The Colonial Printer

Portland, Maine: The Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1938. Limited Edition. Octavo. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Of this editionthere were 1500 copies printed on rag paper at The Southworth_Anthoensen Press, Portland, Main.. xxiv, 368 pages, with plates, facsimiles, and diagrams. The first edition, which appeared in 1931, was quite good but here the author has added much material found nowhere else. He details the difficulty in the early colonial days of getting ink, typeface, and paper. Paper, above all, was a problem for the colonial printer. They not only begged for rags but offered to pay for them, the earliest manufacture of ink was from lampblack and making it was a nasty business. Since whole families were involved with the earliest colonial printing, it was not unusual that women took over the business when their husbands passed and eventually were recognized as independent business operators. In the early days, the printer often had to practice elementary bookbinding. There was the problem of qualified labor for compositors, Benjamin Franklin complained of needing another hand but the pay of working with 100 ems per unit while slightly above that of the average workman was a problem since few had both the literacy and the manual facility to cast type properly. A handsome copy bound in green cloth, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, top edge gilt, housed within publishers' slipcase. From the library of Irving Kinsman Annable, Printer at The Berkeley Press, Boston with his bookplate.