All Around the Block
The Fleece Press from start to finish
by Simon Lawrence, with a Foreword by Sebastian Carter

The ideal way to document everything produced by a press is to do it yourself, so I am delighted that the Fleece Press Bibliography is now coming in small batches from the binders. Compiled by John Hodgson and myself, all 106 books and about 250 pieces of ephemera are carefully listed, with additional commentaries for each book and for many of the ephemeral entries. There is also my introductory essay, and I am honoured to have a Foreword by Sebastian Carter, whose long and distinguished career at the Rampant Lions Press, and much more besides, enables him to write with authority on private press publishing matters.

All Around the Block is published in a total edition of 300 copies. For over 40 years I have saved spare sheets from books, offcuts of patterned papers, and ephemeral pieces with a careful plan to include them with the Bibliography, and has been included in the versions below; you can be certain that the last Fleece Press book is just exceptional.

The book itself is the same for all three editions, quarter-bound in cloth and stunning marbled paper sides made by Antonio Vélez Celemin. Each copy includes original tipped-in examples, including book pages, individual engravings, patterned papers and ephemeral items.

All Around the Block: the three editions

(A) 210 standard copies of the book. 312 pages, about 45 tip-ins. Quarter bound in cloth and a truly stunning custom-marbled paper made in Madrid by Antonio Vélez Celemin, whose last major commission this has been, coinciding with the final Fleece Press book. Price £310 plus £16 postage.

(B) 63 copies of the book as above (60 for sale), accompanied by a guard album quarter-bound in 1980s Clare Maziarczyk paste-paper; 36 leaves displaying about 40 pieces of original tipped-in material - pages from books, patterned papers, and some lovely pieces of ephemera. Now fully subscribed.

(C) 33 special copies (30 for sale) of the book as above, accompanied by a guard album with a total of 72 leaves including most of the contents of the album in (B) above, but also displaying at least 40 extra items (which were deliberately saved, but only in packets of 30 or so). Now fully subscribed.

Trade discount is 10% on each edition of this publication.

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

Yvonne Skargon
by Jim Maslen

One of the leading wood engravers during the final third of the twentieth century, Yvonne Skargon is particularly known for her landscapes, cats and an innate love of flowers and gardens. She studied at Colchester School of Art where she was taught by John O'Connor and Blair Hughes-Stanton, and then started work at Cowell's in Ipswich. Before she established her printmaking, and later a teaching career, she worked as a very good typographer, particularly in book jacket designs.

Jim Maslen traces Yvonne's career, with great skill: Yvonne died in 2010 and this portrait of her has been built up from the documents (for example, 375 dustjackets which she designed), and prints found in her garage. With her husband John Commander she lived happily in Lavenham, surrounded by cats and a wonderful courtyard garden, which in turn inspired the engravings that we admire, and her beautiful paintings. Memoirs by Sue Scullard, Elly Robinson, Miranda Mott and Andrew Davidson enhance the record.

225 copies, and of these, 45 special copies carry a folder holding a group of over 30 loose original prints (which may vary in precise contents) in a solander box; in each group a couple of prints are signed; all the proofs I have are used. All copies are quarter- bound in elephant hide paper and Compton marbled paper. £225 for standard copies, postage £8 (please note the special copies are now fully subscribed).

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

A Bed in Chelsea
Edward Bawden’s letters to Muriel Rose
edited by Gill Clarke

Initially a friend of Charlotte Epton, who became Mrs Bawden, Muriel Rose developed a friendship with the whole Bawden family. Edward's letters to her, dating back to the 1930s, give us a very good view of his wartime work, of her Little Gallery, and in particular, their shared love of cats.

Edward lived in the countryside, two hours by bus from London, but periodically needed to go to town to teach, or for Tate Gallery and other gallery business. Eschewing the use of a telephone until 1960, he wrote to Muriel whenever he needed a bed (in Chelsea). The arrangement was happily reciprocated, with Muriel regularly staying at Brick House, as well as at John Aldridge's house nearby. Gill Clarke has written an introduction setting the letters in context, and her notes on the letters are essential for understanding the detail.

During the 1950s, many of Edward's letters to Muriel were illustrated with cats, which are just delightful, and are all reproduced here. A portion of the letters was kept in family hands but I then discovered a larger group at the Crafts Study Centre, in Farnham, Surrey, so it is a happy reunion, covering more than fifty years of Edward's life.

220 copies (stated number is 330) running to 195 pages, quarter-bound in cloth and a Barron and Larcher pattern, matching Green Parrots in format. Price £184, postage £6.

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

Green Parrots for Old Ladies
Edward Bawden’s letters to his children
edited by Simon Lawrence

Edward wrote to Richard and Joanna all through their childhood, while working away far from home as a war artist, then while they were away at boarding school, and at art school. Sometimes he drew pictures for them. We also have a few of their letters written home. The final pages contain engaging correspondence between Richard and his lifelong friend, the eminent potter Richard Batterham (the subject of a recent V&A exhibition), covering later school life at Bryanston in Dorset, then during National Service, and as students.

