Thornwillow Launches a Kickstarter Campaign for Song of Solomon!

There is, perhaps, no greater figure in recent American literature than Toni Morrison. A once-in-a-generation talent, known for both her unflinching look at race in the United States and her luminescent prose, Morrison received the Pulitzer Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Now, with the blessing of her family and estate, Thornwillow Press is launching a Kickstarter campaign to publish the first-ever fine press edition of her work: the iconic novel Song of Solomon.

The Thornwillow Edition of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon are all handmade books, letterpress printed and handbound, with limited-edition, deluxe versions worthy of Morrison’s legacy, including:

● Paper wrapper editions, featuring letterpress printed covers, heavy archival stock, and sewn signatures;

● A half-cloth edition featuring a cloth spine and corners, letterpress-printed boards and endpapers, and a letterpress spine label;

● Leather-bound editions presented in an elegant clamshell box;

● Patron’s copies, featuring editions inspired by key characters in the novel:

○ Guitar edition, with full leather bound in Yellow morocco

○ Macon Dead edition, with full leather bound in Pepper Red morocco

○ Milkman edition, with full leather light blue morocco set with opals

○ Pilate edition, with soft leather artists binding presented in a wood box

● Archival sets bound in full black moroccan goatskin with hand-marbled endpapers and paired with signed first editions of Song of Solomon, presented together in a fitted wooden box.

Each copy includes a portrait of Toni Morrison by celebrated photographer Helen Marcus. The leather and Patrons’ copies reproduce the beautiful photograph as a hand printed photogravure.

Originally published in 1977, Song of Solomon was Morrison’s third novel and a breakout success. The book, which follows Macon “Milkman” Dead III on his search for his past, won the National Book Critics Circle award, became the first Black-authored Book-of-the-Month selection since Richard Wright’s Native Son in 1940, and, decades later, would be selected by Oprah Winfrey for her Book Club.

“Today, we are in a time of change,” said Thornwillow Press President & Publisher Luke Pontifell. “We find ourselves turning to our past, examining it, reevaluating it, reconsidering our heroes and challenging our fears. Together, we unite around stories that define our individual and collective identities. It is important that we preserve and celebrate stories that matter to us today, that shape our identities and preserve our memory. There’s never been a better time to publish the first fine press edition of a novel by Toni Morrison, as we celebrate her work and her inspiring legacy.”

“It’s always a thrill to see Thornwillow Press’s gorgeous books on Kickstarter, ” said Oriana Leckert, Director of Publishing & Comics Outreach at Kickstarter. “Their penchant for adapting antique production techniques to modern works of literature, and their dedication to the highest quality of literary bookmaking, is nothing short of inspiring. With this, their thirty-fourth campaign, I’m excited to watch them give yet another stunning work of literature the deluxe treatment it deserves, while continuing to demonstrate the unique ways high-end publishers can transform their businesses through crowdfunding. ”

Each copy of Song of Solomon will be individually numbered and signed by the publisher, and each subscriber’s name will be recorded on the Subscription Register that accompanies every volume.

With the publication of Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison joins the Thornwillow Press library, alongside Dante Alighieri, Octavia Butler, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., among many other luminaries.

“Through Kickstarter, Thornwillow Press unites a local and global community of bookmakers and book readers who together celebrate the written word,” said Pontifell. “In this age of disposable communications and virtual relationships, when we delete our correspondence and turn books on and off with a switch, I believe that objects made by real people—people who have dedicated years of their lives to the pursuit of their craft, to making beautiful and enduring objects that will survive—matter more than ever.”

For more information about Thornwillow Press, follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter or subscribe to their newsletter at https://thornwillow.com.

About Thornwillow Press

For 35 years, Thornwillow Press has been a printer and publisher of handmade limited-edition books. We are currently at work in the bindery on : Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.

Thornwillow Press was founded in 1985 by Luke Ives Pontifell when he was 16. During college he ran the press from his Harvard dorm room and the barn at his parents’ 18th-century farm in Western Massachusetts.

Over the years, Thornwillow has grown to become one of the preeminent fine presses in the world. We have published work by some of the world’s leading writers, poets, and artists— from Jane Austen to Jill Lepore, from Walter Cronkite to Virginia Woolf, from John Updike to Barack Obama. Our books are in the permanent collections of The Smithsonian Institution, The Metropolitan Museum, the Vatican, and The White House, among many others.

In this digital age, we remain committed to teaching and perpetuating the related arts and crafts of the written word. By subscribing to a Thornwillow publication, you will not only add a beautiful and important book to your collection, you will also support the work of designers, printers, and bookbinders who have dedicated themselves to the preservation of these arts, and will join a worldwide community of authors and artists, bookmakers and book readers, who together celebrate the written word.

The work of the press funds, in part, The Thornwillow Institute, a 501(c)3 nonprofit committed to teaching and perpetuating the arts and crafts of the written word, to supporting writers, artists, and artisans, and to revitalizing the distressed historic neighborhood of Newburgh, NY, that is home to Thornwillow, both by restoring buildings that are part of our campus and supporting artists in residence, and by training local members of the community to work in the pressroom and bindery. For more information about Thornwillow Press please visitwww.thornwillow.com, and for more information about the Thornwillow Institute and our commitment to teaching and perpetuating the related arts and crafts of the written word, please visit

www.thornwillowinstitute.org.

About Toni Morrison:

The first African American to receive the Nobel Prize, Morrison was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize (for Beloved in 1987) and numerous national other and international cultural honors, was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, who has often said that Song of Solomon is his favorite book: “I remember reading Song of Solomon when I was a kid and not just trying to figure out how to write, but also how to be and how to think.”

Morrison, who holds degrees from Howard University and Cornell University, died in 2019. She left behind not just a shelf of honors and an enduring legacy of beautiful and important work: As the first African American woman in a senior editorial position at Random House, she championed thecultural history and contributions of other Black artists, especially through her work on Contemporary African Literature (1972) and her development and execution of The Black Book (1974).

“Toni Morrison is a literary artist of the first rank. She delves into the language itself, a language she wants to liberate from the fetters of race. And she addresses us with the lustre of poetry,” the Nobel Prize committee wrote.

“Toni Morrison was a towering intellect, a brilliant scribe of our nation’s complex stories, a heartbreaking journalist of our deepest desires, and a groundbreaking author who destroyed precepts, walls, and those who dared underestimate her capacity.” —Stacey Abrams