04/08/2026
Test prints for our upcoming recreation of the 1897 Archibald Constable first edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
The work follows two parallel paths:
1. Recreating the physical book
We are working to reproduce the original edition as closely as possible, including the correct dimensions, a similar text paper and endpapers, deckled page edges, the yellow cloth binding, and a suitable paper for the exceptionally rare first-edition dust jacket.
2. Restoring the interior
This long (and painstaking) process has been underway for several months. Every page is restored manually in Photoshop from high-resolution scans.
The exact method varies from page to page, and sometimes even within a single page, but generally involves:
1. Converting the scan to greyscale.
2. Adjusting levels to separate the text from the background without losing important detail.
3. Strengthening faded characters with the Burn tool at low exposure.
4. Extracting the text onto a separate layer.
5. Repairing broken letters with the Brush tool. In severe cases, characters from other pages are used to reconstruct words or sentences.
6. Adjusting minimum and maximum values to make the letters appear as consistent as possible.
7. Correcting the angle and skew of the text.
A page can take anywhere from five minutes to eight hours, with an average of around thirty minutes.
The goal is not to make the interior look like a modern book. Instead, we are cleaning and reconstructing the original printing to improve clarity and legibility while preserving its subtle irregularities, tonal variation, and printed character.
Throughout the process, we make test prints at the book’s actual finished size, like the pages shown here, to identify anything that should be corrected. Once restored, the complete book is rebuilt in InDesign.
A small preview of what we are working on at the moment. We look forward to sharing more in the coming weeks.
