Private press books served as
the topic for the January 2019 meeting, exploring the artistic and intrinsic
quality of fine press books and the regional focus, narrow specialization, and
niche genres of small press books. While
fine and small presses have different definitions, the two are not mutually
exclusive as many fine books' publishers are also small press publishers. Even though this blog uses the two categories
for organizational purposes, several of the fine press books were produced by
small press publishers.
Fine press books often describe
the typography and printing methods used in the production of its books and may
even detail the paper and other materials used in printing and binding the
books. This information is common in
most limited-edition books. Examples of such
typography detail are shown in several of the limited editions shown this month,
as indicated on either a limitation or copyright page.
Fine Press Books
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| Title Page, The Song of Songs |
Authorized Version. The Song
of Songs, Called by Many the Canticle of Canticles, Printed and Published at
the Golden Cockerel Press at Waltham St. Lawrence in Berkshire in the Year
MCMXXV. Waltham St. Lawrence,
England: Golden Cockerel Press, 1925. The
colophon reads: “This book was printed by Robert Gibbings at the Golden
Cockerel Press and Completed on the XVII. day of October MCMXXV. The illustrations have been designed and
engraved on wood by Eric Gill. Compositors:
F. Young and A. H. Gibbs. Pressman: A.
C. Cooper. The Edition is limited to
seven hundred and fifty numbered copies, of which this is No. 548.” The Golden Cockerel Press was one of the
greatest fine presses of the twentieth century. In 1925, the press had just been taken over by
Robert Gibbings (1889-1958), and Song of
Songs was one of the first books published by him. Eric Gill (1882-1940) is one of the twentieth century’s
greatest typographers and illustrators, be it via stone carving or wood
engraving. He provided specially
designed typefaces for Golden Cockerel Press and also illustrated a number of
their books.
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| First illustration and first page, The Song of Songs |
Chris Adamson, posted
on BooksAndVines.com, January 11, 2012:
One quick look through the
Golden Cockerel Press edition of The Song
of Songs is all it takes to understand both the illustrative genius of Eric
Gill and why copies of it were seized and destroyed by New York Customs when
imported into the United States early last century. Given the Song of Songs is a book of the
Hebrew Bible, Gill’s emphasis on the erotic nature of the story would cause
consternation among some even today. While
some may more politely use the word ‘romantic’ rather than ‘erotic’ in
describing the illustrations, it certainly pushes the envelope considering its
place in the Bible. In any case, there
is no denying the artistic magnificence of the work.
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| Front cover, Antiquities |
Crowley, John. Antiquities:
Seven Stories. Seattle: Incunabula,
1993. Trade edition. Limited to 1,000 trade edition copies and 77
copies of a signed and numbered limited edition. A collection of short stories by a writer
better known for long form, collected in one volume for the first time. The seven stories span every period of the
writer's twenty-year writing career.
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| Front cover, prospectus, and limitation page, Reflections on Travels With My Aunt |
Greene, Graham. Reflections
on Travels With My Aunt. New York:
Firsts and Company, 1989. A limited
edition of 250 signed and numbered copies, of which this copy is No. 110,
together with an original prospectus for the book. Contains both a facsimile holograph of
Greene's manuscript and printed text. A
fine binding reprint of Greene's new introduction to Travels with My Aunt for the 1980 Bodley Head/ Heinemann Collected
Edition in 1980. The holographic
manuscript was printed offset by the Allethaire Press, and the text was printed
letterset by The Grenfell Press. The
fine books publisher Firsts & Company was founded in 1989 and Reflections on Travels With My Aunt is
the only book it ever produced.
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| Front cover, title page, copyright/limitation page, Dear David, Dear Graham |
Greene, Graham and David Low. Dear
David, Dear Graham: A Bibliophilic Correspondence. Oxford: The Alembic Press, 1989. Published jointly with The Amate Press,
Oxford. A limited edition of 250 numbered
copies, of which this copy is No. 236. A
collection of correspondence between author Graham Greene and bookseller David
Low from 1971 though 1984, on matters related to books, bookselling, and
publishing. The Alembic Press, founded
in 1972, is a fine press which, through 2016, printed 148 fine and
limited-edition books. This title is
published jointly with The Amate Press, to which David Low was deeply
connected; the Amate Press published only a dozen books between 1973 and 1992,
not counting jointly-published books printed by other printers.
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| Front cover, Gilgamesh: King of Erech |
Lucas, F. L. Gilgamesh:
King of Erech. London: Golden
Cockerel Press, 1948. With twelve
engravings by Dorothea Braby. This is a
hardback book (no dust jacket) published in a limited edition of 500 numbered
copies of which this is No. 270.
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| Cover and limitation page, A Leaf from the Kelmscott Chaucer |
Windle, John. A Leaf
from the Kelmscott Chaucer with an Essay on Its Commercial History. San Francisco: Arion Press, 1994. Folio size.
Produced in a limited edition of 100 numbered copies of which this is No.
22. Each of the 100 leaf books contains
one page from a broken copy of an original 1896 edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, published by
William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, with designs by Sir Edward Burne-Jones,
of which only 438 were printed. Leaf
books are normally produced from damaged copies in order to save some of the
undamaged pages so collectors can enjoy them at a much-reduced cost. The original complete book itself can cost
over $100,000 when one rarely comes on the market.
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| Recto and Verso, Leaf page from the Kelmscott Chaucer |
The Kelmscott Chaucer is considered the
first of the modern private presses to be concerned with the fine details of
typography and with the book as an art form.
