Ninety from the Nineties: A Decade of Printing was an exhibition held at the New York Public Library

New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...

 from November 7, 2003 through May 28, 2004.

Ninety from the Nineties showcased a selection of ninety books made in the 1990s that were chosen on the merit of book arts. Note that the books were not necessarily written in the 1990s; some were older texts that were used to make special books in the 1990s. And, the books were not selected on literary merit.

In a contemporary review, The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

described the concept of the selection like this: "books, which we are accustomed to thinking of as containers — and conveyers — of information, are placed in a context in which form is valued over content. Language is less important than the type that impresses it on the page. The paper counts for more than the story told on it. The illustrations and the binding might be the story."

The books were divided into five categories: binding

Bookbinding

Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...

, paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

, type

Typography

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...

, illustration

Illustration

An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...

 and "inspiration." The exhibition was curated by Virginia Bartow.

Books in the exhibition

Following is a list of the ninety books selected and shown in the exhibition. The source for this list is the exhibition catalogue.

Number	Section	Book title	Author	Press	Year
1	Binding	Bon Bon Mots	Julie Chen
2	Binding	Doubly Bound: A Tool Kit [and] a Tackle Box	Diane Fine and Tracy Honn
3	Binding	Howards and Hoovers	Indigo Som
4	Binding	The Innocents Abroad	Mark Twain Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
5	Binding	The True Collector	Frederic Postman and Bonnie Stone
6	Binding	Baucis and Philemon from Ovid's Metamorphoses	Lois Morrison
7	Binding	Tea: Time in Korea	Greta D. Silbey
8	Binding	Phantasies of a Love Thief	Bilhana Bilhana Bilhana Kavi was an 11th-century Kashmiri poet. He is known for his love poem, the Caurapâñcâśikâ.According to legend, the Brahman Bilhana fell in love with the daughter of King Madanabhirama, Princess Yaminipurnatilaka, and had a secretive love affair. They were discovered, and Bilhana was thrown...
9	Binding	Where I Live: Environments	Jim Gelfand
10	Binding	The Blues and Jives of Dr. Hepcat	Alan B. Govenar
11	Binding	New World Saints	—
12	Binding	Exquisite Horse: A Printer's Corpse	—
13	Binding	Rush Job	—
14	Binding	Vorkuta Poems	Sara Karig
15	Binding	The Dam Domino Book	Carol Schatt
16	Binding	Anatomy	Alice Jones
17	Binding	She Pushes with Her Hands	Dale Going
18	Binding	Kokopelli	Terry Horrigan
19	Binding	Voyelles	Arthur Rimbaud Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
20	Binding	In Praise of Patterned Papers	—
21	Paper	Dard Hunter Dard Hunter William Joseph "Dard" Hunter was an American authority on printing, paper, and papermaking—especially by hand, using the tools and craft of four centuries prior...  & Son	Dard Hunter II and Dard Hunter III
22	Paper	Fine Papers at the Oxford University Press Oxford University Press Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...	John Bidwell
23	Paper	Song of Changes	Adrian Frutiger Adrian Frutiger Adrian Frutiger is one of the prominent typeface designers of the 20th century, who continues to influence the direction of digital typography in the 21st century; he is best known for creating the typefaces Univers and Frutiger.-Early life:Adrian Frutiger was born in Unterseen, Canton of Bern, as...
24	Paper	The Lady Who Liked Clean Rest Rooms	J. P. Donleavy
25	Paper	The Pool	Toby Olson
26	Type	Portraits of Presses of Fleece	—
27	Type	Gifts of the Leaves	Dan Carr
28	Type	LETTERpressworkBOOK	James Trissel
29	Type	A Printer's Dozen: Eleven Spreads from Unrealised Books	Sebastian Carter
30	Type	She Who Saw with Her Heart	Roni Gross
31	Type	Zapf Hermann Zapf Hermann Zapf is a German typeface designer who lives in Darmstadt, Germany. He is married to calligrapher and typeface designer Gudrun Zapf von Hesse.... 's Civilite Disclosed	Leonard Baskin
32	Type	Rex Reason, elements	Simon Patterson
33	Type	Prove Before Laying	Johanna Drucker Johanna Drucker Johanna Drucker is an author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital aesthetics...
34	Type	Bad News	Lynne Tillman
35	Type	Le Roi	Francois da Ros
36	Type	The Architetextures	Nathaniel Tarn
37	Type	Specimens of Wood Type Held at the Alembic Press	Alembic Press
38	Type	Ten Sonnets	John Keats John Keats John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
39	Type	Twenty-three Poems from the French of Max Jacob	Max Jacob
40	Type	Odes	Horace Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
