The Five Books That....

 

 

I’ve started printing the new book and don’t really have much to share, so in the time-honored fashion of new media, here are some lists, all pertaining to fine press books & printing....

 

A. The five books to have if you are interested in contemporary handpress printing:

1. Printing with the Iron Handpress (Oak Knoll, 1998). Anyone who claims to be interested in “fine printing” should at least skim this book.

2. Printing with the Handpress (Allen Press, 1969). Get the original if you, not the facsimile, so you can actually see what you’re reading about.

3. On Printing (BCC, 1992)

4. The Technology of Hand Printing (Abattoir Editions, 1980)

5. The Officina Bodoni: The Operation of a Hand-press... (At The Sign of The Pegasus, 1929).

 

B. The five books to have that people will have never seen: 

1. Seven Pillars of Wisdom (US copyright edition) 

2. Agrippa – A Book of the Dead. 

3. The Earthly Paradise, that complete edition with all of Burne-Jones’ illustrations. 

4. Kafka: An Ancient Manuscript (Aliquando Press, 1997). There are two books in this list I own; this is one of them. 

5. William Everson’s “Baby” Psalter. I had the “complete” version for a few years (eventually sold with some of the proceeds used to acquire F.3, below), of which there were 48. I saw a baby listed in a catalogue once, but never since & never an actual copy. 

 

C. The five books I should have bought in 1995 so I could reap the capital gains now:  

1. Moby-Dick (Arion Press, 1979). There was a copy for $6,000 I seriously considered for about a minute that year, but it probably would have precluded the down payment for a house a few years later. 

2. Neuromancer (Gollancz). I had a choice between this true first (in the boring Gollancz yellow jacket) & the much flashier American first, a limited edition. Both same price. I live with the shame of my choice (but not the book, it left years ago). 

3. Just about anything from Kelmscott or Doves. 

4. Any of the signed books from Michael J. Thompson’s catalogue of unique William Hope Hodgson books. 

5. The facsimile edition of Stehen King’s My Pretty Pony, which were being remaindered all over the place.

D. Five books I had & wish I hadn’t sold (or sold too soon): 

1. Frankenstein (Pennyroyal, 1983). I found a sort-of cheap copy at Powell’s back when you could take in a few boxes of decent books and get a grand in trade. But the quarter leather binding was a problem: where the cloth overlaid the leather, the edge was left exposed & it would fray easily. Poor workmanship for an otherwise monumental book. 

2. The Man Who Died (Yolla Bolly Press, 1992). I must have had a fever. 

3. Tower of Babel (Janus Press, 1975). Another fever. Found for a pittance on the shelves of Powell’s, back in the pre-Internet days when the shelves were stuffed with treasure.   

4. Shadow Over Innsmouth (2002 edition). I traded my last copy away for my first deluxe Gehenna publication, which turned out to be a pretty commonly found book.  

5. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (UK first) truth be told, its endpapers had been renewed by the bookseller from whom I bought it. It was my first lesson in binding: he sliced the book out of its case, tipped new endpapers to the text block, then pasted them back into the case. I was agog.

E. The five books I should have not bought in 1995: 

1. Neuromancer (Phantasia Press, 1986). See above. One point, whether good or bad depends who in the family you ask: it was the first time I paid more than $100 for a book, and it took some time to talk myself into it. After that the flood gates opened... 

2. Typologia (U California Press, 1940; edition of 300 signed copies). I didn’t know it was supposed to have a (signed) colophon – these were early days for me. When I discovered the leaf had been sliced out, I contacted the (Seattle) bookseller – who’d priced it as if it were complete – but they told me to eat it. Unfortunately they’re still in business and their reputation has not improved. The book’s great but I wish I didn’t have a defective copy! 

3. (title withheld) I was still very new to printing & press books and was easily beguiled. This one was a very small edition, recently published, with etchings (yeah!), bound in a side-stab fashion between actual wood boards (completely inappropriate for the kind of paper used)... It was a learning experience. 

& etc. There were lots of others but most are long gone & forgotten.

 

F. If I could only keep five of the books on my shelves, they would be:

1. Printing with the Handpress 

2. The three Doves books in brown morocco: In Principio, Credo, and Laudes Creaturarum.

3. More Dark Than Shark (cloth edition, with print by Russell Mills). When I got the paperback version, in 1986, I noticed mention of a cloth version. That actually was one of my first instances of noticing not all books are equal.

4. An Essay on Typography (1931, Sheed & Ward). Even tho Gill was a despicable human, the content & production of this book are inspiring.

