US Fine Presses Established after 1945: A Guide to the British Library’s Holdings

Abstract

• This project grew out of a conversation in late 2019 with Phil Hatfield, then Head of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library, who had recently pledged financial support towards the cataloguing of a backlog of US fine press publications that had been acquired by our curatorial colleagues. Phil suggested that without some kind of check-list or guide, it would be almost impossible for the Library’s readers – now, or in the future – to appreciate the depth and richness of these acquisitions. Our rather limited initial vision for this guide – that it would focus solely on the presses whose material was then being catalogued – suited me perfectly at that point, as I really didn’t understand the time, money and effort that my colleagues had devoted to these items! Thankfully, however, as I immersed myself in this world, my appreciation grew – both for the items themselves and for the imagination and skill of their hand-press printers. And as my appreciation increased, so too did the scope of this project. After discovering P.A.H. Brown’s Modern British and American Private Presses (1850-1965): catalogue of the holdings of the British Library (London, 1976) it seemed sensible to push our own guide’s start date back to 1965.1 And as it became apparent that numerous post-war presses had been omitted from Brown, so we pushed that date back even further, to 1945. The first step in tracking down these presses was to search the Library’s catalogue. Not infrequently, however, minimal cataloguing details made it difficult to determine whether an item was hand-printed or not and the Covid restrictions in 2020 made it impossible to check out a fine press item’s credentials in person. Thankfully, online access to rare bookseller and auction websites made it possible, slowly but surely, to verify whether a particular item was hand-printed and whether the press itself had been founded after World War II. Additional searches led to bibliographies, fine press exhibitions, library archives and innumerable other sources which generated the names of more potential presses. These new names were then entered into the Library’s catalogue and checked for holdings. In total, these strategies yielded a list of more than 180 US fine presses which were established after World War II and whose work is held in the British Library. Of these, more than 160 started after 1965 and – incredibly – more than 90 were established between 1965-1980. This fifteen-year period truly was a golden era for hand-press printing in the United States – a cultural phenomenon which seems entirely in-tune with that counter-cultural moment. It was also the point at which graduates from the recently established university book arts programmes began founding fine presses of their own. Researching the emergence and development of these presses has been utterly fascinating. And time and again it has illuminated the profound impact that great teachers can have not only on individuals, but on an entire creative landscape. For this reason, in addition to listing the names of these presses and some of their works, the guide offers a short ‘biography’ of each of press. Where possible, this includes: the name of the press’s founder; the founder’s training and/or education and mentor; how long the press was in operation; how it developed over time; any speciality in subject matter or genre; any change in location; the type of equipment used; and whether they made their own paper. In a few cases, this information was either impossible to tract down or contradictory; in the latter case, I went with what seemed most likely. After this ‘biography’, the full details of up to 10 works held in the Library’s collections are listed for every press. If the Library holds 10 or less items by a particular press, then all of the items are listed. If the Library holds more than 10 items, this will be indicated with “10+ items” or “20+ items” etc, followed by the full details of up to 10 items which will hopefully give a sense of the press as a whole. At the end of the guide, there is also a geographic index arranged by US state which I hope will prove useful. Finally, I would like to express my huge thanks to Phil Hatfield for suggesting this project; Carole Holden for buying so many of these items; Kathleen Walkup for reading the guide, making helpful suggestions and enhancing the Library’s collections with some wonderful donations; Annalisa Ricciardi for cataloguing the backlog mentioned above and making it easy for future researchers to work out whether an item is fine press or not; and Philip Abraham, Mercedes Aguirre, Fran Fuentes Rettig, Cara Rodway and Polly Russell for their enthusiasm, suggestions and generous support.