About the cover:

Full-grain binding White, all-tanned pigskin (from the order of 1,800 skins for the special production of the 1,500 facsimile volumes of the Book of Kells), five bands, lines and dot scroll embossing on both covers and spine, gilt-stamped spine title in the second band, punched silver head edge, two-colour hand-stitched endpapers, endpapers purple Ingres.

About the content:

Frédéric Mistral: Mireille (Mirèio)

Verse epic in 12 songs

Librairie Alphonse Lemerre, Paris 1930 In 1859, Frédéric Mistral (1830-1914), an advocate of the Provençal language, published his most important work, Mirèio, which tells the story of a rich farmer's daughter who fights for her love with a poor basket weaver and goes on a journey in search of divine support. This work, which touches on motifs from the Joan of Arc myth as well as numerous references to Provençal village themes of past centuries, was honoured by the Académie Fran-çaise and established Mistral's reputation. Mistral was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1904.

About the artist: Ernst Frehner completed his apprenticeship as a bookbinder in Herisau in 1962. This was followed by further training courses in hand-weaving with Henning-sen in Zurich, in the industrial sector with Alfred Furler and Hans Widmer in Basel, and in paper restoration with Karl Trobas in Graz. He passed his master craftsman's examination in 1969. In 1971 he started as head of the craft workshop at the former Burkhardt AG bookbindery in Zurich, now Bubu AG in Mönchaltorf. He held this position until his retirement in 2004, winning gold and silver medals in MfB competitions in 1984 and 1996.

During his time at Bubu, he trained a total of 25 young people as manual bookbinders.