A ROMANCE OF PRINTING

Evening Star, Issue 18809, 6 December 1924, Page 3

A ROMANCE OF PRINTING

MORRIS AND THE KELMSCOTT PRESS. It if quite possible (says ‘John o’ London’s Weekly’) that in the future tho name of William Morris will be associ ated primarily not with his writings and paintings, his gift for making the Middle Ages live again, or even with the disappearance of the anti-macassars and Berlin wool-work age in parlor decoration. His nchioments in the cause of Socialism are only second to his achievements as a printer. The Kelmscott Press, with which lie was engaged during tire last six years of his life, was the outcome of years of iiopes and planning. As a fellow-student at Oxford with his life-long friend, Burne-Jones —both decided simultaneously to give up the idea of a clerical career — it was his delight to turn the pages of manuscripts in the, Bodleian, particularly a thirteenth century Apocalypse. Later lie was heard to remark to a friend, a priceless manuscript in his hand : “ Ah,_ I wish I could get my books printed like thati” THE PRESS AT HAMMERSMITH. Years, however, elapsed before bis manifold activities in other directions allowed Morris tho necessary time for the long-desired setting up of a press. _ _ - Morris’s idea of the book beautiful involved the consideration of four things. “Tho paper, the form of the type, the relative spacing of the letters, words, and the lines; and, lastly, tho position ot the printed matter on the page-” Ihe paper he determined should be handmade, entirely of'linen, and laid, and not wove. Ho discovered later that he had accidentally hit upon the very formula used by the paper makers of the fifteenth century. After this he took as model a Bolognese paper of about 1475. So insistent was Morris on perfection in the smallest details that the moulds used in its manufacture by Messrs Batchelor were specially woven by hand in order to reproduce the slight irregularity in the texture of the early paper. The aim of the type'was to produce letters “pure in form, without heedless excrescences; solid without the thickening and thinning of the line, which is tho essential fault of the ordinary modern type, and whim makes it difficult to read; and not compressed laterally as all later type has grown to be owing to commercial exigencies.” THE MEDIEVALIST. In spite of his successes both aesthetic and financial, there were moments when the Medievalist in. Morris became uppermost, and he was inclined to regret the discovery of printing by movable types ; “ Pleased as I am,” he wrote in the ’nineties. “ when I saw my two men at work on the press yesterday, with their sticky printer’s ink, I couldn’t help lamenting the simplicity of the scribe and his desk, and his black ink and blue and red ink. and I almost felt ashamed of my press after all.”