Private press publishing, with respect to books, is an endeavor performed by craft-based expert or aspiring artisans, either amateur or professional, who, among other things, print and build books, typically by hand, with emphasis on design, graphics, layout, fine printing, binding, covers, paper, stitching, and the like.

Description

The term "private press" is not synonymous with "fine press", "small press", or "university press" – though there are similarities. One similarity shared by all is that they need not meet higher commercial thresholds of commercial presses. Private presses, however, often have no profit motive. A similarity shared with fine and small presses, but not university presses, is that for various reasons – namely quality – production quantity is often limited. University presses are typically more automated. A distinguishing quality of private presses is that they enjoy sole discretion over literary, scientific, artistic, and aesthetic merits. Criteria for other types of presses vary. From an aesthetic perspective, critical acclaim and public appreciation of artisans' works from private presses is somewhat analogous to that of luthiers' works of fine string instruments and bows.

Etymological perspective

The private press movement, and its renowned body of work – relative to the larger world of book arts in Western civilization – is narrow and recent. From one perspective, collections relating to book arts date back to before the High Middle Ages. As an illustration of scope and influence, a 1980 exhibition at Catholic University of America, "The Monastic Imprint," highlighted the influence of book arts and textual scholarship from 1200 to 1980, displaying hundreds of diplomas, manuscript codices, incunabula, printed volumes, and calligraphic and private press ephemera. The displays focused on five areas: (1) Medieval Monasticism, Spirituality, and Scribal Culture, A.D. 1200–1500; (2) Early Printing and the Monastic Scholarly Tradition, ca. 1450–1600; (3) Early modern Monastic Printing and Scholarly Publishing, A.D. 1650–1800; (4) Modern Survivals: Monastic Scriptoria, Private Presses, and Academic Publishing, 1800–1980.[1][2]

The earliest descriptive references to private presses were by Bernardus A. Mallinckrodt of Mainz, Germany, in De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae dissertatio historica (Cologne, 1639). The earliest in-depth writing about private presses was by Adam Heinrich Lackmann (de) (1694–1754) in Annalium Typographicorum, Selecta Quaedam Capita (Hamburg, 1740).[3]

Private press movement

By location

United Kingdom

The term "private press" is often used to refer to a movement in book production which flourished around the turn of the 20th century under the influence of the scholar-artisans William Morris, Sir Emery Walker and their followers. The movement is often considered to have begun with the founding of Morris' Kelmscott Press in 1890, following a lecture on printing given by Walker at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in November 1888. Morris decried that the Industrial Revolution had ruined man's joy in work and that mechanization, to the extent that it has replaced handicraft, had brought ugliness with it. Those involved in the private press movement created books by traditional printing and binding methods, with an emphasis on the book as a work of art and manual skill, as well as a medium for the transmission of information. Morris was greatly influenced by medieval codices and early printed books and the 'Kelmscott style' had a great, and not always positive, influence on later private presses and commercial book-design. The movement was an offshoot of the Arts and Crafts movement, and represented a rejection of the cheap mechanised book-production methods which developed in the Victorian era. The books were made with high-quality materials (handmade paper, traditional inks and, in some cases, specially designed typefaces), and were often bound by hand. Careful consideration was given to format, page design, type, illustration and binding, to produce a unified whole. The movement dwindled during the worldwide depression of the 1930s, as the market for luxury goods evaporated. Since the 1950s, there has been a resurgence of interest, especially among artists, in the experimental use of letterpress printing, paper-making and hand-bookbinding in producing small editions of 'artists' books', and among amateur (and a few professional) enthusiasts for traditional printing methods and for the production 'values' of the private press movement.[4][5][6]

New Zealand

In New Zealand university private presses have been significant in the private press movement.[7] Private presses are active at three New Zealand universities: Auckland (Holloway Press[8]), Victoria (Wai-te-ata Press[9]) and Otago (Otakou Press[10]).

