Books

We carry a select number of titles about printing, typography, and the book arts.

"ABC of Bookbinding, by Greenfield, Oak Knoll"
$49.95
BO61
Oak Knoll Press and the Plough Press 2002, 8vo., cloth, dust jacket. 180 pages. Reprint of the first edition of 1997. For the first time, Jane Greenfield has provided a unique glossary of terms, styles, structures, and names related to conservation and bookbinding through the ages illustrated with over 700 line drawings. Locating accurate descriptions of bookbindings from various periods has previously been frustrating for those who work with rare and antiquarian books, especially conservators, librarians, book collectors and antiquarian book specialists. However, this frustration will abate as Greenfield's work takes place alongside John Carter's ABC For Book Collectors as well as Don Etherington's and Matt T. Roberts' Bookbinding and Conservation of Books. Ms. Greenfield, a master in the field of bookbinding and conservation, examines the book's development from the earliest periods and in different places. She has provided names and drawings for almost every conceivable part of the book as well as a multitude of styles, bindings, and decorations. She literally takes apart the structure of the book and illustrates the many and varied facets and definitions that clearly outline the historical development of the book's structures and styles.
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"Catalogue of 19th Century Printing Presses, by Harold E. Sterne"
$75.00
BO41
New Castle, Delaware Oak Knoll Press 2001 small 4to. cloth, dust jacket. 272 pages. From presses similar to Gutenberg's wine press to the mechanical marvels of the 1890s, this visually remarkable work contains the largest collection of printing equipment illustrations and advertisements to date. A careful study of the more than 480 rare woodcuts and engravings of Hand, Cylinder, Platen, Lever, Lithographic, and Rotary presses will reveal the subtle and major changes each manufacturer made to enhance his machine's productivity and printing quality. Never before has the printing or publishing historian had such a comprehensive resource at his disposal. This work truly captures the engineering technology of a bygone age. The author has spent 30 years gathering and compiling this information, a true labor of love. This second, expanded edition has over 150 new illustrations. Hal Sterne is the former owner of NA Graphics and retired from a lifetime of working in the printing industry.
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"Ottmar Mergenthaler (re-edited biography of Linotype inventor), by Carl Schlesinger"
$34.95
BO53
A New Edition, With Added Historical Notes Based On Recent Findings. New Castle Oak Knoll Books 1992 8vo. cloth, dust jacket. 144 pages. Ottmar Mergenthaler, the world-famous inventor of the Linotype machine, was dying of tuberculosis in 1898. Too weak to hold a pen, the inventor, whose breakthrough had made possible cheaper and larger newspapers and books, still burned with a desire to tell his life's story. Death would soon take this man who had made it possible for everybody to read more of everything. Painstakingly, Mergenthaler reconstructed his incredible career which had been marked by brilliant achievements and bitter disappointments. When the book was finished it was privately printed and given away to friends. Mergenthaler's riveting biography is reprinted here exactly as he approved it ninety years ago. An 1889 article describing the first Linotype installation and the severe conditions under which the operators worked has been added. The earliest production record and weekly earnings of the typesetters are also shown in detail. New research by Carl Schlesinger about the first matrices used in the 1886 Blower Linotype has been included. For a hundred years, scholars presumed these mats were made from steel alphabet punches which had been cut by hand. Schlesinger offers proof that the matrices were really made with inserted electrotype molds. These had been copied from existing hand type to conceal the appearance of Linotype printing. A copy of the first newspaper page printed with linotype slugs is included as a separate piece in the book. Illustrated.
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"General Printing, by Cleeton, Pitken, and Cornwell, digital reprint of 1963 edition, perfect bound"
$24.95
BO451
An excellent, well illustrated book that covers all aspects of basic letterpress from hand setting type, making up forms, lock up, makeready for platen presses, and operation of platen presses. Much of this information applies also to table top presses and proof presses like Vandercooks. First published in 1941, this is a digital reprint with soft cover of the 1963 revised edition. Cleeton was dean of the School of Printing Management at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He wrote numerous books on printing related subjects and labor management. For the beginning letterpress printer, it is important to learn the vocabulary of our trade. Know what a chase is, what function a platen does on a press and be familiar with terms like tympan, friskets and all the other secret code words of the printer. Knowing and using the correct terminology will help keep you from looking like a dummy. Glen U. Cleeton as he appeared in June 1963 with the graduating class of printing management students at Carnegie Tech.
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"MacKellar, Smiths, & Jordan--Typographic Tastemakers of the Late Nineteenth Century"
$65.00
BO67
New Castle, Delaware, Oak Knoll Press 2008 8.5 x 11 inches Hardcover, dust jacket. 176 pages First edition. This is the first full-length study of the leading American type foundry of the nineteenth century. It is an interesting history of the foundry from both a business and a design point of view. The emphasis is on the design of the hundreds of typefaces that were produced by the foundry, from its inception in the 1860s until its merger with most other American foundries at the end of the century into the American Type Founders Co. The author describes (with many detailed photographic illustrations) how changing business conditions and technical improvements in typefounding interacted with changes in public taste to modify, over the decades, the appearance of the typefaces that Americans found in their publications. This book includes a complete index of MacKellar's type faces.
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"Hamilton Wood Type--A History in Headlines"
$20.00
BO69
Moran, Bill, Robert Style, Dennis Ichiyama, and Richard Zauft, St Paul, MS Blinc Publishing 2004 8vo. stiff paper wrappers iv, 60 pages Hamilton began producing type in 1880 and within 20 years became the largest provider in the United States. The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum is the only museum dedicated to the preservation, study, production and printing of wood type. With 1.5 million pieces of wood type and more than 1,000 styles and sizes of patterns, Hamilton's collection is one of the premier wood type collections in the world. In honor of the Museum's fifth anniversary, Blinc Publishing was commissioned to produce a 65 page book outlining the history of the Hamilton Wood Type Company, the importance of wood type to the growth of printing world-wide, and the role the Museum plays in the education of today's design professionals. The book includes a foreword by Jim Sherraden and five chapters on the history of Hamilton as a company and a museum. Well illustrated in full color. Cover is letterpress printed. Distributed for the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum.
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"The Bentons"
$24.95
BO72

