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The Aliquando Press ~ Ontario, Canada
(William Rueter)

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Aliquando Press: “The Aliquando Press continues to produce books and broadsides on a wide range of subjects: music, poetry, and literature, including some bilingual texts. The proprietor delights in performing most bookmaking operations: selecting texts, editing, designing, occasionally writing and illustrating, setting type by hand, printing, and binding. There is a continuing attempt to perfect bookmaking skills through personal involvement with each aspect of the book's creation, and to try to keep faith with the author's message.”
   
Printers, printing, and design  
   

Laudes Musicae
Words in Praise of Music
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2020. Edition of 40.

5 x 7"; 52 pages Red paper free end pages and pastedowns. Compiled, designed, printed, and bound by William Rueter. Letterpress printed using a variety of typefaces, decorations, and papers. Sewn binding. Bound in paper over boards with paper title label on spine. In paper slipcase with paper title label on spine. Numbered.

William Rueter, colophon: "Since my early teens, music has been essential in my life. Perhaps the most abstract of the arts, music can entertain us or touch our deepest emotions, Music comforts and sustains us, affirms our humanity, and triumphs over distress.

"Creating this book has unearthed joyful memories of concerts, recordings, and conversations about music. This book honours and celebrates the musicians and composers whose music has enriched by life."

A lovely tribute to music via the words of noted lovers and creators of music. The presentation flows in and out of the words like the refrains of musical compositions. "Laudes Musicae" begins with Alessandro Striggio's words "I am Music, and with sweet emotions / I can calm every troubled soul …" and ends with Aaron Copland's words "So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany & sustain it."
$225

Laudes Musicae book
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The Season of the Rose Eighteen Minnesongs
By Hendrik Van Veldeke
Selected and Translated by Willem Campschreur
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: Aliquando Press, 2017. Edition of 50.

5.5 x 9"; 48 pages. Introduction and translation of "The Season of the Roses" set digitally in Quadraat and printed by offset at Gaspereau Press. Middle High German text handset in Jessen-Schrift, with Dartmouth initials, and printed letterpress at The Aliquando Press. Printed, designed, and bound by William Rueter. Printed on Mohawk Superfine paper. Illustrations by the printer inspired by figures in the Manesse Codex and other medieval manuscripts. Bound in Chiyogami paper covered boards. In paper slipcase with printed paper title on spine. Numbered.

The poems appear in both the original Middle High German and Campschreur's English translation.

William Rueter, Colophon: "It has been a great pleasure to work on this book with Willem Campschreur, who suggested translating Veldeke's poems and shared his insights via delightful emails. His care, expertise, and infectious enthusiasm resulted in a joyful collaboration."

Willem Campschreur, Introduction: "The poet / troubadour Hendrik van Veldeke is a wonderfully ambiguous figure in almost all known aspects of his life. … Most literary scholars believe Veldeke was born around 1140, in a region of the Netherlands described as 'Maasland' (the land of the river Maas) … Maasland was situated at the crossroads that connected the French tradition with the languages and literary traditions of the Dutch, Limburg-Flemish and German regions in Veldeke's time.

"This book contains a selection of eighteen 'minnesongs', courtly love lyrics, from possibly thirty to thirty-five texts. 'Minne' means roughly strong, unrestrained feelings of love between man and woman, but it can also refer to one's feelings towards God, family, and friends.

"Veldeke's minnesongs … are the last known works from his hand. … Probably Veldeke not only wrote his minnesongs but also sang them himself at the courts."
$150

The Season of the Rose Eighteen Minnesongs book
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The Nuns and the Gardener
A tale from the Decameron
By Giovanni Boccaccio
with wood engravings by Wesley W. Bates
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2002. Edition of 70.

28. x 17 cm.; 24 pages. Five wood engravings by Wesley W. Bates. Text adapted by William Rueter. Printed letterpress with Nephi Medieval type and Tell Text 5 display, with title lettering by the printer. Printed on Hahnemühle Archive paper.

Copies 1 to 10 signed by the artists, with an extra suite of signed prints enclosed in an olive folder and bound in quarter stained Tyvek with spine label. The boards covered in William Morris' 'Willow Boughs' fabric, with mustard cloth slipcase. Copies 11 to 70 (out of print) bound in quarter stained Tyvek with spine label and yellow/green shibori paper-covered boards with grosgrain ribbon; with flax Canal paper portfolio.

One of Boccaccio's most pertinent (and impertinent) stories from The Decameron: Nuns delighting in pleasures of the flesh.

