Welcome Once More...

Despite our best intentions, the website has been up for a few months now without any additions or updates, and we are finally taking the opportunity to re-establish contact with those of you who look in from time to time, and to tell you some of the newer developments here at the press. We will also, of course, revise the dating of some of the projects; it is impossible to make schedules run true to form in this business.

Founts & Circumstance

Immobile correndo, a commissioned book we have been producing for Le Grazie, a West Vancouver publishing company, is now completed and at the binders, leaving us free at last to begin work on Founts & Circumstance.

You’ll find updated details of Founts & Circumstance in the "Books Forthcoming" section of the website, but briefly, it is a portfolio of specimens of display and titling faces. The overall size of the largest sheets, which will be folded once, is 15 by 22 inches, so the portfolio in which the edition is housed will be 16 by 23 inches approximately. We have been able to make several design decisions while completing the commissioned book, and Natasha Herman is now making a prototype portfolio for us. The box will be covered in a heavy scarlet Japanese silk, with a label on the spine and probably on the upper cover, and it will be lined with a printed paper (yet to be designed) which will feature types or printer’s flowers, or a combination of the two.

We have selected and ordered most of the papers which will be featured in the set, and some of them have arrived. We are particularly pleased with the papers from the Saint Armand Paper Mill in Montréal, among them some fine cover weight mouldmade papers in beautiful colours, and with the handmade Czech paper we will be using for one of the sheets. We have still to decide on three papers, and are considering samples from British, Canadian, American and Israeli mills.

The selected papers already in hand include a vintage English mouldmade paper from Turkey Mill, made (we think) about 1930, and an English Kelmscott handmade paper from the Joseph Batchelor Mill, made in 1900. We also have Barcham Green Eltham paper, made in the 1960s, and are hoping to be able to acquire some other Barcham Green papers which we have recently heard about.

We have also been consulting David Evans about a photographic image for the title sheet in the portfolio, which will be a kallitype (a sun-printed image on paper treated with emulsion). Although it will not be in the press for a few weeks, the edition is very nearly sold out. Anyone who is interested in reserving a copy of Founts & Circumstance should get in touch with us as soon as possible.

Simon Fraser University Friends of the Library Lecture

A few months ago we were invited to give the 8th Yosef Wosk Simon Fraser University Friends of the Library Lecture on May 12th. This is an endowed lecture which has featured many speakers whom we admire very much, so we felt very honoured to have been asked to deliver it. It was suggested that we talk about the history of the press, and we divided the lecture into three parts: in the first, Crispin gave a brief history; in the second, Jan talked about the production of Endgrain: Contemporary Wood Engraving in North America, and about the printing of wood engravings; and finally, Crispin briefly discussed the role of private presses as publishers. The response was gratifying. For those of you who have already asked about a copy of the lecture, the present plan is to print the text as the preface to a catalogue for a 25th Anniversary retrospective exhibition on the press which is planned for November, 2002 in the Special Collections division of the Simon Fraser University Library. We will announce more plans concerning the exhibition (and the catalogue) nearer the time.

Further to this, those who live on the eastern seaboard or who are planning to visit the Oak Knoll Book Fest – an annual private press fair hosted by Oak Knoll Books in New Castle, Delaware, which features many presses from the United States, Great Britain and Canada showing and selling their work – may be interested to know that Crispin has been asked to be one of the two speakers this year. He will be speaking on Saturday, October 13th, at 10am. Further details about this event (and Crispin’s talk, when he decides what he will talk about) will be posted over the next few weeks on the Oak Knoll site at <www.oakknoll.com>. You will find it on the "Links" page of our website.

More Matrices

There is more news on the mat front. Having acquired Monotype mats for Bembo Narrow Italic [a.k.a. Fairbanks], Van Dijck, Poliphilus and Blado, and Joanna last year (all in 12pt size), we have recently bought display sizes of Bembo roman (24, 30, 36 and 48pt) and Castellar (24, 30, 36, 48, 60 and 72pt). It is important to us to have a run of sizes in at least one classical face, and we will now have mats for Bembo in 8, 10, 12, and 14pt, as well as the larger sizes. We also have good-sized founts of Bembo 18, 60 and 72pt in case.

Parenthesis & The Fine Press Book Association

After a gestation period somewhere between that of a human and a blue whale, Parenthesis 5 appeared in March, 2001, the first issue of the FPBA journal to be edited and produced in North America. While it took a great deal of time and energy, not to say bashing of the head against the wall, Crispin’s editing of the magazine was a very enjoyable experience, and he is looking forward to working on the next issue to come from North America, Parenthesis 7, which will appear in March 2002. Parenthesis 6, edited by Dennis Hall, will be published in England in September, 2001, and the issues will alternate between the two sides of the Atlantic thenceforth. Considering how much time we have spent around books, writing and editing and reading, it was a great surprise to discover how much there was to learn in the process of producing a 64-page journal with articles, reviews, editorial comment, advertisements, and so forth. The most difficult part of the work was in the production of the magazine, which was printed offset by Benwell-Atkins Ltd of Vancouver. Crispin’s experience in letterpress has of course instilled one or two biases and a certain understanding of what is and is not possible, acceptable or desirable, and this sometimes ran counter to the requirements and limitations of computer typesetting, digital scanning, and offset printing. A certain amount of colourful language was expended, for instance, before it was mutually discovered by Crispin and the production staff at Benwell-Atkins that while we may use some of the same terms in both letterpress and offset printing, they often mean different things. A future pamphlet from Barbarian Press might well comprise a Glossary of Ambiguities for the guidance of those who attempt to cross the line between the two technologies – or between craft and technology – in preparing material in a letterpress idiom for modern printing techniques.

