Press News: February 2007

It has been a disgracefully long time since this Press News was updated. My last transmission was two years ago, in February 2005, three months before I was stricken with acute pancreatitis (very dull: don’t try it) and disappeared into hospital for four weeks. Convalescence afterwards took longer than I had imagined, and work fell behind, the website moving down the list of things I felt I must do – finally gaining a fingerhold well below reading, typesetting, writing, editing, and designing.

Nevertheless, the time for lounging about in a silken robe while pursuing the sybaritic delights of low-fat meals and blood-glucose monitors has long passed. (That is to say, the lounging part has passed; the low-fat meals and blood-glucose monitor remain, and have become habitual.) And now the peremptory buzz and whine of the computer calls, and I have no excuse for putting this off any longer.

Jan inserted a stopgap Press News reporting on my recovery in the summer of 2005, and I do want to take  this opportunity to thank the many people – subscribers to the press, other printers and press folk, friends old and new, and often total strangers who owned some of our work – who took the time to send a card or an e.mail or to phone. Their kindness (perhaps I should better say “your kindness”, since many of you reading this were among my well-wishers) made me feel enriched and comforted and even worthwhile. I am truly grateful. Thank you all.

Oxford 2005

By the fall of  2005 I was able to perform a reasonable day’s work, and November saw us at the Oxford Fine Press Fair. These fairs – Oxford, Oak Knoll, and as of 2007, Codex – provide us the opportunity not only to see our friends and colleagues who labour in similar vineyards, but to meet many of the people who make this all possible by buying our books and those of other presses. At the 2005 Oxford Fair we had the additional pleasure of seeing our edition of Venus & Adonis  shortlisted for the Gregynog Prize for the best letterpress book of the preceding two years, and to have Hoi Barbaroi: A Quarter-century at Barbarian Press given one of three Judge’s Awards.

At the fair we also at long last met Hugh Harrison, a long-standing subscriber whose e.mails and telephone calls had become a continuing joy, and following Oxford we were invited to stay for a few days at his home, Ringcombe Farm, in Devon. Hugh and his wife Christine – who is a shepherd and a breeder of horses – were entrancing hosts, and the rest and peace of the countryside at the edge of Exmoor gave us a chance to catch our breaths after what had been a difficult year. The picture below, taken by Hugh that winter, will explain better than I can what a few days rest in such surroundings can achieve. So much of the delight of the work we do lies in the people we meet. There is a camaraderie in mutual enthusiasm which reaches over borders and generations to cement new friendships and create branching pleasures in life. This visit was such a time, and we were, and are, grateful.

Venetian Idyll, or Venetian Idle (2006)

Streets filled with water stop please advise stop
Telegram sent from Venice by Robert Benchley

In the spring of 2005, before I became ill, I had been invited to San Francisco by fine printer and publisher Peter Koch to speak to a joint meeting of the Roxburgh and Colophon Clubs, and stayed with Peter and his wife Susan Filter, beginning a warm friendship. Peter has been printing since 1974, and has produced a number of superb fine editions at his press in Berkeley, notably the recent Fragments of Parmenides, translated with an introduction and notes by Robert Bringhurst, with engravings by Richard Wagener. The edition was all the more remarkable because Peter commissioned two new Greek founts in which to print the text: Parmenides Greek, hand-cut in metal by Dan Carr at the Golgonooza Typefoundry, and Diogenes, a titling face designed digitally by Christopher Stinehour. Peter Koch is also the founder of the Codex Foundation, of which more will follow.

In the fall of 2006 Peter and Susan went to Venice to print an edition of Joseph Brodsky’s book-length essay on Venice, Watermark. Brodsky had been a friend of Susan’s, and the idea of reprinting his book in a fine edition in the city it celebrated was natural. Susan had lived in Venice for some years and saw an opportunity to spend some time there, while at the same time introducing Peter to the city. In the spring Peter wrote to ask if we would be interested in coming to Venice in the fall to help them print the book, and since it has always been our policy to put aside any personal considerations when approached by a fellow mortal for help, we agreed at once. Consequently, in September and October of this year, we spent two and a half weeks in Venice.

