To Be A Printer by Brooke Crutchley
Every so often I love to delve into reading about what I consider to be one of the zeniths of fine printing—that era between 1920 and 1945 in Great Britain. "Eras" are subjective historical references of course, especially in regard to the arts. But I'm hard put to find a more interesting period in printing history than the British university presses during the first half of the 20th century.
Crutchley's book is one of those windows into the arcane watchworks of the Cambridge University Press, where a cast of some of the most significant designers and printers crossed paths to work on book projects that stand today as benchmarks of the finest printing ever: Eric Gill, Stanley Morison, Francis Meynell, Bruce Rogers, to name a few. Complete with tales of triumphs and failures, Crutchley will have you wearing inky tweeds by the end of page 10.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness is one of those stories most of us recall from our days of required reading. I miss those days. I miss being required to read.It was like being forced to eat one's favorite dessert. It should be a requirement still—maybe stand in line at the DMV, get ready for your photo, be asked. "Well, you've read Heart of Darkness, right? Or Intruders in the Dust? At least Anna Kerenina? No?? Sorry, can't drive yet....next!" "Oh that's just fine,” one might sneer, “I'll go watch Dancing With the Stars.”
Conrad's masterpiece is one of those stories whose literary incarnation has been eclipsed by cinematic memories of Robert Duvall standing on a beach in Viet-Nam, under full attack, chesty with insane confidence and announcing, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Obviously, Apocolypse Now was not filmed as a companion piece to the story, but it's weird presence and ghoulish intensity probably kept most of us from going back to the book to rediscover its dark brilliance.
It took printing Heart of Darkness to take me back to Marlow and his trek upriver to find the mysterious Kurtz. It's a terrifying trip, slithery, hot, dangerous, psychotic and always teetering on a greater but mercurial meaning. All hope abandon ye who enter here should have been a phrase tucked in Marlow's sweaty shirt pocket.
And the editing. Yes, I said editing. Turns out there are more than several versions of the novella (six, I think), from its first publication in serialized form, to versions both authorized and unauthorized by the writer. We decided on the Heinemann edition of 1921 for ours. Our electronic manuscript was not conistant with the Heinemann, so there were lengthy checks and corrections of British/American words, many of which were not consistant even in the Heinemann. And spaces. (——) Conrad used long spaces——lots of them. A Polish Zorro. So many, in fact, typestting becomes a Rubic Cube of widowed lines and strange end-line breaks.
Marc Castelli, whose line drawings graced the John Smith book, saw another opportunity to express his passion for all things nautical and lept at the chance of drawing a suite of images that became windows into the narrative of Heart of Darkness.
300 pounds of guillotined Hahnemühle Biblio paper later, Heart of Darkness began to take shape at Deep Wood Press in northern Michigan. Our first hurdle was to find a cylinder press large enough to print a 12x32 center spread for the book. Chad Pastotnik just happened to know some commercial printers in Charlevoix, about an hour away. They had a 1938 Kelly 2. (see video to right)....
Conrad's masterpiece is one of those stories whose literary incarnation has been eclipsed by cinematic memories of Robert Duvall standing on a beach in Viet-Nam, under full attack, chesty with insane confidence and announcing, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Obviously, Apocolypse Now was not filmed as a companion piece to the story, but it's weird presence and ghoulish intensity probably kept most of us from going back to the book to rediscover its dark brilliance.
It took printing Heart of Darkness to take me back to Marlow and his trek upriver to find the mysterious Kurtz. It's a terrifying trip, slithery, hot, dangerous, psychotic and always teetering on a greater but mercurial meaning. All hope abandon ye who enter here should have been a phrase tucked in Marlow's sweaty shirt pocket.
And the editing. Yes, I said editing. Turns out there are more than several versions of the novella (six, I think), from its first publication in serialized form, to versions both authorized and unauthorized by the writer. We decided on the Heinemann edition of 1921 for ours. Our electronic manuscript was not conistant with the Heinemann, so there were lengthy checks and corrections of British/American words, many of which were not consistant even in the Heinemann. And spaces. (——) Conrad used long spaces——lots of them. A Polish Zorro. So many, in fact, typestting becomes a Rubic Cube of widowed lines and strange end-line breaks.
Marc Castelli, whose line drawings graced the John Smith book, saw another opportunity to express his passion for all things nautical and lept at the chance of drawing a suite of images that became windows into the narrative of Heart of Darkness.
