Bibliographical Press – The Conveyor

Nature Printing

by Elena Trowsdale, an English Literature and Language Finalist at Brasenose College on placement in Special Collections. Elena has been identifying some examples of ‘nature prints’ in Bodleian collections.

Re-blogged from https://teachingthebook.com/

Fig 1: From Constantin von Ettingshausen’s ‘Über die Nervation der Blatter Bei der Gattung Quercus’ from volume two of Denkschriften der Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen classe der Kaiserlichen akademie der wissenschaften..

Nature-printed leaves in books — Fig 1: From Constantin von Ettingshausen’s ‘Über die Nervation der Blatter Bei der Gattung Quercus’ from volume two of Denkschriften der Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen classe der Kaiserlichen akademie der wissenschaften..

Beginning 25th July 2021, the Oxford Botanic Garden has been celebrating its 400th anniversary. The Bodleian Libraries have been collaborating with the Garden to identify historical books containing depictions of scientific specimens. Recently I spent a week in the Weston Library for Special Collections, investigating books which feature specimens depicted using a technique called ‘nature printing’. Related to this topic, there will be an event during summer 2022 entitled ‘Capturing Nature’, created by designer and printmaker Pia Östlund.

Nature printing, otherwise known as Naturselbstdruck [Nature’s self-printing], is an intriguing form of printing which is often breathtakingly lifelike. Using this method, prints are taken directly from the natural object itself such as a leaf, flower or even occasionally a bat. Alois Auer’s specific technique of nature printing, depicted in The Discovery of the Natural Printing Process: an Invention … (1853), involves impressing the natural object into a lead plate. Making a printable surface was done by electroplating the impression to create a copper plate, which was used to create the print on paper. This is an intaglio technique, where the ink rests in the shallow grooves of the lead plate rather than on the higher surfaces. However, in my investigations I have chosen to also study nature prints which fit the definition more loosely. Out of the examples I have found, some are taken from directly applying ink to the natural item, some may incorporate photographic printing techniques and others are facsimiles of nature prints, made from woodcuts which used the original nature print as their primary reference. Some prints are hand coloured, others use coloured ink, and some are drawn upon after they have been printed.

In my investigations, I have found nature printed items dating back to Johann Hieronymus Knipof’s work in 1757. Some are more intricate than others, partially because some have used wet subjects and some dry, dry subjects tending to be easier to print accurately. My personal favourite is the work of Constantin von Ettingshausen. A compilation of his works in three volumes is housed in the Radcliffe Science Library. I ordered this to the Weston Library reading room and examined it closely, finding extremely intricate leaf prints which detailed their structure and veins perfectly.

To compare different ways in which nature printing have been used and adapted, Francis Heath’s Fern Paradise (1875) can be compared with Thomas Moore’s Nature-Printed British Ferns (1859), H.B. Dobbie’s New Zealand Ferns (1930) and Peter Hutchinson’s Ferns of Sidmouth (1862).

Books illustrating ferns — Figure 2: Left to Right, plate 6 from Francis George Heath’s Illustrated Edition of The Fern Paradise (1875), print from Thomas Moore’s The Octavo Nature-Printed British Ferns (1859), cover of H.B. Dobbie’s New Zealand Ferns (1930) and first print from Peter Orlando Hutchinson’s The Ferns of Sidmouth (1862).

All of these books depict ferns using different, contrasting techniques- all of which fall under the blanket term of nature print. In his work, Heath discusses how his plates of ferns are originally taken from nature prints made through applying a fern to a plate of ink, which is why they appear like negative images of the blank space the fern creates. Then, Heath sent his nature prints to a printing house where they were turned to woodcuts. Moore’s ferns are seemingly direct nature prints, made using different coloured inks applied to the plate the ferns were imprinted onto, then with some additions such as the yellow seeds. The most intriguing aspect of Dobbie’s fern study is its cover, which has a gold embossed fern pressed into its binding. This fern appears exactly like a nature print, meaning a nature print was probably the reference image used by the embosser. Hutchinson’s fern is less detailed than the others. It was made by lithography and the fern was likely not dried out. Each of these techniques creates a different visual way to understand these objects, useful to scientists at the time as well as being aesthetically and historically meaningful to current researchers.

A nature-printed bat — Fig 3: The final page of Henry Smith’s Specimens of nature printing from unprepared plants (1857).

Then, perhaps the most shocking example of nature printing I have found is Henry Smith’s Specimens of nature printing from unprepared plants (1857). This book’s final page is a nature print of a bat’s wingspan. This bat was obviously compressed it could be printed but remains incredibly detailed. From looking online, I have found that Smith’s other works contain other nature prints of animals, including multiple snakes. I find this way of preserving the likeness of animals to be slightly unsettling, yet extremely beautiful and evocative.

During my time researching nature printing in the Bodleian collections, I was granted the privilege of spending a morning at the Bodleian bibliographic press with Richard Lawrence. We decided to experiment with nature printing techniques and printed a variety of items including a leaf and some insects. We used the classic method of imprinting a natural object onto a piece of soft lead, covering this with ink, wiping away the excess, then printing this lead plate.. The Natural History Museum of Oxford were kind enough to provide me with some waste specimens to be used as printing subjects.

