Saturday, August 27, 2011

The Master in Cafe Morphine: An Homage to Mikhail Bulgakov

Finally! At long last! My one luxury purchase of the year has finally arrived:

The Master in Cafe Morphine: An Homage to Mikhail Bulgakov


This limited edition was published in June of this year by Ex Occidente Press, out of Bucharest.  I am the proud owner of copy #37 of 100.  

The Master in Café Morphine: A Homage to Mikhail Bulgakov is an over-sized sewn hardcover book of 363 pages with endpapers, a full-colour frontispiece and a dust-jacket. Deluxe cloth boards with folio. Edition limited to 100 copies."

Edited by Dan T. Ghetu, this homage to one of Soviet Russia's most well-known author and playwright contains twenty-one original stories.  Contributing authors include Allyson Bird, Adam Golaski, Rhys Hughes, and more.







Bulgakov is best known for his world-renowned masterpiece "The Master and Margarita", which was published posthumously by his widow in 1966 and remains one of my all-time favorite novels.





This monocled portrait above was created by C. C. Askew of the Eternal Sekret City.




The paper stock is gloriously heavy and smooth. The font is Elegant Garamond in size 10.5. 






If I have one criticism, it's about the paper stock used for the dustjacket.  It's heavily textured, which I think distracts from the incredible jacket artwork created by artist Santiago Caruso.  You can see a large image of the original artwork here.  It's a fairly minor flaw, though.  The jacket is gorgeous and the imagery beautifully represents Bulgakov's themes.  And this interpretation of the Cat is just fantastic.


And now I think I shall settle into my big oversized reading chair and begin to read this eagerly-anticipated volume. Until later.....

1 comment:

  1. This is freaking gorgeous, a luxury purchase indeed!

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