Those of you who know Venice will guess at once what a shaping experience this was. We had visited there before, but for a much shorter time, and as tourists; this time we became, in a small way, a part of the everyday life of the city. We stayed in an apartment with Peter and Susan, walking to work in the morning down the canals from the Piazzale Roma to the Grand Canal, along its side to the Ponte degli Scalzi, over the bridge and up the Rio San Leonardo with its fruit and vegetable stalls to the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, very near the Gheto Vechio in the sestiere of Cannaregio.

There we worked in a studio overlooking a little side canal opening onto the Grande Canale. (The studio window is just above the blue and white boat in the centre of the picture.) The light was spectacular, and there was an intermittent stream of small boats – workboats, delivery boats, private boats, and gondolas – passing by the studio, with their wash slapping and dancing against the mediaeval brickwork of the building. It was remarkable to think that the building was there when Aldus was printing the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. After a time we even came to know one of the gondoliers, and he would wave cheerfully as he went by and call out.

It was a supreme pleasure, quite apart from the intrinsic beauties of Venezia, to spend two weeks in a major city with no cars. The only traffic is boat or Shank’s mare, so the pollution level is very low, and the noise level – beyond the natural volubility of the Venetians – diminished and human. It was lovely. So of course was the wine, and the food. We spent a fine day on San Lazzaro degli Armeni, the tiny island which is an Armenian Orthodox monastery with a fascinating library and a rather boisterously raucous church, its ceiling painted with stars like the superb basilica in Assisi. We also visited a very old cathedral, Santa Maria Assunta, on the island of Torcello – 10th century, with arresting mosaics, and the resolute structural plainness of the Byzantine under all the decoration. Beyond that we simply got  lost in Venetian calles and eventually found our way out again, browsing in shops and listening to the patined lilt of Italian, watching the children and dogs, and revelling in the ivory and pale rose light which rises from the canals against the lively stone and brick of the buildings.

It was necessary to work through every page of the type for Watermark, which had been Monotype set in Milan. The text was set with a justified right margin, and in many places there were such gaps between the words in the lines that one could fall asleep between one word and the next. With Karen Bleitz, a charming ex-apprentice of Peter’s who had flown in from London, I worked through the whole book, respacing the words and occasionally re-setting several lines of text in order to avoid hair-raising hyphenations such as “tr - adition” and ‘nonexisten - ce’. Peter had asked that some part of the text, at least the closing page, be shaped in some way. This had been a custom and a hallmark of Manutius’ style in his books, and it seemed fitting that this book should evoke that: after all, Watermark may turn out to be the last book to be printed from moveable type in Venice, one of the cradles of great printing. A new Venetian friend, John Phillimore, a bookseller whose shop was in the old Ghetto very near by, was so intrigued by this that when the book was printed he bought the forme of type, and intends to have it framed and displayed in his shop.

While this was going on, Jan was proofing every page on a Swiss FAG press, loaned to Peter for the project, which had been barged down the Grand Canal to a fundamenta near the Scuola amid much excitement. Every section of the book was designed to begin with a line or two of full caps, and the letter-spacing and word spacing in those places were especially crucial. After Jan had pulled a proof any necessary adjustments to the spacing were made, and then the forme was tied up and set in order, waiting for the actual printing. The process of working the type through the stick and proofing for corrections took the whole time we were there, but we left knowing that the book was ready for the press. 

A word should be added here about the museum which so generously loaned the press – the Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione, a splendid printing museum in Cornuda, about an hour’s journey from Venice by train in the foothills of the Dolomites. The Tipoteca is a Museum of Type and Typography, immaculately conceived and designed as a working museum for the presentation of printing and typographical history. It has a fine collection of hand-presses, a working Monotype room with a good collection of matrices, a large collection of type, both wood and metal, and a well-displayed and fascinating collection of books and printing artefacts  having to do with the history of printing, type design, and book design in Italy. The staff are friendly, helpful, and enthusiastic, and the curator of the Museum, Sandro Berra, is a charming guide who also speaks excellent English. An English version of their web site is available through our links. We suggest that anyone interested in type or printing who is visiting the area of Venice would find a trip there a very pleasant experience.

