Journey Round My Room, by Xavier de Maistre
Arion Press – Limited Edition
Journey Round My Room, by Xavier de Maistre, with photographs for the book by Ross Anderson, 2007.
Under the bibliographical heading of “Travel and Exploration” is a subhead, “Imaginary Journeys”. Here we have a book based on personal experience by a traveller who goes nowhere outside his living quarters, except in his imagination.
The author, Xavier de Maistre, was born in 1763 at Chambéry in France. In 1790, as a young officer in the Piedmontese army, he participated in a duel. It is not known whether his opponent perished or was wounded; de Maistre records no injury to himself. As punishment he was confined to his own quarters in Turin for forty-two days. During that period of house arrest he wrote a book, a short work, but one that would have long influence and enjoy virtually uninterrupted publication to this day in its original French, as well as in translations.
The author’s conceit is that, even though incarcerated, he is free to travel. The mode of meandering he recommends will appeal to everyone, he insists, especially the rich, because it is so inexpensive as to cost nothing. Confined to his room, waited upon by his servant and accompanied by his dog, he roams about, finding means of escape through his imagination and the objects that trigger it. He counts the thirty-six paces of the room’s periphery and crisscrosses it haphazardly. Sometimes he uses his arm-chair as a conveyance. He tips back on its hind legs, balancing and rocking, maneuvers forward, sideways, or rearward, employing this means of locomotion when he has no schedule to keep, that is, when he is not in a hurry, as is the case throughout his imprisonment. How boring, you might think, but he is not in solitary confinement. He has dream visitors as he slumbers in his comfortable bed. At the end of the book it is revealed that he has entertained real guests. The furniture, the books, the pictures on the walls, the views through windows are observed and occasion further observations. Why go so far as to Paris or Rome? Rather range farther as a stay-at-home!
The Arion Press edition, edited and designed by Andrew Hoyem, is both historically allusive and keenly contemporary. The type is Suburban French, a face cut about 1911 and adapted for Monotype composition. It may have been based on a Didot type from around 1804 and bears resemblances to the elegant Romain du Roi of Grandjean for the Imprimerie Royale in 1702. The initial letters and display type on the title page are Gallia, produced by Lanston Monotype in 1928. This face was chosen because of its striping of thin-thick-thin lines and is printed in rose ink because of the preference of the author for bed-hangings in this color and pattern. That scheme is repeated on the binding cloth, with alternating rose and gray stripes. Rose, or pink, in one’s surroundings, de Maistre advises, ensures happiness. The printing is by letterpress, on Arches Text, a French mouldmade paper. The book is in a small format, 8-1/4 by 5-7/8 inches, 152 numbered pages plus 32 unnumbered pages for the illustrations, totaling 184 pages.
The illustrations are by the architect Ross Anderson. They are sixteen photographs of small models of the room, its furnishings, and the author’s travelling coat, taken with a cell-phone digital camera. These low-resolution pictures are printed on translucent UV/Ultra II paper by offset lithography. The result is an elusive evocation of an interior that becomes the vast expanse of the interior of the mind.
The edition of the book is limited to 300 numbered copies for sale and 26 lettered copies hors de commerce. The price of the book is $450.
About the Arion Press
Since its inception in 1974, the Arion Press has published 81 deluxe limited editions that are breathtaking in their scope and artistry. Combining notable literature illustrated with original artwork from prominent artists, Andrew Hoyem and his team at the Arion Press have carried on the tradition of the livre d’artiste in spectacular fashion. Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times put it best when he wrote, "The Arion Press produces some of the most beautiful limited-edition, hand printed books in the world."
