The Marriage of Cock Robin & Jenny Wren
Lexington, KY: High Noon Press [King Library Press], 1956. Hard Cover. Near Fine binding. Item #9419
12mo. [20] pp., illus. Limited edition, number 48 of 140 copies. Bindings vary, here in patterned paper over boards with pictorial pastedown on the front cover. Spine just a trifle darkened, but generally, a bright fresh copy with a 'compliments' note from the Chiswick Book Shop laid in.
In 1956, after a visit to Oxford, Carolyn Reading Hammer imagined a similar Press at the University of Kentucky. She moved the Chandler and Price that she used in the nascent days of the Bur Press to the library where a few colleagues—Nancy Chambers, Mary Voorhes, and eventually Stokeley Gribble—joined her on lunch breaks to print this edition of an early chapbook from the King Library collection. The apt imprint of High Noon Press can only be found on this volume. Subsequent work would be under the King Library Press imprint, a press that remains active to date. This, the first issue of what has become an "institution" and the pride of the Library and fine printing at large, is quite rare in commerce. Holbrook, Paul Evans (ed.). An Introduction to Victor and Carolyn Hammer (1995): VII.5 (ref. p. 34); Milward, Burton. "The Private Press Tradition in Lexington Kentucky." The Kentucky Review (Autumn 1992): p. 13.
Price: $500.00