The Melville Press was established in the summer of 1995. This small private press is dedicated to producing fine illustrated limited editions. The Melville Press was born from a passion for Melville’s work, and is devoted to publishing books which capture the spirit of his vision.

Catherine Kanner is publisher of The Melville Press. Her work as a designer and illustrator as has earned awards nationally and in Europe. The books of The Melville Press have been printed letterpress by the finest pressmen and women, including John Robinson of The Tortoise Press, Bonnie Thompson Norman of the Windowpane Press and Lawrence Van Velzer and Peggy Gotthold of Foolscap Press. The books are handbound with the same attention to quality by Foolscap Press, and Allwyn O'Mara.

 

 

The Melville Press' first publication, CETUS, The Whale; an Illustrated Companion to Moby Dick was honored with a Rounce and Coffin Award for excellence in book design 1997. The book traveled to academic and public libraries throughout the United States in the Western Books Exhibition. CETUS has also appeared in Artistbook International; an exhibition of fine contemporary books from around the world.

In March of 1997 The Melville Press was invited to speak to the Book Club of California on the making of CETUS. Notes on the talk appear in the Winter 1997/8 Book Club quarterly newsletter. Both CETUS and Prayers Written at Vailima have appeared by invitation at the Book Club of California in Tales of Whales and Other Sea Stories.

 

The Melville Press published its second limited edition: Prayers Written at Vailima by Robert Louis Stevenson in November 1999. This Rounce & Coffin Award winning edition was the first new printing of this remarkable text in the United States in more than forty years. Catherine Kanner designed Prayers in a Polynesian motif, and created 21 original linoleum cut illustrations for the project. This edition has been acquired by libraries and museums throughout the world, and has been published in a trade edition by CALAMUS Quality Gift & Trade Editions.

 

 

The Melville Press is pleased to have acquired the rights to a remarkable short story by Dylan Thomas. Originally published in the A Prospect of the Sea in 1939, this is story of love and the sea. A powerful prose poem; Catherine Kanner has designed the book on a generous scale with an elegant self-closing cover, and has created nine striking linoleum cuts for this new edition.

The Melville Press was honored with a 2004 Rounce & Coffin Award for Excellence in Book Design for In the Direction of the Beginning.

 

The fourth edition from The Melville Press is a classic tunnel book of Edward Lear's well loved nonesense poem, The Owl and the Pussycat. This edition is printed full color on Somerset Velvet 100% cotton paper, and presents Lear's characters afloat on a moonlit sea. The edition includes a fragment from an unfinished sequel The Children of the Owl and the Pussycat, which was published postumously. Hand bound, printed, illustrated and designed by Catherine Kanner.