Metamorphoses

Description

The classical Latin novel, now published by Dublura in a way that tries to replicate what books looked like in the 18th century. A young man meddles with his hostess’s witchcraft and is turned into an ass. Carried off by robbers, later sold to begging priests and then to a miller, he sees the province from the stable until Isis gives him back his shape. On the way, an old woman tells the tale of Cupid and Psyche.

The outside

The books are regular hardbacks with the design printed over them, yet they are unlike any modern cover you have seen. Each imitates an antique binding: leather texture, gilt decoration, decorative endpapers and similar. Laid on a shelf or a table, to an untrained eye they will pass for an artefact of another age.

The inside

Historic type, woodcut ornaments, decorative initials, classical ligatures… Our typesetting has all of that and even more. We have, quite literally, endeavoured to mimic 18th-century typesetting to the dot. Every margin, every symbol, every letter that sits on the page has been placed there consciously after considerable research.