As you scroll through this page, you will find the books that are currently available to buy from the Fleece Press. Immediately below is a list of the currently available books, and clicking on the bold titles will take you directly to the entry for that book:

To order, please call (07535 220869) or e.mail me (simon@fleecepress.com). My contact details can also be found via the ‘Contact’ tab (link) in the menu at the top of the page, or at the very bottom of the page.

We do occasionally run special offers, which can be found here: Special Offers.
Please note that postage costs on this page are for postage to the UK. We do ship internationally, so please get in touch for shipping costs outside the UK.
For books published without them, beautiful after-market, custom-made slipcases can be purchased from Chris Shaw: call 01280 848818, or e.mail christopher-shaw1@hotmail.co.uk.

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 07535 220869.

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 07535 220869.

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 07535 220869.

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 07535 220869.

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 07535 220869.

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 07535 220869.

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 or call me on 07535 220869.

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 07535 220869.

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 07535 220869.

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 07535 220869.

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 07535 220869.

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 07535 220869 or by email at simon@fleecepress.com.

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Hornet & Wild Rose


The Art of Tirzah Garwood


by Anne Ullmann

In 2011 one of the Press’ most important books was published, Long Live Great Bardfield, the autobiography of Tirzah Garwood. At 155,000 words, the text meant that the 300 illustrations had to be very carefully included, and inevitably, a lot of Tirzah’s wonderful art was omitted. It was intended to publish this companion volume within a short time, but I am now thrilled that this is the Press’ new book. It matches the format of the autobiography.

Tirzah married Eric Ravilious in 1930, after meeting him when he taught her at Eastbourne School of Art. She was a promising wood engraver who developed a style of wry social observation based on the peculiarities of the English social class structure. Receiving little outright success she moved on within five years to develop her skills as a pattern designer, then marbled papers, arguably her most important work, and then – after tragically losing Eric while he was working as an Official War Artist – she flourished as modeller of houses, and as an oil painter.

Tirzah’s relatively short life was marked by long periods of ill health but she left the world a body of truly creative work which is fully documented here by her daughter Anne Ullmann, whose sensitive and perceptive text has already moved several readers to give thanks for it.

The book is now published, 475 copies (435 for sale), and comprises 235 pages bound in a replica of one of her loveliest marbled papers over boards, size 320 x 240 mm.

Now down to the final ten copies, the price is £242 plus £10 postage.

A prospectus (though bearing an earlier, preliminary title) is available on request.

 
 
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Ploughshare & Hayrick
The life and work of

Claughton Pellew

and Kechie Tennent


by James Methuen-Campbell

This major study by James Methuen-Campbell is a book which I have hoped to make since I printed five large wood engravings by the extraordinary Claughton Pellew, back in 1987.

Claughton never established a single style in his printmaking; he began to make the first of his 70 wood engravings in 1923, and in the late 1920s made a number of etchings. A number of his prints are as important as any by his contemporaries, though he ceased printmaking by 1937. He also painted, mostly in watercolour, and in this medium perhaps established more of a recognisable style, with agricultural imagery often at the heart of his work. Features such as hayricks, horse-drawn ploughs and windmills are to be found in many works, particularly ploughmen following the horse but half-hidden by a feature of the land. A love of landscape is central to any understanding of Claughton (the painting opposite is shown by courtesy of a private collection).

A second layer of understanding comes from our knowledge of Claughton's incarceration, and at times his suffering, as a Conscientious Objector in World War One, one of the 16,000 men who posed a problem to the authorities. During his imprisonment he was friendly with Stanley Morison, who shared his Catholicism and deep feelings about the military ideal; James Methuen-Campbell gives us a thorough documentation of this period, a fascinating detail of British history.

The book comprises a full biography, a revised checklist of prints (based on but developing Anne Stevens’ pioneering work), all but two of Pellew’s 70 wood engravings and most of his etchings, with many paintings by both Claughton and his wife Kechie (at times indistinguishable). It runs to 288 pages on a generous page size. The book is a full-length, first study of these intriguing and deeply private artists.

There are 335 copies, and all copies include one tipped-in wood engraving printed from the original block. Of these, 280 copies bound in quarter cloth and patterned paper sides.

