Fine books from the hands and brain of Simon Lawrence
‘The highest quality private publishing firm in the country’
- Paul Johnson for The Spectator
The Fleece Press has been the one-man enterprise of Simon Lawrence, with support from wife Chris and son Ben. I started to print in 1980, having visited John and Rose Randle at the Whittington Press. By April 2024 the Press will have published 106 books and made around 250 pieces of ephemera. It has been my life’s work – waking and sleeping – for approaching 44 years, and I am immensely grateful for the widespread support which has allowed me to do this for so long. In early 2024 the workshop will close, and I will be 66, so it might be a good time to make an orderly change. I am pleased that I can be in charge of winding up the workshop, as well as producing my own Bibliography. In the meantime there is a highly exciting group of new books, which currently occupy every bit of me so that I can get them done in time. In addition, the monumental Spitsticks & Multiples, and My Brush is My Sword (Anthony Gross’ work as a war artist), both previously advertised, are now available; separate prospectuses are available for these.
After I retire I plan to print simply for fun under a new press imprint on an Albion at home. It sounds a little bit final, but the Fleece Press can then be celebrated perhaps, and remembered with pleasure by us all. The backlist of Fleece Press books in print will of course be available, and in due course, a few not in print.
My books are usually illustrated by or are about wood engravers and printmakers, though with healthy interests in the official war artists, collections of letters, miniature books, and T. E. Lawrence. There is a decided and almost complete absence of poetry – simply because it’s published expertly by many other presses and I like to forge new directions. I publish what I am interested in, and, by extension, what many of my customers will want to read and see, but always new subjects. I always run away from a bandwagon. Customers buying Fleece Press books are part of a self-selecting happy club of which I am merely the secretary, treasurer, and speaker-finder.
Throughout my career I have deliberately focused on publishing my own books, with only very occasional work done on commission, the latter generally being the editioning of wood engravings. The books have developed in sophistication and complexity over the years but I hope that most have made a contribution to the world. I have always tried to make new books which are good to read and are useful (for example the image here is an adapted illustration by Barnett Freedman, whose work I have tried to bring back to public favour). My reasons for choosing a subject are twofold: it interests me, and is worth publishing. I know that if this is the case, my customers will agree.