Estimated to Ship Summer 2027
Limited to 60 Copies
Over Half Sold
Photos shown are of the binding prototype. Blank spreads are included to show thread at each signature. Layout pages are included to show interior spreads.
Originally collected in the short story collection Men Without Women, "The Killers" is the second title published under the Apertio imprint of Copperhead Press. It pairs Ernest Hemingway's taut, hardboiled short story with new original linocuts and newly commissioned critical commentary in a fully letterpress printed fine press edition.
The Story
Set in Summit, Illinois, against the skyline of Al Capone's Chicago, "The Killers" follows Nick Adams, a young man who appears throughout Hemingway's early fiction as a version of the author's own youth. When two hired men walk into Henry's lunch-room and take over the kitchen, Nick is thrust into a world of violence and moral compromise he did not choose and cannot undo. As Michael Von Cannon writes in his foreword, the story unfolds with the atmosphere of film noir. But as the newly commissioned commentary in this edition makes clear, the men who walk through the door are not where the story's real danger lies. The titular killers, as Mark Cirino argues in his afterword, are not who they first appear to be.
From the Publisher
I chose "The Killers" because I feel it's among the finest concentrated examples of Hemingway's iceberg theory in his short fiction: a tight, contained story where everything that matters happens beneath the surface. It has been adapted for the big screen twice, a testament to how much tension Hemingway packed into so few pages. Read quickly, it can seem like little more than a diner holdup. Read closely, with the guidance of the newly commissioned commentary included in this edition, it becomes something else entirely.
It is a fitting title for the Apertio line, which in this edition, gives a single story the attention it deserves.
The Edition
Each copy is bound in the Bradel style, in black suede cloth over dark red two-tone Japanese bookcloth boards, with a new linocut by Samuel Thomson of Hemingway at his typewriter featured on the cover. Three original linocuts, letterpress printed directly onto the page, appear throughout the text, with a smaller linocut icon by the same artist featured on the title page.
Each copy is housed in a slipcase made from heavy gauge bookboard in matching Japanese bookcloth.
Edition Details
- Limited to 60 Copies
- Bradel binding in black suede cloth over Japanese bookcloth boards
- A total of 5 original linocuts by Samuel Thomson, including a cover linocut of Hemingway at his typewriter and a title-page icon
- Black Bugra paper endpapers
- Hand-sewn with burgundy thread
- New foreword by Michael Von Cannon
- New afterword by Mark Cirino
- Letterpress printed on cotton Lettra paper
- Story text in Arno Pro, size 14; Commentary in Arno Pro, size 13
- Printed by The Mandate Press, Utah, on a Heidelberg Windmill press
- 48 pages (43 pages of content)
- Cloth covered slipcase measuring 10 3/4" tall x 7 1/2" wide
- Designed and made by hand by Chaz & Katie Ross, Copperhead Press
A Note on Edition Size
This edition is limited to 60 copies, though we're open to producing more if collector demand calls for it. Forty-eight collectors already hold rights to this title through prior purchases. We won't be printing hundreds of copies — at a certain point we'll set a final number and stop, to keep this a genuinely limited press run.
Potential Set of Prints
We're considering releasing the linocut prints from this edition as a separate set. If that's something you'd like to see, please let us know. If there's enough interest, we'll work with the artist to make arrangements for printing them. Should the prints go forward, everyone who purchases a copy of this edition will receive a discount on the set.
Sold with Rights
Purchasing Apertio II reserves your place as a rights holder for the next Apertio release, guaranteeing early access to upcoming titles. Purchasers also receive an early preorder window for Dubliners, the inaugural title of Copperhead Press's Votum imprint, ahead of the edition opening to the public.
