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Calvino, Italo

Original Italian text followed by English version translated by William Weaver, Calvino’s longtime translator. The second of two signed limited editions by Calvino in English. Completed in Spring 1985, Calvino died suddenly in September later that year. First publication of this story; title piece for the posthumous Italian collection of stories (1993), then in English with the collection retitled Numbers in the Dark (1996), and the translation by Tim Parks. Calvino’s prescient examination of our telephone relationships, albeit from the pre-mobile period when, “My finger accompanies each digit slowly to the stop peg of the disc.” #41/75 copies signed by the author and Antonio Frasconi, the illustrator.

Publisher: Plain Wrapper Press. First edition 1985
Edition: First Edition
Place Published: Cottondale, AL

Large 8vo. Bound by Craig Jensen, tan morocco spine; boards covered with burnt-orange and green pastepapers made by Antony O’Hara. White Magnani handmade paper printed damp on an 1847 Washington handpress in black and blue; multicolour woodcuts printed at the press. The publisher avoided printing on the backs of the coloured woodcuts by creating double leaves (with blank interiors) for the prints. Sitting in publisher’s folding box with a vignette of the Plain Wrappers’ emblem tipped onto front panel. All fine. SMYTH 37.

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