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St James Park Press

Publishing hand-made illustrated letterpress books

18/05/2024

Delighted to be part of the show! Firsts at the Saatchi Gallery - last day tomorrow.

15/05/2024

One day away… see you there!

15/05/2024

Contemporary letterpress printing on show at Stand J88 at at the

15/05/2024

What’s the one thing in the world that can make even better, you ask…? Maybe a free digitally printed ‘Mondrian Typecase’ postcard! Visit Stand J88 to have your dreams come true. You even get to meet the man who made it possible! Rare opportunity. Don’t miss out. Available whilst stocks last.

There may also be a few illustrated letterpress limited edition books to see.

Hopefully I haven’t oversold this giveaway…

14/05/2024

More Orwell on show - Animal Farm - at Stand J88

14/05/2024

Visit stand J88 to see all 28 posters from the Press’s edition of Orwell’s 1984 framed and on display. Firsts Rare Book Fair at the Saatchi Gallery… Friday to Sunday (private view on Thursday)

10/05/2024

Looking forward to showing a selection of books printed at the Press at - Stand J88 at the Saatchi Gallery - please come and say hello!

09/05/2024

This time next week the Press will be exhibiting at Firsts London at Stand J88!

This year Firsts - “the UK’s most prestigious rare book fair” - is focusing on the Art of the Book, so I couldn’t be more excited to show contemporary handmade illustrated letterpress printed books, amongst the offerings from an array of international and UK book dealers; all within one of my favourite galleries Saatchi Gallery

Please come and say hello!

19/03/2024

I am no maths expert, but I have deciphered Euclidean Proposition 41, that ‘if a triangle and a parallelogram are on a common base and between the same parallels, then the area of the triangle is equal to half the area of the parallelogram’. This illustration is supposed to represent that, but I have to say, because the red doesn’t continue to cross over the yellow and blue to meet the baseline, it isn’t immediately obvious how that Proposition works! No wonder Byrne’s edition failed! But I do love this illustration… and think some version of it deserves title page status in my edition, particularly when you read about the psychology of triangles.

18/03/2024

Following on from my last post, by way of explanation: whilst there are very few individuals in the world who cast metal type, there are even fewer who create, by engraving, their own matrices from which to cast brand new designs or letters. Matrix making is a difficult skill, even if you can locate a surviving matrix engraving machine. Ed Denovan of Hellbox Letter Foundry, has such an engraver, a German made Kampf; and this 18pt Euclidean shape - unavailable in any form of type ornament - was his first creation using it. It’s fantastic to be able to print these four symbols directly from cast type, all thanks to Ed and his marvellous miraculous mystery machine!

16/03/2024

The original Byrne featured four small ornaments across multiple pages. Many years later, and by unrelated chance, Monotype made three of these available for casting - a square, a circle and a diamond. Sadly, the inverted “Monopoly House” was never available in any form as an ornament… until now and thanks to the brilliant work of Ed Denovan in bringing it to life! More to follow…!

14/03/2024

Proper printing begins next week for The Beauty of Byrne, with the opening prelims being first on the schedule.

It wouldn’t have been possible without the brilliant Mark Askam who also let me use his digital reworking, Open Kapitalen MA, which allows me to print it in around 60pt size, which wouldn’t be possible otherwise as it was never cast this large.

Thanks too to Metallic Elephant.co.uk who are always excellent with their engraved platework.

13/03/2024

Even when you’re reading about the first printed edition of Euclid’s Elements from 1482 (Elementa Geometriae, Erhard Ratdolt) - someone has to go and pop in Byrne’s edition for reference… there’s no escaping it.

12/03/2024

When Byrne is considered a “Monument of Printing”…

Monuments of Printing, Gutenberg Through the Book Arts Revival: Selected Works in the Rare Book Collections of the Stanford University Libraries (John E. Mustain, 2013)

11/03/2024

Reading never stops when you’re writing about Byrne…

08/03/2024

First proof of an excerpt from Cobden-Sanderson’s ‘Book Beautiful’… too many changes needed to list here(!). C-S’s tract was written over 50 years after Byrne’s Euclid, but The Beauty of Byrne will seek to assess whether Byrne’s Euclid would actually qualify as an Ideal Book.

07/03/2024

Morris’s paper on the ‘The Ideal Book’ stated, “a book ornamented with pictures that are suitable for that book, and that book only, may become a work of art second to none…”.

He could almost have been talking about Byrne’s Euclid with these words.

Address

Petty France
London
SW1H9

Website

http://www.stjamesparkpress.com/

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