JUNE 1997
SMALL PRESS PROFILE
BOOK RESOURCES
Letterpress & Book Design Resources
BY PAUL HUNTER, WOOD WORKS PRESS
books about book-making and design
Adrian Wilson, THE DESIGN OF BOOKS, Peregrine Smith Books, Salt Lake City, 1974. (handiest single work on book design and layout.)
Clifford Burke, PRINTING POETRY, Scarab Press, San Francisco, 1980. (covers the letterpress craft, in all its allure and frustrations. More comprehensive than it may appear, even if you don't want to print poetry.)
Clifford Burke, PRINTING IT, Wingbow Press, Berkeley, 1972. (handbook of offset and quickprint; the counterculture manual)
Warren Chappell, A SHORT HISTORY OF THE PRINTED WORD, Dorset Press, New York, 1970. (best single volume history that at least touches on all the major shifts and players.)
Mac McGrew, AMERICAN METAL TYPEFACES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, Oak Knoll Books, New Castle, Deleware, 1993. (the most comprehensive source for identifying type faces; essential for knowing what you've got)
Daniel Berkeley Updike, PRINTING TYPES, Their History, Forms, and Use / A Study in Survivals, 2 vols. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1922, 1937. (the classic discussion of the history of types and their influence on bookmaking)
William Morris, THE IDEAL BOOK, Essays and Lectures on the Arts of the Book, U. of California Press, 1982. (the wisdom of the turn-of-the-century master, who founded Kelmscott Press and led a revival of fine printing, along with Emery Walker.)
Bruce Rogers, PARAGRAPHS ON PRINTING, Dover Publications, New York, 1979. (recent reprint of 1943 classic by a great practitioner. Rogers' attention to detail and effect is always instructive.)
There are also related side-trips one could pursue, such as papermaking with Dard Hunter, or bookbinding with Edith Diehl. And then there are the sources of supply, some of which seem to wax and wane with the moon. People interested in metal type and handsetting have had to scrounge and rescue old equipment and otherwise try to replace a whole infrastructure that has disappeared.
-- Paul Hunter
Wood Works books can be found on-line at http:// www.zipcon.com/~pablo.
letterpress on the web
www.zilker.net/~ltrpress/index.htm
The home page of Digital Letterpress, an all letterpress printing office based in Austin, Texas, specializing in the production of books, catalogs, and commercial job printing. They use polymer plates as a printing surface, in addition to the lead type produced in a small monotype shop.
www.westnet.com/~bpress/index.htm
A very well designed page with a broad history of desktop printing presses.
www.shoga.wwa.com/~matma/letterpress/letterpresslinks.htm
A list of letter presses on the web.
© The Raven Chronicles 1997