HALF PINT PRESS. BUTTS, Mary. ~ Imaginary Letters.
No. 31 of 100 copies. Decorations drawn by Lupe Nunez. Text printed in 11 and 12-point Modern (Series 1) type cast by Neil Winter at the Whittington Press. All printed by Tim Hopkins on an Adana 8 x 5 press except letter IV which was screenprinted at Sonsoles Studio. The book is in the form of 8 letters, each in an individual envelope and with a title page and colophon printed on one blue/grey card. The envelopes are held by a ribbon into a maroon cloth-bound book or portfolio with unique end papers by Jenn Phillips-Bache. Fine.
Mary Butts (1890-1937) was an English modernist who published several novels and short stories. She was married to John Rodker for some time but was also bi-sexual as well as being a student of Aleister Crowley.. Imaginary Letters dates from 1928, and takes the form of eight letters addressed (by an unnamed narrator) to the imagined mother of Boris Polterasky, a White Russian exile living a bohemian life in Paris. The narrator loves Boris but it quickly becomes clear that Boris’s interest lies elsewhere.
This edition is incredibly imaginatively presented with each letter in the novel coming in a separate envelope and having to be opened in order to read it. Each letter is on different stock and the words are presented in a design of great typographical imagination printed in different colours and shapes with the decorations by Nunez and opening in different manners. Letter V is particularly noteworthy appearing on a variety of different types of paper, card and postcards all grouped together which when sorted out present the whole letter. The printer Tim Hopkins of Half Pint Press writes “illustrator Lupe Núñez has provided a beautiful mixture of decorations and “modernist marginalia”. The form of each letter helps to reflect the passage of time and the changing mood of the book as it progresses; not all are easy to read, and there is a feeling of someone’s notes to themselves, held keep-sake style for posterity”. The idea was to take an existing novella and present it in a way to make the reading experience richer and more atmospheric by making the physical form of the book match and enhance the textual content.