5. Zapf’s Civilité Disclosed (Gehenna, 1995). 

 

 

G. My five favorite HM books (in chronological order):

1. Iskandariya

2. XI LXImos

3. Aurora Teardrops

4. Pollard

5. Wither

5.1 Griffo

 

2015–2020 I had a good run.

H. The five books I hope to acquire in the next year:

No comment, but there aren’t five, just two.

 

Don’t take parts B thru F too seriously. Next month: maybe some images of the new project.

Everything Went Green

The 10 “boxed” copies of HM=XX were finally assembled & issued at the end of May. Each one contains between 35 and 40 loose sample leaves in printed folders, along with the book. If the source book wasn’t obvious a note was added in pencil.

The five copies issued in a slipcase were also finished. These contain an accompanying portfolio with eight loose samples, all from projects not included in the bibliography due to their ephemeral or hors commerce nature. I had fun painting the papers to cover the portfolios and slipcases – this project turned out to be much greener than had been my initial intent. As usual, things just started & then went in a direction.

I told someone that HM=XX had rid me of my fascination with press bibliographies. Despite that, I acquired two last month. Both had been on my want list for ages, and by coincidence copies appeared almost simultaneously.

Memorials of C.H.O. Daniel is neither uncommon nor expensive. It was printed in 1921 in an edition of 560 copies, many many many of which are for sale today. It includes a bibliography of his eponymous press, about which I know nothing because I haven’t read the book yet. Over a decade ago I saw a listing from (the very cool) Michael R. Thompson for a large-paper copy with extra samples, but it was gone by the time I inquired. Since then I’ve kept my eyes peeled but not until a few weeks did one appear. Which explains why I bought it despite being in boards that appear to have been chewed by rodents (the book itself is fine – that’s what bindings are for).

The collection of facsimile pages at the back were printed by collotype (cool) or letterpress. These large-paper copies were printed on A. Millbourn & Co. handmade paper, and include ten extra facsimiles and complete folded octavo sections from three of his books bound in. Cool! Plus it appears he did his printing with a handpress, so he must have been a good egg.

A possible Vale Press project has been orbiting for a few years, and as a result I’ve been looking for a copy of the bibliography. It’s online, and there’s a facsimile from the 1970s, but if your primary interest is printing, you need the original (as I explained to my accountant). So I got that too.

Ricketts’ style of ornamentation (= maximal) is not my scene, but I don’t find his work as heavy and intruding as Morris’. It was interesting to see that the bibliography’s title page incorporates the start of the text. This is something I did on Types Paper Print. I never imagined I was an original in doing this, but I hadn’t run into another example until now. I think I did it because it was the only way to make the text fit on the following three pages (i.e. typical HM laziness).

AND ANOTHER THING!

Here’s the lesson from HM=XX I offer to young printers: throw a copy of the title page from every book you publish in a file. I didn’t do that and wish I had.

Why Press Bibliographies?

When I was first getting interested in “fine printing,” press bibliographies became a particular interest because each one offered a variety of specimens from which I could learn about typography, printing and paper. I used to say that I started HM so that one day I could print my own bibliography. Unfortunately, now that the time has come, my interest in press bibliographies has waned somewhat. Apparently I’m not alone: last year a bookseller who knows what’s what told me press bibliographies are not in high demand, no matter how beautifully printed. Once again, my timing is perfect. Nonetheless, for several reasons, I’m pushing ahead with a bibliography of the five dozen books HM issued from 2000 to 2020, and it will come out next year. In hopes of reigniting my interest in the form, I took a tour of some of the press bibliographies on my shelves.... 

While not the first (private) press bibliography, the one against which all others are measured (& which most model themselves on, at least to some degree) is the Ashendene Press’s. It combined all the elements that made its books so highly regarded from the start, plus facsimile pages from various projects. (It’s important to note that these were resettings, not unused sheets from the actual edition.) In a sense, this combination of Ashendene types, printing, paper and binding, was a stand-in for an actual collection of the books it described. It also includes a selection of engravings and cuts from projects, and has a section on Graily Hewitt’s calligraphic contributions. 

 

My one complaint would be that the facsimile leaves from the larger books are folded and sideways, so the book (or your head) has to turn 90 degrees to look at them. I never like that in a book. But the only alternative would have been to make the bibliography larger, which would have posed other hassles.

Kelmscott issued a checklist, and Doves issued a (final) catalogue raisonné, both of which precede the Ashendene bibliography, but neither is as elaborate. I had a copy of the Kelmscott bibliography once, but it had been rebound, and done so badly I could not keep it. Imagine that Spanish fresco of Jesus that was “restored” a few years ago, and you’ll have an idea... The book itself is what the title claims, and an example of Kelmscott printing, but if you just need a reference, one of the facsimile editions will do fine. In some ways it might be the most modest Kelmscott book, perhaps appropriately so as the last. 

