Since general interest has been awakened in the strange book Etidorhpa,
and as many readers are soliciting information concerning its reception,
it is not only as a duty, but as a pleasure, that the undersigned
reproduces the following abstracts from public print concerning the
Author's Edition, adding, that as in most cases the reviews were of
great length and made by men specially selected for the purpose, the
brief notes are but fragments and simply characteristic of their general
tenor.
The personal references indulged by the critics could not be excised
without destroying the value of the criticisms, and the undersigned can
offer no other apology for their introduction than to say that to have
excluded them would have done an injustice to the writers.
Respectfully,
JOHN URI LLOYD.
ETIDORHPA AS A WORK OF ART.
PROFESSOR S. W. WILLIAMS, WYOMING, OHIO.
If a fine statue or a stately cathedral is a poem in marble, a
masterpiece of the printer's art may be called a poem in typography.
Such is Etidorhpa. In its paper, composition, presswork, illustrations,
and binding--it is the perfection of beauty. While there is nothing
gaudy in its outward appearance, there is throughout a display of good
taste. The simplicity of its neatness, like that of a handsome woman, is
its great charm. Elegance does not consist in show nor wealth in
glitter; so the richest as well as the costliest garb may be rich in its
very plainness. The illustrations were drawn and engraved expressly for
this work, and consist of twenty-one full-page, half-tone cuts, and over
thirty half-page and text cuts, besides two photogravures. The best
artistic skill was employed to produce them, and the printing was
carefully attended to, so as to secure the finest effect. Only enameled
book paper is used; and this, with the wide margins, gilt top, trimmed
edges, and clear impressions of the type, makes the pages restful to the
eyes in reading or looking at them. The jacket, or cover, which protects
the binding, is of heavy paper, and bears the same imprint as the book
itself. Altogether, as an elegant specimen of the bookmakers' art it is
a credit to the trade. All honor to the compositors who set the type,
the artists who drew and engraved the illustrations, the electrotyper
who put the forms into plate, the pressman who worked off the sheets,
and the binder who gathered and bound them in this volume.
REVIEWS OF ETIDORHPA.
[Sidenote: B. O. Flower, Editor of The Arena, Boston.]
The present is an age of expectancy, of anticipation, and of prophecy;
and the invention or discovery or production that occupies the attention
of the busy world, as it rushes on its self-observed way, for more than
the passing nine day's wonder, must needs be something great indeed.
Such a production has now appeared in the literary world in the form of
the volume entitled "Etidorhpa, or the End of Earth;" the very title of
which is so striking as to arrest the attention at once.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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