The book is illustrated by drawings from the letters, with family photos, and relevant work by Edward. The text of about 65,000 words runs to 227 pages, with an introduction and notes by myself; quarter-bound in cloth and an adapted Bawden pattern. It is published in matching format with A Bed in Chelsea; 220 copies (stated number is 330), price £184, postage £6.

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

Iron & Stone
Janet Stone’s photographs
introduced by Ian Archie Beck

When I first visited Janet Stone during 1991 to talk about making a book on Reynolds' wood-engraved lettering, I knew very little about her, and certainly had no idea that she was a brilliant photographer. Her record of the social and artistic circle within which she and Reynolds moved, based largely on their Dorset house at Litton Cheney, is now well known through two published books. Janet photographed her visitors in natural light and using a Rolleiflex camera (through which the photographer looks downwards and not at the subject directly), but less well known are her powerful images of Reynolds cutting letters in stone, as well as finished inscriptions before they were moved to their final location. Her ghostly, silent studies of Reynolds' cherished collection of Albion and Columbian handpresses in the outbuildings are also included here.

Janet and Reynolds' son-in-law Ian Archie Beck has written a lovely introduction about meeting the family in early 1977, and describes the unassuming outbuildings where the stone was cut and the presses were kept. The selection of about 40 photos is my own, and the text is set in Janet (a Stone design).

120 pages, 275 copies quarter-bound in Compton marbled paper, available now. Price £174, postage free within the UK.

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

103 Not Out
David Gentleman’s Stamps
by Brian Webb

Brian Webb’s survey of David Gentleman’s 103 pioneering postage stamp designs, reaching back to the early 1960s, forms a new letterpress book from the Fleece Press. Each copy will feature 79 tipped-in stamps. Coinciding with a current decline in the quality of stamp design and the introduction of barcoded stamps, this book will be a gallery of some of the best British philatelic designs.

This fitting record of David’s achievement, including a good number of stamps first created on the boxwood block, is a book very carefully planned: the 29,000 stamps have been bought in tiny quantities here and there over several years, and every issue is represented. The text is set in 8 point Baskerville, and bound in quarter imitation vellum with printed paper over the boards.

There are 330 copies (280 for sale). Price £155, postage £4 within the UK.

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

Iain Bain, 1934-2018
Remarks given at his Memorial Service at St Mary’s Ashwell
by Kirsty Anderson, Simon Lawrence, Nigel Tattersfield & Sarah Bauhan

Iain Bain’s loss to this world during 2018 was significant, and the four memorial addresses cover his personal life, his printing and typographical career, his studies of the work of Thomas Bewick, and his musical passion. Together they create a good record of Iain, the man loved by so many. 

120 copies printed letterpress in 11 pt Bulmer with various tipped-in illustrations, quarter bound in cloth and Enrico Ricciardi’s marbled paper. A few copies available, price £90 (net). (33 copies of the 120, which are no longer available for purchase, included a print Iain took from a block by Thomas Bewick). 

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com (the button below can be used if you have email set up on your device’s Mail app) or call me on 01226 792200.

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

Henry Morris & his paste papers
by Sidney Berger

The proprietor of the Bird and Bull Press and all-round private press legend, Henry Morris created a range of roller-printed paste papers for sale but was disappointed in the response; they are brightly-coloured and possibly a bit too acidic for many, but nonetheless very accomplished.

Henry’s bibliographer, Sidney Berger, has written a reminiscence of his friend, and the booklet is illustrated by three photos of Henry taken by Sid, along with several samples of the original papers, which also form the wrappers.

95 copies, of which there are about twenty for sale. Price £82 (net).

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

My Brush is My Sword
Anthony Gross, war artist
by Julian Francis

This new book by Julian Francis completes the monograph on war artists that I want to publish, the others being major books, or substantial part-books on Eric Ravilious, John & Paul Nash, Leslie Cole, Barnett Freedman, Edward Ardizzone, Tom Chadwick and Edward Bawden. Anthony Gross was arguably the most successful of them all, and produced over 8% of the paintings acquired by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee for the nation.

Gross travelled almost continuously for his country until 1945, through Britain, Europe, north Africa, the middle east, the Indian subcontinent and Burma. His paintings started with London, showing its suffering in the early days of the war, then military training in various settings, and he progressed to record military activity in a wide variety of worldwide settings. His gorgeous, fluid watercolours (and a few etchings) give us an emotional involvement (each one records human activity) as well as a unique and valuable record.

Produced with the full cooperation of Gross’s family, this is the first book to document the artist’s wartime achievements, and is one of the most significant books that I have had the pleasure of publishing.

There are 330 copies bound in quarter cloth and marbled paper, published in late 2022. The price is £218, with £10 postage inland.

For the time being, while stocks last, all copies ordered will be accompanied by a free copy of Today I Worked Well. The Picture Fell Off The Brush, the beautiful study of Leslie Cole’s war artistry by Malcolm Yorke.