North America

A 1982 Newsweek article about the rebirth of the hand press movement asserted that Harry Duncan was "considered the father of the post-World War II private-press movement."[11] Will Ransom has been credited as the father of American private press historiographers.[12]

Selected history

Quality control

Beyond aesthetics, private presses, historically, have served other needs. John Hunter (1728–1793), a Scottish surgeon and medical researcher, established a private press in 1786 at his house at 13 Castle Street, Leicester Square, in West End of London, in an attempt to prevent unauthorized publication of cheap and foreign editions of his works. His first book from his private press: A Treatise on the Venereal Disease. One thousand copies of the first edition were printed.[13]

Academics

Porter Garnett (1871–1951), of Carnegie Mellon University, was an exponent of the anti-industrial values of the great private presses – namely those of Kelmscott, Doves, and Ashendene. Following Garnett's inspirational proposal to Carnegie Mellon, Garnett designed and inaugurated on April 7, 1923, the institute's Laboratory Press – for the purpose of teaching printing, which he believed was the first private press devoted solely for that purpose. The press closed in 1935.[14]

Selected examples

United States

Canada

  • M. Bernard Loates, A Private Press, founded in 1968
  • Locks' Press, founded in 1979 in Brisbane, Australia, by Fred Lock, PhD (né Frederick Peter Lock; born 1948), and wife (an artist), Margaret Lock (née Margaret Helen Capper); in 1987, they moved to Kingston, Ontario[19]

Ireland

United Kingdom

France

Asia-Pacific

Western Asia

  • The Private Press of Ariel Wardi (surname alt spelling, converting Polish phonological use of "W" to English "V" – "Vardi"), established 1989 in Jerusalem; Ariel (born 1929) is the son of Haim Wardi, PhD (ne Rosenfeld; 1901–1975) (he)[22][23][24]