Price £245, postage £10.

50 special copies are bound in quarter imitation vellum with four extra engravings printed from the blocks, housed in a drop-back box.

Price £455, all sold.

A separate prospectus is available on request.

 
 
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While Daddy’s Away at the War


Poems for Prudence & Rosalind, compiled and embellished by Douglas Percy Bliss

Douglas Percy Bliss served in both World War One and World War Two; in the latter he put his artistic training to use by working in camouflage and deception, and in his spare time made two collections of favourite poems for his daughters, Prudence and Rosalind.

In total there were 66 poems, almost all of them illustrated by a carefully made coloured drawing, and the little girls treasured these gifts. Both are fully published here in facsimile form (much the same sort of feel as Mr Kilburn’s Calicos) with a letterpress introductory section printed at the Fleece Press and several tipped-in illustrations

Shown at lower left is the illustration for The Elfin People Fill the Tubes, a fairy poem by Winifred Mary Letts, one almost unknown even to her descendants. It was printed in Punch in 1920, and then disappeared from public familiarity, though Douglas or Phyllis remembered it, and Douglas’ illustration captures some fairy magic. The poem begins I know a solemn secret to keep between ourselves, I heard it from a sparrow, who heard it from the elves: like the rest of the poems, these are meant for reading aloud, to children or even just to ourselves.

The book runs to 108 pages and is co-published with Liss Llewellyn in an edition of 500 copies.

Price £90, postage free.

 
 
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Gargoyles & Tattie-Bogles


The lives and work of Douglas Percy Bliss and Phyllis Dodd


by Malcolm Yorke

While Douglas Percy Bliss wrote kindly and perceptively several decades ago about his old friend Edward Bawden (for a book published by the Pendomer Press), and earlier in his career took up the pen to write about Eric Ravilious and the emerging engravers of the 1920s, no-one has written comprehensively about Bliss himself, who was a notable engraver, teacher and – especially – landscape painter; the same applies to his wife Phyllis Dodd. Dr Malcolm Yorke has written several fine books for this Press and his study of Bliss, of Phyllis (a fine portrait painter), and of the succeeding generation of artistic Blisses, is another important book. There are books about Bawden and Ravilious, but it is right and appropriate to make the same sort of book about their closest, and highly talented, friend at the Royal College of Art.

It runs to 280 pages and there is an enormous amount of work shown, by both these great artists, with 18 folding tip-ins. There are also tipped-in prints made from four of Douglas’ pre-war wood-engraved blocks, and one by Rosalind Bliss. Douglas’ blocks were almost completely lost after his house was bombed in the war, the suspicion being that they were looted, since some turned up at auction many years later. It was fortunate that a few remained in family hands which could be included here.

Now available at a reduced price of £100 (net) including inland postage (was £282, postage £10). 

 
 
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A Shy Bird


The US copyright edition of T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom


by Charles Eilers

Seven Fleece Press books on T. E. Lawrence have been published since 1985. For bibliophiles, his interest in fine printing, and the story of the making of his magnum opus, Seven Pillars of Wisdom are fascinating. Preceding the publication of Seven Pillars in Britain in 1926, when he hired a private printer to make his book, Lawrence felt the urgent need to avoid the book being pirated in the USA. He therefore arranged to have the text printed there in an edition of 22 copies in order to establish copyright protection.

Two books were sent to the Library of Congress to establish publication, and copies were nominally offered for sale on the publisher’s list – but to deter purchase however, they were priced at $20,000 each. In fact 28 copies were made – none of them sold – and this book tells the complex, quite intriguing story of the publication, while also tracing the history of each copy.

This is an impressive, well-written and beautifully researched book by Charles Eilers. His work is complemented by 42 illustrations, of books, typography, manuscripts, and the people involved, across the 156 pages.

Published in June 2018, 255 standard copies (225 for sale) bound in half imitation vellum and paper over boards, in acknowledgment of the original style of binding issued on some copies in the USA.

The price is £152, postage £6.

A small number of special copies, which are housed in a drop-back box, included an original leaf from the second-state prospectus (1925) for the London Seven Pillars of 1926, out of print.

