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In mid-April I had the call from Stan to say that the type was ready and later
that week it was safely in galleys in my print-shop. I had a rough idea of how
long the book would be, simply because I have it all set up on my PC in digital
Van Dijck from Monotype, but it is only when you have the real metal that you
can start in earnest to plan the detailed layout. Choosing the size of the text block
and placing it on the page is one of the key things one does. I'm following the
same page size as the other books, in particular the Harry Carter book which - I
felt - made a good opening. I've followed the same pattern here.
The first thing I
set up on the press was the announcement which is 4pp of the same type
on the same measure. Doing some tests with this gave me a chance to experiment
with the leading (extra spacing between the lines of type). The 13pt type has
been cast on a 14pt body so there is already 1pt of leading in there. I can add
a further 1pt, 2pt or even 3pt. Finally I decided to give the Van Dijck some air
with 3pt of extra leading, so the final specification is 13pt on 17pt. Now I
also know I have 31 lines to the page. Printing the announcement is also an
opportunity to get the packing right on the press to give the right degree of
impression for the paper one is using. Although the final book will be on some
Rives BFK, I didn't want to use it for the announcement so turned to some Mohawk
Superfine that I had left over from the printing of Tonge's Travels. It's
an easy paper to print on, a nice weight (148gsm) for the page size, though some
call it dull. It is certainly different from the Rives which is a laid paper
with one deckle edge, one torn edge and two cut edges (having been made on a
continuous blanket). I'm ashamed to say that I haven't done any serious printing
(longish runs on large sheets of paper) for a year or so, so it's a real
pleasure to put a stack of 250 sheets on the feed-board of the Western and work
my way through it. I set all four pages up on the bed and ran all the sheets
through, then turned them and printed the backs the next day. That way I get two
copies of the announcement out of each sheet with the minimum amount of
handle-cranking. The announcement will be going out in the coming weeks and will
be the moment for those who have made reservations (about seventy copies are
spoken for) to make a final decision and send money, and the only chance for
those who haven't to order a copy. So, if you want a copy and haven't told me so
far, do let me know quickly.
Chapter openings are
the next thing to be thought about. I had had Stan cast some 36pt Van Dijck italic for the Stanley
Morison book and it feels entirely appropriate to use it again, both for the
main title and the section titles, in
this new book. Given that this is a book about Oxford's ornaments, there are
going to be quite a few arrangements, so featuring one in the chapter headings
also seems a good idea. I also want one arrangement to go in the announcement.
Now I have to start addressing practicalities. OUP's type is higher than normal
type. So I cannot mix type cast by Stan with Oxford type in the same forme for printing. If
I have Oxford type and Monotype on the same sheet I have to put that sheet
through the press twice. I have to print 500 copies of the prospectus, so
that would mean doubling the amount of effort and time to produce them. Also I
need to give some consideration to the fact that I am printing with
irreplaceable materials and I should keep the number of impressions I take from
the Oxford type to a minimum. As it is, it looks as though most of the sheets in
the book will have to go through the press twice: once with the normal, English
height type, and a second time for the Oxford-height type, ie the ornaments. So,
to spare the type, and my winding arm, I had a small zinco (photo-engraved
block) made from a proof of one of the arrangements and it is this that I used
to print the announcement.
When Stan casts the
type for me, he also takes a couple of proofs from the type. I start by
proof-reading these and also letting the Press Reader - my wife - go to work on
them with her eagle's eye and copy editor's brain. Then I can start the
construction of a paste-up of the entire book - from dustjacket front to
dustjacket rear, via half-title, title page, contents list, text, and colophon.
I find this one of the most pleasurable activities in making a book. It's the
moment when the thing really takes shape, albeit on folded sheets of A3 made up
into signatures of 16pp with bits of proof pasted onto the pages. It's now that
I decide what each page will look like, and, with this particular book, where
the various patterns of ornaments can be dropped in. I know that I have nineteen
lines of text on the first page of a section and thirty-one on others, so I go
through Stan's proofs cutting them down and pasting them into the dummy. Once
all the text has been disposed in this way (and decisions have been made about
widows and orphans) I can get back out to the workshop to paginate from the
continuous galleys that Stan has cast. The type for each page is separated out,
any corrections or alterations are made to it, and it is tied up and put back
onto a galley paired with the page alongside which it appears on the printed
sheet. This way, when printing starts, I can pull galley after galley and know
that I have the next set of pages ready to impose on the bed.
This should have all
gone on uninterrupted and smoothly. However, there was one loose end that had
not been tied up, and now - later than ideal - came the moment. I knew from a
document that Nigel Roche, Librarian at St Bride Printing Library, had given me,
that there were possibly ten further packs of ornaments at St Bride.
Unfortunately, on a preliminary visit to the Library I had discovered that they
have the better part of a thousand packs of type from OUP and that the
ones I was interested in would be amongst them . . . or possibly elsewhere in
the store. Fortunately, a volunteer was in the process of reboxing the packets
and labelling them, so it was possible to make a fairly quick check for Martyn
Thomas (my co-author of The Fell Revival) and me to find the ones I was
interested in . . . but they were not to be found. It was only after
further checks that we located six packets, and a small case of type with three
of the ornaments. The best part of this discovery was that amongst the packets
were three units that were not represented in the type held by OUP so those gaps
would be filled. The down side of it was that I would have to make late changes
to the type now paged and on galleys to record the new findings. Back to the
workshop . . .
I can now announce the
final price of the book. It will be £95 (€160/US$210) plus shipping at cost.
Some customers who have collected the de luxe editions of our earlier books on
OUP may also wish to request their copy to be bound in quarter-leather with an
Ann Muir marbled paper on the boards and presented in a slipcase (£140, €225,
US$300). If you would like sheets for binding I can supply them but only if you
order before publication (£60, €90, US$120). Postage and packing will be charged
at cost and are likely to be £5, €8, US$10 for a single copy according to
destination. |
