Oak Knoll

Printed in an edition limited to 180 copies, of which this copy is one of of 40 'B' copies featuring 19 original specimen leaves from the seven Presses. Some of the leaves have wood-engravings, or other illustrations and initials in a second colour, and several are double leaves, showing four pages. Bound in half Nigerian Goatskin and marbled paper by Christopher Rowlatt, in a slipcase.

Accompanied by David's informative and authoritative commentary, each leaf offers a first-hand look into the printing quality and typographical genius accomplished by each printer. When paired with Pages from Presses (2006, Whittington Press), they cover perhaps the epitome of fifty years of the British private press movement from Kelmscott on. Pages from Presses II offers a unique opportunity to acquire original leaves from a selection of the books of the major British fine presses that flourished after the First World War. Each volume is designed to be generous in format to show the largest leaves from the Presses without folding. The type used is an elegant 14-Didot size of Walbaum for which the Press owns one of the rare sets of matrices [a change from Volume One which was printed from the smaller 14-point]. The paper is a special making of Czech Losin hand-made [also used in the prospectus] which features the Whittington Press pressmark for the only time. It is likely that this will be the last letterpress printed book published by the Whittington Press.

LIST OF LEAVES INCLUDED WITH THE B EDITION:

GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS

The Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer. 4 vols, 1929-31. Caslon type. Batchelor hmp. Wood-engravings by Eric Gill.

Lamia Isabella The Eve of Saint Agnes & Other Poems. John Keats. 1928. Caslon type. Batchelor hmp. Wood-engravings by Robert Gibbings and engraved initials by Eric Gill.

The Guinea Series: The Hundredth Story. A. E. Coppard OR When Thou Wast Naked. T. F. Powys

OR A German Idyll. H. E. Bates OR Crotty Shinkwin [&] The Beauty Spot. A. E. Coppard

OR The Apple Trees. Hugh Walpole. 1931-2. 14-point Golden Cockerel Type. Batchelor hmp.

Paradise Lost. John Milton. 1937. 18-point Golden Cockerel Type. Batchelor hmp.

GREGYNOG PRESS

The Plays of Euripides. 2 vols, 1931. Bembo and Fairbank's italic type. Batchelor hmp.

Caneuon Ceiriog Detholiad (The Songs of Ceiriog: A Selection). 1925. Kennerley type. Grosvenor Chater hmp. Wood-engravings by R. A. Maynard and H. W. Bray.

Erewhon. Samuel Butler. 1933. Baskerville type. Japanese vellum. Wood-engravings by Blair Hughes-Stanton.

SHAKESPEARE HEAD PRESS

The Whole Works of Homer. 5 vols, 1930-1. Monotype Centaur. Batchelor hmp.

The Works of William Shakespeare (The Stratford Town edition). 10 vols, 1904-07. Caslon type. Spicer hmp.

Boccaccio's Decameron. 2 vols, 1934-5. Caslon type. Batchelor hmp. Woodcuts re-cut from the 1492 Venice edition. Decorative initials based on those in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499).

CURWEN PRESS

The Legion Book. Edited by H. Cotton Minchin. Privately printed, 1929 (600 copies thus). Lutetia type. Wove paper. Initials in red designed by Jan van Krimpen.

Elsie and the Child. Arnold Bennett. Cassell, 1929. Baskerville type. F. J. Head hmp.

NONESUCH PRESS

Benito Cereno. Herman Melville. 1926. Walbaum type. Grey Van Gelder paper. Printed at the Curwen Press.

The Anatomy of Melancholy. [Robert Burton]. 2 vols, 1925. Monotype Plantin, with long descenders. Dutch laid paper. Printed by the Westminster Press. Illustrations by Edward McKnight Kauffer.

Odyssey. Homer. 1931. Monotype Cochin and Antigone Greek types. Pannekoek mould-made paper. Printed by Enschedé.

The Nonesuch Century. A. J. A. Symons, Desmond Flower and Francis Meynell. 1936. Monotype Times New Roman. Wove paper. Printed at Cambridge University Press. Illustrations of text and title-pages reset in the original types and printed by CUP. Tipped-in specimens reset and printed by their original printers.

HASLEWOOD BOOKS

A Book of Towers and Other Buildings of Southern Europe. Sacheverell Sitwell. 1928. Bodoni type. Zanders cream laid hmp. Printed by Spottiswoode, Ballantyne. Drypoints by Richard Wyndham.

CRESSET PRESS

The Apocrypha. 1929. Baskerville type. Cream wove paper. Printed at the Curwen Press.

The Shepheardes Calender. Edmund Spenser. 1930. Linotype Granjon. Barcham Green grey laid hmp. Printed by George W. Jones.

19 in total.