 
 
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Vivien Gribble


Twenty Wood Engravings


by Ian Rogerson

Vivien Gribble (1888-1932) engraved in an idiosyncratic, black-line style which is easily recognized but hard to emulate. She was one of the earliest of the artist-engravers, trained by Noel Rooke, and she exhibited with the Society of Wood Engravers in their second exhibition in 1921.

Printed here are 20 truly charming small engravings from the 1922 Sixe Idillia, and Keats’ Odes (1923), printed from the blocks in a compact format, one to a page where they really sing. An introduction by Ian Rogerson sets the work in context.

64 pages printed letterpress, bound in quarter cloth and Claire Maziarczyk pastepaper over boards, 250 copies, June 2018.

Price £95, postage free.

 
 
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Dilige Deum:

Love God and do what you will
A Beer stone inscription by
Eric Gill

Lucy Wertheim, who ran a London gallery during the 1930s and who saw magic in the work of Christopher Wood, bought a stone inscription from Eric Gill during 1934. The two developed a friendship, and Gill spontaneously cut a small stone as a present for her which he initialled himself, an unusual act for him. This short book tells the story of their association, and the stone itself is reproduced, along with the design (and its translation) in Gill’s hand, and two photographs of him.

This is a Fleece Press first, since it is printed from photopolymer plates, and bound at the Press in a Japanese stab binding using four different paste papers made by Sage Reynolds thirty years ago:- about 50 copies bound in each of the varied designs.

185 copies, price £82, postage free.

 
 
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Richard Bawden


His Life & Work


by Dr Malcolm Yorke

Richard Bawden (son of Edward) reached 80 during 2016, and the Fry Gallery of Saffron Walden mounted an exhibition to celebrate Richard’s supreme work in many media: watercolours, etchings, linocuts, cast iron, murals, glass engraving, mosaics and book illustration. Richard is extraordinarily adept at multicoloured lino prints, in particular, and it is my privilege to publish this, the first book on his work.

Malcolm Yorke’s biography traces Richard's early life in Great Bardfield, through attendance at the Royal College of Art, and since then as a hard-working and dedicated artist working in whatever medium next presents itself. The book runs to 200 full-colour pages in a handsome square format, bound in quarter cloth with a patterned paper based on Richard's design; he has also drawn the frontispiece and title pages.

There are 55 special copies (50 for sale), housed in a slipcase and accompanied by a signed, single colour etching of Richard’s own workshop made for the book, all sold. For the Fleece Press this is a rare monograph on a contemporary artist, and so naturally every effort has been made to make the book complementary to Richard’s vibrant and widely collected work.

Published in 2016, the special copies sold immediately, but 280 standard copies are bound in quarter cloth and patterned paper:

Price £242, postage £10 (still available).

Runner-up in the Best British Book category at the British Book Design & Production Awards, 2016.

A letterpress prospectus is available on application.

 
 
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Edward Walters
printer ☩ engraver


by Richard Russell, with a revised bibliography by John Gray and a biographical note by Tom Walters

Edward Walters, wood engraver and publisher who ran his own private press in the 1930s, also taught at Marlborough College and had links to St Dominic’s Press, along with various presses operated by religious orders. His work has been shown in several issues of Matrix, but it is high time his work is recorded in book form.

Tom Walters has written a short biographical note on his father, and has been able to provide photographs which handsomely augment the mere three previously known. Richard Russell was taught to print while at Marlborough by Walters, 70 years ago, and here writes of his debt to this unassuming and modest man. John Gray has produced a revised bibliography of the printed work, including Walters’ ephemera, enlarging Fr. Brocard Sewell's previous checklist.

A whopping 120 letterpress pages, 50 blocks (and 40 inserted colour illustrations), yes, printed letterpress and now available. There are 225 copies (200 for sale).

Price is £192, postage £6.

 
 
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Sensuous Lines


A Catalogue Raisonné of the intaglio prints of John Buckland Wright


by Christopher Buckland Wright

Collectors of the Press’ books will know that five books relating to the work of John Buckland Wright have appeared under this imprint, and have been among the Press’ most successful publications. Christopher Buckland Wright, the artist’s son, has gathered together surviving copper plates left in the artist’s studio at the time of his death, and compiled a full catalogue of all the engravings which JBW made, both for book illustrations and as autonomous prints; some of the artist’s work in metal is considered to be at the pinnacle of his achievements.