Will Rueter, The Aliquando Century: "On the way back from a printing conference, Wesley Bates and I made plans to collaborate on a series of three Boccaccio stories. .... Wesley's other commitments have precluded the completion of the originally conceived project."
$350 Deluxe
The Nuns and the Gardener book
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William Rueter explores the techniques of letterpress printing and design. He experiments with letterforms, printers' ornaments, formats, inks, and decorative papers. Frequently his books are about others who have this same passion.
 

A visit with William Morris
edited by William Rueter
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2018. Edition of 40.

4.75 x 6.25"; 44 pages. Letterpress printed. Designed, printed, and bound by William Rueter. Numbered. Bound in wraparound cover with slip slot closure. In paper slipcase.

The text is a reconstructed interview taken from essays printed in the Pall Mall Gazette of 1891, the Daily Chronicle of 1893, the English Illustrated Magazine of 1895, and Bookselling of 1895.

The frontispiece wood engraving of William Morris by Robert Bryden, c. 1899, is based on an 1884 photo by Frederick Hollyer.

William Rueter, colophon: "In making this book, I have been inspired by Morris' passion for the Middle Ages. The text type, Nephi Medieval, was designed and cast by Jim Rimmer, who also cast the Cavatina ornament designed by the printer. The Tell Text 5 type is an adaptation of Morris' Chaucer typeface design."

Vamp & Tramp: "This lovely little tome is worthy of its subject."
$150

A visit with William Morris book
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The Triumph of the Alphabet
By William Rueter
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: Aliquando Press, 2017. Edition of 25.

3.25 x 3.25"; 27 pages. Accordion fold extending from the back page. Bound in paper-covered boards with printed paper title on spine. Twine tie closure.

Colophon: "This nameless wood type alphabet was made c. 1900 by the Hamilton Mfg. Co. Here at The Aliquando Press it is affectionately called 'Ali-oops!'"

Books on Books Collection – William Rueter
$40

The Triumph of the Alphabet book
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A Love of Letters
By Rabbi Abraham Abulafia
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2013. Edition of 30.

21.5 x 10.5 cm. (8.5 x 4.1") closed, extends to 330 cm. (130"); 26 pages. Accordion fold with six text panels and seven image panels. Text set in Codex. Image panels feature various wood types. Folia Card paper. Stiff boards covered by wood-type printed papers. Title tipped on spine. Folia card slipcase. Numbered.

Colophon: "Abraham Abulafia was a thirteenth-century Jewish mystic who believed that, through meditation and the observation and creation of letterforms, always striving to make the perfect shape, the devout might find union with God. The text was quoted in Ben Shahn's Love and Joy about Letters."
$300
A Love of Letters book
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Work and Beauty
Selected writings of Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2013. Edition of 25.

16.5 x 11.5 cm (6.5 x 4/5"); 33 unnumbered pages. Types: Trajanus and Castellar. Golden hind paper. Wood engraving by William Rueter. Bound in hand-marbled Swedish paper over boards. Title printed on spine. Numbered.

William Rueter, colophon: "Cobden-Sanderson's passion and idealism have inspired my own private press for a half-century and I am pleased to print some of his lesser-known writings, slightly edited. The book's format is similar to octavo Doves Press books. Trajanus type and Castellar initials were printed on mould-made paper, the same sheet used for my first book, printed fifty years ago."
$95

Work and Beauty book
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A Visual Harmonic: A view of private printing
By Paul Hayden Duensing
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2013. Edition of 100.

21.5 x 12.7 cm (8.5 x 5"); 12 unnumbered pages. Types: Bulmer; Trajan Condensed. Bound in 'Canal' paper wrapper with cut of historic printing press. Numbered.

Colophon: "A Visual Harmonic comprises the opening paragraphs of Paul Hayden Duensing's 1993 tribute to his friend Leonard F. Bahr. It is reprinted to commemorate both men and to honour the craft of printing that they deeply cherished."

Text accompanied by six cuts of historic bookmaking images.
$20
A Visual Harmonic: A view of private printing book
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The apprentice's dividend:
being an excerpt from the autobiography of Mark Twain
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2001. Edition of 100.

5.75 x 7.5"; 21 unnumbered pages. Wood engraving by Wesley W. Bates. Handset in Bulmer type and letterpress printed. Bound in decorated paper over boards. Paper title label on spine. Numbered.

Colophon: "To while away a long, dull winter, Mark Twain's text was .... printed & bound by William Rueter at The Aliquando Press, Dundas."

