Thornwillow Crowdfunds Fine Press Edition of ‘Song of Solomon’

Thornwillow Press, a specialty limited edition printer and publisher specializing in using crowdfunding, is launching a Kickstarter campaign on May 24 to publish a fine press hardcover of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. This will be the first-ever fine press edition of a Toni Morrison work.

In collaboration with the Morrison family and estate, Thornwill will publish the novel in four different fine press formats, including paper wrapper, leather-bound, half-cloth, and patron copies (editions devoted to select characters in the novel). All the books will be handmade, letterpress printed, and handbound in limited editions. Each copy of Song of Solomon will be individually numbered and signed by the publisher. Copies are also available in archived sets, and each copy includes a portrait of Toni Morrison by photographer Helen Marcus.

Toni Morrison (1931-2019) is the first African American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1993. She was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2012, and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988 for her novel Beloved.

Thornwillow Press president and publisher Luke Pontifell says he has been waiting for an opportunity to "celebrate her iconic place in the world of letters. Binky Urban who represents the estate, was enthusiastic and helped us together with Penguin Random House present our proposal to Morrison's family and estate. Fortunately they liked the idea and agreed... not just to our making the first fine press edition of Song of Solomon, but also to our making an edition of Toni Morrison's only published short story 'Recitatif,' which takes place in Newburgh, home of Thornwillow Press."

The press specializes in using crowdfunding to support its publications, and works closely with Kickstarter. Most recently, in April 2021, the press raised more than $115,000 (the goal was $10,000) to publish a handmade edition of Octavia Butler’s visionary classic novel Parable of the Sower.

Oriana Leckert, Kickstarter director of publishing and comics outreach, says the Morrison edition will be Thornwillow’s 34th Kickstarter campaign. "Their penchant for adapting antique production techniques to modern works of literature, and their dedication to the highest quality of literary bookmaking, is inspiring," Leckert said, adding that the press continues "to demonstrate the unique ways high-end publishers can transform their businesses through crowdfunding."

Song of Solomon was Morrison’s third novel and an immediate critical success. The book was originally published in 1977, and won the National Book Critics Circle award for fiction. Morrison’s novel will join the works of such authors as Virginia Woolf, Jane Austin, Jill Lepore, John Updike, Octavia Butler, and Barack Obama, which have also been published in fine press editions by Thornwillow Press.