A detailed prospectus was sent out in November 2013 (copies available on request). Over 400 prints are listed in this lovely book, and all those originally intended for publication (including rejected plates) are shown.

Beneath the image of the book itself (right), the print shown is the tipped-in frontispiece in both B and C editions, printed there from the original copper plate by Anthony Dyson.

The book runs to 284 pages, in three editions:
A: 100 standard copies, full-bound in cloth with a paper label:
Price £224, and £8 postage (available; five copies recently found).

B: 220 copies which include an original tipped-in copper engraving printed by Anthony Dyson at his Black Star Press, used as frontispiece. Quarter cloth and beautiful marbled sides (in a false Suminagashi pattern) made in Madrid by Antonio Velez Celemin, housed in a slipcase:
Price £292, and £8 postage (still available).

C: 40 special copies which include an extra four original prints (ie five in all), housed in a separate folder. Quarter bound in vellum and enclosed in a clamshell box:
Price £825 (no longer available).

Published in May 2014.

 
 
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Today I worked well – the picture fell off the brush.
The artistry of Leslie Cole.


by Malcolm Yorke

Leslie Cole, who trained under Bawden and Ravilious at the Royal College of Art in the 1930s, produced some of the finest paintings when appointed an Official War Artist, and his watercolours are especially interesting, many in a Ravilious mould. Cole travelled through Germany (recording the scenes of horrific trauma at Belsen a week after its liberation), France, Malta and the Far East, where he recorded the action in Borneo and Singapore, a theatre of the war largely forgotten by Europeans today. Cole’s work was the equal of any other war artist, and yet he was unable, for personal or other reasons, to maintain the momentum after the war, when he seems to have slid very slowly downhill, and his early promise was unfulfilled.

Leslie Cole’s wife Brenda had a difficult teenage history, being the chief prosecution witness for the Church of England when they prosecuted the Rector of Stiffkey for importuning young girls. She disguised this past very ably through her life and may not even have told her husband. Her identity – kept secret even when the BBC tried to find her in the 1980s – was revealed to friends before she died, and for the unconvinced, a meticulous genealogical investigation by Christopher Whittick and Julian Moore ties up the details very neatly. Brenda was in later life a talented potter, and some of her work also bears fine lettering which would seem to be Leslie’s contribution. It is a lovely book, capturing the great work of an artist who should be celebrated.

200 pages with over 130 colour illustrations, the book is quarter bound in cloth and beautiful blue marbled paper made by Louise Brockman. There are 500 copies:

Reduced price £160, postage free (previously £212 with £6 postage).

A prospectus is available on request.

 
 
Ardizzone.jpg

To War with Paper and Brush:


Captain Edward Ardizzone, Official War Artist


by Malcolm Yorke

Published in October 2007, this is another of the major four-colour books printed out-of-house but entirely conceived, organised, designed and typeset by one person (as all my books are). It was a second collaboration with Malcolm Yorke, whose earlier book on Edward Bawden for this Press was a great success. Ardizzone's Diary of a War Artist has hitherto been the only book relating to his wartime experiences in many British locations as well as on the front line in France, Belgium, Italy, North Africa, Sicily, Denmark and Germany; it consists of the edited diaries which the artist kept during his travels. To War with Paper and Brush traces and assesses this extraordinary wartime path, and is illustrated with a great many original watercolours, line-drawings and photographs.

The book runs to 162 pages, and in true Fleece Press style is very heavily illustrated. Printed in Sheffield by Northend on the uncoated but smooth and classy Monadnock Dulcet paper in an edition of 600 copies (the colophon mistakenly reads 700), all copies are bound in full Record Leinen cloth with an accompanying slipcase.

The book is £212 (slipcase included), with postage £6.

For a perceptive review of the book and assessment of the Press’ books, see the Spectator review by Paul Johnson here: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/and-another-thing-21-march-2009. His final sentence reads ‘Lawrence is a public benefactor in making the work of such artists as Ravilious and Ardizzone more generally available, and I salute his achievement.’

A detailed prospectus has been made for this book and will be sent on request.