It is often regarded as the most beautiful printed book in the English
Language. The true bibliophile delights
in the superb quality of the wood-engraved illustrations, the fine large
decorated borders, the special Chaucer type, all impressed with rich, dark ink
upon large folio-size paper.
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| Cover and title page, Fine Printing in Georgia |
Zachert, Martha Jane K. Fine
Printing in Georgia, 1950s–1990:
Six Prize-Winning Private Presses.
Athens, Georgia: The Press of the Nightowl, 1994. This copy being No. 14 of 40 bound in quarter
leather and signed by the author and printer.
A very good bibliography of small and fine private presses in
Georgia.
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| Limitation page and Table of Contents, Fine Printing in Georgia |
Small Press Books
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| Title Page, The Book of Common Prayer |
Book of Common Prayer. The
Book of the Common Prayer. London:
William Pickering at the Chiswick Press, 1844. The Chiswick Press was founded in 1811 by Charles Whittingham and later
taken over by his nephew, also Charles Whittingham, and later by William
Pickering, who in 1844 produced his first work at the Press. This was a beautiful set of 8 folio facsimiles
of the Book of Common Prayer from
Henry the Eighth through Queen Victoria, which have been regarded as “the
outstanding achievement of nineteenth century printing” before the Kelmscott
Press was created in 1891. This first volume
in the set represents in facsimile the first Prayer Book of King Edward the
Sixth, published in 1549. The woodcut
facsimile titles and wood-engraved initials and ornaments were done by Mary
Byfield.
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| Sample pages, The Book of Common Prayer |
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| Front cover, Atlanta Illustrated |
Clarke, E. Y. Atlanta
Illustrated. Atlanta: Jas. P.
Harrison & Co. Publishers and Printers, 1881. Third Edition. A book about the history of Atlanta that is
rare. Includes many drawings of
post-Civil War Atlanta landmarks, giving a glimpse of the beautiful old
buildings that used to be throughout the city. A former library copy, but in good condition
with minimal markings. According to
information on the internet, the publisher was in business for less than twenty
years.
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| Title page and sample illustration, Atlanta Illustrated |
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| Title page and printer's postscript, signed, The Poetical Books of the Bible |
Davie, James. The
Poetical Books of the Bible. Edinburgh:
James Davie, 1891. This very rare
translation of the books of Job, the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations,
Isaiah, Proverbs, the Psalms, miscellaneous pieces from Joel, Micah, Nahum,
Habakkuk, the Last Song of Moses, the Song of Deborah, the Song of Hannah, and
Lamech’s Lament, was privately typeset and printed by the author, and limited
to 25 copies. This copy is No. 4 and was presented by the author to his son.
There is a note at the end of the Preface where the author/printer states: “Besides
the many imperfections in this work, of all kinds, an apology is due for the
unworkmanlike printing of it. The excuse for this is that the type-setting and
printing, page by page, have been done solely by myself, under numerous
difficulties, at odd and sometimes wide apart intervals, and its production has
consequently been spread over more years than I care to say. The faulty
appearance of the workmanship, however, may probably be considered to be quite
as good as the contents deserve!”
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| Cover, frontispiece, and title page, The Field Diary of a Confederate Soldier |
Haynes, Draughton Stith. The
Field Diary of a Confederate Soldier.
Darien, Georgia: The Ashantilly Press, 1963. Includes the original dust jacket. Inscribed on the front free end paper by the
publisher of the Ashantilly Press. One
of an edition of only 400 copies which now has become quite scarce on the
market. This title is listed in Fine Printing in Georgia, 1950s–1990
(above).
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| Limitation page and first page, The Field Diary of a Confederate Soldier |
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| Cover and title page, Father Damien |
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Father
Damien: An Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde of Honolulu from Robert Louis
Stevenson, with a Statement by Mrs. Stevenson. Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, n.d. Father
Damien was originally issued in 1890; the Ave Maria Press special edition
has no publication date, but the Preface is dated 1911. The title has been reprinted numerous times
over the years, but the Ave Marie Press issue was small, making it a bit hard
to find. Ave Marie Press was started by
the Rev. E. Sorin, a Holy Cross priest, in 1865. Rev. Sorin had earlier founded the University
of Notre Dame. The press was created to
publish a Catholic magazine, but also printed books by select authors.
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| Book and slipcases, Hitherto Unpublished Prose Writings |
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Hitherto
Unpublished Prose Writings. Boston: The
Bibliophile Society, 1921. Edited by
Henry H. Harper. Limited edition of 450
copies, printed for members only.
Double-Boxed/Slip-cased.
Illustrated with facsimiles of Stevenson's manuscripts. The Bibliophile Society of Boston, founded in
1901, was one of many bibliographic societies common across America in the late
1800s and early 1900s, though one of the few to print its own books. The Bibliophile Society had its own printing
press, which was occasionally made available to its members to print their own
volumes. The Bibliophile Society
preceded Stevenson's Hitherto Unpublished
Prose Writings with its 1916 and 1921 editions of Stevenson's Poems Hitherto Unpublished.
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| Title page and bookplate, Hitherto Unpublished Prose Writings |
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| A History of Southern Football, 3 volumes |
Woodruff, Fuzzy. A
History of Southern Football, 1890–1928, In Three Volumes. Atlanta: Georgia Southern Publishing Company,
1928. This three-volume set tells
about the origins of southern college football. Written by Lorenzo Ferguson "Fuzzy"
Woodruff, one of the great sportswriters of the early twentieth century, it
goes into detail documenting famous games complete with team rosters. A scare set in good condition. First acquired
by the owner because he coached high school football.
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| Title page (Vol. 1) and sample pages, A History of Southern Football |
