The Doves Press: some letters of Cobden-Sanderson to St John Hornby, 1906-1917

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 18, Issue 1, 1 May 1984, Page 5

The Doves Press: some letters of Cobden-Sanderson to St John Hornby, 1906-1917

RACHEL SALMOND

The Library’s purchase in 1948 of a set of all the books printed at the Doves Press was announced in the Dominion, 1 and was celebrated by their exhibition in the Library for several weeks thereafter. C. R. H. Taylor commented further on this important extension of the Library’s collection of finely printed books in the Turnbull Library Record, 2 where he summarises T. J. CobdenSanderson’s objectives in founding the Doves Press. Taylor identifies the collector of this set of Doves Press books as C. H. St John Hornby of the Ashendene Press, of the trinity, with Kelmscott Press and Doves Press, which strongly influenced English printing style early this century. The contents of the volumes, which carry St John Hornby’s bookplate, include seven letters in the Doves Press founder’s hand.

Of these seven letters here transcribed from Cobden-Sanderson’s handwriting, six are affectionately addressed to his friend Hornby and cover ten of the sixteen years of the Doves Press’s operation. They are bound in a carefully collated volume the spine of which is labelled ‘Doves Press: notices, etc, 1901-1916’, with lists of books printed or in preparation at the Doves Press, the 1908 and 1913 Catalogues Raisonnes, notices to subscribers of forthcoming books, as well as seven pamphlets printed at the Press for which Cobden-Sanderson also wrote the text. Bound with the Press’s final Catalogue Raisonne of Books Printed & Published at the Doves Press, 1900-1916 is the seventh letter which is Cobden-Sanderson’s reply to the Times Literary Supplement review of the Catalogue . 3 It is addressed mistakenly to a Mr Richmond, when C. H. St John Hornby had in fact written the review. While these letters offer no new facts about Cobden-Sanderson’s life and work at the Doves Press, they endorse the many published expressions of his guiding philosophy and refer fleetingly to changes at the Press and bindery. They give no details of Cobden-Sanderson’s relationship with Emery Walker, his partner at the Press from its founding in 1900 to 1909, but the first presents a casual confirmation of the efforts of Cobden-Sanderson’s friends to keep this unlikely pair working together. Two private press books,

C-S, the Master Craftsman 4 and Doves Press; the Start of a Worry 5 print letters and partnership agreements from 1902 to 1917 that convey more plainly Cobden-Sanderson’s early bitterness towards Walker and record the devoted mediation of St John Hornby and Sydney Cockerell. The letters that follow supplement the revelations of these two publications and extend the introspective narrative of Cobden-Sanderson’s Journals. 6

7 Ap. 1906 RIVER HOUSE, F UPPER MALL, HAMMERSMITH. Dear Hornby, I am so sorry to be leaving England, after all, without seeing you & thanking you for all your kind help in the matter of the Doves Press Partnership.' 3 I meant to call, and so meaning postponed writing. Me[?] I have been very busy and now, tomorrow, I am going to Assisi. I am really very much obliged to you & think the quite good & fair (if, leaning as it does so much to my side, I may venture to characterize it!) and I am very glad for our friendship’s sake still to have E.W. C with me. I hope, now, to see you when I get back. I should like to see your work. By the way I had meant to send a line along with that cheque for the Dante d but it got itself posted without my knowledge! Au revoir. I hope to meet Sabatier at Assisi & to have a good time! What a delightful day it has been and —Camb. has wonf yrs afftly[?] T.J.C.S. My kind regards to your wife.

a Cobden-Sanderson’s partnership with Emery Walker. Doves Press; the Start of a Worry publishes correspondence of February and March 1906 amongst Cobden-Sanderson, Hornby, Walker and Cockerell which clarifies the nature of Hornby’s ‘kind help’. b Probably the Memorandum of Agreement drawn up by Hornby on Emery Walker’s behalf and agreed to by Walker and Cobden-Sanderson, also published in Doves Press; the Start of a Worry, c Emery Walker. d Probably Lo paradiso di Dante Alighieri (Ashendene Press, 1905). e Oxford-Cambridge boat race.

The Doves Press ordered 12 Oct. 1909 ‘Sonnets’ & ‘Faust’ fl 30/10/09 My dear Hornby, I do not know, though I would fain believe it that your S.O. ’ still stands? Anyway I send the enclosed for your information & if the gods are auspicious to fill in. The “Sonnets” is I think a very pretty book. I enclose a page for your inspection. I am now quite settled in at the new Press + glad to see you whenever you can find time to pay me a visit. A notice on the phone would make you sure of finding me in. Your fixings for drying are invaluable & I am immensely grateful to the inventor & to yourself! vy truly yours T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. a Hornby’s annotation, referring to the Doves Press Shakespeare’s Sonnets, tercentenary edition (November 1909) and Faust, Zweiter Theil, (June 1910). b Standing order. c The Press was moved in May 1909 from 1 The Terrace, Hammersmith, to the Bindery at 15 Upper Mall, Hammersmith.

The Doves Press. 17 April 1913 My dear Hornby, How very good of you to write me so charming a letter. It comes upon me as came upon the “pensive traveller” the “instantaneous gleam” in that delightful little poem of Wordsworth: —He looks up, the clouds are split Asunder, and above his head he sees The clear moon, and the glory of the Heavens. d A thousand thanks. I gratefully note your order for the books yet to be published & shall have pleasure in sending them “bound in boards”. The Tasso lam now sending to Ormond Gate. My wife and I were lunching with Miss Horner in that neighbourhood on Sunday last & saw your new house from her window and afterwards at closer quarters from the Embankment. It makes a delightful corner and will surely be a joy to you & to the passer-by.

