The University of Cambridge was granted printer’s privileges through a Royal Letters Patent by Henry VIII in 1534. Although it held privilege, the Cambridge press did not actually begin printing until 1582/3, after the appointment of Thomas Thomas as University Printer. At the time, the Stationers’ Company in London held a carefully monitored monopoly on printing in England. So fierce was the Stationers’ Company sense of competition, it arranged to have Thomas’ press seized.
Thomas, a fellow of King’s College and notable scholar, was the author of a Latin dictionary which was issued in at least eight editions from the Cambridge press before 1610. He printed at least twenty titles for the press before his death in 1588 at the age of thirty-five.
The University of Cambridge Press is the world’s oldest continually operating press and publisher. Its first book was printed in 1584, making this 1584 Ovid one of its first publications.
Morris, The Earthly Paradise, 1896, The Earthly Paradise
Morris, The Earthly Paradise, 1896, April
Earthly Paradise
William Morris (1834-1896)
Hammersmith, England: Kelmscott Press, 1896-97
A series of twenty-four tales, two for each month. Twelve tales are from classical sources; the other twelve from medieval Latin, French, and Icelandic origins. Earthly Paradise became one of the most popular works of the Victorian era. It was morally acceptable and read as a means of relaxation and escape from daily cares. For this work Morris was offered the poet laureateship upon the death of Tennyson. Morris refused the honor. Morris himself oversaw completion of the first two volumes, while the remaining six were printed by the trustees of the estate after his death.
Printed in Golden type in red and black. Illustrated with full-page woodcut borders and initials. The ten borders and four half-borders used in The Earthly Paradise do not appear in any other Kelmscott book. Bound in vellum with ties. Edition of two hundred and thirty-one copies.
Martyrs
Ken Campbell (b. 1939)
Oxford, England: K. Campbell, 1989
N7433.4 C35 M38 1989
From the artist’s statement: “One day in Edinburgh I happened to pass the School of Scottish Studies. Remembering some music that I had heard twenty years before and wished to trace, I went in. An extremely patient lady told me it was on a record of polyphonic singing called ‘Gaelic Psalms from Lewis…which was first published in 1615. This stunning music gets right to your soul; it’s very upsetting. It is a style of singing that arose because Gaelic populations of the Western Isles had no psalm books in their native tongue. Consequently a form developed whereby the Precentor (or priest) would sing a line, and then the congregation would follow with great passion and devotion but, being Scots, often at their own speed. This action produces great waves of sound that sometimes start before the Precentor has finished ‘singing the line.’ I got a friend of mine, Stuart Elliot Rae, to transcribe the music for me, and translate the Gaelic to match the text with the music that was being sung. Then I put the note being sung at the top of a stave composed of brass rules. Underneath, I put the syllable that was being sung in Gaelic in woodletter, then below that the Pictish Ogham script equivalent, again in brass rule (Ogham is a Celtic script consisting of grouped lines). This looked faintly martial and certainly not Roman. I thought I would show Gaelic as a thing of beauty. The colour in the book was celebratory: it goes from cool to hot, with royal purple and gold and silver. Each new stanza starts with a representation of the saltire, the St Andrew’s cross, printed from a cut zinc solid that just kisses the small wavetops of the Zerkall paper to appear like granite. The notes are represented by Bembo italic capital Os set on their side. These are strung together at the end of the book, to make the chain that went from the tongue of the Celtic god Ogma as language binding all men…I tried to make this book as simple as I could, allowing such typographic skills as I may possess to carry its elements as a chant for the eye and the heart. The English, in progressively diminishing sizes, is at the back. Copy no. 1 of this edition now rests at the Stornoway Congregation on the Isle of Lewis, whose recorded singing inspired its making. The book is dedicated to those Scots who, circa 1800, when they were but 3% of the population of this nation state, nonetheless supplied 38% of its infantry. Text is Psalm 79, verses 3 & 4: “Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem…’ rendered into Gaelic, (sung to the tune ‘Martyrs’). Printed on double leaves in traditional Oriental format. Edition of 40 copies.
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