Demons, Imps, & Fiends

[Northampton, Massachusetts:] The Gehenna Press, 1976 One of 450 copies was printed on various interesting papers; this is copy 263. . Marbled boards with gilt-lettered black leather spine label. . Folio. Illustrated terra cotta title page printed in red and black. Nineteen drawings printed from line cuts in red and black on rectos only. Binding extremities have some very minor rubbing. Presentation copy, inscribed on a preliminary blank, "for ...from Leonard at Boston Book Fair, 1989." A fine copy. Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) was an American sculptor, illustrator, wood-engraver, printmaker, graphic artist, writer, and teacher. He founded Gehenna Press, a small private press that specialized in the production of fine books, while he was a student at Yale. Baskin was a friends of Ted Hughes and illustrated Crow; Hughes' wife, Sylvia Plath, dedicated "Sculptor" to Baskin in her famous work The Colossus and Other Poems (1960). The text of Demons, Imps & Fiends consists of a quotation from St. Bernard of Clairvaux. The illustrations feature various fantastical creatures in Baskin's signature style (Inventory #: 16253)