The Definitive Dwiggins no. 714—The 23rd Psalm

At the end of The Definitive Dwiggins no. 179, dedicated to two editions of The Ninety-First Psalm, I wrote that:

…Dwiggins struggled to sell his copies. Bartlett must have also had difficulty selling his edition since copies were still available for sale nine years later. Maybe the two men should have published The Twenty-Third Psalm instead.

The last line was an oblique reference to a November 11, 1909 entry in Dwiggins’ workbook regarding unspecified work on a “23rd Psalm booklet” for “AB (Alfred Bartlett). [1] The booklet is a mystery. No copies of it seem to exist. It is not mentioned in surviving copies of Bartlett’s catalogues. [2] And there is no reference to such a publication in contemporary magazines and newspapers. Did the project ever come to fruition?

I assume that the project was planned as a hand-lettered booklet in the same manner as both The Parable of the Prodigal Son and The Ninety-First Psalm; and that Bartlett might have seen it as a logical companion to the latter. I am hoping—probably in vain—that The 23rd Psalm was published and that a copy is languishing unrecognized somewhere.

Notes
1. See Folder 2, Box 81(1), 1974 W.A. Dwiggins Collection, Boston Public Library.
2. I have not located any Bartlett catalogues for the years 1910 and 1911.