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To my alarm I
discover that the last newsletter was in October last year!
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now available:
Stanley Morison
& 'John Fell'
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The story of the writing and printing of a
masterpiece of printing in the 'Fell types' in the twentieth century: Stanley
Morison's John Fell, the University Press and the 'Fell' Types published
by Oxford University Press in 1967
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now in print
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On the Thursday before the Oxford Fine
Press Book Fair last November (2003) I collected the first fifty bound copies of
the standard edition from Mark and Nancy Horne at Salisbury Bookbinders. Nothing
like a solid deadline to focus minds! The Fair was, as ever, a wonderful
weekend, with the chance to meet customers and other presses. |
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It proved more pleasurable than usual as
Stanley Morison &'John Fell' was one of five books chosen for
Judges' Choice Awards. Having researched, written, designed, and printed the
book, I felt it added to the pleasure of selling a good number of copies at the
Fair. |
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There has been a considerable delay in
getting the de luxe copies bound. But they are now here. As with
The Fell Revival, the de luxe copies contain a portfolio of additional
material, twelve items in all. They include showings of Fell types and flowers,
further leaves from books in Fell, a transcription of Morison's letter/advert to
The Times, and more. If you visit
our website you can download a
PDF listing the items. The book is bound in quarter burgundy leather, picking up
one of the colours of the marbled paper by Ann Muir on the boards. I asked Ann
to use the same colours as appeared on the boards of The Fell Revival,
but using a 'stone' style of marbling. Book and portfolio come in a slip-case. |
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Pricing can be found at
our website, as can the full
history of its production, a sample of the dozen tipped-in photographs,
photographs of the book itself including an extract, and photographs of the
materials that the book describes. If you haven't received an announcement for
the book and would like one, please respond to this email and let us know, or
order one using the contact form at our website. |
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recent progress on
Harry Carter, Typographer
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A tribute to an unsung English typographer, by Martyn
Thomas, John A Lane, and Anne Rogers
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October 2004
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With the Oxford Fair behind us, I have been
able to turn to the next two projects at the Press. This new text - Harry
Carter, Typographer - has been in the air for a while. It was prompted by
Martyn Thomas's desire to see Harry Carter's life and work marked in a more
significant way than has been done so far. Small items have been published about
him, but nothing on a scale warranted by his achievements. It has been
interesting how many people have said, on hearing of the project, 'It's about
time something was published about the man.' That time has come.
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First drafts of the text have been
circulated, and, reading them, I for one have been surprised by how little I
knew of how much Carter accomplished. We have had lots of help from family and
colleagues and it has been very exciting to see how the book has developed over
time. We have some splendid photographs of Carter through his lifetime, and
will be reproducing a fine triple portrait of Carter done by wood-engraver
George Buday. |
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We are very fortunate to be able to pair
Martyn's biographical sketch with an exhaustive handlist of Carter's writings
and reviews of his work. Distinguished type historian, John A. Lane, had for
some years been preparing the handlist, and Anne Rogers has taken Lane's
material, and, with his assistance, prepared it for publication. A total of
about 200 items are listed, from his book Printing Explained with
Herbert Simon, his books on Wolvercote Mill, Orlando Jewitt, and Oxford
University Press, through to his own translations from the Greek of the Histories
of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, and his edition of Boccaccio's The
Decameron. The list underlines the breadth and depth of Carter's output. |
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I have always seen this book as the third
in what may become a longer series. For this reason, it will match its two
predecessors - The Fell Revival and Stanley Morison &'John Fell'
- in size and style of binding. This makes some decisions, such as page size and
layout, quick and easy. The cloth will be a different colour, this time picking
out the green in the colour scheme of the marbled papers that Ann Muir has done
for The Fell Revival and more recently Stanley Morison & 'John
Fell'. The style of the marbling will be different again: I suspect a rather
fine French comb to echo Carter's constant attention to detail! It will have a
dust-jacket, this one with a line-drawing portrait of Carter, similar in style
to that of Stanley Morison on the jacket of Stanley Morison &'John
Fell'. The text will be in Jan van Krimpen's elegant Romulus, and
printed on Mohawk Superfine as the other two books. |
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I still have to finalise the price but I
currently anticipate a slight increase from the earlier estimated figure to
about £70 (Euro115, US$140), with de luxe copies about £140
(Euro200, US$280), and sheets about £40 (Euro65, US$85). The
disproportionate rise in the US dollar price has been made necessary because of
the fall in the dollar's value over the last year, and bank conversion charges.
On the positive side, the extent of the book has increased from 60 to about 100
pages and will now additionally include about a dozen tip-ins. |
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recent progress on
The Bricks of Venice
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A new study of the brickwork of Venice with over
seventy watercolours.
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October 2004
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This project has been bubbling away in the
background whilst the Stanley Morison book was in production. It now vies for
my attention alongside the Harry Carter book. My ambitious plan is to have them
both ready for the Oak Knoll Book Fair in October this year.
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When eminent cardiologist Peter Harris died
a couple of years ago he left behind him the text of a study he had made of the
mediaeval brickwork of Venice, complemented with scores of his own exquisite
watercolours. If you would like to view a couple of his watercolours, visit our
website and look for the entry for the book in the 'news' section. Peter had
lived for seven years in Venice with his wife Francesca, in an apartment near
the Ca' d'Oro overlooking the Grand Canal - an enviable location - whilst he was
editor of a professional journal. The quality of the work is such that his wife
and family and friends were very keen to see it published, and that is one of my
tasks for this year. I've been lucky enough to meet Francesca and to discuss the
book with her. The whole project acquires a much more personal dimension,
especially as I never had the chance to meet Peter Harris himself. She visited
the Press in Hinton Charterhouse, and we met recently for tea in Oxford where
she handed over the precious original watercolours. |
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I have edited the text which runs to about
a hundred pages - it is a considerable essay. Peter himself chose the
watercolours he wanted to use, from a great many that he did. Production details
are sketchy at the moment, but this will be a special book, and probably in a
smaller edition than our normal run. The watercolours will be scanned and then
printed on fine paper using archival quality inkjet printing; the results these
days are quite extraordinary and - as with Jump of the Manta Ray - it's
wonderful to be able to combine a text printed in a way that Gutenburg would
have recognised with images printed in a way that would have looked like some
form of sorcery to him! I suspect the typeface will be Monotype Bembo, printed
letterpress of course, and hand-done Venetian papers will find their way into
the binding somewhere. |
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As Peter writes: 'The small bricks thought
to be characteristic of Venetian building in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries are still known as altinelle. But to what extent they were
plundered from the ruins of Altinum, as Temanza suggests, is in some doubt. In
any case, it is clear that many were manufactured within the islands. A document
of 1357 on the price of bricks refers to 'the little bricks that they make in
Venice.' I have half an idea to include one in the binding of some copies! |
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