The Doves catalogue is more visually interesting, and more than just a description of the books published: it includes a brief farewell from C-S (Salve Aeternum), all of the 11 ephemeral parerga items (“a piece of work that is supplementary to or a byproduct of a larger work”) C-S published during the life of the press, and some of the publication announcements. 

 

My copy even came in a signed Doves binding (with terrifically acidic turn-ins). But if you really need a Doves bibliography to rely on, you need Tidcombe’s The Doves Press (2002). 

 

 

Whether Ashendene spurred an interest in more elaborate bibliographies I cannot say, but the next few decades saw most active private presses issue some kind of listing of their publications. The Grabhorn brothers arguably outdid Ashendene, with their three volumes (1940, 1956 and 1966), all large folios, all stuffed with sample leaves (not facsimiles). The recto in the opening below shows a leaf from Leaves of Grass in volume I. They also added incidental comments about projects, giving some insight to the design and printing processes. The only problem is you can’t have just one of the volumes, you need the set. Henry Morris also issued a series of bibliographies for his Bird & Bull Press. I’m not interested in serial publications, so I don’t have any of those. 

The next major press bibliography on my shelves is from the Allen Press (1981), which displays the various types used in its publications, comments from the printers, and sample leaves throughout. Like the Ashendene, as a representation of the press’s work, it was almost as good as having a collection on the shelf. 

 

The book was so engaging that in 1985 the Book Club of California published an almost exact facsimile (but updated with new publications), right down to the inserted sample leaves. It’s one of the BCC’s high points. Unfortunately, they were so enthusiastic that they printed 750 copies, which was far too many. Copies of the facsimile can be found at criminally low prices. Anyone with any interest in fine printing should get a copy. 

 

 

I once bought a copy in sheets, and spent a few years gathering additional original leaves, and then had it all bound up by Hélène Francoeur. It was monumental. I sold it to buy something else, probably one of Dard Hunter’s books.

 

After Ward Ritchie retired from commercial printing, he got a handpress and set up a private press, Laguna Verde Imprenta. In 1988 he published a catalogue of the 26 items he’d printed since 1975. The projects he chose to publish weren’t particularly interesting to me, but he’s an important person in 20th century American printing, and I like having the bibliography. That’s another advantage they offer: a press’s publishing may not be to your taste, but you can still admire the talent and skill in the productions, and enjoy having a sample on your shelf. 

 

 

Much of the appeal of Ritchie’s book for me is it having been printed (by him) on a handpress; his inking was a bit shaky, but he was clearly enjoying the opportunities to play that the press offers. 

 

Thomas Taylor issued (1993) an elegant bibliography of Gabriel Rummonds’s work at Plain Wrapper Press and Ex Ophidia, 300 copies printed on Superfine & issued in wraps, and 40 printed on Magnani and issued in a quarter vellum binding. The paper, typography, color, printing and binding of the special copies combine to achieve a result I envy. The color plates are beautiful, but I’d still have liked to have some original leaves. Gabriel himself issued sets of sheets; this may have been in conjunction with the Taylor bibliography, I don’t know, I’ve never seen a set or even a listing for one. I believe there were 40 sets issued, at a price of around $4,000.  

One press bibliography I do not have, and will not, is Yellow Barn’s. I’m sorry that’s the case because I admire Neil Shaver’s work, but the bibliography includes no sample leaves, and just doesn’t seem on par with his other publications. 

I have a copy of the Alembic Press’s bibliography (1989, above), which I guess I got cheap when I was buying any press bibliography I found. For all their interest in type and book history, Alembic’s printing really was atrocious, as the samples and original content in the book show. It also is an example of how sample leaves (or folios) should not be handled: the easiest way to stick a leaf into a book is to run a line of adhesive along the gutter edge and stick it on the page. This is defendable if there is nothing printed on the verso, but most leaves do have something on the verso, so you have to a force a fold into the leaf to see it! The appropriate technique is to hinge the leaf in. If it is close to the size of the book, the hinge can be incorporated to the sewing. If it’s notably smaller, the hinge can be used to mount the leaf on the page (see the two photos just below, from Officina Bodoni). Be alert for lazy leaves. 

Geoffrey Wakeman’s Plough Press issued a bibliography in 1982. My copy is the only one I’ve encountered, but there are another 119 out there. Wakeman wasn’t the greatest printer, but where technical deficiencies overshadow the Alembic effort, Wakeman’s exuberance, and the trove of samples folded & otherwise jammed in, make this an entertaining book. 

