Private press

Private press publishing, with respect to books, is an endeavor performed by craft-based expert or aspiring artisans, either amateur or professional, who, among other things, print and build books, typically by hand, with emphasis on

The earliest descriptive references to private presses were by Bernardus A. Mallinckrodt of Mainz, Germany, in De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae dissertatio historica (Cologne, 1639). The earliest in-depth writing about private presses was by Adam Heinrich Lackmann (de) (1694–1754) in Annalium Typographicorum, Selecta Quaedam Capita (Hamburg, 1740).^[3]

Private press movement

By location

United Kingdom

The term "private press" is often used to refer to a movement in book production which flourished around the turn of the 20th century under the influence of the scholar-artisans William Morris, Sir Emery Walker and their followers. The movement is often considered to have begun with the founding of Morris' Kelmscott Press in 1890, following a lecture on printing given by Walker at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in November 1888. Morris decried that the Industrial Revolution had ruined man's joy in work and that mechanization, to the extent that it has replaced handicraft, had brought ugliness with it. Those involved in the private press movement created books by traditional printing and binding methods, with an emphasis on the book as a work of art and manual skill, as well as a medium for the transmission of information. Morris was greatly influenced by medieval codices and early printed books and the 'Kelmscott style' had a great, and not always positive, influence on later private presses and commercial book-design. The movement was an offshoot of the Arts and Crafts movement, and represented a rejection of the cheap mechanised book-production methods which developed in the Victorian era. The books were made with high-quality materials (handmade paper, traditional inks and, in some cases, specially designed typefaces), and were often bound by hand. Careful consideration was given to format, page design, type, illustration and binding, to produce a unified whole. The movement dwindled during the worldwide depression of the 1930s, as the market for luxury goods evaporated. Since the 1950s, there has been a resurgence of interest, especially among artists, in the experimental use of letterpress printing, paper-making and hand-bookbinding in producing small editions of 'artists' books', and among amateur (and a few professional) enthusiasts for traditional printing methods and for the production 'values' of the private press movement.^[4][5][6]

New Zealand

In New Zealand university private presses have been significant in the private press movement.^[7] Private presses are active at three New Zealand universities: Auckland (Holloway Press^[8]), Victoria (Wai-te-ata Press^[9]) and Otago (Otakou Press^[10]).

North America

A 1982

Further reading

• OCLC 27326913
• Roderick Cave, The Private Press (2nd ed.). New York City:
  OCLC 969849170
• Johanna Drucker, The Century of Artists' Books. New York City: Granary Books, 1995
• Studio Vista Ltd.
  (1969);
• OCLC 551505190, 185502461
• OCLC 270894754
• Charles L. Pickering,
  OCLC 28268389
• Gilbert Turner (1911–1983), The Private Press: Its Achievement and Influence,
  OCLC 940315205
• The Private Press Today, for the 17th
  OCLC 561420445, 65743870, 640025289
• Bruce Emmerson Bellamy, Private Publishing and Printing Press in England Since 1945, New York City:
  ISBN 0-85157-297-9
  (U.K.)

External links

• The Private Libraries Association
• International Register of Private Press Names

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