IT HAPPENED HERE

Thornwillow Press

A convivial, social, and artistic history of old New York, as seen through the prism of one of its grandest hotels.

What do Salvador Dali, Alfred Hitchcock, and Diana Vreeland have in common? They all created, reveled, and rebelled at the St. Regis in New York City.

In this book’s pages, readers will visit the St. Regis suites of artist Salvador Dali, filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, and John Jacob Astor, among many other colorful figures. Here good taste met wild creativity, and more than a little eccentricity.

It Happened Here is the inaugural volume of The Thornwillow Libretto Library – a collection of exquisitely produced original works by some of the most exciting writers and creators of our time. Published by Thornwillow Press, the series has been underwritten by its patron, Montblanc.

As an era of electronic books begins, the Libretto Library is dedicated to the belief that physical books – tangible, aesthetically pleasing, letterpress printed and beautifully bound – have a new and even more important place in our lives: as repositories of permanence in an increasingly ephemeral world of letters.

Taking inspiration from the early works of Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press, The Yellow Book magazine, and the early days of The New Yorker, the editors of Thornwillow are creating a series of splendidly designed, letterpress printed books in sewn bindings. In addition to a 5,000 copy printing, It Happened Here and other Libretto volumes will also enjoy a special limited edition run of 150 leather-bound, signed and numbered copies for collectors.

The series regularly features the work of celebrated writers – both established greats and dazzling up-and-comers – of fiction and non-fiction, from prose to poetry. Please look for other Thornwillow Libretti by Peter Matthiessen, Adam Gopnik, Harry Belafonte, Jonathan Galassi, and other creative luminaries.