Publisher's Synopsis
First published in 1923, "For The Voice" is seen to be one of the finest achievements of Russian avant-garde bookmaking, a tradition in which poets and artists collaborated to create books that attained the status of art objects. It is also a landmark event in the history of modern graphic design. The book was inspired by the "new optics", where ideas are given form through printed letters, turning them into pictorial signs, and by "words that are seen and not heard", as the avant-gardist El Lissitzky wrote. This three-volume slipcased set consists of a facsimile volume that is faithful in size, colour, weight and paper quality to the original; a translation by Peter France of the original text presented in graphic form by Martha Scotford; and "Voices of Revolution", a collection of critical essays edited by Patricia Railing that analyze the character and significance of the original publication and describe the inner workings of the poet's "construction in sound" complemented by the designer's "constructions for the eye".