Introduction: "At age 13, on the advice of his brother Orion, Clemens learned the craft of typesetting and printing for two years, & when Orion founded the Hannibal Journal Clemens worked for him as a compositor, writing occasional humorous pieces in the Southwestern yarnspinner style."
$75
The apprentice's dividend book
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Sold Titles by Aliquando Press:  
   
Il Giardino d'Amore / The Garden of Love
Italian Renaissance Madrigal Poems
Selected by William Rueter
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2013. Edition of 45.

18 x 12.8 cm; 57 pages. Letter press printed on Zerkall Frankfurt Cream paper. Bembo and Blado italic type; Castellar and Bembo display typefaces. Printed in Italian and English, with four type ornament 'gardens.' Frontispiece is a line cut of an unidentified Renaissance woodcut. Introduction in English.

Copies 1 to 5 (unavailable) bound with foil stamped goatskin spine and antique Dutch or French hand marbled papers over boards; with slipcase. Copies 11 to 45 bound in patterned cloth boards.

William Rueter, The Aliquando Century: "An anthology of texts of some of my favorite Renaissance madrigals, with four ‘gardens’ composed of printers’ flowers. The richness and elegance of the text paper inspired the project."

William Rueter, introduction: "This book attempts to plant some favorite madrigal texts in a literary and visual Garden of Love. The translations have come from many sources and a few phrases have been slightly rewritten to improve the syntax. There is a considerable overlapping of themes: love's discovery, delight, bewilderment, anguish, and fulfillment. Four sequences of poems have been created, each preceded by an ornamental garden of printers' flowers reflecting on one of the seasons. The reader is urged to investigate through recordings the beauty and passion of the original musical settings."

Colophon: “This is the ninety-third book from The Aliquando Press, produced to celebrate the Press's fortieth anniversary and to reflect on its past.
(SOLD/Out of Print)
The Garden of Love book
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The Aliquando Century:
The first 100 books from The Aliquando Press of William Rueter
B[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2008.
Edition of 250.

22.5 x 15 cm ; 57 pages. 24 colour illustrations. Quadraat; Carolus, Trajanus, printed offset at Coach House Printing. Zephyr Antique paper; the photos printed on Mohawk Superfine paper. Copies 26 to 250 have curry Linen Card stock covers, printed and bound at The Aliquando Press. Copies 1 to 25 are bound in green tea chest paper with cloth spine and paper label.

William Rueter, introduction: "In January 1963 the first book of The Aliquando Press was produced to allow me to learn and personally practice most aspects of bookmaking: selecting texts, editing, designing, occasionally writing and illustrating, setting type by hand, printing, and binding. I had discovered the physical beauty of books during a brief period living in London, England and later working in a bookstore, but I had no idea that my initial experience in creating a book would turn into an obsessive, decades-long hobby. ...

"The completion of my hundredth book is an occasion for personal celebration and reflection: joy in the press' accomplishments and an acute awareness of the debt of gratitude owed to so many people, living and no longer here.

"The Press has always been the sum of its friends and I think of them constantly as I work in solitude. The responsibility to keep faith with an author's text and attempt to clothe it in an appropriate form is a continuing challenge, but my delight in using beautiful materials and handling magnificent letterforms remains a constant element. There are few activities as satisfying as the making of books."

(SOLD)

The Aliquando Century book
Standard edition

   
Cats' Dream
Sueño de gatos
By Pablo Neruda
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2008. Edition of 30.

5.25 x 5.5"; 20 unnumbered pages. Text in Spanish and English. Wood engravings by Maria Hofker-Rueter. Types: Pegasus, Garamont, and Egmont Inlin, with Cavatina ornaments. Paper: Hahnemuhle and Kozuke. Handsewn binding with hand marbled paper over stiff boards. Wood engraving tipped on front board. Numbered.

A poem by Pablo Neruda with two wood engravings by Maria Hofker-Rueter (1902-1999). Text in Spanish with an English version by William Rueter.
(Out of Print)
Cats' Dream book
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Felicity
By Thomas Traherne
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2014. Edition of 35.

21.5 x 13.5 cm (8.5 x 5.3"); 36 pages. Printed letterpress in Garamont type on Hahnemühle paper. Ten reductive linocuts by William Rueter. Designed, illustrated, printed, and bound by William Rueter. Bound in Elephant Hide paper, with Tyvek tapes. Printed title label tipped on spine. Numbered.

