Third Edition of Alec Soth’s “Sleeping by the Mississippi” to be Released
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Steidl is yet to reveal a third incarnation of Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Missisippi and the potential designs (above) look very promising.
While I never got my hands on the first edition – a huge mistake for the “book collector” in me as a signed copy is now selling for $1,500 – I do have a signed copy of the second edition on my shelf but have always been unimpressed with the feel of the book compared to the previous edition, in part because I’m a lover of cloth covers. This new edition, however, seems to have it all.
If you’re interested, you can pre-order a copy for yourself here or get it directly through Steidl. I believe it’s set to arrive in June.
Popularity: 35% [?]
April 26th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I was lucky enough to be in Paris last week and went to the Jeu de Paume to see the Alec Soth exhibition mounted there. They had copies of the the Steidl third edition of “Sleeping by the Mississippi on display and for sale. The one you have pictured on the right is the final version. It looks nice and the Amazon price is a bargain for a book that (1) will probably sell out again and (2) costs more than $60 in Europe.
Besides prints from SbtM, “Niagara,” “Dog Days Bogota,” “Fashion Magazine,” and Soth’s portrait projects, the Jeu de Paume also has on display maquettes, dummies, and finished editions of SbtM, Niagara, and DDB. I still love the look of the original SbtM cover best, but i’ll give Steidl credit for using the heart-shaped towel construction for the cover image of Niagara rather than the somber image that was on the cover of the dummy first edition.
Also, all of the DDB photos were pigment inkjet prints. Even though they were printed on lustre paper they looked surprisingly flat.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Good looking out! I just figured I was destined to never own a book by Alec Soth. As much as I love his work, I haven’t been able to get my hands on one of his books. Well, no more of that; I just pre-ordered a copy of Sleeping by the Mississippi over at Amazon. Thanks.