Author: Hudson, Mike.
Publisher: The Wayzgoose Press, Katoomba NSW.
Format: Softcover quarto with letterpress printed card wrappers and endpapers, 10 three-colour linocuts by Mike Hudson, numbered “33” [of 75] copies and signed by Mike Hudson and printer Jadwiga Jarvis in pencil on colophon, 30pp [verso pages blank], 32.2 x 21.2cm.
Includes loosely inserted prospectus with same title As Dead As the Proverbial…, explaining that the main text comes from an essay about the Dodo which appeared in The Penny Magazine, June 1832.
Accompanied by a folder entitled “Retrospectus” numbered 31 of 50, containing two letterpress and linocut posters for a special edition of The Van Diemen’s Land Warriors: or the Heroes of Cornwall [the first piece of verse to be printed in the colony of Tasmania, 1827, to be re-issued “with thirty cuts” by Mike Hudson]; as well as a type-written letter from Mike Hudson dated ’24 Feb ’89’ to Josef Lebovic, regarding “the latest bit of frou-frou from the printers’ picnic press”, with attached photograph of Mike in his printing studio.
The Wayzgoose Press was Michael Hudson (British/Australian, 1939–2021) and Jadwiga Jarvis Polish/Australian, 1947–2021), “a fiercely independent, reclusive private press operating from the depths of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales…They combined their individual professional design skills with techniques such as handset letterpress, wood engraving, linocut, photography, craft bookbinding and calligraphy. By the time Mike and Jadwiga ‘retired’ from undertaking large-scale productions (around 2012), they had produced 20 fine press books and over 40 printed broadsides as well as numerous keepsakes.” Their archive is kept in the State Library of Victoria. Ref: Caren Florance.
Very minor creases to corners, otherwise Fine.