In spite of all this, or perhaps because of it, our admiration for the people who helped with the production of Parenthesis runs very deep. In particular we would like to mention Susanna Gilbert of Descriptions Design, who typeset the issue with Crispin hanging over her shoulder asking the computer to do things which gave it a bellyache; Jacqui Kempton, the production manager at Benwell-Atkins, who never for an instant became even slightly ruffled, and answered the most inane questions with sweetness and intelligence; and Don Atkins, the recently retired but still omnipresent co-founder of the company, whose generosity, advice, enthusiasm and wicked sense of humour made the whole process civilized and enjoyable. We thank them all very much indeed.

It is also a pleasure – and a relief – to announce that for the editing and production of Parenthesis 7, Crispin will be joined by three unsuspecting associate editors whose youth and energy (he fondly hopes) will rise above the hurly-burly of getting the issue together. Paul Razzell (Inferno Press), Rollin Milroy (Heavenly Monkey) and Michael Barnes (Still Standing Press) have kindly offered to help, and with this the magazine has slipped from the laps of the gods once more into the hands of men. All three are experienced letterpress printers, all three can write clearly, intelligently and pleasingly, and all three are young enough to have breathed in the febrile air of the computer world with a noticeable absence of panic. In fact, Michael Barnes is the owner of a successful ‘pre-press’ business and designs and typesets with computers all day, before returning home at night to handset Goudy Text for a Psalter he is printing on a 19th century American handpress.

Those of you interested in reading Parenthesis who are not yet members of the Fine Press Book Association, and who would like to find out more about it, should either contact us at the Press, or e.mail Carol Grossman at <carolg@fourriversbooks.com>. If you live in the United Kingdom or Europe, please contact Janet Jackson, Secretary (U.K.), Glenswinton, Parton, Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbrightshire, DG7 3NC, United Kingdom.

Endgrain Editions Two: Abigail Rorer

Back at Barbarian Press once again, Abigail Rorer recently sent us the proofs of the blocks which will be printed in our second volume in the ongoing series, Endgrain Editions. She has selected a wonderful cross-section of engravings, with a mix of subjects – animals, figure studies and portraits, and botanical images. To our surprise, three of the images were hand-coloured, and this brought up the question of the logistics of sending several hundred printed sheets across the continent – not to mention through the tender hands of that aggregation of vermin, the Canadian and American Customs. The upshot was that Abbie is coming here from Massachusetts for a couple of weeks in July to hand-colour the blocks at the press, and to allow us to become properly acquainted. We will meet her at a conference of WEN (The Wood Engravers’ Network) in Seattle, where Jan has been asked to speak about printing wood engravings, in early July. We are looking forward to her visit very much: Abbie will be able to have a personal and direct part in printing the book, and that, we think, will make it all the better. The personal ties and the friendships one makes are among the greatest joys of this kind of publishing.

An Apprentice

We are also very pleased to announce that we will be welcoming an apprentice, Nancy Campbell, to the press for three months this summer, June through August . Nancy is a graduate in English of Oxford University, and has developed a deep interest in letterpress printing and books over the past few years. She has taken some workshops and has been able to gather some experience in printing on her own Adana handpress, but is looking forward to an intensive period of work at a private press and on larger handpresses. We are excited at the prospect of her visit, and look forward to a mutually beneficial and enjoyable apprenticeship.

A Reminder ...

For those of you who are interested in wood engravings, and would like to have the complete run of Endgrain Editions as they appear, we should alert you to the fact that stocks of Endgrain Editions One: Gerard Brender à Brandis, are running low: we have fewer than ten copies left. Subscriptions to the series – by which you agree to buy one copy of every volume as they appear at a 20% discount – are available, and there is more information about that in the "Books in Print" section.

A Christmas Carol, or The Miser’s Warning is also very nearly out of print. It is the earliest book from the press still available, and was the first book (and one of the few) illustrated by Edwina Ellis, who now has an international reputation as a printmaker.

Verbum sat sapienti ...
We wish you all very well, and we hope you will check in to our site periodically to see what has been added and updated. The winter and spring have dragged on a good deal for many of you – although our winter here has been quite mild -- and so we think it meet to end with these lines from Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well:

‘But with the word, the time will bring on summer,
When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns,
And be as sweet as sharp ...’

Crispin and Jan Elsted
Barbarian Press
May 2001