Christmas is coming, so you’re probably looking for something special to give the bibliophiles in your life. If you’re lucky, you have only one or two of them to shop for, because, despite the enormous affection you must feel for them, they can be damned annoying at times. For one thing, they’ve never met a book they didn’t crave; and for another, they’ve probably overcome all resistance to their acquisition. What’s a Christmas shopper to do when the natural system of checks and balances has disappeared? What do you buy a book lover who has no shelf control?

The obvious answer (and if accused I will strenuously deny any hidden agenda here) is “more books” — take it from one of the fallen: you can’t go wrong. So we’ll just take the point as proven and offer up a pair of delectable suggestions from the pressroom of the legendary Barbarian Press, printers and publishers of fine press books and limited editions.

Barbarian Press is located in Steelhead, near Mission, just a short, scenic drive out of Vancouver along the Dewdney Trunk. There, assisted by bears, Jan and Crispin Elsted have been hand-setting and hand-printing the finest letterpress publications in Canada for over 25 years (their pressroom is shown above, under snow). As a literate person you will have heard of them; but more to the point your book-besotted acquaintance has heard of them, and will be thrilled to receive one of their exquisite publications.

Production of their books is slow, because every letter of every single printed page has been held briefly and considered while its line of type was being set. Think of it: each character — even the spaces between words — hand-set; every page of type inked and pressed against rag paper so that the letters imprint themselves into the page. You can close your eyes and run your fingertips along the lines and feel the words. You can’t have a more intimate relationship with text than that.

From the press’s list of Books in Print I have selected two titles which seem particularly suited to the season. The first of these is The Wolf’s Carol, a Christmas fable written and illustrated with engravings by Nancy Ruth Jackson, which is even now in the later stages of production.

It was the animals who first welcomed The Christ into this world, who first knelt to their maker in the manger. And every year at Christmas they are given the gift of human speech to celebrate the anniversary of his birth. Just at midnight the donkey brays louder than she has brayed all year — very loudly — and this bray, whether it is the last animal speech of the night or the first human voice, signals a great chorus of voices in the stable.

Of course they all talk at once, these animals who suddenly speak as humans do. They laugh and complain and entertain each other with very rude imitations of the farmer’s family. They renew old quarrels and recall animals long gone from the barnyard. They sing sweet, sad old songs and forgive one another…

To properly present the text the Elsted’s have chosen a lovely combination of type and paper; have a nibble of the colophon for The Wolf’s Carol; or, more to the point: imagine the pleasure experienced by the recipient of this lovely gift as they savour it:

Quarter dark blue cloth with patterned paper over boards and a spine label. Bugra blue endpapers. Goudy’s Garamont with Bembo and Dutch Initials for display in black and red on Legion Letterpress. With seven engravings and a press device by the author.

Delicious!

My second gift suggestion from the press is a pamphlet, And much more, not ourselves, containing an essay by Canadian poet and typographer Robert Bringhurst on the work of Jan and Crispin Elsted. The essay was originally presented as part of a celebration at Simon Fraser University to mark the first 25 years of Barbarian Press; it would be a perfect gift for all those who enjoy “beautifully turned, witty, and provocative prose”:

In the best of all impossible worlds, literature would always be what it claims to be. That is, it would all be worth reading and keeping. Literary works would all be perfectly conceived and beautifully composed. The poems would always be beautifully spoken. The stories would always be beautifully told. Literary manuscripts would all be legibly, beautifully written; first editions would all be perfectly edited, exquisitely designed, and wonderfully set, printed, and bound. What’s more, these perfect works and manuscripts and books would somehow be accessible to all and last forever. We would all hear Plato read in Plato’s voice, in Plato’s language, or read him for ourselves in Plato’s hand, on in the hand of his best amanuensis — or in Greek type based upon those hands. We would all read Virgil and Lucretius in the form that they imagined being read. We would all hear Beowulf in the Beowulf poet’s voice, hear Gawain in the Gawain poet’s voice, experience Marlowe and Shakespeare on their own ideal stage, and read the poems of Thomas Wyatt and John Donne in editions perfectly set and printed in the author’s place and time. Through the force of such performances and manuscripts and books, the human world would deepen day by day. Literature would help us never to forget how rich and various the world really is, and how various it needs to be in order to survive.

How can you go wrong at a mere $20? You can’t, of course. There are many other beautiful publications available from the press. Check out their wonderful series of books on wood engravers; or how about Venus & Adonis, William Shakespeare’s narrative poem, illustrated with 10 wood engravings by Andy English?

These are books which will outlive both you and the recipient; they will be handed down through the generations. So ignore the best seller lists for once and choose a truly Barbaric gift for Christmas.