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Parasitic Ventures Press
New and Current Titles
perfectbound volumes; various page lengths, 6x9 inch trim. 2007.
$25 each
unlimited editions.
Riffing off the bibliophilic tendencies of desire — for the rare, the out-of-print, and the impossible — where scarcity commands the highest of desire, or where myth precedes value of content: a series of books from our catalogue of Lost Books. These books are all first editions of works that were never published, but have some grounding in the historical (if conjectural) record.
Edward Gibbon,The History of Democracy in Switzerland.
Gibbon is known primarily as historian of the Roman Empire.
This was not his first major historical undertaking, having started work
on a history of the Swiss Republic first. A lacklustre reception for the early
drafts, however, led to a minor conflagration involving his manuscript.
Download preview of book here.
William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour Won.
The corpus of William Shakespeare is not, as we know, complete.
His Folio editions were a selection of his plays, not a full collection.
One of the plays that had been printed, but lost to contemporary
scholarship, includes a sequel to Love’s Labour Lost, which we have
printed in this edition.
Download preview of book here.
Confucius,The Book of Music.
K’ung Fu-Tzu, known in the west as Confucius, wrote the ‘Six Books’ in
the sixth century BCE. Consisting of The Book of Poetry, The Book of Rituals,
The Book of History, The Book of Changes, The Spring and Autumn Annals,
and The Book of Music, knowledge of these books would be the basis of
appointment to the Chinese bureaucracy for over 2000 years. Unfortunately,
at some point in this period, The Book of Music was lost, leading some to
claim that it never really existed.
Download preview of book here.
T. S. Eliot,Literature and Export Trade.
As with many poets, T. S. Eliot had a day job. In the twenties, his was
writing reports on foreign currency movements for Lloyds Bank. The
editor for Harvard College Class of 1910 Quindecennial Report
managed to mangle this state of affairs, and added Literature and
Export Trade to his corpus. We include this text in our series in respect
of such editorial malfeasance.
Download preview of book here.
Mikhail Bakhtin,The Bildungsroman and it’s Significance in the History of Realism.
At the beginning of the Second World War, the book-length manuscript of
Mikhail Bakhtin’s The Bildungsroman [Novel of Education] (1936-38) existed
in two copies; one, the final draft, was at Sovetsky pisatel, the house that was
preparing the book for publication, and an early draft, which he retained. As
the publisher’s copy would form the basis of the printed edition, Bakhtin
repurposed his copy as cigarette paper (in short supply) and, it is said, smoked
it away over the course of the war. Alas, in the seige on Moscow, the editorial
offices of Sovetsky pisatel (and the manuscript) were destroyed.
Download preview of book here.
2 perfectbound volumes; 160 pages each, 8.5x11 inch; CD. 2007.
$40
ISBN 978-0-9697368-5-1 (volume 1)
ISBN 978-0-9697368-6-8 (volume 2)
ISBN 978-0-9697368-7-5 (audio CD)
From the artist:
When Alissa Firth-Eagland asked me to present a live performance in March 2005, I conceived and performed “Visible
Vocals” as an exercise in divided attention (when you walk and chew gum at the same time, are you in your mouth
or in your feet?): typing the first page of a two-page monologue in a rhythm unrelated to the words’ meter as speech,
then typing the second page in an attempt to mesh rhythmically with audio playback of the first page.
Parasitic Ventures Press proposed to turn the performance into a two-volume bookwork. One volume per page, the original
typed monologue is now spaced out three-dimensionally so that the progression from book’s front to back is an analogue
of the time it took to type it (like a pop-up book that extrudes into time rather than space). Conceptually this seems
perfect … but, to my mind, concepts are made to be shelved, not read. Even the phrase “bookwork” is
new to me. I’m more interested in experiences, so we’re including an audio CD with which you may follow along. If the pages of Visible Vocals (a bookwork) were translucent, you could hold either volume up to the light and
see a single page of type — but they’re not, they’re good-old-fashioned opaque paper, and you’ll
have to turn them at a fair clip if you want to keep up with the recorded sound of their creation.
Maybe I hope this is more of a bookplay. But I really do hope you’ll try to follow along, and that will take some
work. Hint: if you get lost, you will know it is time to skip to the next line when you hear the carriage-return bell
ding, like this.
About the artist:
Daniel Cockburn is a videomaker and writer living in Toronto. He is currently working on a major video on translation.
His video work is distributed by V-tape. For more information on Daniel Cockburn’s
projects and writings visit www.zeroFunction.com.
Download preview of book here.
1 perfectbound volume; 284 pages, 6x9 inch trim. 2006.
$25
ISBN 0-9697368-3-5
[edited by the Press]
From the artist:
Herman Melville is unable to comment on this critical edition of his work.
About the artist (from Wikipedia):
Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, essayist and poet. During his lifetime,
his early novels were popular, but his popularity declined later in his life. By the time of his death he had nearly been
forgotten, but his masterpiece, Moby Dick — largely considered a failure during his lifetime — was "rediscovered"
in the 20th century as a literary masterpiece.
Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819, as the third child of Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill
(Maria would later add an 'e' to the surname). One of his grandfathers, Major Thomas Melvill, participated in the Boston
Tea Party. His father described the young man as being somewhat slow as a child, and Melville was also weakened by the
scarlet fever, which permanently affected his eyesight.
Download preview of book here.
1 unbound volume; 16 pages, 8.5x15 inch. 2006.