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

Cut to Impress:
Woodblocks once belonging to Philip Norbury, Thomas Carnan, and John Newbery
by Simon Lawrence

Nine accordion-fold pages showing ten eighteenth-century wood engravings printed from the blocks, part of the group of over 600 woodblocks from the very first children's books. The engravings are accompanied by a short letterpress text. This selection augments the story of the blocks told in the miniature Woodcuts for good boys & girls, with four of the blocks present in both volumes.

95 copies bound in marbled paper wrappers by Louise Brockman. Price £40, postage free within the UK.

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

Spitsticks & Multiples
The History of the Society of Wood Engravers 1920-46
by Simon Lawrence & introduced by Joanna Selborne

March 2020 marked the Centenary of the Society of Wood Engravers. One hundred years earlier, seven engravers met in Philip Hagreen’s studio and six of those seven agreed to form a new Society with a single agreed purpose of mounting exhibitions devoted to ‘woodcutting and engraving by the European method’.

During these early years between 1920 and 1946, the Society comprised a tiny group of about fifteen to twenty members, plus a few associates. Although numerous travelling exhibitions were put on with many brilliant prints, sales struggled. The backroom story is also one of struggle, particularly when the SWE split in 1925, and its offshoot the English Wood Engraving Society, was formed.

This book, published in two volumes, brings together text amounting to a quarter of a million words with a huge quantity of work produced by the members during the first 20 or so years of the Society. Biographies of almost every one of the 342 exhibiting engravers will be published for the first time, alongside the transcribed minute books of the Society, surviving correspondence, press cuttings, private view invitations, posters, and the entire list of exhibited prints. A useful overview of these early SWE days is provided in an Introduction by Joanna Selborne.

My purpose with this book is twofold: firstly, to give many long-forgotten (or never known) artists their rightful place alongside their more well-known contemporaries in what was a fascinating period for the art of wood engraving; and, secondly to provide a documentary record for future scholars to use as a springboard, because much of the history provided may never have been uncovered and connected otherwise. For example, the engraved images to the left, at the bottom of the images, are by two engravers, Elfie Parry (a Ravilious student) and Herry Perry (probably a Noel Rooke student) respectively, whose inclusion in the book, as with so many of the other engravers in the book, is the result of substantial detective work finding their descendants all around the world.

This is without any doubt the most complex and challenging book that the Press has published, but it has also been the most satisfying as my knowledge of the period has grown dramatically. I hope this book will allow you to share my enthusiasm for this ‘Golden Age’ of wood engraving and encourage you to look at the images and see the tool marks and patterns which were being invented and developed for the first time.

There are two editions:

(A) 335 standard copies bound in a wood-engraved patterned paper and quarter cloth. Price £434 plus UK postage £15.

(B) 145 special copies bound in the same way, housed in a slipcase or solander box, and including 22 tipped-in prints printed at the Fleece Press from the original blocks by artists including Joan Hassall, David Jones, Clifford Webb, Winifred McKenzie, Eric Ravilious, John Nash, Vivien Gribble, Joan Ellis, Blair Hughes-Stanton, John O’Connor, Rachel Reckitt, Helen Binyon, Alison McKenzie, Tom Chadwick, Jean Burns, Reynolds Stone, and Claughton Pellew. Price £755 plus UK postage £15. Because of the protracted binding process (over 18 months) which confused matters, about eight specials are now available.

To order this book, please email me at simon@fleecepress.com or call me on 01226 792200.

Woodcuts for Good Boys & Girls
used by John Newbery and his successors
by Brian Alderson

and, in the special copies, an accordion fold miniature of The House that Jack Built
as originally written and including nine of the original ten cuts c.1750

In the tenth letterpress miniature book, Brian Alderson writes about 680 blocks discovered 11 years ago in Devon. They had stayed together for over 250 years, many first being printed by John Newbery in St Paul’s Churchyard, around 1750, in the first illustrated children’s books.

Three other printers, Thomas Carnan, Samual Jewkes & Philip Norbury owned and augmented them. There are 10 prints made from the original blocks and the text is set in 8pt Van Dijck; it runs to 60 pages, bound in a replica Dutch gilt paper. It’s a really lovely book.

There are 175 standard copies (150 for sale) price £92. Please see the first three images on this page, which you can click to enlarge.

There are also 75 specials (65 for sale), as shown in the fourth and fifth images on this page (again, click to enlarge). In these specials, the miniature described above is joined by a double-sided accordion-fold book of The House that Jack Built, following the original words (and the long s), illustrated by nine of the original ten blocks used by John Newbery in the first ever edition, c. 1750. These HTJB copies have been bound at the Press and are housed in a special box made by Stephen Byrne; the price is £355.

Both are available now from the Fleece Press.

Please note that if ordered with our other new book, Spitsticks & Multiples, the price reduces to £86 for the standard copies and £335 for the special copies.

To order, please contact me by phone on 01226 792200 or by email at simon@fleecepress.com.