Barbarici peripatetici MMVII

2007 will see us travelling more than we have been in the last couple of years. While we have managed to meet a good many of our subscribers and other owners of our books, we hope that if you are near any of the fairs which we plan to visit, you’ll stop by and either renew acquaintance or introduce yourselves. Here is a schedule of our whereabouts through this year:

Codex Foundation Symposium & Book Fair. University of California, Berkeley. 13-15 February, 2007

The Codex Foundation, established in 2005 under the guidance of Peter Koch, held its first Symposium and Book Fair on February 13 through 15, 2007. The Symposium speakers included Sarak Bodman, Stefan Soltek, and Robert Bringhurst, whose lecture “Spiritual Geometry: The Book as a Work of Art” was a revelation. The Fine Press Book Fair had over100 exhibitors from the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, Israel, and Europe, representing fine presses, book artists, papermakers, publishers of books on books, and so on. This was the first such fair in California: we had not visited there since the late 1980s. It was an immense success, and the plan is to repeat it every second year.

England, Holland, and Germany. Late April, 2007

Crispin has been asked to speak at a dinner of the Double Crown Club in London on 24 April 2007. This is a great honour. The DCC, founded by Bruce Rogers, Stanley Morison, and Sir Francis Meynell in 1927, is certainly the most prestigious club of book designers, printers, typographers, and bibliophiles in the English-speaking world. While this dinner is by invitation only, plans are under way to have Crispin speak in Amsterdam a few days later, and there is a possibility that he will also be speaking in Munich, if arrangements can be made. Please contact us if you are in reach of any of these cities and would like to attend, and we will let you know dates, places, and times as soon as we know ourselves.

Oak Knoll Book Fest. Oak Knoll Books, New Castle, Delaware, 6th and 7th October, 2007

The annual Book Fest sponsored by Oak Knoll Books has become one of the two most anticipated events for lovers of fine press printing. The historical section of New Castle is a picturesque little town, with Oak Knoll Books occupying what was once the town’s Opera House, and the fair held at a nearby hall. There are also guest speakers and, in the last few years, panel discussions on subjects relating to fine printing and the book arts. This provides an opportunity for the fine press community to gather and make merry, and of course to show our books to the large numbers of collectors and librarians who attend. We have not been able to attend Oak Knoll for the last two years, and we look forward to being there again.

Oxford Fine Press Book Fair. Oxford Brooks University, Oxford, England. 3rd and 4th November, 2007

Finally, we will also be at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair, probably our favourite book event of all. We hope our British and continental clients and friends will visit and renew friendships.

Work in Hand at the Press, 2007 and on –

Work at the press through the coming year has organized itself around the biggest project – The Play of Pericles. Simon Brett has now sent the engravings for the first 22 pages of the book, and I am setting the type, which in some cases wraps around the images. Jan will be able to print pages ahead once we have established the exact sizes and placement of the blocks from Simon’s very detailed drawings. As things are developing, the book is taking on a life of its own, as such projects will. Simon will be engraving more blocks than we had originally thought, and this now means that publication of the book will be delayed even further, into 2008. Because there will be two volumes – with the second volume including a lengthy essay on the play’s history and critical reception, an extended note on the text, and a glossary – the presswork and typesetting will be lengthy processes. However, since Pericles is by far our most ambitious project to date, as well as being a book we have long wanted to publish, we want to take special pains with its production, and – speaking frankly – to linger over it and enjoy the process.

Perhaps that point should be reinforced. Once a book is completed, you – our patrons, subscribers, and clients – have the pleasure of receiving it and becoming acquainted with it, learning its character and coming to understand the aesthetic choices made as we produced it. But for us, although we are pleased to see a finished book and enjoy looking at it, the more interesting process is the making of the book, and once that is done the book becomes something of a closed subject. With Pericles, our first Shakespearean play, we are relishing the work, but we do want you to know that we are not dragging our feet: the book is complex, and will take time. We now anticipate a publication date for Pericles in the spring of 2008 … and in the meantime there are other projects to consider:

Under Strange Sail: Translations & Improvisations from Many Hands continues our exploration of broadsheets, which began with one of our first publications, Albion Broadsheets (1981) and continued with the typographical Sorts & Founts (1983) and most recently with Founts & Circumstance (2002). This time the subject returns to poetry, specifically poetry in translation.

