Once again, Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings has jettisoned me back to another time in my life. I had to search across bookshelves and through boxes, and finally found two volumes I purchased in the 1980’s from The Black Pennell Press. This photo of the last page tells you what makes these particular small press books nonpareil. These limited edition volumes were hand-set, printed on handmade paper, and hand-bound. That means the printer painstakingly, most definitely lovingly, set every single letter and space marker from individual metal letters to print this book, and each page was printed by hand.
In 1439, Johann Gutenberg invented metal, movable type, which greatly simplified the existing method of book production, which was handwritten manuscripts. For the next 500 years, virtually all printed matter was produced on letterpress equipment.
Printing is primarily divided into three main categories depending on whether the image surface that gets inked is indented – engraving, or flat – lithography, or raised – letterpress. In letterpress, the image is raised metal, cast backwards, then inked and pressed onto the paper. If you run your hand over the page, you can feel the indentation of the letters.
To get an idea of the complexity of letterpress printing, watch this short documentary of Firefly Press. You can learn more about the press at Elsa Photos.
Though letterpress is no longer an economically significant segment of the printing market, it continues to live on as the heart and soul of a wonderful world known as the private press movement.
If you are interested in letterpress printing, you can learn everything you need to know from this introduction at Five Roses.
The Black Pennell Press is located in Greenock, Scotland. It was established in 1982 by Thomas Rae after he retired from other printing business. Thomas Rae also produced books under the Grian-aig Press and the Signet Press names. I scoured the internet, but could find no recent mention of Thomas Rae. I did find a number of his books (just like my books) in university, small press books collections.