Colophon: "Thomas Traherne (1636 - 1674), the son of a Hereford shoemaker, attended Oxford University, then took holy orders and became the domestic chaplain in the household of the Lord Keeper of the Seals of England. He led a quiet life, reflecting on the world around him.

"In his poems Traherne delights in the power and sacredness of nature and shows his awareness of the epiphanies that can occur during the state of childhood. His poems reveal some of the mystical flashes of truth to be found in the commonplace.

"The text is based on the 1910 edition of
Poems of Felicity, retaining much of Traherne's idiosyncratic spelling."
(SOLD/Out of Print)
Felicity book
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The Gospel According to Inglis: Aphorisms for our time
Selected by William Rueter
Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2005. Edition of 60.

17 x 13.6 cm (6.7 x 5.4"); 35 unnumbered pages. Various types, ornaments and decorations printed on Mohawk Superfine paper. Bound with patterned Italian or Japanese paper with cloth spine. Numbered.

Will Rueter, preface: "Whenever I go to Toronto, I pass by an illuminated billboard at the west end of the city advertising Inglis home appliances. The special feature of the billboard appears across the bottom: a varying display of aphorisms - an anomaly amidst the advertising signage. Subtle in daylight, these messages give meaning to the Toronto skyline at night.

"During the past five or six years I have recorded some of the most appealing of the aphorisms displayed on the Inglis billboard and I have added a few anonymous texts from other sources. The folk at Inglis are to be congratulated on their sense of responsibility to the public by presenting texts that offer a moral code and remind us of our fragile humanity."

(SOLD/Out of Print)
The Gospel According to Inglis: Aphorisms for our time book
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A Letter from Edward Johnston
By The Aliquando Press
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2010. Edition of 40.

7 x 9.25": 32 pages. Printed letterpress. Johnston's letter printed from polymer plates onto dampened Barcham Green Medieval paper. Other text set in Octavian type with Carolus display and printed on Hahnemühle Archive paper. Wood engraving based on a drawing by Noel Rooke. Bound paper over boards with handmade Nepalese endpapers.

Colophon: "Many years ago at a Toronto book fair I unearthed C. R. Ashbee's copy of 'Writing & Illuminating & Lettering,' with Johnston's letter tucked inside. It is a pleasure to share with you Johnston's passion for his beloved craft."

The original letter, an apology to Mrs. Ashbee, penned by Johnston is dated 20 March 1901.

Rollin Milroy: "Will discovered the letter years ago at a book fair, tucked inside A.R. Ashbee's copy of Writing & Illuminating & Lettering - score! The bulk of the 27-page book is taken up with an insightful essay about Johnston, providing some context for the letter. And, there's an original two-color wood engraving portrait by Will of E.J. The collection of papers combined in the book alone make it a joy to leaf through: Nepalese for the case, Hahnemühle Archive for the text, the BG (printed damp), and some kind of a gampi for the engraving. Another lovely publication from TAP [The Aliquando Press]."
(Out of Print)
A Letter from Edward Johnston book
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The Light-house
By Edgar Allan Poe
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2016. Edition of 50.

4.25 x 8"; 20 pages. Letterpress printed. Bulmer and Nuland typefaces. Printed on Mohawk Via paper. "Illustrations" created from a variety of papers. Hand-marbled papers by Robert Wu used on the cover and frontispiece. Bound in stiff wraps. Numbered. Designed, printed, and bound by William Rueter. In a gray paper slipcase.

A printing of Poe's short story "The Light-house". Instead of traditional illustrations Rueter has used pieces of different marbled and colored papers to form spaces between the journal entries.
(SOLD/Out of Print)

The Light-House book
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Pressing Matters
By Leonard F. Bahr, Paul Hayden Duensing, Rollin Milroy, and William Rueter
Dundas, Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2013. Edition of 50.

7 x 11"; 60 pages. Letterpress printed using Palatino and Optima types with Egmont Inline initials and a variety of the Press' typographic resources. Printed on Hahnemühle paper. Cloth flatback case binding with paper title on spine. Of fifty copies produced, copies 11 to 50 are bound in hand marbled paper covered boards.

Five essays on the private press to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the press. Thoughts and opinions about the private press by Leonard F. Bahr, Paul Hayden Duensing, Rollin Milroy, and William Rueter.

Heavenly Monkey Press, blog: "Pressing Matters presents two essays by Leonard Bahr on the private press, augmented by a chapter on the subject by Paul Hayden Duensing, and one on the economics of private press publishing by us/HM/ Rollin Milroy.

