When Paris Press publisher Jan Freeman discovered an original copy of Virginia Woolf's essay On Being Ill during a visit to the rare book room at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., it was a dream come true. The essay was an important piece of Woolfiana, written in the summer of 1925, right after Woolf published Mrs. Dalloway and The Common Reader and before she began work on To the Lighthouse. Since it hadn't appeared in print since Woolf's Hogarth Press first published it in 1930, the essay also fit Freeman's mission: to publish neglected work by women writers.
Reissued in a 64-page hardcover edition in late October, the essay on what it's like to "cease to be soldiers in the army of the upright," is accompanied by a new introduction by biographer Hermione Lee (Virginia Woolf, Knopf, 1997; Vintage, 1998). The layout and design are almost identical to the original text, which Woolf herself set in type, while the jacket features Vanessa Bell's original art. The difference is in the price ($20) and print quantity: where Woolf produced only 250 copies, Freeman printed 300 bound galleys and 10,000 copies of the finished book, the largest print run to date for the seven-year-old, one-woman press, located in Ashfield, Mass.
Following a galley giveaway at BookExpo and a postcard mailing, initial orders for On Being Ill have been robust. At Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago, buyer and manager Jack Cella said, "We certainly do very well with Mrs. Dalloway and The Waves. This facsimile edition will catch people's attention." Roxie Mack, manager of the Broadside Bookshop in Northampton, called Freeman "a one-woman wonder," noting that Paris Press's books have performed well at her store "because of local support, the books they choose to represent, and the quality of their productions."
Advance excerpts from the Woolf essay that appeared in the Washington Post's Health section and in the Minneapolis Star Tribune have helped the book get off to a strong start. The book also garnered a brief review in the New Yorker, which has led to large orders from abroad, and a review on NPR's Fresh Air, one of many firsts for the tiny Paris Press. An excerpt from Lee's introduction has also been posted on Paramount's Web site for the forthcoming film adaptation of The Hours (www.thehoursmovie.com), Michael Cunningham's homage to Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.
Although On Being Ill is poised to become the nonprofit press's bestselling title, its chances for publication looked bleak over the summer, when the Massachusetts Cultural Council was forced to slash its grant to the nonprofit press by 62% due to funding cuts. Fortunately, a sponsor came forward who enabled Paris Press to try a creative fund-raising idea. The press is offering a handbound letterpress limited edition to donors who give $700 to help defray the cost of the trade edition of On Illness, while those who give $1,500 will receive a deluxe edition with a leather label and slipcase.
For a one-person press, Paris Press has accomplished a lot over the past few years. "The reason why I changed my entire life to start the press," explained Freeman, "was because I had come across Muriel Ruckeyser's The Life of Poetry after looking for it for many years. I finally found it in a secondhand bookshop in N.Y.C.'s West Village." A poet herself, Freeman regards Paris Press's reissue of the Ruckeyser, which is now in its third printing, as "the backbone of the press." The publication of Ruth Stone's poetry, Ordinary Words, also gave the house a measure of prominence when the volume received a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2000. The press's list of 11 titles are distributed to the trade by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.
