Enter these Marbled Halls
Hello readers, and welcome back to a blog post which will surely delight bibliophiles and book appréciateurs alike.
In the occult community, it is well known that an adoration of the book-as-object runs almost as deep as a love for the contents of a text itself. In turn, a swathe of qualities help embody and offer identity to a book and its pages:
Select book-cloth, well-gauged threads, textured pages & endpapers, stamped embossments, golden foils, and so forth.
Among these features, we particularly adore the art of marbling. This unique art, craft, and science takes shape upon an aqueous medium, later transposed onto paper in a multitude of delightful designs like nonpareil, peacock, and combed.
Marbled endpapers from a Viennese-printed work ca. 1875
Marbling can lend a unique expression to a book, one which often reflects the theme or continents of a given work:
Star-dusted speckles adorn works of stellar magic, sprawling serpentine designs mark the nature of an Ophidian work, and deep crimson waves may express a sanguine element.
With this in mind, we felt it apt to celebrate our love of marbling by featuring a few designs from the occult library staff’s personal collections.
In this regard, we’ve selected a few texts from a given theme, each with a unique design. We felt that this singular theme would assist in displaying the diversity of marbling designs, even within a given domain of occultism.
As such, we’ve chosen to detail two publishers whose work is concerned primarily with Crooked Path sorcery. They are Atramentous Press and Xoanon Publishing
An exemplary example can be found in Atramentous Press’ telesmatic edition of David S. Herrerias’ work, The Book of Q’ab iTz. Of the text, it is noted:
“Emerging as a record of his work, this being based on Andrew Chumbley’s Dragon Book of Essex, Qutub and Azoetia, as well as the work of Spare such as The Zoetic Grimoire of Zos and The Book of Pleasure, it places this particular book at the pinnacle of contemporary artistic spirit-possessed expressionism.”
The cover of the book, seen below, contains a marbling pattern called nonpareil. Its pattern flourishes outward into an array of combed gold, blue, white, and red forms:
Atramentous Press. The Book of Q’ab iTz. Telesmatic edition.
This edition also features a polished goatskin cover, a gold foil insignia block to the front cover, a gold foil block to spine replete with five traditionally made ribs with gold foil block insignia to the rear, and further decorative blocking to edges. It contains 120 pages between a natural terracotta cover with central insignia, a printed spine, natural heritage blue endpapers, and 150 gsm ‘Munken Rough’ paper with full colour printing, a leather solander box with traditionally constructed ribs to solander spine.
With the influences of Herrerias in mind, it is pertinent to take a look at work which greatly shaped The Book of Q’ab iTz. We are speaking of Andrew D. Chumbley’s Azoëtia. Of the work, Xoanon Publishing notes:
“Azoëtia or ‘The Book of the Magical Quintessence’ has become one of the most sought-after new magical works of our time and may be regarded as the foundation text of the Sabbatic Craft Tradition.”
This seminal work emerged in three editions over a number of decades. The third of these contains a deluxe edition exemplar whose cover features a unique marbled design. Arriving in 111 copies, this editions marbling is situated between a well-placed, half-bound crimson goat skin cover. it’s dark swirls — seen in the image below — point to a subtle-yet-potent body of material contained within its contents:
Xoanon publishing. Azoëtia. Third Edition. Deluxe edition.
Like the oft-elusive contents of such works, marbling can likewise be found in the nooks and crannies of a book — perhaps hidden upon first glance. Another Atramentous Press book, Peter Hamilton-Giles work The Witching-Other offers up a book block whose edges themselves are marbled.
A challenging and breakthrough text, Atramentous Press tells us that:
“The Witching-Other concentrates on how witchcraft, and in particular the archetypal Witch, are used as conduits for understanding that which remains remote to us.”
Take a peek at this image of this edition of only 15 exemplars. The book’s 100 gram munken cream paper is adorned in a splendid marbling:
Atramentous Press. The Witching-Other. Deluxe edition.
Enveloping these 160 pages is, according to Atramentous Press, a “…burgundy book calf of the highest quality as supplied by one of the most prestigious tanneries in the UK.” A signed copy, the work also glimmers with a wondrous gold foil.
Atramentous & Xoanon are no stranger to the multitudinous realms of marbling. Other works can be seen with designs that will quite literally take the breath away.
Three more select standouts can be seen captioned below:
Atramentous Press. Book of the Black Dragon Volume I. Peter Hamilton-Giles. Deluxe edition.
Xoanon Publishing. Via Tortuosa. Daniel A. Schulke. Deluxe edition.
Atramentous Press. Lilith, Gender and Demonology. Stephanie Spoto. Deluxe edition.
Still, the boundless worlds of marbling do not begin or end at these publishers alone. Publishers across the span of the occult community utilize this age-old technique to characterize their works. It is a story almost as old as publishing itself, and it speaks to the spark of craft & art that spurns The Book.
We encourage our readers to join the conversation, and tell us what editions in their own libraries contain these magical designs upon endpapers, edges, and covers. We are always glad to hear from you, and we are keen to uncover more of these designs for ourselves.
With this in mind, we look forward to continuing with our periodical blog. We would like to extend a word of thanks to our users, readers & followers for their support and understanding during what has been a quite-busy summer period. We are continually grateful for the support and incredible usage which our project — still less than a year in age — has received.
For those regular readers of our weekly blog, please excuse the brief quiet which you’ve found over the previous 3-4 weeks. Our chief blog has recently taken on a swathe of new professional and family obligations.
Regardless, we are always glad to serve the community by offering grist for the literary and magical mill. We look forward to new and continued updates as our year-anniversary approaches.
Until next week,
— The Occult Library Staff.