Rochester, NY: RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press 2011, 8vo, stiff paper wrappers, dust jacket, 400 pages, $24.95

First edition. The ease with which we can choose a typeface today from a plethora of options to fit a particular need is something we may take for granted, but it is possible only because of the tremendous amount of labor and ingenuity that came before. The story of the lives and work of Linn Boyd Benton and Morris Fuller Benton is an important chapter in the history of type, recalling a time in American history when men quietly worked at developing and improving mechanical technologies that they thought would continue evolving incrementally into the future.

Foreword by Matthew Carter.

Patricia Cost began researching the Bentons in the early 1980s. The results of her efforts were initially published as a masters thesis at Rochester Institute of Technology and generated inquiries from around the world since, due to the nature of their work and to their own reticence, the Bentons had remained mostly unknown. Her book incorporates further research and contains a comprehensive listing of Morris Benton's typefaces.

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"Printing Digital Type by Gerald Lang"
$24.95
BO75
This has long been the standard work in the field, essential to any student of contemporary letterpress printing. An insightful, useful work. 96 pages, soft cover.

Gerald Lange is the proprietor and founder (1975) of The Bieler Press, a small printing and publishing firm that specialized in studio letterpress, typographic design, and the publication of finely-printed limited edition books and related matter. He is also the former Master Printer at the USC Fine Arts Press.

In 1991, Lange was selected as the first recipient of the prestigious Carl Hertzog Award for Excellence in Book Design. His publications have also won awards from the Type Directors Club, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts, among other distinctions.

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