There is often discussion about what constitutes a Private Press. I think there are two parts to the definition: a publisher and / or printer who has absolute control over all aspects of book production (almost non-existent in the modern publishing world), and secondly a press making books which also include something of the character of their creator. I hope my books meet these criteria healthily.
I wrote on the home page that I have been making books since 1980. In the picture to the right, you can see two photos currently pinned to my noticeboard that were taken in my first dedicated press workshop, acquired in January 1984. Later that year, Patrick Roe delivered an Autovic platen press, and I moved my Albion, along with a large FAG proof press.
Early on in my career, I printed mainly on handpresses, with binding being done elsewhere. My first book was for my irascible grandfather, Stanley Lawrence who ran T. N. Lawrence & Son in Bleeding Heart Yard in London (and for whom I worked for a short time in 1981). Following this, during the 1980s and 1990s, wood engravings and engravers were steadily celebrated in letterpress books from the Press:- the text being printed dry on mouldmade or handmade paper before being dampened to print the engravings by hand on an Albion Press dated 1853, at the rate of about 30 an hour. Books of this sort are still made here, using an Autovic, an Albion, and a Vandercook Press.
Because of my occasional desire to design and publish substantial books illustrated profusely in colour, around 2000 I also began to make some books edited, typeset and designed by me but printed out-of-house using four or five-colour offset lithography; these books are equivalent to any handmade ones in both care and attention to detail, as well as their physical feel. The two kinds of book coexist happily in my hands, many of them a mixture of the two printing processes. Colour plates are vital for many books I make, but I cannot print them, not least because I’m wildly colour blind.
An example of this newer style of book is Ravilious at War, which was published in October 2002. This hugely successful publication displayed all of Eric Ravilious’ 110 wartime watercolours (ships, coastal defences, planes, and so on) made as an Official War Artist, and included most of his highly engaging correspondence from the last three years of his life. It also showed just about every other painting, engraving, cotton, and ceramic design he made during this time. His daughter Anne Ullmann edited the text, and there was a perceptive Foreword by the characterful Evening Standard Art Critic, Brian Sewell. Running to nearly 300 pages, with over 200 illustrations (mostly in colour), and a text of 80,000 words, this was a substantial, important book which immediately went out of print; copies now fetch around £500, and while not all private press books rise in value in this way, it is gratifying when everyone wants a particular book now and again.
A massive amount of work went into the preparation for the subsequent publication of Ravilious’ selected pre-war correspondence, which Christopher Whittick, Anne Ullmann and myself brought to publication during 2008; Eric Ravilious: Landscape, Letters & Design runs to 528 pages in two volumes housed in a slipcase, with 180,000 words of text and 300 images, all in the same format as Ravilious at War.
About ninety carefully-made books have emerged since 1980, almost none of them poetry, and many go out of print soon after publication. I firmly believe in making worthwhile new books, with high editorial standards, for the educated reader. Catalogues or single prospectuses are usually issued for each book, and for those books still in print, shortened forms of their prospectuses are included about each book on subsequent pages here.
Generally two or three books each year are published. The hand-printed ones are mostly set in metal type, the illustrations printed from the original engraved boxwood blocks to the highest standards, by hand, on dampened fine papers; indeed, the printing of wood engravings has become the Press’ absolute speciality. The colour books are printed by Northend nearby in Sheffield, to similarly careful, high standards. Binding is executed out-of-house at the Fine Book Bindery, while Chris Shaw (see available now page) supplies beautiful after-market slipcases to order.
As of 2020 I have been making books for 40 years, and I hope to contract the scale of the work a little, if I can find a smaller, cheaper, and much warmer workshop. Several very substantial books are still planned (in fact 14 at the last count) but I want to move away a little from the eternal pressure of having to find money to pay rent, and intend soon to create slightly more modest publications in a gentle drift towards retirement.
The 1990s photos to the right (courtesy Ski Harrison) are a younger version of me diligently inking an engraved block before printing on the Albion; in fact very little has changed.
Books that are available to purchase from the Fleece Press can be found on the available now page. These include two new books available to order now on the history of the Society of Wood Engravers, 1920 to 1946 (Spitsticks & Multiples) and early woodcuts used in children’s books (Woodcuts for Good Boys & Girls). The page also details other recent publications on Tirzah Garwood (Hornet & Wild Rose), Claughton Pellew (Ploughshare & Hayrick), Douglas Percy Bliss & Phyllis Dodd (Gargoyles & Tattie-Bogles) – running to a massive 801 pages combined. Douglas also wrote and illustrated poetry albums for his daughters while he was absent in World War Two, these recently co-published with Liss Llewelyn as While Daddy’s Away at the War. The most recent T. E. Lawrence book is A Shy Bird, while Vivien Gribble is a short monograph on this early engraver: proud publications, large and small, but all very carefully made.
Coming along very soon are books in the works on Anthony Gross’ war work; David Gentleman’s hundred stamp designs; the engravings of Yvonne Skargon; John Buckland Wright’s wartime engravings; and the colour woodcutters of the first half of the twentieth century – on which subject no book has yet been made.
Do e.mail me for any questions you may have. As I still believe in human contact (and knowing my customers), orders can be left by e.mail which will be acknowledged, or by telephone, but payment cannot be taken directly through the website. I believe in keeping life fairly simple.