Heading: (Chayt, Steven and Meryl - Kenmore Press)
Author: Peters, Robert
Title: Original manuscript by Robert Peters, with original artwork and publishing archive for Ikagnak: The North Wind, and a copy of the book
Place Published: Pasadena, CA
Publisher:Kenmore Press
Date Published: 1978
Description:

Original manuscript and archive with a copy of Ikagnak. Includes:

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  Typescript and carbons with manuscript emendations in red and black ink. 99 pp. Printed on rectos only with 3-hole punches at left edge. 28x21.6 cm (11x8½").


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  File of correspondence between Steven Chayt and Robert Peters related to the publication of Ikagnak with the publishing contract signed by both Chayt and Peters.


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  File of transparencies and layouts for relief prints with photographic negatives.


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  File of publishing records and accounts.


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  File of supporting documents and information.


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  Ikagnak The North Wind: With Dr. Kane in the Arctic. A Verse Sequence by Robert Peters. Printed in red, blue and black. Relief etchings by Steven S. Chayt. [18], 65, [5] pp. Pictorially stamped gray buckram lettered in silver on spine. Printed on Frankfurt Rough mould-made paper by Steven and Meryl Chayt, Hand-bound at the press. Artist's proof to match the edition of 100 copies. First Edition.

"Robert Peters' Ikagnak: The North Wind is a brilliantly realized series of monologues spoken, brooded over, by Elisha Kent Kane, the famous and, in his time, enormously popular American explorer-hero. Kane made two expeditions into the Arctic in search of Sir John Franklin; the second (1853-55) changed, as had Franklin's, into more of a struggle for survival than anything else. Using Kane's journals as the basis for the poems, Peters chronicles the bitter – but in a strange way exalting – effects of such suffering on a man of heroic temperament." - publisher. Steven and Meryl Chayt published their first book in 1977. Their goals at the Kenmore press were to publish works of literature "in such a way that the particular edition would provide a unique understanding of the text" and to publish books "about techniques either discovered or used at the press which might be of interest to those concerned with the art of the book". Kenmore Press and their later imprint Anachronic Editions would exceed these objectives, publishing lovely hand-crafted books. Along with other remarkable projects they were responsible for launching the publishing career of Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

Manuscript shows some staining and foxing, a few chips and signs of edgewear; volume fine.