300 pounds of guillotined Hahnemühle Biblio paper later, Heart of Darkness began to take shape at Deep Wood Press in northern Michigan. Our first hurdle was to find a cylinder press large enough to print a 12x32 center spread for the book. Chad Pastotnik just happened to know some commercial printers in Charlevoix, about an hour away. They had a 1938 Kelly 2. (see video to right)....
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Tramp Printers
The printer's trade has always been portable. A job ended or a dispute ensued and the printers were off to find new press-work and while this vocational wandering has been around since the union "chapels" of the 1400s, the term "tramp printer" seems to have emerged somewhere between the 1880s and the Depression.
The best book on the subject is John Howells and Marion Dearman's book, Tramp Printers. I believe that it's now out of print although one could check Amazon or google the title for used copies. After a few emails back and forth to John Howell, I purchased one of his last remaining copies of Tramp Printer. In fact there was some reluctance on his part to sell it to me if "all I was going to do was put it on the book-shelf.” I told him that given the sometimes precarious state of the economy it might be best to learn the way's of the Tramp Printer. The book arrived several days later and I was not dissapointed. If the federal bailout of Wall Street fails, I expect to meet many printers on the road, typesticks in their back pockets (along with a pint of Peach Brandy). Someone will have to print the foreclosure notices.
But maybe it's for lack of a colorful nickname I harken back to the tramp printers. Like "professional" hobos, they were known to each other by nicknames like Windy Jack (do we want to know why?), High Pants, Snuffy and Rabbit and if you happened to be jumping a boxcar and looking for printing work, chances are they'd lead you to the next "print town" and the next race-track, and the next bar and give you the what's up on cheap paying outfits and mean bosses.
My affinity for tramp printers is easy much easier to explain. Having moved six times since I ventured into the world of letterpress, and selling along the way 4 Chandler-Prices, 2 Vandercooks, a Linotype Model 14, 2 guillotine cutters and countless cases of type and other accoutrements, I have been without my own press for some years now and almost unwilling to re-equip until I get psychotherapy and/or steroid treatment enough fo rme to leverage the iron beasts around again. That said, I'd walk a mile barefoot in a blizzard for a Heidelberg cylinder press.
As luck would have it, a move back east from Oregon to Chestertown, Maryland reintroduced me to my alma mater, Washington College and their beautiful press room at the O'Neil Literary House where Mike Kaylor has served as master printer for some two decades and inspired printer's devils to continue the tradition. Finally I was back to the presses.
As luck continued to rain down on me, an old school chum (from Choate and Washington College days), Bill Frank reappeared in Chestertown, met with another friend of mine, Gerry Cataldo of Chestertown Old Book Co. and the three of us decided the time was right to produce our own books starting with The Chesapeake Voyages of Capt. John Smith. Chester River Press was founded.
Alas, I altered my landscape once again, moving to northern Michigan to be with my girlfriend and her two daughters. Problem was— a printing project was not yet finished and the Vandercook press I was using was down with a bout of sheared bolts. So began a frenzied search for a letterpress printer in northern Michigan (think North Pole weather and French trappers) when Chad Pastotnik at Deep Wood Press was discovered. Who would have guessed I'd end up within an hour's drive of one of the finest printers in the country? I might as well have thrown a dart at a map of North America. Chad helped me finish the project (a book by the esteemed John Barth) giving us a chance to get to know each other, talk printing and design and soon found we collaborated with ease and good humor. The die had been cast and we've worked on Chester River Press projects since, including the John Smith book (now sold-out) and the about to be released Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. More about that later.
The best book on the subject is John Howells and Marion Dearman's book, Tramp Printers. I believe that it's now out of print although one could check Amazon or google the title for used copies. After a few emails back and forth to John Howell, I purchased one of his last remaining copies of Tramp Printer. In fact there was some reluctance on his part to sell it to me if "all I was going to do was put it on the book-shelf.” I told him that given the sometimes precarious state of the economy it might be best to learn the way's of the Tramp Printer. The book arrived several days later and I was not dissapointed. If the federal bailout of Wall Street fails, I expect to meet many printers on the road, typesticks in their back pockets (along with a pint of Peach Brandy). Someone will have to print the foreclosure notices.
But maybe it's for lack of a colorful nickname I harken back to the tramp printers. Like "professional" hobos, they were known to each other by nicknames like Windy Jack (do we want to know why?), High Pants, Snuffy and Rabbit and if you happened to be jumping a boxcar and looking for printing work, chances are they'd lead you to the next "print town" and the next race-track, and the next bar and give you the what's up on cheap paying outfits and mean bosses.
