I can’t believe how long it’s been since Chris Offutt’s A Dog & His Boy was published.
The book was issued in a very small edition of fifty copies; in fact, it’s the smallest edition of any book published by the press. There were six author copies not mentioned in the colophon, along with five marked out-of-series. So 61 total. The edition sold quickly, and copies have always been difficult to find on the secondary market.
One of these days I’ll probably write about my brief relationship with Chris Offutt. There’s a story. He’s one interesting dude.
The actual production of the book began in the fall of 1999, and we went to press in December of that year. The text was set by hand in Baskerville Roman, while Goudy Bold and Goudy Handtooled were used for the cover and title page. Every copy was letterpress printed on Somerset Text, one of my favorite papers then and now. I remember using two different decorative endpapers, though time has blurred the details. I’m fairly certain Banana Mash was one of them and Thai Grass the other. If memory serves, one of those papers may have been reserved exclusively for the author’s copies.
The covers were printed on Rives Arches. It’s beautiful paper, but anyone who has ever printed on it knows it can be stubborn.
Kathy Sheehan, then a graduate student in printmaking at Arizona State University, provided the linoleum-cut illustrations. Kathy created four images for the book: two school buses, one approaching and one departing, which appear at the beginning and end of the story and provide a wonderful visual bookend. She also contributed two red footprints and a portrait of the Dog himself, one of the story’s central characters.
Collectors of Offutt’s work on my mailing list were able to purchase copies for the publication price of $75. Not that long after Joseph the Provider offered one for $250, and it didn’t stay available for very long.
Today, copies surface only occasionally.
And I don’t have any more.
