A Long Hill Homeward

Tideline Press, 2022

Writing, design, hand set composition, relief-offset print making, and letterpress printing by Leonard Seastone

Price on request

Sew board bound by Craig Jensen at Book Lab II in quarter leather with gold titling, and Saint Armand handmade, raw flax paper with inlays of paper and leather by Seastone drummed onto boards. The book is laid into a clam-shell portfolio box in quarter leather, with gold titling with Cave, raw flax, handmade Granite paper on boards.

80 pages, 8.75” x 12.125”, one double gatefold: 34” wide, portfolio: 9.5” x 13.25”

The primary text is the story of the 13,000 mile journey, hopping freights, hitch-hiking, and hopping a lumber truck in the summer of 1969. This story is set in 14 point Palatino Italic and composed mostly in large sweeping, curved lines that span the double page spreads throughout. A series of secondary texts, vignettes, are of other journeys, poetry, songs, and philosophical musings.

The primary text spans the double page spreads in continuous fair curves by a method created by Seastone, the author/artist/printer, in a visual representation of the journey.

An accomplishment that appears to be unique in handset type letterpress printing. It is juxtaposed by the relief-offset prints derived from large wood type visually deconstructed in the process. This method of printmaking was developed by Seastone within the past 22 years, see an outline of the process below.

Together, the text, the prints, the design, and the printing of the book took 16+ years to complete and represents a culmination of fifty years of work by Leonard Seastone. Launched in October 2022 on the 50th Anniversary of Seastone’s Tideline Press exhibition at the Center for Book Arts, NYC.

Winner of Fine Press Book Association's Honorable Mention Award, Manhattan Book Fair 2023