After three years of work, the Standard and Special editions of Memento Mori : Memento Vivere, are completed.
The book is both a memorial and a celebration of the life of librarian, bibliophile and printer Kathy Whalen, who died of cancer in 2020.
Written by her partner and co-publisher Graham Moss of Incline Press, the book is presented in a joyous and moving series of double page openings, taken from the style of a commonplace book. Each opening is a letterpress text facing and explaining variously tip-ins, original prints and ephemera. Most of these are between two and four colour prints. There are original lino and woodcuts from printmakers whose work Kathy enjoyed (Mark Hearld,Melanie Wickham, Bert Eastman,John Watson,Nick Wonham, and in the Specials,Katherine AnteneyandChris Brown), and prints from the wood, engraved by Victorian masters, Robert Langton and a magnificent image byAndy English. As well as the wood types, there are printers fists ancient and modern including the newest fromHazel Pitremade byMark McKellier.
The book charts both the home and professional times of Kathy’s life during this 21 year collaboration. It includes labels for homemade preserves, a favourite recipe, Kathy’s address card while working at the Bodleian Library, examples of her printing at Chetham's Library in Manchester. The slipcase and chemise are used to keep in the many loose items found between the pages. This is after all, an Incline Press book. Written with open-hearted frankness, the book takes as its theme the reminder that as we all must die, so too we ought to be mindful to live as we should, that despite struggles and setbacks we do well to try and follow the course we have each decided for ourselves.
The introduction and explanatory texts are all set in Centaur type, with a very large variety of different faces used for the illustrative material including unusual faces such as Ashley, Profil, Wenceslas, Friedlander, Juliana, Modern No. 20, Hyperion, Weiss, Klang and Hungry Dutch; as well as Bembo, Caslon, Garamond, Granby, Fry's Baskerville, Optima and Elizabeth. The paper used is mostly Magnani, and there is also some coloured Bugra Buttun and Zerkall supplied by John Purcell.
There are 100 standard copies bound and presented in a slipcase made by Roger Grech, using decorated paper with a linocut pattern designed by Nicolette Scarpa and printed by Graham on the Victoria Press.
In addition to ad personum copies, there are 50 Special copies for sale which are bound in the workshop as two volumes and a chemise of handmade paper specially commissioned from Two Rivers Paper of Watchet in Somerset. The first volume contains the same text as the standard copy, the second contains an additional 10 spreads.
