A large-format book with a visible chain of custody
Every beautiful page must be able to answer: what is this, where did it come from, and how should it be printed?
12 × 12 in trim
Square, full-bleed plates where possible; generous caption margins; casebound or layflat binding; warm uncoated stock for text and botanical work.
Plate-led rhythm
Sixteen anchor plates divide the six books. Each image is marked as house interpretation, sourced history, reconstruction, or analytical diagram.
Web proof → print proof
Current raster assets are approved for composition and captioning. Final prepress export must confirm resolution, bleed, color profile, and paper simulation.
The complete sequence
The Potion · 04–18
Invocation, four potions, bottle, spoon, water, color, and the Green Hour model chapter.
The Green Goddess · 19–52
Wormwood, competing origins, industrial history, café culture, prohibition, and revival.
The Garden · 53–78
Plant identity, Monument growing conditions, whole-plant plates, harvest, drying, and storage.
The Invisible Mechanism · 79–118
Louche, anethole, oil–water behavior, analytical testing, thujone, and psychoactive interpretation.
The Cultural Atmosphere · 119–148
Art, literature, music, Revelation, Crowley, the Green Muse, and the ethics of interpretation.
The Workbench · 149–200
Garden-to-bottle records, formula cards, rituals, shared table, index, sources, and return.
Every image has a job
Frontispiece
Asset: book-of-potions-frontispiece.png · Type: house interpretation · Caption: glass, plant, apparatus, sky, and star.
Four potions
Asset: four-potion-anchor-plate.png · Type: house interpretation · Caption: Verte, Bleue, Detour, and Crimson as a family.
Louche sequence
Asset: louche-sequence-plate.png · Type: explanatory house plate · Caption: clear spirit through full cloud.
The second color
Asset: louche-sequence-plate.png · Type: chapter service plate · Caption: visual study paired with the Green Hour bench record.
Origin and wormwood
Asset: history-origin.png · Type: historical house illustration · Caption: contested origin story and plant memory.
The café becomes a theater
Asset: history-belle-epoque.png · Type: historical house illustration · Caption: fountain, spoon, café, and social ritual.
Revival and return
Asset: history-revival.png · Type: historical house illustration · Caption: modern revival as reconstruction.
Object and prohibition
Asset: green-dragon-sword.png · Type: commissioned object plate · Caption: house mythology and chosen danger, clearly marked as interpretation.
Wormwood whole plant
Asset: wormwood-botanical-plate.png · Type: original botanical house plate · Alt text: whole flowering plant, roots, leaves, flowers, and alpine contour lines.
Absinthe Garden
Asset: monument-absinthe-garden-plate.png · Type: original landscape house plate · Alt text: high-plains beds, containers, drying racks, frost cloth, herbs, and mountains.
The louche mechanism
Asset: louche-mechanism-plate.png · Type: explanatory house plate · Caption: water, droplets, light, and cloud; not a pharmacological diagram.
Color and evidence
Asset: revelation-wormwood.png · Type: symbolic house plate · Caption: color and inherited myth must be separated from chemical evidence.
The Green Muse
Asset: art-literature-hero.png · Type: cultural house illustration · Caption: café, literary, and visual atmosphere.
Revelation and apsinthos
Asset: revelation-wormwood.png · Type: symbolic house plate · Caption: interpretation, not proof of altered state.
The laboratory bench
Asset: laboratory-bench-plate.png · Type: original explanatory house plate · Alt text: alembic, glass vessels, balance, botanicals, sample vials, and notebook.
The shared table
Asset: shared-table-return-plate.png · Type: original closing house plate · Alt text: four colored glasses, water, bread, food, notebook, separate unlit candle, and mountain dusk.
Before export
- Caption identifies subject and image status.
- Alt text describes what is visibly present.
- Historical claims link to a source.
- House interpretation is labeled as interpretation.
- Scientific diagrams state what they do not prove.
- Crop preserves plant, glass, apparatus, or object identity.
Before print proof
- Confirm 12 × 12 in trim, bleed, and safe caption margins.
- Convert final images to the printer’s color profile.
- Confirm effective resolution at placed size.
- Check folio numbers and plate references against this manifest.
- Inspect dark green shadow detail and louche yellow separation.
- Proof uncoated stock before approving full run.
The outline now has connective images
Archive map
Asset: archive-map-plate.png · contested routes from alpine plant to café market.
Garden calendar
Asset: garden-calendar-plate.png · seed, harvest, drying, and winter in Monument.
Molecule and louche atlas
Asset: molecule-evidence-atlas-plate.png · oil, water, droplets, light, and evidence boundaries.
Cultural atmosphere
Asset: cultural-atmosphere-plate.png · café, literature, music, and the Green Muse as interpretation.
Status
85-page outline proof
The expanded 12 × 12 PDF follows the developed six-book outline and carries the manuscript, room pages, plates, captions, rituals, and source apparatus into a real page sequence. The final gate is physical prepress: resolution, color, bleed, paper, and page-turn proof.