The "Argosy" Press
The historical record has been generous enough to leave open those inverted quotation marks for further speculation. “Argosy” (thru a shift in spelling): from “Ragusa” (1358-1808), the Italian name for the port city that is now Dubrovnik, Croatia. Over time, “Ragusa” was modified into “ragusea,” a noun for the laden merchant ships (a fleet of argosies) that sailed from that port in medieval days. Hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis.[1] An 1865 literary journal. From 1880 in Demerara, British Guiana, the “Argosy” served from time to time as printer, publisher, stationer, bookseller, newspaper and at present a general store on Regent Street, Georgetown. Where an argosy then is a rich store, a cornucopia, The “Argosy” Press aims to be a variorum of the new world.
The “Argosy” Press is dedicated to expanding the spatial and conceptual geography of the New World from the perspective of another history of Gu*ana.
Our publishing agenda fosters open access to freedom of – not of I or we, not love or revenge, jealousy or guilt, etc.[2], but of an I&I standing (eye to eye) in dread.
The machine isn’t purring, life isn’t crooning and the tuning fork is speaking in tongues. That is the sound of The “Argosy” Press.
Notes:
- The Merchant of Venice. [III. 1]
- On revenge, see for instance, Simone de Beauvoir’s “Eye for an Eye” (1946).