The Private Press

R.R. Bowker, New York, second edition, 1983. Cloth, 4to, 29 cm,. xvi, 389 pp, ills. Rosenblum: "more than two-thirds of the book is devoted to the period since 1890 and the revival of fine printing, the period conventionally regarded as the heyday of the private press. An engagingly written, informative, and handsome volume." From the preface to the second edition: " There are some very real differences between the private press scene of the late 1960s and that of today. Changes in printing technology have vastly increased the difference in the ways trade books and private press books are printed. Many more books from private presses are being published sometimes at prices that run into four figures. There has also been very much more published on private presses since the first edition. …When first planning the second edition I intended little more than a revision and updating of those chapters dealing with the private press scene in the United States and Great Britain from the 1960s onward. In practice, the rewriting has been much more extensive, with new material (where I have additional information or I have changed my opinions) in nearly every chapter. In addition to the rewritten chapters on the United States and Great Britain, there are many other chapters with considerable changes from the first edition: for example, the section dealing with Morris's American followers, and my revised estimate of the importance of the Vale Press, and the introduction of discussion of the Shakespeare Head Press. Chapters dealing with the presses of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have been added. Many new illustrations have also been provided. As before, I have attempted to show some of the different types of presses that have been owned or operated by amateurs who have worked outside conventional book trade channels in the past 500 years of the printed book. Some of them do not fit altogether easily into the section in which they are described; any classification for such irrational and eccentric undertakings can be little better than a procrustean bed. By no means have all private presses been discussed.. Concentration has been on the English-speaking world, and the only recent Continental work described is that of presses such as the Plain Wrapper Press, which form part of the Anglo-American tradition. Very Good in yellowed and somewhat torn dustwrapper.