Claire Van Vliet established the Janus Press, one of the country's most creative private presses, in 1955, at West Burke, Vermont. Over the past fifty years, the Press has become known for its harmoniously balanced textual and visual elements, as well as for the careful consideration of inks, complex bindings, papers, boxmaking, and typography. Lilac Wind consists of a single printed sheet in which the illustration is integral to the paper itself, produced by the "painted papers" technique. The text poem by W.R. Johnson was printed on a pulp painting made by Van Vliet with Kathryn Clark, rendering each of the 150 copies unique. The Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds a complete collection of the books and ephemera produced by the Janus Press.