We called & left cards at Ormond Gate & heard that you were at Potterne. I am amused at your “unholy joy”! I discovered it as you say & then too late: nor is it the only one on that page! affectionately yours T. J. Cobden-Sanderson Please give my very kind remembrances to Mrs. Hornby. a From A Night-Piece (1798). b Torquato Tasso; ein Schauspiel von Goethe (March 1913). * * *

The Doves Press. December 18, 1915 My dear Hornby, How very sweet of you to write me so kind a letter & to awaken in me something like pride in the work of my hands and more even in the kindness & appreciation of my subscriber.lt has seen a late & curious flowering (you encourage me to think of it as such) of a life begun long ago & long in doubt as to what it really[?] meant. I do not suppose that I even yet ‘know’, but it has seemed to me and still seems that for me at least it meant the Vision, that Vision of “Order touched with Beauty’’ spoken of by the Prophet as[?] that without which the people perish: and of that Vision, I have sought to make my Books, both[?] bound & printed, & on how[?] small a scale, the symbol & the witness. In this sense I commend them to you for their witness[?] & am always affectionately & gratefully your friend T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. a Probably response to Hornby’s praise of The Prelude (December 1915).

319 S. James’ Court S.W/ 31 Dec. 1915 Dear Hornby, Very many thanks for speeding[?] those books to Howard & please find herewith l?.O b for the postage. And very many thanks, too, for that delightful picture of the Bishop & J. Valjean—oddly enough I had just been re-reading that touching introductory chapter of[?] Les Miserables. 1 My wife & I wish to you & your wife a new year which shall make the whole world happier than the old year leaves it. The “world” no doubt deserves what it gets. I hope there is something even in the dying year that may give us for fruit something better in the new. In this hope farewell to the old and welcome the new! affly[?] yours T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. a Cobden-Sanderson occupied rooms away from the Press in St. James’s Court from November 1910 to March 1917. b Postal order. c In Journals entry for 8 October 1915 Cobden-Sanderson mentions that he was re-reading Hugo’s Les Miserables.

The Doves Press. 20 Dec. 1916 My dear Hornby, Very many thanks for your letter. The last sheet was printed today* 2 & on Monday Albert begins a month’s trial as motor-bus driver. b He dreams of long excursions in the country with the coming of spring & I think it will be a very wholesome employment for him after the confinement of the Press. But if it is not a success I will remember your kind suggestion of work in your book department/ You have always been a good friend of the Press & I appreciate your regret at its closure. It has been a pride[?] &[?] joy to me, but as I am now nearer 80 than 7Q d I am glad to have the rest which the release will give me, & time to do nothing! But the Bindery will still go on as I have still a number of old commissions in hand as well as my own D.P/ Books to bind. We have given up our flat at S. James’ Ct. and are going to live at the Press: and to keep on the name “The Doves Press”: and I hope you will come & see us there. We are making a few changes &

additions but essentially!?] it will be as it has always been to me, a dear old home & “attic”! affy and ever[?] yrs T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. a The Press’s last publication was the final edition of the Catalogue Raisonne . . . b Albert Lewis worked as pressman at Doves Press from its beginning in 1900 and left when it closed in 1916. c It is most likely that Hornby had suggested employing Albert in W. H. Smith & Son, the bookselling and stationery firm of which he was a partner. In a letter dated 9 Jan. 1917, printed in Doves Press; the Start of a Worry, Cobden-Sanderson recommends Albert to Hornby as a pressman for the Ashendene Press. d He was 76. e Doves Press.

“The Doves Press” 15 Upper Mall, Hammersmith W. 6 Sunday, 15 April 1917 Dear Mr. Richmond, I do not know if I am indebted to you for the charming note on The Doves Press in last week’s L.S.?* If so, permit me to thank you. But having written so charmingly, sympathetically, of the first & second purposes of The Press, why did you so entirely ignore the third and supreme purpose of the Press, to which the first & second are confessedly subordinate, pietistically[?] illustrative —the workmanship of life? the workmanship of man’s own life, here & now, in co-operation with the workmanship manifested in the work of the universe, here & now, in the hope & belief that together they are advancing progressively towards an ideal unimaginable, indeed, but certainly present and the inspiration of the whole? However, this is only a surprised query addressed to yourself personally & privately, on the assumption that the note in question is yours. I have not asked, nor do I ask for a review—not yet. I have done my work, such as it is, & my work must speak for itself. “The rest is silence” I may add, however, if you are at any time approaching Hammersmith by District or ’bus, pray pay me[?] a visit. I am now living at what was once, & is still called “The Doves Press”. Yours very truly T. J. Cobden-Sanderson.

a Times Literary Supplement.

REFERENCES I am grateful for the assistance in transcribing Cobden-Sanderson’s handwriting given by Miss Penny Griffith, Professor Roderick Cave, and Mr Simon Cauchi; and to Mr Ross Harvey, who, as a vacation worker at the Library, drew our attention to the letters. 1 Dominion, 4 Feb. 1948, 8. 2 C. R. H. Taylor,‘The Doves Press’, Turnbull Library Record, X (Jan. 1953), 3-10. 3 Times Literary Supplement, 12 Apr. 1917. 4 N. H. Strouse and J. Dreyfus, C-S, the Master Craftsman; Essays (Harper Woods, Mich., Adagio Press, 1969). 5 Doves Press; the Start of a Worry, edited with an introduction by Colin Franklin; foreword by Michael Hornby (Dallas, Bridwell Library, printed at Bird & Bull Press, 1983). 6 T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, Journals, 1879-1922 (London, 1926).