Unapproved Road

Item Details

Hopewell, NJ, Pied Oxen Printers, 2002, Japanese book-cloth covered boards with paste paper labels.

This copy is number 77 of 125 signed and numbered copies, as new.

Large 4to, 9 ½ x 12 ½ inches, 16 leaves, pp. [6] verse printed recto only, cloth-covered boards with printed paste-paper cover and spine labels.

First separate edition of the title poem and “Hard Drive.” The poet’s “Note for Unapproved Road” was specially written for this publication (see image). Design, hand-setting of types, letterpress printing and binding are by David Sellers. The two intaglio prints, produced by Diarmuid Delargy from steel-faced copper plates at the Belfast Print Workshop, are signed and numbered by the artist. Hand-set types are Stempel foundry-cast Palatino and Sistina. The paper is Somerset Textured soft white. The edition comprises 125 numbered copies signed by the poet on the half-title, and the printer on the colophon, numbers 1-25 reserved and 26-125 for sale.

This is copy #77. 

“Unapproved Road” is the official term used to describe certain unregulated Irish border crossings. In 1926, four years after the partition established a border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, the Free State’s “Statutory Rules on Road Signs and Traffic Signals Regulations” declared: 
Where a road crosses the frontier…Whether traffic is or is not permitted to cross the frontier on the road shall be indicated … by the words “approved road,” or “unapproved road,” as the case may require.

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