Please note that this book is no longer available directly from the Fleece Press.

A Guide to the Hand Press, by Ward Ritchie
Engravings by Anthony Christmas

Ward Ritchie begins this short guide by stating:

‘Printing on the hand press is the most satisfying method of putting type onto paper.’

The Fleece Press can attest to this, being the proud owner of an 1853 Albion Press that is still in frequent use today, especially when printing direct from the block.

As with the earlier miniature, The Fleece Press Guide to the Art of Wood Engraving, this is a satisfying text that truly immerses the reader in the subject. Reading this guide, one feels as if the inking, the knowledge of paper, the whole process of operating the press is second nature. The honest descriptions of printing are interspersed with discussion of historical press design as well as a wonderful anecdote from Ritchie’s own beginnings in printing when he travelled from California to Paris in the hope that he might be apprentice to a printer there, eventually turning up on the doorstep of this poor man and announcing, with hardly a word of French in his armoury, that he had travelled all the way from America to present himself. He was, amazingly, taken on as apprentice, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The book finishes on another lovely statement that I know to be true:

‘for those who are fortunate enough to have [a hand press], they find them to be quiet, uncomplicated, beautiful to behold and a pleasure to work.’

This book was published in 1989, in an edition of 200, priced at £34.