"Bahr was a commercial typographer whose greatest creativity was reserved for his own private imprint, the Adagio Press. In the 1960s and '70s he issued many items, from ephemera to substantial pamphlets, with type and typography the over-riding focal points. His most ambitious project, by several orders of magnitude, was An Account of the Work of T.J. Cobden-Sanderson & Cobden-Sanderson's Partnership with Emery Walker (1969), with texts by Norman Strause and John Dreyfus, and two original Doves Press leaves tipped into each copy.


"Will received galley proofs from Bahr of his essays when they were first set in the early 1970s. Bahr had initially intended them to be the first parts of a book that would look at different aspects of private press publishing. Chapters 1 and 2 from Pressing Matters — "The Idea of the Private Press" and "The Private Press Defined" — were issued by Bahr, in a revised form, in the first two issues of his periodical Typographia (no more numbers were published). The book for which they were initially conceived was also to include chapters on the purpose of the private press; how imagination, innovation and patience should be employed to bring out the unique advantages of the private press; and economics — how a private press can be made to survive, if not prosper, within our not-too-bookish society.

"For whatever reasons, the type remained standing after Bahr pulled the proofs later sent to Will, but the project was abandoned. 'After proofing his essays Leonard seems to have been unwilling to speculate further on the private press, feeling that the topic was in constant change,' Will writes in the books afterword, where he also offers his own thoughts on Bahr's questions about purpose and the importance of imagination.

"The most striking feature of the new Aliquando book is the 17 'mini-broadsides' throughout the book, each presenting a quote related to the topic of the private press drawn from sources as diverse as Rudolf Koch, Peter Beilenson, and William Everson. Each of these employs Will's extensive collection of types and ornaments, combined with his talent for extravagance in the use of color (and numerous press runs!).

"Perhaps even more than private press printing, Paul Hayden Duensing's interest lay in private type design and casting. He was an important mentor to people like Bahr and Will, plus Jim Rimmer (who created a type named after PHD) and many others who were interested in learning how to cast type. His chapter in Pressing Matters, titled "Private Printing, Private Typefounding," is a collection of his writings on the topic, both published and in correspondence with Will. 'His words seem to me an essential adjunct to Leonard's thoughts,' Will explains in his afterword. (PHD and Will collaborated in 1976 on what may be the only American-Canadian private press co-publication, Buchstabenfreude, the Delight of Letters.)"

(SOLD/Out of Print)

Pressing Matters book
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The Seafarer
By William Rueter
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: Aliquando Press, 2016. Edition of 40.

5.5 x 7.5"; 44 pages. Samson Uncial, Nephi Medieval, and Albertus typefaces printed on mould-made Hahnemühle paper. Bound in hand-made Nepalese paper. In gray paper slipcase with title label on spine. Designed, illustrated, printed, and bound by William Rueter. Numbered.

The book contains the poem is both Old English and Rueter's Modern English rendition.

William Rueter, Colophon: "The Seafarer is a remarkable poem, one of the finest examples of Old English literature. Many version and translations exist, of which those by Ezra Pound, Burton Raffel, and Christopher Patton are among the most admirable. This rendition attempts to capture the alliteration and urgency of the Anglo-Saxon poem. Some of the text is corrupt and the last 21 lines of the poem may be a scribal addition. I am deeply grateful to John Ferns and Manfred Dietrich, both excellent poets, who made invaluable and encouraging suggestions, and to Professor Alvn Lee, who expertly fine-tuned the final version. I have substituted 'th' for the thorns and eths in the Old English text. The textual divisions and errors are mine."
(SOLD/Out of Print)

The Seafarer book
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Steale Not Thys Book
A Compendium of steale not warnings & invectives
Against those who would purloin desecrate or injure books
[Dundas], Ontario, Canada: The Aliquando Press, 2020. Edition of 40.

3.75 x 4.5"; 32 pages plus green paper free end page and pastedowns. Letterpress printed in a variety of fonts and colors. Bound in marble paper covered boards with paper title label on spine.

William Rueter, colophon: "Most of these curses are anonymous and come from medieval manuscripts and folk rhymes. Forty copies of this cautionary book were produced by William Rueter at The Aliquando Press in April 2020 to honour the librarians, collectors, and book lovers who respect and cherish the physical book."

"This book is one thing. God's curse is another. They that take the one, God give them the other."

"A curse upon the person who steals this book, and a blessing upon he who keeps it safe. If anyone cuts or removes a page, may he be cursed."
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Steale Not Thys Book
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Page last update: 05.29.2024

 

   
                                                         
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