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A title from The Old School Press Chesil Beach A poem by David
Burnett, with a wood-engraving by Christopher Wormell | |||||||
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About the book To provide an early focus for its work in printing poetry, The Old School Press published a series of five books, each consisting of new work by a contemporary British poet, accompanied by illustrations by British artists. Number three in the Poetry Series contains a single poem by David Burnett, whose collection Twelve Poems the press published in 1994. The poem is accompanied by a fine wood engraving of Chesil Beach commissioned by David Burnett from Christopher Wormell. About the edition The text is set in hand-set Stephenson Blake's Caslon Old Face in a variety of sizes: 48pt italic for the title, 30pt for subsidiary headings, 18pt for the poem’s text, and 14pt for ancillary material (colophon etc). The engravings was printed from the wood. The edition is of 215 copies, all signed by poet and artist. £24. (Sets of sheets have all been sold.) The series is to a uniform external design: quarter bound in yellow cloth with boards covered with a hand-made paper from the Larroque mill. The Larroque paper comes in a range of delicate colours, and a different one is used for each title in the series. Each book bears its title embossed in gold on the front board. The text paper is either 145gsm Zerkall or 170gsm Magnani mould-made paper, and the end papers black Canson Mi Teintes. Each book is about 265mm high and 175mm wide. The story David Burnett had offered me a poem in 1995 – Chesil Beach – together with a wood-engraving he had commissioned from Christopher Wormell. The engraving arrived before the poem, and it was not until about April 1997 that David finished his refinements and I was able to start work. It had already been planned as the third in the Poetry Series. The wood-engraving seemed reluctant to print and the first run was a terrible mess that I threw away. The final printing was better but despite my best efforts it seemed impossible to get a clean line, nothing to do with the engraving I’m certain. Under a glass one could see small pin prick gaps in the impression on the paper at the boundaries of black and white; perhaps this would have been soluble by damping the paper but I have not liked to do this where the paper is to be bound – I have to get it flat for that after drying. The text was rather short for a book for the Series and I needed to push it out without making it too thin on the page. The 18pt Caslon helped and allowed just three stanzas of four lines per page. I also wanted the engraving to be more than an illustration so decided to make a substantial half-title, followed by a cut-down title page (without the title!). My original thought for the initial T of the poem was to use the sweeping tau-style cap T of Abbey Text in a pale blue ‘under’ the start of the poem. A test showed that the Abbey Text did not sit well with the Caslon so I went back to the large Caslon and chose the swash cap T and then matched the ink colour to the paper on the boards, which turned out pleasingly. The book was signed at a delightful afternoon at Richard Shirley Smith’s house in Marlborough. David and Chris came. As Angela and my mother were with me, as well as Chris’s wife and a daughter, it ended up being quite a party with strawberries and cream and cakes and tea. | |||||||
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Find out about other titles in the series - click on the green blobs |
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