My affinity for tramp printers is easy much easier to explain. Having moved six times since I ventured into the world of letterpress, and selling along the way 4 Chandler-Prices, 2 Vandercooks, a Linotype Model 14, 2 guillotine cutters and countless cases of type and other accoutrements, I have been without my own press for some years now and almost unwilling to re-equip until I get psychotherapy and/or steroid treatment enough fo rme to leverage the iron beasts around again. That said, I'd walk a mile barefoot in a blizzard for a Heidelberg cylinder press.
As luck would have it, a move back east from Oregon to Chestertown, Maryland reintroduced me to my alma mater, Washington College and their beautiful press room at the O'Neil Literary House where Mike Kaylor has served as master printer for some two decades and inspired printer's devils to continue the tradition. Finally I was back to the presses.
As luck continued to rain down on me, an old school chum (from Choate and Washington College days), Bill Frank reappeared in Chestertown, met with another friend of mine, Gerry Cataldo of Chestertown Old Book Co. and the three of us decided the time was right to produce our own books starting with The Chesapeake Voyages of Capt. John Smith. Chester River Press was founded.
Alas, I altered my landscape once again, moving to northern Michigan to be with my girlfriend and her two daughters. Problem was— a printing project was not yet finished and the Vandercook press I was using was down with a bout of sheared bolts. So began a frenzied search for a letterpress printer in northern Michigan (think North Pole weather and French trappers) when Chad Pastotnik at Deep Wood Press was discovered. Who would have guessed I'd end up within an hour's drive of one of the finest printers in the country? I might as well have thrown a dart at a map of North America. Chad helped me finish the project (a book by the esteemed John Barth) giving us a chance to get to know each other, talk printing and design and soon found we collaborated with ease and good humor. The die had been cast and we've worked on Chester River Press projects since, including the John Smith book (now sold-out) and the about to be released Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. More about that later.
A Beginning
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would want to read about the trials and tribulations of a letterpress printer, but a few have asked for first-hand observations, so here they are. I'm thinking a Lamborghini mechanic actually might be more interesting. Or maybe the Director of the Sand Museum.
A friend of mine, Josh Shenk, gifted writer and Director of Washington College's O'Neil Literary House, believes there should be a printer's profile listed in the psychiatric diagnostic handbook, DSM, as an illness. And I think he might be on to something.
Years ago, living in Colorado Springs, I often passed the International Typographer's Union Printer's Home. No lie. It was a sprawling almost cathedral-like facility with a panoramic view of the Rockies. At the time I didn't happen to think that some of those printers might have been "forced" to retire early after a complete meltdown (probably involving deckles, registration and humidity). It would not be too far afield to believe that many a stressed out printer went the way of the watchmaker and genius Linotype inventor, Ottmar Mergenthaler who is said to have ended up with a few fonts missing (although in all fairness I have not documented this.)
To assist the American Psychiatric Association I've established a few elements that might help with future diagnostics:
1. An inexorable ambition to be perpetually confounded.
2. (Combined with) a severe need discover the Platonic form of the Beautiful.
3. A fetish for seeing life as a reverse image.
4. A fear of anything more or less than type-high (.9186 inches)
5. A compulsion to arrange sock drawers like a California Job Case.
A friend of mine, Josh Shenk, gifted writer and Director of Washington College's O'Neil Literary House, believes there should be a printer's profile listed in the psychiatric diagnostic handbook, DSM, as an illness. And I think he might be on to something.
Years ago, living in Colorado Springs, I often passed the International Typographer's Union Printer's Home. No lie. It was a sprawling almost cathedral-like facility with a panoramic view of the Rockies. At the time I didn't happen to think that some of those printers might have been "forced" to retire early after a complete meltdown (probably involving deckles, registration and humidity). It would not be too far afield to believe that many a stressed out printer went the way of the watchmaker and genius Linotype inventor, Ottmar Mergenthaler who is said to have ended up with a few fonts missing (although in all fairness I have not documented this.)
To assist the American Psychiatric Association I've established a few elements that might help with future diagnostics:
1. An inexorable ambition to be perpetually confounded.
2. (Combined with) a severe need discover the Platonic form of the Beautiful.
3. A fetish for seeing life as a reverse image.
4. A fear of anything more or less than type-high (.9186 inches)
5. A compulsion to arrange sock drawers like a California Job Case.
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