States of the nature printing of a leaf: the leaf and impressed lead plate; the lead plate inked; the print — Fig 4: Mine and Richard’s nature print of a leaf. From right to left: subject, lead plate, initial print, final print.

We quickly realised that dried leaves were much easier to print than insects. The printing objects needed to be flat and dry to avoid distortion within the press. However, we did manage to make some semi-successful butterfly prints.

The butterfly specimen resting on the lead plate on the press, before impression

This was an incredible process to have the chance to attempt. I now have a newfound respect for the nature printers of the past as this form of printing requires a huge amount of precision and technical skill. On 18 July 2022 visitors will be able to see this fascinating printing method demonstrated as part of the Oxford Botanic Garden programme.

All of the items I have referenced are accessible to order on SOLO and I will include the links to their web pages below. While I hoped to find more examples of nature printing across the many Bodleian collections, I am satisfied with the dozen or so that I managed to successfully locate. However, it is likely that many more examples exist in the collections but have not yet been located or catalogued. Hopefully, in the future, more of these beautiful items will be accessible for further study.

Sprig of a tree nature printed in a book — Fig 6: Page from Henry Smith’s Specimens of nature printing from unprepared plants (1857).

Thanks to Matthew Zucker, for the view of a list of his own collection of nature-printed books, and for advice on the history of nature printing.

Resources

Constantin Ettingshausen’s Über die Nervation der Blätter bei den Celastrineen (1857)[and also collected works]: https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph019671053

Francis George Heath’s Illustrated Edition of The Fern Paradise (1875): https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph014421305

Henry Smith’s Specimens of nature printing from unprepared plants (1857): https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph014402361

H.B. Dobbie’s New Zealand Ferns (1930):

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph012966118

Peter Orlando Hutchinson’s The Ferns of Sidmouth (1862):

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph013095107

Thomas Moore’s The Octavo Nature-Printed British Ferns (1859):

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph014227366

Secondary Resources

Hanquart, Nicole and Régine Fabri, ‘L’impression naturelle : une technique originale au service de l’illustration botanique. L’exemple des Chênes de l’Amérique septentrionale en Belgique du Belge Julien Houba (1843-1926)’, In Monte Artium (Journal of the Royal Library of Belgium), vol. 7 (2014), pp. 57-78. <https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/10.1484/J.IMA.5.103285>

Weber-Unger, Simon, Mila Moschik and Matthias Svojtka, Naturselbstdrucke: dem Originale identisch gleich (ALBUM VERLAG , 2014)

accident of birth | Stars the cause

In this blogpost, artist Hermeet Gill shares the inspiration behind her work made in response to the major Bodleian exhibition, Melancholy: A New Anatomy. The work is on view during February 2022 at the Weston Library, Oxford

Type and blocks on a 19th-century cast-iron printing press, with a printed sheet — Printing the segments of a ‘star chart’ for ‘accident of birth | stars the cause,’ by Hermeet Gill, at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press workshop

This artwork, created in response to the exhibition Melancholy: A New Anatomy, is inspired by Robert Burton’s interest in astrology. In The Anatomy of Melancholy, Burton writes that “a physician without the knowledge of stars can neither understand the cause or cure of any disease”. Today, astrology is held in opposition to science and evidence-based approaches, nonetheless, it intrigues me – this system built upon scientific observation, geometry, and mathematics, to make sense of human lives.

Astrology claims to predict a person’s character and life path based on the position and alignment of planets at the time and place of their birth. However, the exact time and place of our birth also determines who we are born to and our wider circumstances, earthly constellations of contexts which also predict much about our experience of life, including our mental health. Predict, but not determine.

Three star charts, one actual and two hypothetical, reflect a family history in which three previous generations (in the UK, Uganda and India) in turn designated a different place for my birth. Each unrealised life path left ink-smudge imprints on my life experience: in my genetic makeup, in the consequences of forced migration events, and in cultural legacies.

The tactile qualities of the process of letterpress printmaking inspired this work. Many thanks to Richard Lawrence, Superintendent of the Bodleian Bibliographical Press, where the piece was created.

Hermeet Gill is an Oxford-based artist, inspired by ideas, systems and data and how these can be structured and combined. She has recently completed commissions for the University of Oxford’s Wytham Woods, Arts at the Old Fire Station and Oxford’s Library of Things. Originally trained in engineering, she had a career advising organisations, including on innovation and has worked with the Science Museum, London and TED. Hermeet has been printing at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press since 2016.

Saturday drop-in printing at the Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford

The replica press in the Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford

Ink + type + paper = print

Drop-in, no need to book; come along and print a keepsake.
Saturday 6 November 2021, 11am-1 pm
Saturday 18 December 2021, 11am-1 pm
Saturday 8 January 2022, 11am-1 pm

@TheBroadPress

Printing matters: Inspiration at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press

View of the Radcliffe Camera from the window of the Bodleian Bibliographical Press

What inspires your printing?

