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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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Being published 26
April 2005
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As soon as we had
finished printing The Bricks of Venice, the press received a little care and
attention and was immediately put to 28 days of winding to print the 240 copies
of 128pp of this biographical sketch and bibliography of typographer Harry
Carter.
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The 7,500 sheets of Mohawk paper had to go through the press twice each, and my
right biceps are now significantly bigger than the left. But it all went
smoothly enough, the fresh Romulus type looking very good on the page. For the
title on the title page, I finally decided to purchase a small fount of Van
Krimpen's Open Kapitalen which works well with the Romulus ... which Van
Krimpen also designed.
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The de luxe copies
will contain an extra volume of 24pp with three previously unpublished essays by
Carter, as mentioned in our last newsletter. As I write, I have the galley
proofs on my desk and I expect to travel up to Stan Lane at Gloucester
Typesetting next week to collect the type. There was a momentary glitch when we realised that the
text contains a quotation in French, with some italic accented characters for
which there was no matrix in the diecase that Stan had bought - a phone to
Monotype Hot-Metal soon rectified the situation and the type has now been cast.
I shall be printing the text on some Van Gelder handmade paper
that I acquired a few years back when the printing shop at a monastery in
England was being cleared. (There are associations here that give a printer some
pleasure even if they are not obvious or interesting to everyone: Harry Carter
knew Jan van Krimpen well and also Van Gelder, the owner of the papermakers.) All the materials will
soon be ready for the binding
of the de luxe copies at The Fine Bindery |
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If you haven't been
to our website recently, you will find some updates to the picture story for
this book. A prospectus will be sent out soon to everyone on our mailing list. |
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There will be two
'launches', so to speak, one in London at the
St Bride Printing Library on 26 April 2005 when co-author, Martyn Thomas,
will give a talk entitled 'Harry Carter, Man of Type' to the Friends of St
Bride, and one in Oxford at Oxford University Press, under the auspices of the
Oxford Guild of Printers. |
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a
new title
The Stuff of Jane
Austen
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Extracts from
the novels and letters of Jane Austen around the topic of 'stuff'
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Possibly 2005,
possibly not
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The second book from
the Press was a collection of extracts from Jane Austen's novels and letters on
the theme of 'fruit'. It was a nice opportunity to commission some delightful
wood-engravings from Simon Brett.
This new book takes as its theme the dress of her time, in particular the many
different fabrics that were used for different items of clothing. In her book
Jane Austen Fashion, Penelope Byrde lists twenty-seven different ones, and
we plan to feature each with an extract and a sample of the fabric concerned.
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After a number of
(for us) large books in large editions, all Monotype-set, it feels like time for
a little hand-setting and a small edition, something that becomes economically
feasible when one doesn't have the large fixed cost of machine setting. Plans
will develop, but I am currently thinking of using our 14pt Caslon (as for
The Fruits of Jane Austen) and an edition of perhaps 80 copies. |
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It might also be an
appropriate opportunity to use some hand-made paper, in particular some Rives
that we have put by ... but perhaps such an English theme calls for an English
paper ... we shall see. |
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We shall also be
tracking down sources of as many of the fabric types as we can and think about
how they can be worked into the book. Whatever happens, I'm sure it will be fun,
especially for Austen lovers. |
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If you want to
express an early interest in this title, please let us know via the contact form
on our website. |
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a
new title
Henry James Sat Here
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Six poems by
Anne Coon with images by Kurt Feuerherm
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Possibly 2005,
possibly not
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We met Anne Coon
and Kurt Feuerherm at the Oak Knoll Book Fest a few years ago - they had been
to the reading that Carmen Boullosa gave of Jump of the Manta Ray
at the New York Public Library when we published it.
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Anne has written a
cycle of poems about Siena, Italy entitled Via del Paradiso and I was
struck by both the images and the poems. At the time two large books were in the
pipeline and I wasn't able to make a commitment, but the time has now come to
realise the opportunity. |
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I shall be printing
only about nine poem-image pairs, rather than the entire cycle. Again, I want to
be able to do something manageable in a small edition - perhaps 50 copies - and
in an interesting way. I have always been looking for ways of allowing a book to
act as a display of its contents as well as a straightforward codex, with pages
that you turn. tokonoma was one such attempt. For Henry James Sat Here I
plan to produce the book as a zig-zag built in such a way that it will stand
open on its own for display, sit on the knees for reading, and fold into a
slipcase for storage. |
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I see this as an
opportunity of using the 14pt Octavian again - it stands up so well in poetry,
especially with strong images - and I shall be using the same inkjet technology
for Kurt's images as I am currently using for Peter Harris's watercolours in
The Bricks of Venice. It is capable of rendering both subtlety and intensity
on 100% cotton papers and with archival quality. |
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If you want to
express an early interest in this title, please let us know via the contact form
on our website. |
