Description

New York: The Albondocani Press, 1986. First Edition. 5 inches. [34] pp., including 14 full-page illustrations. Original pictorial wrappers, stitched. Prospectus card laid in. Signed by the artist on the colophon. Fine.

From a stated edition of 326 signed copies (300 numbered and for sale, 26 lettered and not for sale); the present copy is signed but out of series and unnumbered (one of ten additional copies beyond the order sent to Albondocani Press owner George Bixby by the printer).

Edward Gorey’s spoof – and near-verbatim recreation – of plates and captions in L. H. Bailey’s 1910 Manual of Gardening: A Practical Guide … . In Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey, Mark Dery relates that Gorey was first introduced to Bailey’s Manual by Judith Cressy of Parnassus Book Service near Gorey’s home on Cape Cod. When Cressy encountered the book, Dery writes, she found its illustrations

“beautifully limned ... but ‘odd. There’d be this funny little drawing of … almost symmetrical plantings, but then there was this tree that was in the wrong place and there would be a caption that would say, ‘A regrettable vista,’ or something. It looked like an Edward Gorey drawing, and the caption was like an Edward Gorey caption. The whole book was full of these Edward Goreyisms that were done before he was born.’ When Cressy showed Gorey some photocopies of the book’s illustrations, ‘ he just whooped and rolled up the papers and tucked them in his pocket and ran away. He got it immediately.’ The result was The Improvable Landscape … , which Gorey dedicated to Cressy. A note-perfect send-up of Bailey’s didactic Manual, it’s a kind of cautionary tale for gardeners and landscape architects … “ (p. 351-352).

Toledano A92. From the collection of Albondocani Press founder George Bixby.

Fine Print

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