Mark McMurray, Lecons de Livre pour Calyban or Prosper’s Parisian Printing Parade. Bon mots, bagatelles, & tableaux de l’imprimerie. Also a sometime type specimen & leaf book. As Told to an American. Pochoir by Jef Aerosol. St-Zotique, Quebec [Canton, NY]: Cat’s Head Press [Caliban Press], Caliban Press.

Dimensions: 12” x  8-1⁄4” x 1”.

Bound in 2008.

Full blue Harmatan goat skin leather binding with onlays of snake skin, fish skin, aluminum and laminated mylar, and gold and painted tooling. The mylar "L" on both covers are set into recessed areas under the leather.

Mark McMurray has invented a fictitious press and location for this irreverent look at Paris and Paris printing history, with a dark back story of immigrant life. The text consists of fourteen lessons in English and French concerning the Arts of the Book and sundry other old and new topics. Collected from found and fabricated texts by the two main semi-fictional characters, Cal & Prosper, who are visiting Paris to learn the art of printing. This, then, is also a type specimen and a leaf book. It recalls printers past and present who have produced books in Paris. (description excerpted from Priscilla Juvelis’ Sales Catalog 45)

The binding design for Lecons de Livre takes its inspiration from the title itself and the serious/hilarious treatment of the subject of printing. The letters that spell “Lecons” (on the front cover) and “Livre” (back cover) are arranged somewhat randomly and somewhat legibly.