$150
Letterpress printed on Fabriano Ingres, edition of 30
From the artist:
Like many of my book projects, Notes on the Book is a transcription of found text. In this case, the source is
Henry Petroski’s The Book on the Bookshelf, specifically the reference notes, which are keyed to quotations
and phrases in the text. Generally referencing only the first or most prominent occurrence from any given source, the
citations in bold text suggested a kind of readymade poetry. The poems in Notes on the Book were composed by transcribing
Petroski’s reference notes line by line, taking a few liberties with punctuation and capitalization, and assigning
Petroski’s chapter titles to the resultant twelve poems. As simple as they might appear to be as objects of construction
and conveyors of meaning, the poems, though modest in ambition and constrained by the method of composition, nevertheless
manage to be, I believe, curious, mysterious, and fascinating.
About the artist:
Daniel Olson (b. 1955) completed degrees in mathematics and architecture before obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts (1986)
from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Halifax) and a Master of Fine Arts (1995) from York University (Toronto).
His work – which includes sculpture, installation, multiples, photography, performance, audio, video and artist’s
books – has been exhibited widely since 1986. Olson has been living and working in Montreal since 2001. He is represented
by the Birch Libralato gallery in Toronto; many of his books and multiples are also available through Art Metropole.
Download preview of book here.
2 perfectbound volumes; each 568 pages, 6x9 inch. 2006.
$50
ISBN 0-9697368-4-3 (both volumes)
[edited by the press]
From the artist:
Marcel Proust is unable to comment on this critical edition of his work.
About the artist (from Wikipedia):
Marcel-Valentin-Louis-Eugène-Georges (July 10, 1871 – November 18, 1922) was a French intellectual, novelist,
essayist and critic, best known as the author of In Search of Lost Time (in French, À la recherche du
temps perdu), a monumental work of twentieth-century fiction consisting of seven volumes published from 1913 to 1927
(the last three volumes posthumously).
The son of well-to-do parents, Proust was born in Auteuil (the southern sector of Paris's then-rustic 16th arrondissement)
at the home of his great-uncle, two months after the Treaty of Frankfurt formally ended the Franco-Prussian War. His birth
took place during the violence that surrounded the suppression of the Paris Commune, and his childhood corresponds with
the consolidation of the French Third Republic. Much of In Search of Lost Time concerns the vast changes, most particularly
the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the middle classes, that occurred in France during the Third Republic and
the fin de siècle.
Download preview of book here.
1 perfectbound volume; 96 pages, 7.5 inch square trim. 2006.
$20
ISBN 0-9697368-2-7
From the artist:
I like maps. As a kid I drew them (usually leading to treasure I would find in places unknown). Now I use them constantly.
I’m the navigator in both familiar and unfamiliar cities studying plans daily and drawing where I’ve been.
This tracking reflects where I am, where I want to be, and the decisions I make about how to get there. It’s modest.
whereabouts contains scrawled notes tracking how I get to places throughout Toronto. There are words as cues listing places,
and scribbles reflecting failed beginnings. My sense of what is treasure has changed; the way I move through the city
is enough.
About the artist:
Sandra Rechico lives, works and draws in Toronto. She has been working with ideas around navigation and maps for the past
10 years. She has shown these projects in Australia, the Netherlands, Canada and USA. Rechico is an Assistant Professor
in the School of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Guelph.
Download preview of book here.
Selected Backlist
(images and more information on our backlist titles available here.)
For information on the book, please see here.
1 casebound volume printed on johannot paper, 32 pages, 15x12 cm trim. 2005.
$75
Edition of 100.
An extensive abridgement of Gibbon's text, restricted to the most specific and austere descriptions
of passing time (e.g., “three years, five months, and four days”).
Download preview of book here.
Laser on translucent paper, paperback bound in clamshell case, 670 pages, 28x36cm trim. 2005.
$1,500
Edition of 10.
A large compendium of phrases referring to periods of time from Gibbon's text, printed in place
where the fragments would have appeared had the entire text been reproduced.
Download preview of book here.
1 perfectbound volume; 128 pages, trim. 2003.
$20
Edition of 200.
Co-published by Silent Press and Burning Books, this book consists of a reproduction of the manuscript
of Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus with all the ‘text’ removed, leaving only Wittgenstein’s hand-written
corrections. (Also available is a large-scale hand-bound, fine-press edition of the book in an edition of ten for $1,500.)
Download preview of book here.
2 hardcover volumes bound in leather, each 1750+ pages, 22x28cm trim. 2000.
$3,000
Edition of 3.
Over five years in production, these two volumes are an extended analysis of the three Critiques
of Immanuel Kant. The first volume is all the letters, in alphabetical order, while the second volume consists of all
the punctuation in situ.
Download preview of volume 1 here.
Download preview of volume 2 here.
1 unbound volume, 1cm by 6.5 km trim. 1999.
n/a.
Unique edition.
A project undertaken in Paris in 1999, consisting of the entire text of Thomas Carlyle's History
of the French Revolution printed on a single strip of paper. Very long.
Other Prodcts
(we're branching out!)
15 greeting cards in an attractive [sic] box
$40 a set.
Unlimited edition.
Current projections suggest that every ten and a half minutes, somewhere on this planet, a species goes extinct.
Every 26 minutes, a book is published in Canada.
We‘re not making a link between these two figures, but we do have a series of fifteen mini-narratives which tell the story of extinctions from our recent past. We name names; we place blame. And we present them in the practical form of greeting cards, available now to you for your personal use.