I could dispute my own lead to this post by pointing out that the Officina Bodoni’s The Operation of a Hand-Press During the First Six Years of its Work (1929) predates the Ashendene bibliography. You might consider a book chronicling the output of a press that was just six years old at the time audacious, but when you look at the quantity and quality of what was produced, you would shut up. 

 

My favorite part of the book is the sequence of woodcuts by Frans Masereel illustrating the printing of a book at the shop. The book was issued in English, German and Italian versions, all containing various samples (on sewn or mounted hinges). But where most press bibliographies are by definition backward looking, the OB book seems more like a statement of intent, so maybe my lead can stand. I found a copy in a beat-up case years ago, and somehow talked Claudia Cohen into rebinding it for me. A lovely job, no surprise. 

After Mardersteig’s death a comprehensive bibliography of the Officina Bodoni was issued, and copies can still be found very reasonably priced. One hundred copies were issued with a companion volume containing a selection of leaves, and that’s the one you want, especially if you’re a handpress fan. 

In conjunction with a series of exhibitions in 1992, the Bridwell Library issued a catalogue of Leonard Baskin’s Gehenna Press. It was conceived as a trade publication (2,000 copies), well designed by LB’s son Hosea, and printed offset at Oxbow Press. (They printed Baskin’s Hermaika, Gehenna’s only offset limited edition, and not a great success, a result of collectors’ bias against offset, even though it was the best medium to produce that particular book, just as it was the best choice for this one: it is full of color reproductions of pages and prints.) Again, no sample pages, but that can be fixed by finding your own to salt in. 

 

Fifty copies were specially bound at David Bourbeau’s Thistle Bindery, printed on a lovely Magnani sheet, with an extra section of Gehenna press marks printed by Art Larson added. These copies come close to the feel of a Gehenna publication. Where Gehenna bindings favored leather and paste papers, Bourbeau uses a simple heavy handmade paper over boards with some gilt tooling to achieve an elegant harmony with Gehenna publications. Some kind of supplement needs to be published, covering the years between this catalogue and Baskin’s death in 2000. If the family’s interested, please call!

 

It will be no surprise that the HM handpress library includes a copy of Printing & the Mind of Merker, covering Kim Merker’s career with a handpress. Most of his publications are exactly the kinds of things I’m not interested in, but I admire his work, so a bibliography is the perfect sample to have on my shelves. Unfortunately the book looks and feels like a commercial catalogue (it was part of an exhibition mounted by the Grolier Club, in 1997), printed offset on a very smooth paper. Unlike the Gehenna catalogue, it doesn’t capture the spirit of Merker’s (letterpress) books. But the production and edition size (500 copies) reflect the interest in his work, which can only be counted to his credit. (Fifty [not very] special copies were issued with sample leaves, and this is the state handpress fans would want, but it still looks and feels like an exhibition catalogue.) 

 

The particular joy of this book is the comments about each project that compiler Sidney Berger wrangled from Merker: it’s these kinds of inside-baseball details about design decisions and technical issues that will appeal to students of the book arts. Most bibliographies include these kinds of appended comments, some more than others, and they are what raise a simple list of books published, to a rich history of a press’s work. Word of advice to printers thinking of maybe one day issuing a bibliography: make these insightful, rueful and/or confessional notes when the project is just wrapping up: don’t count on remembering any of it when the time comes to compile everything. Do as I say, not as I didn’t do...

 

AND ANOTHER THING!

 

An omission from last month’s post about printing on vellum: I was certain I had a pamphlet on the subject from Paul Nash’s Strawberry Press, but find it I could not, and I even started thinking I’d imagined it. Then it popped out with Making a Book at the Officina Bodoni. Good luck tracking a copy down, and don’t dither if you see a one. 

Handpress Library #9: Vellum

When someone starts getting interested in letterpress and fine printing, they pretty soon become enamoured with the idea of printing on vellum. Much of the attraction is down to the mystique of vellum* – its cost and related scarcity, and its tactile qualities. Depending how much knowledge acolytes have acquired, they may also appreciate the difficulty of printing on vellum, and the sheer terror fear of wasting a skin with a bad impression. 

I have no idea where one could acquire vellum appropriate for printing these days, and don’t want to know how much a sufficient quantity for even one copy of a book would cost. I guess I’d ask a calligrapher. Vellum suitable for binding is expensive enough, and the kind suitable for printing is much finer. 