41	Type	Keeping Going	Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...
42	Type	Loaded References (2)	Champe Smith
43	Type	Ornamented Types	—
44	Type	Poetry through Typography	—
45	Type	The Officina Bodoni and the Stamperia Valdonega	Grolier Club
46	Type	The Old-fashioned Snow	May Sarton
47	Type	Lin He-jing	Pu Lin
48	Type	A Printer's Dozen	Philip Gallo
49	Type	Die Ringparabel	Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
50	Type	The Steadfast Tin Soldier of Joh	Ernst Braches
51	Type	The Six-cornered Snowflake	John Frederick Nims John Frederick Nims John Frederick Nims was an American poet and academic.-Life:He graduated from DePaul University, University of Notre Dame with an M.A., and from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. in 1945.He published reviews of the works by Robert Lowell and W. S. Merwin...
52	Type	Acts of Devotion	William Bronk
53	Type	Within the Walls	H. D.
54	Type	Late Fire, Late Snow: New and Uncollected Poems	Robert Francis
55	Type	Poems for the New Century	—
56	Type	The Valentine Elegies	Tess Gallagher
57	Type	Night Lake	Jean Valentine
58	Type	Song of the Andoumboulou: 18–20	Nathaniel Mackey
59	Type	Le chevallier Tondal: Gloss Written by the Fall(en) Typography Students	—
60	Type	Deborah, One of the Earliest Heroic Epics	Elaine Galen
61	Type	The Book of Revelation	—
62	Illustration	Wood Engravings	June Paris
63	Illustration	Phisicke against Fortune	Francesco Petrarca
64	Illustration	Waterfalls of the Mississippi	Richard Frey Arey
65	Illustration	Ein Nilpferd in New York	Anke-Sophie Mey
66	Illustration	Towers	David Moyer
67	Illustration	Trout & Bass	—
68	Illustration	Mr. Derrick Harris, 1919-1960	Simon Brett
69	Illustration	The Players and Paradigms of the Commedia Dell' Arte	Russell Maret
70	Illustration	North Pacific Lands & Waters	Gary Snyder
71	Illustration	Buddha's Bowl: A Dreamed Folktale	Alisa J. Golden
72	Illustration	John De Pol: A Celebration of His Work by Many Hands	—
73	Illustration	A Canticle to the Waterbirds	William Everson William Everson William Everson , also known as Brother Antoninus, was an American poet of the San Francisco Renaissance and was also a literary critic and small press printer.-Beginnings:Everson was born in Sacramento, California...
74	Illustration	A Canticle to the Waterbirds	William Everson William Everson William Everson , also known as Brother Antoninus, was an American poet of the San Francisco Renaissance and was also a literary critic and small press printer.-Beginnings:Everson was born in Sacramento, California...
75	Illustration	The Bread of Days	—
76	Illustration	36 Drawings	Sarah Peter
77	Illustration	Pochoir	Vance Gerry
78	Illustration	Das Mittagsmahl = Il Pranzo	Christian Morgenstern
79	Illustration	One-handed Basket Weaving	Maulana Jalal Al-Din Rumi
80	Illustration	Palms	John Ridland
81	Illustration	Gleichmass der Unruhe	—
82	Inspiration	David Jackson David Noyes Jackson David Noyes Jackson was the life partner of poet James Merrill . A writer and artist, Jackson is remembered today primarily for his literary collaboration with Merrill.... : Scenes from His Life	David Jackson David Noyes Jackson David Noyes Jackson was the life partner of poet James Merrill . A writer and artist, Jackson is remembered today primarily for his literary collaboration with Merrill....  and James Merrill James Merrill James Ingram Merrill was an American poet whose awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Divine Comedies...
83	Inspiration	All My Relations	Susan Lowdermilk
84	Inspiration	Aliens in the Big Apple	Zofia Zaremba
85	Inspiration	As from a Fleece	Gael Turnbull
86	Inspiration	Agrippa Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) Agrippa is a work of art created by speculative fiction novelist William Gibson, artist Dennis Ashbaugh and publisher Kevin Begos Jr. in 1992. The work consists of a 300-line semi-autobiographical electronic poem by Gibson, embedded in an artist's book by Ashbaugh. Gibson's text focused on the...	William Gibson William Gibson William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
87	Inspiration	Batterers	Denise Levertov
88	Inspiration	The Red Ozier: A Literary Fine Press	Michael Peich
89	Inspiration	Cartesian Dreams	Judith Mohns and Francois Deschamps
90	Inspiration	Notebook Used Along the New Jersey Coast	Walt Whitman Walt Whitman Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...

External links

• Books as Art Objects (Reading Is Optional). Michael Frank, The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  , January 2, 2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/02/arts/design/02NINE.html?ex=1388379600&en=918e6e70b9c64e02&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
• Ninety from the Nineties Showcases a Decade of The New York Public Library’s Contemporary Rare Books Acquisitions, www.nypl.org http://www.nypl.org/press/2003/nineties.cfm