Setting the Record Straighter. No – Sharper. ‘The Chairmaker’s Workshop’

One of the rewards for running a publishing company is getting to say “yes” when other people wouldn’t even know to say “no.” Two summers ago, chairmaker Chris Williams and I visited Drew and Louise Langsner in their home outside Marshall, North Carolina.

And as we were sitting there, being feasted upon by bugs (as we ate a delicious meal from Louise’s hands), I was overcome by gratitude for the work these two people had done their entire lives for the craft.

Drew’s book “The Chairmaker’s Workshop” (Lark, 1997) was a constant guide as I made my first steps into chairmaking in the early 2000s. I carried the book around like a lost puppy. And in time it fell apart. I bought another. It wasn’t made particularly well, but I have kept it in decent shape.

Why, I wondered, can I not buy a library-quality copy of this book that steered my life?

I blinked and sat up a little straighter. Chris shot a look at me, concerned.

I said, “I’d like to republish ‘The Chairmaker’s Workshop.’”

Drew agreed.

And after a fair amount of work on everyone’s part, we did just that. And it is finally a version that will last for at least a century.

We did everything we could to make this archival-quality edition of “The Chairmaker’s Workshop” a joy to read and use. The print job is better than the original (thanks to a Japanese sheet-fed press and excellent paper).

This book has all the details we love. A bookmark ribbon, contrasting headbands and footbands, heavy endsheets, casebound binding, sewn signatures, and on and on. Oh, and we made special letterpress bookplates that Drew signed individually. As I write this, we’re affixing them to the endsheets.

This is an expensive endeavor. So we’re printing only 750 copies. If this book is important to you – like it is to me – here is your best chance. It’s $78. I know that’s a lot of money, but if we’d priced it like we normally price books it would be $95.

Way more information on the book can be found here.

— Christopher Schwarz