THE MORNING ROAD, BLUE SKY PRESS, LIMITED EDITION, FAMOUS TITLE PAGE DESIGN, 1902

Subtitle: A Book of Verses. By Thomas Wood Stevens and Alden Charles Noble. Chicago: Blue Sky Press, 1902.

Hardboards covered in dark brown paper, decorative design in black on cover, paper title pasted to spine. 64 pages. This is number 162 of a limited edition of 215 total, the first 15 printed on vellum and the remaining 200 printed on paper. Great double-spread title page of Arts and Crafts design. Printed on very high quality paper.

Dimensions: height of nearly 8.5 inches by width of nearly 5 inches.

Condition: Good. On front and back covers, the corners are worn to the boards and bumped and there is some edge wear. There is a small stain near the bottom edge of the front cover. There is wear on the pasted title on the spine and very slight wear at the bottom of the spine. Inside, there is a small stain on the lower right corner of the last 9 leaves.

In existence from 1899 to 1907, the Blue Sky Press was famous for its fine printing in an Arts and Crafts style. Stevens and Noble, the authors of this volume of poems, were the founders of The Blue Sky Press.

According the University of Arizona Libraries’ website where the papers of Stevens (1880-1942) are held, he “was an artist, teacher, author, and theater director. He served has head of the Illustration Department at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1903-1911; he was cofounder of Blue Sky Press, 1899-1907; he served as head of the Drama Department at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1913-1925; then at the Kenneth Sawyer Goodman Memorial Theatre, 1925-1930; he was the director of various university and community theaters, and of the Globe Theatre Shakespearean productions performed at several American expositions and centennials; finally he was in charge of the Drama Department at the University of Arizona from 1941-1942.”

This title, “The Morning Road,” is mentioned in an article about the Blue Sky Press in The New York Times dated August 1, 1903.