Opponents

William Addison Dwiggins (1880–1956), a commercial artist, is lauded for high quality work, namely with Alfred Knopf. And, in contrast to many first-rate book designers joining private presses, he refused. Historian Paul Shaw explained, "He had no patience with those who insisted on retaining hand processes in printing and publishing in the belief that they were inherently superior to machine processes." Dwiggins's "principal concern ultimately centered on readers and their reading needs, esthetic as well as financial. [His] goal was to make books that were beautiful, functional, and inexpensive."[25][26]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "The Monastic Imprint," co-sponsored by (i) the Rare Books Department of the John K. Mullen Library at Catholic University of America and (ii) the College of Library and Information Services at the University of Maryland (1980)
  2. ↑ "Communications". The Journal of Library History. 15 (4): 521–524. 1980. JSTOR 25541165.
  3. ↑ Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, "Private Presses" (Note 1: "References and Notes"), entry by Roderick Cave, Vol. 24, New York City: Marcel Dekker, Inc., p. 205
  4. ↑ Purves, Drika (1991). "The Gazette". The Yale University Library Gazette. 65 (3/4): 111–115. JSTOR 40859000.
  5. ↑ Horowitz, Sarah (2006). "The Kelmscott Press and William Morris: A Research Guide". Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America. 25 (2): 60–65. doi:10.1086/adx.25.2.27949442. JSTOR 27949442. OCLC 5966431137. S2CID 163588697.
  6. ↑ "Modern Fine Printing," by Colin Franklin, The Guardian, June 25, 1970, p. 9 (accessible via Newspapers.com at www.newspapers.com/image/259842980)
  7. ↑ Vangioni, Peter (2012). Pressed Letters: Fine Printing in New Zealand since 1975, 30 August – 24 September 2012 (PDF). Christchurch, NZ: Christchurch Art Gallery. Retrieved June 10, 2015.
  8. ↑ "The Holloway Press". The University of Auckland. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Wai-te-Ata Press". Victoria University of Wellington. Victoria University of Wellington. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
  10. ↑ "Otakou Press". University of Otago Library, Special Collections Exhibitions. University of Otago. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
  11. ↑ "Reading the Fine Print," by Ray Anello, Newsweek, August 16, 1982, p. 64
  12. ↑ Schwarz, Philip John (1970). "The Contemporary Private Press". The Journal of Library History. 5 (4): 297–322. JSTOR 25540254. OCLC 5547099053.
  13. ↑ Robb-Smith, A. H. T. (1970). "John Hunter's Private Press". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 25 (3): 262–269. doi:10.1093/jhmas/XXV.3.262. JSTOR 24622127. PMID 4912881.
  14. ↑ Benton, Megan L. (1992). "Orchids from Pittsburgh: An Appraisal of the Laboratory Press, 1922-1935". The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy. 62 (1): 28–54. doi:10.1086/602419. JSTOR 4308664. S2CID 144544855.
  15. 1 2 3 "News and Reviews of Private Presses" (monthly column), by James Lamar Weygand (1919–2003), American Book Collector, Vols. 14 and 15
    including:
    Press of Roy A. Squires
    (né Roy Asahel Squires; 1920–1988), Pacific Grove, California
    Vol. 14, No. 6, February 1964, p. 13
    Ashantilly Press
    William Greaner Haynes, Jr. (1908–2001), Darien, Georgia
    Vol. 14, No. 6, February 1964, p. 13
    Red Barn Press
    James Marsden, Foxboro, Massachusetts
    Vol. 14, No. 5, January 1964, p. 8
    Innominate Press
    Blaine Lewis, Jr., MD (1919–2001), Louisville
    Vol. 14, No. 7, March 1964, p. 15
    The Hudson Press
    William H. Hudson, Houston
    Vol. 14, No. 7, March 1964, p. 15
    The Stratford Press
    Elmer Gleason of Cincinnati
    Vol. 14, No. 9, May 1964, p. 16
    William M. Cheney
    (né William Murray Cheney; 1907–2002), Los Angeles
    Vol. 15, No. 1, September 1964, p. 7
    The Stone Wall Press
    Karl Kimber Merker (1932–2013), Iowa City
    Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1964, p. 7
    Bayberry Hill Press
    Foster Macy Johnson, Meriden, Connecticut
    Vol. 15, No. 3, November 1964, p. 6
    ISSN 0196-5654
  16. ↑ "Quality Books Slated For Display At UMass," Greenfield Recorder, January 3, 1968, p. 5
  17. ↑ "Two Decades of Hamady and the Perishable Press Limited" (exhibition inventory), University of Missouri–St. Louis, October 3, 1984, through November 4, 1984
    Subtitled: "Hamady's Perishable Press, A 20th Anniversary Sampling of Hand Crafted Books"
    OCLC 270104287, 723892183
  18. ↑ Vitello, Paul (May 27, 2013). "Kim Merker, Hand-Press Printer of Poets, Is Dead at 81". The New York Times.
  19. ↑ Locks' Press, Kingston, Ontario, Fred and Margaret Lock (proprietors) (a reissue of a March 2012 catalog, with an additional folded sheet tipped in) (2014), p. 1; OCLC 963257551
  20. ↑ The Kynoch Press: The Anatomy of a Printing House, 1876–1981, by Caroline Archer, PhD (since married to Alexandre Parré and is known as Caroline Archer-Parré), Oak Knoll Press (2000); OCLC 45137620; ISBN 9780712347044
  21. ↑ "Jurzykowski Foundation Awards, 1970". The Polish Review. 16 (2): 105–113. 1971. JSTOR 25776978.
  22. ↑ Avrin, Leila (1997). "Private Presses in Israel". Ariel. 104.
  23. ↑ The Private Press of Ariel Wardi, Jerusalem: A. Wardi (1995); OCLC 1089387256, 32640988
  24. ↑ Karpel, Dalia (October 29, 2016). "The Enigmatic Life of a Hebrew Graphic Design Pioneer". Haaretz.
  25. ↑ "Tradition and Innovation: the design work of William Addison Dwiggins," by Paul Shaw, Design History: An Anthology, Dennis P. Doordan (ed.), MIT Press (1995), pps. 33–35; OCLC 32859908
  26. ↑ Franciosi, Robert (2008). "Designing John Hersey's 'The Wall': W. A. Dwiggins, George Salter, and the Challenges of American Holocaust Memory". Book History. 11: 245–274. doi:10.1353/bh.0.0012. JSTOR 30227420. S2CID 161112866.

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