Errata Editions is trying to rectify this by presenting rare, out of print, and generally unavailable photobooks not as a facsimile but as an object in a book. In other words, the original book is reproduced on the page as a photo of an open book. By showing the whole book, spread by spread, cover to cover, endpapers, blank pages and the rest, it at least gives one a feeling for the original and a look at the work.
The first four volumes are in bookstores now.
Atget's Photographe de Paris, 1930, is number one in the series. The Errata edition features an English translation of the Pierre Mac-Orlan introduction (which was in French in the 1930 American edition) and an essay by David Campany, an English photography scholar.
The second is Walker Evans' American Photographs, originally published by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1938. The original afterword by Lincoln Kirstein is presented in text form with an essay by John Hill, the executor of the Evans estate.
Sophie Ristelhueber's small and relatively unknown book, Fait, which alternates aerial views of the Kuwaiti dessert after the first Gulf war with images of the detritus the war left behind is the third. There is a new essay by Marc Mayer.
And finally, the last in the series is Chris Killip's In Flagrante, an intimate, and ultimately devastating, look at the effect of industrial decline on the people and landscape of Northeastern England. As with the others, the original accompanying essay is reprinted, in this case by John Berger and Sylvia Grant. There is an additional essay by Gerry Badger (who did the History of the PhotoBook books with Martin Parr.)
All four of the volumes include a short bio and a photo of the photographer, a short essay by Jeffrey Ladd, one of the publishers, on the history of the original book and a bibliography with reproductions of the covers of other books by the photographer. The scans and the separations were made by Robert Hennessey, an expert on the reproduction of photographs in print, so the plates are as faithful to the original as it is possible to get. They look good and feel good and it is clear that a great deal of time and thought went into the design and production.
The question arises: Why not print a facsimile edition or even a new edition? Some of the reviewers on Amazon were very upset by the format and appear to have expected a new edition. My understanding is that these are not meant to be collectibles but research and education tools. Not exactly textbooks but relatively cheap and readily available to show those interested in photography what these iconic examples of photographic literature are all about.
Anecdotally, I have heard that Killip considers In Flagrante an artifact of its time and does not want it reprinted. So, if one can't afford the original, this is the only option.
In a sense, all of these books are artifacts of their time in one way or another. The plates in Atget's Photographe de Paris were printed individually by the collotype process so they have a particular look that might be difficult to replicate. Further, each plate was attached to a linen strip that was then bound into the book. In effect, it is 96 original prints bound together as a book. It would be very expensive to reproduce that. And to produce a new edition would still most likely have a price tag of US$100 or so. The Errata editions can be had for one quarter that price.
It can be argued too, that one would not want to produce a facsimile version of American Photographs for the simple reason that the original dust jacket was a dull grey with only text on it. It would be a tough sell these days; too dreary. That said, American Photographs has been reprinted thrice and I hear is about to be re-issued again by the Museum of Modern Art. But none of them (I've not seen the soon to be new one) are facsimiles; they all feature a photograph on the cover which is the way one has to sell it these days.
I think the Errata Editions' Books on Books is a great series. I once had a fantasy of collecting every photography book that was ever published. Besides the fact that Martin Parr got there ahead of me, I ran up against the problem of how to finance such a venture. It's very unlikely I'll be acquiring copies of some of these in this lifetime and I'm happy with these. And since I didn't get very close to my fantasy, I'm hoping that the series will continue and I'll not only get a chance to see books I've only heard about and but I'll also discover some gems I hadn't heard about.
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