The portfolio, now finished and ready for shipment, comprises a dozen broadsheets, a title sheet, a sheet of biographical notes on the poets and translators, and a colophon sheet. As a special bonus, we asked Peter Lazarov to create a ‘visual translation’ of any one of the poems he liked, and he presented us with a lovely engraving based on a sonnet of Ronsard’s to counterpoint John Pass’s deft translation. We have used a number of handmade papers, including two Barcham Green papers we haven’t used before (Irish Lender and Camber Sand), and several papers from the Papeterie St-Armand in Montréal, whose papers we are coming to rely on. The opportunity to design broadsheets with poems from 5th century BC Greek to 21st century Roumanian and Farsi was keenly pleasurable. The printing was finished just in time for us to display Under Strange Sail at Codex in Berkeley in mid-February, where it sold very well. About three-quarters of the edition is already spoken for.

Amours de Voyage by Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861) is a poem we have admired for some time, and it fits perfectly between the portfolio of broadsheets and the intensive presswork of Pericles. Abigail Rorer, the subject of Endgrain Editions Two (now out of print), has an abiding interest in 19th century design and culture, and was interested from the first in illustrating this book. As we have been looking for an opportunity to work with Abbie as an illustrator, this is a project we are anticipating with great pleasure. The poem has an interesting textual history: Arthur Hugh Clough wrote approximately twice what he finally published, and although the text of the 1862 edition is essentially what we will be using, there will be one or two interpolations of material originally excluded from the text. This poetic novella in letters gives a fascinating portrait of a young, politically radical intellectual in the mid-nineteenth century. It is set in Italy, where Clough himself had been during the rebellion of 1849, and it makes fascinating play between public and private sensibilities, faith and doubt, radicalism and conservatism, holding up an intriguing, even rather eerie, mirror to our own times. As our understanding of the Victorians becomes more profound, and as we move away from the wholesale condemnation of their attitudes and their art which was so prevalent when I first went to university, we can begin to see uncanny resemblances between their time and the late 20th  and early 21st centuries.

Once Amours de Voyage is completed, and while Pericles is still under way, Jan will be starting work on the fascinating and complex task of proofing and printing Gaylord Schanilec’s beautiful multi-colour engravings for Gaylord Schanilec: Pictures and Stories, which will also appear in 2008. For further information about that project please go here.

Looking ahead …

As time goes on, we are considering what we will publish more carefully than we used to in the rashness of youth. Is it a function of age, we wonder – perhaps even of wisdom – that we find ourselves increasingly drawn to the classics? Certainly Pericles will not be the only Shakespearean play we publish: we are already discussing an edition of Twelfth Night, and there are three or four other plays we have every intention of printing. The Roman classics also draw us: Crispin is working on a translation of the Georgics of Virgil which we might produce at the press, and it has always been our hope to publish an edition, preferably a new translation, of Lucretius. And in the way of translation, Under Strange Sail has whetted our interest, and we may pick up that thread from many years ago with some translations of modern and contemporary poets. Certainly we do not intend to sink altogether into the dark backward and abysm of time.   

The one project which we have always intended to produce, and still do, was the subject of some gentle teasing by Robert Bringhurst in his talk, And, much more, not ourselves: The Work of Jan and Crispin Elsted (2005, OP) at the silver anniversary celebration of the press. He related that when we first met him nearly thirty years ago, we had said that we planned an edition of Arthur Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Robert remarked that it had not yet materialized. So herewith, leaning rather creakily down, we fumble about for the gauntlet and pick it up. That project, barring the intervention of the four horsemen, is firmly in our sights. Once Pericles is completed, Crispin will renew the interrupted work on that text and we will begin to mull the possibilities of various illustrators. It is time, after all, to begin to consider a magnum opus: Ovid seems to us to be a good choice.

It has been an eventful couple of years. We are grateful to be here still, making books and doing what we can. We are grateful for the opportunity to work at what fulfils us and pleases others, and most of all we are grateful to be a part of the community of the clerisy, in Augustine’s phrase, vicissim benevole obsequi, simul leger libros dulciloquos – doing good things for one another, and reading delightful books together.

It is, looked at that way, rather a fine life.

Our warmest best wishes to all,

Crispin & Jan