 

Printing a few copies of a book on vellum has been part of printing since the first Gutenberg Bible, presumably a sop to patrons with libraries full of manuscripts. In the early days of the fine press revival, copies on vellum were the cream of the cream. In 1977 the Bridwell Library boasted of having secured copies of the so-called fine press Triple Crown – the Ashendene Dante, the Doves Bibles, and the Kelmscott Chaucer – all printed on vellum. The practice dwindled as the century progressed; in this list of known publications on vellum printed in the United States, you can see the gap between the 1950s and '80s. Of the three American presses listed in that revival, if it can be called that, the Petrarch was the most ambitious. That imprint was started by Peter Bishop in 1985 and published eight titles over the next decade, all printed with a handpress. The imprint was revived after Bishop’s death in 2002, and has continued to print a few copies of each title on vellum (i.e. parchment; I won’t address that distinction here...). 

 

All of which brings us to the latest instalment in the Handpress Library: Petrarch Press’ 1989 edition of Epictetus’ Enchiridion, printed on vellum (i.e. sheep skin parchment). The printing is enviously consistent and wonderfully black without being over-inked. The leaves may be slightly more transparent than ideal, but not to the point of distraction. The edition was 160 copies, eight on parchment, mine elegantly bound in brown goat with just the title tooled on the spine.

 

I don’t think this was the first book on vellum I owned: that would have been the De La More Press’ edition of The Prince. I bought it from a catalogue (i.e. sight unseen) in the late ’90s, for about $1,000, which would have been a lot of money for me, but I was in the new-to-printing, beguiled-by-vellum stage. It wasn’t really that lovely. If I recall correctly, the type looked over-inked (De La More was one of those quasi fine presses, like Nonesuch, which claimed to combine fine-printing ideals with commercial methods; I'm sure The Prince’s edition of 1,040 copies was not printed on a handpress, which accounts for the indifferent result). The vellum-over-boards binding was inelegant, and the black lettering on the spine just looked cheap. Plus, my copy arrived with a busted spine, which robbed much of the joy. I used it to acquire something more interesting within a few years. But I didn’t get eight grand in trade!

One question I’ve never answered unequivocally is whether printers dampened vellum before printing, as they would (should) paper. Anyone familiar with vellum knows how it reacts to the slightest change in humidity, so I’m not sure how one would dampen a skin, or if it even helps the impression (as it greatly does with paper). Rummonds, our best contemporary resource for letterpress questions, offers just a page and a half on the subject, and gives most of that to the Kelmscott pressroom overseer: place a skin between (not very) damp blotters for 30 – 45 seconds immediately before printing. The chapter’s unspoken sentiment seems to be, you’re on your own, good luck. 

Robert Baris’ Wind & Harlot Press issued a pamphlet on the subject in 1976 (25 copies, re-printed as a miniature in 1992, 23 copies), printing an exchange of letters between D.B. Updike and St. John Hornby in which the latter reported he printed his vellum dry. 

In the end, the appeal of printing on vellum comes down to decadence, which on its own isn’t that interesting, and is why my interest in books printed on vellum has been attenuated. For the premium placed on a vellum copy, I’d as soon have one printed on good paper and the extra money in my pocket. The closest I’ve come to printing on vellum is Reg Lissel’s vellum paper, made from over-beaten abaca. It’s remarkably similar to vellum in feel and toughness. I used the quick damping between blotters technique, and significantly more impression than would have been required for a rag sheet of comparable weight. If I was presented with a stack of vellum sheets, I don’t know that printing on them would be my first inclination. I’d be more likely to have a calligrapher do something lovely, and tip a sheet into copies of a book. 

* The Mystique of Vellum is the title of Richard Bigus’ bible on the subject, published by Bromer Booksellers in 1984. Copies can still be had, at not much beyond publication price, and each one includes a sheet printed on vellum (shown at top of this post). The April 1987 issue of Fine Print has a fascinating article about binding the 12 copies of Mystique that were printed on vellum, which discusses the challenges of working with vellum quires, and underscores the importance for printers to consult with their binder before production starts. 

 

AND ANOTHER THING!

I forgot to include one of Will Rueter’s publications in last month’s post about printing Bewick’s wood engravings: A Brief Description of His Method of Engraving on Wood, Taken from His Memoir, c.1827. Edition of 100 copies published in 1978, a single signature sewn in wraps. Not sure what the two blocks included are from, probably metal cuts, he’d have mentioned if they were original blocks. Beautifully printed on mulberry paper. 

 

GOT AGRIPPA?

 

Justine Provino, a graduate student at Cambridge, is working on a thesis about Agrippa (A Book of the Dead), including a census of known copies. If you have one, or know where one is, send her a note: agrippa[at]english.cam.ac.uk