Archives & Manuscripts #14 - International League of Antiquarian ...

17 (Photography). Berenice Abbott. [Publisher’s Mock-Up or Maquette]: The World of Atget. New
York: Horizon Press (1964). $8500
The publisher’s mock-up of this landmark book
on the important French photographer, written
and prepared by a distinguished American
photographer. Large quarto. Publisher’s cloth,
unstamped and unlettered. Publisher’s blueline
printed text laid in or bound in on pasted
photostats, the title page has been composed
from cut and pasted elements, the 176 images
that grace the book are also pasted in as blueline
examples, and are numbered with pasted
on numbers or hand corrections. One Atget
image appears to be a fine quality gelatin silver
photographic print of Plate 91, “Interior”
(possibly printed by Abbott), and is mounted on
card and laid into the mock-up (with a crease to
the mount and to one corner of the image). The
dust jacket proof is glued to the boards with the
flap copy affixed to the unprinted flaps. Some
of the affixed text is loose or in a couple of cases
partially detached because of the composer’s glue
drying, the jacket is a bit tattered, though overall
mostly complete. A unique artifact presenting the birth
of an important monument in photographic history, Abbott’s
definitive study of Atget. Provenance on request. [BTC #385445]