The cleanest book.

Earlier this year Bill Stewart from Vamp & Tramp Booksellers came to Jackson Library and gave a wonderful presentation on art books. One of the books he brought with him is called Soap Story which consists of two packages wrapped in archival copies of pages from a 1950s woman's magazine. One package contains 6 cubes of soap that the reader is meant to wash with. Inside of each cube is a page of linen paper screen-printed with part of the story. The other package contains a blank album. The reader is instructed to dry and press the pages after they have been released from the soap cubes and insert them into the album to create the finished book.

Jackson Library purchased a copy to be housed in Special Collections and Audrey created yet another lovely custom clamshell enclosure for it. Somehow we managed to resist the urge to tear into the packaging and furiously wash our hands so we could read the story.

Soap Story by Angela Lorenz
Custom clamshell enclosure by Audrey Sage