Ken Campbell, the artists’ bookmaker’s artist, the William Blake of the 20th and 21st centuries, and one of the most accomplished letter press printmakers on this planet, died in October of 2022. Booklyn, in partnership with his estate is distributing all his remaining inventory. Most of his titles are out of print, and scant remains of other are still available. There is only one copy of Dominion now available, copy number 30 of the edition of 30. This sole remaining copy was available for paging at Ken’s wake in November of 2022.

“‘DOMINION’ deploys found geometric tools, brought to type height, to suggest the plotting of land by the squaring and quartering of the space on the page, and the boxing of its compass. A progression of poems move from the old world of Europe to the Great Plains of North America, which were secured, divided up, then broken by the plough.

‘DOMINION’, while continuing the pursuit of the idea of the double to be found in previous titles, progresses towards its centre and unravels back to its beginning. In this ‘DOMINION’ configures exile and return. At the start and end of each of the sections of the book, severe rectilinear geometries are disrupted and married to motifs gained from the equilateral triangle and the cross. The resultant rich pages contrast with the wilderness at the core of this work, and the ‘impossibility of the marrying of 3 and 4’.

A man walked into Egypt looking for a lost pearl. Local sorcerers captured his mind, their spells had him forgetting who he was, where he was from, and where he was going. Living on in his old home his true self sent messages to him. These words on the road awoke his memory, reminding him of his identity. And on that road of return he met his approaching double, rejoicing.” — artist Ken Campbell

Polychrome letterpress printing on Zerkall Gehammert paper, with woodletter, metal type, 12pt rules, 36pt round ornaments, and one steel set square and one steel right angle rule, both mounted to type height. The book is hand sewn and bound in reversed goatskin, in an Islamic, or map-style wrap-around binding, with handmade flax papers lining the inside. The whole is wrapped in black felt. DOMINION is printed with the rough urgency of Campbell’s earlier books such as HORSE and Broken Rules and Double Crosses.