M & H Type—the oldest and largest type foundry in the United States, serving the needs of designers and letterpress printers around the world—as well as its nonprofit adjunct, the Grabhorn Institute. Tours, gallery, and contact information.

Nonprofit Grabhorn Institute
The nonprofit Grabhorn Institute was created in 2000 to preserve the historic printing and bookmaking facilities of Arion Press and M & H Type, and to perpetuate the fine press tradition with the crafts of typecasting, letterpress printing, and bookbinding. It conducts educational and cultural programs, including apprenticeships and college level classes, tours of the historic production facility, and exhibitions, lectures, and readings. Read more about the nonprofit Grabhorn Institute and how you can make a tax-deductible contribution.

Illustration by Stan Washburn for The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

Photograph by Michael Kenna for Thomas Jefferson's Paris Walks

Detail from Julie Mehretu print for Poetry of Sappho

Tom Holland Illustration for A Delicate Balance

Miles Hyman illustration for The Sundial

Raymond Pettibon image for South of Heaven

William Wiley image for
Don Quixote

William Hamilton illustration for Our Man in Havana

Page from I Love My Love with image by Kiki Smith

Laurie Simmons photograph for Mrs. Bridge

Frank Lobdell print for
The Structure of Rime

Recent Publications

Stone from Delphi, poems with classical references by Seamus Heaney, selected and with an introduction by Helen Vendler, with sixteen watercolor drawings by Wendy Artin.

The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins, considered the first detective novel, with illustrations by Stan Washburn.

Thomas Jefferson's Paris Walks, with 46 new photographs by Michael Kenna (view prints for sale) and an essay by Diana Ketcham.

Poetry of Sappho. Painter Julie Mehretu has created prints for her first artist book, one of Arion’s most beautiful and ambitious publications. Twenty prints by Mehretu alternate with pages of poetry in Greek and in English. Four additional prints are presented in portfolio. The new English translations were commissioned for this edition from poet John Daley and classicist Page duBois.

Recently Released: A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee, The Sundial by Shirley Jackson, Pulp Fiction with Raymond Pettibon; Don Quixote with William T. Wiley

A Delicate Balance is the newest work in the Arion Press drama series, honoring one of America’s great contemporary playwrights, Edward Albee. The edition features four illustrations by Tom Holland, an acclaimed artist and friend of the playwright.

A classic of American comic fiction, The Sundial, by Shirley Jackson (1916-1965), exemplifies her blend of humor, fantasy, and social satire. The Arion Press edition, released in June 2011, has special relevance in being illustrated by the novelist’s grandson, Miles Hyman. Here Jackson’s subject is the end of the world, as it is imagined and meticulously prepared for by a privileged New England family. As Diane Johnson writes in her introduction to the Arion edition, “Its timeless quality has ensured that the pleasures of this small delicious novel have endured.”

Arion Press turns to pulp fiction with the novel South of Heaven by Jim Thompson, known as “The King of the Pulps”, but also an original writer of the first rank. Artist Raymond Pettibon illustrates this edition with forty-four drawings, printed on red sheets interleaved in the text.

With the publication of Book II of Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes, following Book I in November 2009, the two-volume set is now complete and stands as one of the major accomplishments of the Press, alongside Moby-Dick and Ulysses. This is the acclaimed new translation by Edith Grossman, with 97 illustrations by William T. Wiley.

Graham Greene’s comic masterpiece, Our Man in Havana, illustrated by William Hamilton and with an introduction by Christopher Buckley. With 28 images of the characters and 1950s Havana setting by the New Yorker cartoonist William Hamilton, it is one of the Press’s most generously illustrated books.

I Love My Love, a fourteen-stanza ballad by Scottish-born San Francisco poet Helen Adam, with sixteen prints by Kiki Smith, who also illustrated the poetry of Emily Dickinson in 2007.

Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell, with 68 photographs in color and black-and-white by Laurie Simmons.

Recent Publications:

The Nachman Stories by Leonard Michaels. This edition brings together for the first time in a single volume Michaels's short stories featuring the Los Angeles mathematician Raphael Nachman as their hero. The book includes nine photographic portraits of the author.

The Structure of Rime. The series of prose poems by Robert Duncan augmented by etchings by Frank Lobdell.

Tono-Bungay. H. G. Wells' greatest satirical novel, with 14 psychological portraits of the characters by Stan Washburn and 20 fanciful advertisements for quack medicines.

Sampler. Poetry by Emily Dickinson with over 200 prints by the artist Kiki Smith.

The Boobus and the Bunnyduck. A deluxe facsimile of a unique artist book created in 1957 by the artist known as Jess.

The Waste Land. The first illustrated edition of T. S. Eliot's landmark 20th century poem, with artwork by R. B. Kitaj, and an essay by Helen Vendler. SOLD OUT.

Journey Round My Room. The late 18th century French classic by Xavier de Maistre, with art by New York architect Ross Anderson.

Godot. A staging in pictures of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot by William T. Wiley.

A Day in the Bleachers. The baseball classic by Arnold Hano with illustrations by Mark Ulriksen.

The Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin. Commonly known as The Autobiography.

A Coney Island of the Mind. Poetry by Lawrence Ferlinghetti with prints by R. B. Kitaj.

Gloria. Poetry by Bill Berkson with 25 etchings by Alex Katz.

Many of these recent books are available with separate editions of prints and portfolios.