Tartarus Press Coverley House, Carlton, Leyburn, North Yorkshire, DL8 4AY United Kingdom Telephone/Fax: +44 (0) 1969 640399 email Tartarus Press
Production
Values- Tartarus Press hardback books are designed and manufactured with an eye on the elegant books of late Victorian and Edwardian times. Their proportions and textual layout follow the classic designs of this period, incorporating features such as wide outer and lower margins. Although we use the latest technology to typeset our books, we use traditional fonts and harmonious character and line-spacing.
- The printing and binding of our books is undertaken by The Bath Press, located in the English West Country. They use traditional lithographic printing , and the paper we currently specify is an acid free 130gsm cream cartridge. This is a very heavy, specialist paper, allowing little show-through of the printing from the other side of the page, and is beautiful to handle and read from. It is the nearest we can afford to the vellum that Leonard Smithers used on his special editions of the 1890s! Being acid-free means that it will not degrade over time.
- Our books are made up from traditional sewn sections, a method that has stood the test of time and offers the maximum strength and durability. It allows you to open the book fully without damaging the spine. Head and tailbands finish off the spine neatly, and the silk ribbon is a practical way of marking your place in the book.
- Our dust jackets are printed in two colours on 135gsm colourplan paper, and, with their simple, elegant designs, are similar to the earliest dust wrappers. Although they are more prone to damage than most commercial book jackets, we have found that laminated jackets look too shiny. (Please contact us if you have had a major accident with one of our dust jackets: we will often be able to supply you with a replacement!)
- Although we have a "house style", our books do vary considerably in size from the small 'prayer book' formats of The White Hands and Heathcliff's Tale through to the very large format Beresford Egan. Internally our books vary depending on the nature of the text, including illustrations where appropriate, as in The Purple Cloud and The Golem. The titles that exhibit serious differences to the above specifications, however, are our Guide to First Edition Prices and Wormwood, our journal, which are both produced as trade paperbacks.
- Five titles by Arthur Machen in print from the Tartarus Press (from top left): The Secret of the Sangraal & Other Writings, Dreads and Drolls, Ritual and Other Stories, The Hill of Dreams, and Tales of Horror and the Supernatural.
Page updated 21st July 2007