A title from The Old School Press

De Sitv Dvnelmi – On Durham

The last poem in Old English, translated and introduced by David Crane, with a nineteenth century wood-engraving

About the book

In print; and sheets available for binders

The last extant poem in the Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition is The Old English Durham Poem. It tells of the site in the North of England on which the city has been built and the relics of the saints assembled there. David Crane has provided an introduction to his new translation of the poem, a translation that matches the metrical structure and alliteration of the original.

About the edition

The booklet is printed in hand-set Stephenson Blake Caslon Old Face (including the 10, 12, 14, 18, 22, and 30pt) on Zerkall mould-made paper, and sewn into a wrapper of heavy, hammered Zerkall.

The trade edition of about 250 copies has 12pp and is available at £6 each. A nineteenth century wood-engraving, found in the stock of a Durham printer, has been printed from the wood. (An ordinary edition of about 50 copies (all sold) also contained an additional line drawing by Wendy Batt of an interior from Durham Cathedral and an additional wrapper of kozo handmade paper, £18 each.)

Sheets of the trade edition in a slightly different collation of two gatherings of three sheets each are available for binders for £10 each.

What others have said about the book

‘I got back from holiday in Yorkshire yesterday to find (among other things) a copy of ‘De Sitv Dvnelmi - On Durham’. It is wonderful and I am grateful for you sending it; if only all printing was like this!’, ‘The book arrived yesterday and looks fantastic!’

The story

This book arose from another lead from David Burnett, who had written in one of his letters of David Crane’s new translation of the last poem in Old English which has as its subject the city and cathedral of Durham.

The initial attraction was that Hilary Paynter had two engravings of Durham, one hitherto unpublished, so I obtained the blocks from her. It was clear when I received them that they were too big for my C&P treadle platen press, as they would require more pressure than I could get it to deliver. As soon as the printing season started in 1996, they were one of the first things to go on, and, indeed, my prediction was well founded, as I could not get the blacks to print up with the available pressure on the clam-shell press.

Another incentive to take on the project was the idea of using some Anglo-Saxon type, and David Burnett had reminded me of the Elstob type that had been cut by Oxford University Press for an Anglo-Saxon Grammar by Elizabeth Elstob in the 1700s. I e-mailed Peter Foden, the then archivist at OUP, to find out whether there was by chance still type from that fount, but it no longer existed. Peter offered the idea of OUP’s casting a new fount but hinted that it might be something that several presses might want to get together to commission it. I guessed that the costs would knock the idea out of court, fun as it would be. Was I going to make a habit of printing Anglo-Saxon? It was a particularly ugly cutting, I consoled myself. I made other soundings to look at the possibility of getting hold of some Monotype AS mats. Duncan Avery at Monotype Hot-Metal kindly let me know for which faces AS sorts mats were available, but unfortunately there were none for Caslon which I wanted to use. I did not want to have all the text machine set; in fact I planned to hand set the whole thing in SB Caslon. Finally the idea of printing in AS type had to be abandoned and it was finally set in 18pt SB Caslon Old Face.

As chance would have it, I had got to know Wendy Batt at the Bath Printmakers Studio, and, when we visited their Open Day, she mentioned that she had some drawings of the interior of Durham Cathedral. One turned out to offer a real alternative to the Paynter wood engravings which I had sadly had to return unprinted. A line block from her drawing gave me what I needed and that was used in the ordinaries, sheets, and specials.

When the Paynter idea had fallen through, David Crane offered me a small 19th century wood block that he had found among a number that had come from a Durham printer who had long closed down. It showed (according to an old label pasted to the back) the translation of the bones of St Cuthbert who figures in the poem, with what one could imagine was the tower of Durham cathedral in the background. This would do well for the trade copies and for the colophon page of the other editions. It required some work as it was rather uneven but, though somewhat crude, it printed up nicely.

SB Caslon Old Face was used throughout: 14pt for David Crane’s introduction, 18pt for the AS text and facing translation, and various other sizes for supporting material. The ornament is a Monotype ornament acquired earlier that year on a whim.