Shelf Life – The Psalm Book of Charles Knowles

This beautiful book was created by Charles Knowles when he was just 17 years old. Unfortunately, he suffered throughout his short life with an incurable disease, chronic nephritis. During his three years at the Putney School in Vermont his creativity blossomed. He selected eight of his favorite psalms, set all the type by hand, and cut wood engravings to illustrate each passage. He selected different colors of paper and ink for each illustration and printed 10 signed and numbered prints on a hand press. Tragically, less than a year later at eighteen, he was dead. The book you see here is a facsimile of the original limited edition book. It was printed by The Pinnacle Press, jointly with The Viking Press in 1962 in New York. Browsing through these great layouts, it’s saddening to think of the loss of an obviously great emerging artist.