I figured the next best thing to getting a drawing, was to see if David would sign the copies that I planned to rebind, and he agreed.

I told David about my plans and he loved the idea, but due to advancing age, his right hand had developed a tremor and he can no longer draw.Īs far as I could tell, the collecting community had not seen or heard from David in the context of the book for a very long time. I tracked him down, and was amazed to discover that he lived about 15 minutes from me! To cut a long story short, I made contact and we ended up becoming friends. I never would have thought that almost 30 years later I’d become friends with the artist, David Palladini.Īround the time I had the idea to rebind this book, I thought it would be great to see if David was still around and if he would be willing to do a drawing in the book. I remember back then while reading the book, how much I liked the artwork. There is so much more to share about this experience, but to stay on the topic of this project, I’ll save that for another time. Those years were some of the best years of my life, and I feel that if I had not discovered this book, that whole chapter may never have happened. It also inspired me to start a small mail order business specializing in science fiction, fantasy and horror, and this evolved into a retail bookstore.

It was this book that turned me into a fan and a collector. It was The Eyes of the Dragon and that is how I discovered Stephen King. Discovering Stephen Kingīack in 1987 when I was nineteen, I walked into a bookstore and one of the books on the shelf caught my attention. As it turned out, I received an enthusiastic response. Before I got too far into it, I had some prototypes made and decided to put the idea out to some Stephen King fans via the forum and see if anyone else was interested in getting a copy. After some time, I settled on a bookbinder who was enthusiastic about the project. I also had to come up with a way to do it that wouldn’t cost thousands, but was still unique and desirable. Basically something that might resemble dragon skin. The obvious choice was to go with a leather that is engraved with a reptilian pattern. I thought it would be fun to buy some copies of the 1st edition published by Viking in 1987 and rebind it. I procrastinated for months, then early in 2016 I got things started by contacting a few bookbinders with my ideas. For some time I have wanted to do something with The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King because the book has special meaning to me. Rebound books can range in cost from a few hundred to several thousand dollars for high-end designer bindings. When it comes to rebinding books, you are limited only by what you can imagine, and how much money you have to invest. I really admire and respect the work of hand bookbinders.

Eyes of the dragon book