The Bodleian Libraries are home to a letterpress workshop for teaching and experiments, and a place for drop-in printing throughout the year at the printing press in the public foyer of the Weston Library. These activities are integrated with teaching at the University of Oxford, outreach to higher education, schools, and the public, and with the library’s continuing interest in creativity in the book arts.

Art

Ana Paula Cordeiro (left) and Merve Emre in conversation

Inspiration comes from extraordinary works, like artist Ana Paula Cordeiro’s book, Body of Evidence, made at the Center for Book Arts in New York City. A copy is now in the Bodleian Library! In July 2021 an online event and recorded conversation between Cordeiro and Merve Emre linked the Bodleian Bibliographical Press with the CBA.

Nature

Inspiration also comes from the world around us.

Graeme Hughes standing next to Leonard Baskin's Albion Printing Press

Poem and woodblock by Graeme Hughes set up for printing on the Albion press

Artist printmaker Graeme Hughes etched a plane-tree leaf onto the wood of a plane tree, and printed this on the Baskin Albion Press.

In September 2021, Bodleian Visiting Fellow Georgina Montgomery, historian of science, led a walk-and-talk in Wytham Woods, culminating in a collaborative poster of an ash-tree leaf. See the film explaining how Montgomery’s work led her to Oxford’s research woodland, Wytham Woods.

Collaborative poster of an ash-tree leaf made at Wytham Woods

This print by a visitor to the workshop is directly from a slab of wood.

Impression from a slab of tree trunk.

And see the film of making intaglio plates from a leaf

Script/Print/Code: the information revolution in one afternoon

Bodleian Library, Douce Woodblocks d.1, detail

On Monday 11 October 2021 in the Bodleian’s Weston Library for Special Collections there will be a race between The Oxford Scribes , the Bodleian Bibliographical Press, and the Centre for Digital Scholarship.

This webpage, script-print-code.info, tells the story.

This is a chance to compare script, print, and electronic text encoding side-by-side, in real time. The text will be written in manuscript, printed in movable type, and encoded by three teams, starting at 1pm.

In this blogpost we’ll report on the progress and the thoughts of the scribes, printers and encoders as they work through the same text, a portion of Psalm 107 (‘… They that go down to the sea in ships …’), to create a published version, in one or many copies.

Onlookers are welcome in Blackwell Hall, the main public foyer of the Weston Library on Broad Street, Oxford.

The event is in honour of the start of the Lyell Lectures 2021, The Genesis, Life, and Afterlife of the Gutenberg Bible, which will be given by Paul S. Needham, beginning on 11 October 2021. Details in the event listing include links to watch the livestream of these lectures. The lectures will be recorded and will be available a short time after the conclusion of the series, at https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/the-lyell-lectures

A webpage showing many digitized copies of the Gutenberg Bible, for comparison, is available here.

Here is the webpage for this event:

Art and artists’ books at the Bibliographical Press

Ana Paula Cordeiro’s work, Body of Evidence, is one of the artist’s books that inspires contemporary letterpress printers. A recent conversation linked the Bodleian Bibliographical Press with the Center for Book Arts in New York City, where Cordeiro made that work.

The workshop in the Old Bodleian Library is a place for artistic experimentation as well as teaching about historical printing.

The Printer in Residence programme has hosted creative printers who use the letterpress craft within the tradition of artist book-making.

Printers in residence, 2017-2020
The printer-in-residence programme, funded by a generous donation, invites a working printer or book artist to put their own stamp on the Bibliographical Press programme, and to share their individual artistic visions with students, local printers, and the public.

While he was in residence at the Bodleian during November 2017, Russell Maret was developing the typeface ‘Hungry Dutch’, a project begun in 2016. During his visit to Oxford, New York-based Maret shared his inventive approach to typography with a practical workshop exercise in printing a passage of King Lear with fallen type. Podcast of Russel Maret’s lecture

In 2018, Emily Martin visited from Iowa, focussing on the genre of movable books, a subject of collecting interest for the Bodleian, with the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera holding early examples. Martin’s publication in residence, Order of Appearance / Disorder of Disappearance, is a ‘slice book’ printed with the P22Blox modular printing blocks created by Richard Kegler. Podcast of Emily Martin’s lecture.

David Armes (Red Plate Press, Yorkshire) was the most recent Printer in Residence to visit, in November-December 2019. The residency resulted in an addition to his series of site-specific prints, with Between Sun Turns. This year (2021) Mr Armes holds a fellowship at the Eccles Centre, British Library. Podcast of David Armes’s lecture

The next Printer in Residence will be Thomas Gravemaker, of LetterpressAmsterdam.

The printer-in-residence programme has broadened the workshop’s remit and established new connections with contemporary book artists. Experience in supporting these artist-printers enabled the workshop to welcome eight Fine Arts students in Trinity Term 2021, under the guidance of Ruskin School tutor of printing, Graeme Hughes.

The Bodleian Bibliographical Press

Newly-made printing blocks from a 17th-century ballad in the Bodleian Libraries, 4o Rawl. 566(121), showing a man and woman with hats — Newly-made printing blocks from a 17th-century ballad in the Bodleian Libraries, 4o Rawl. 566(121)

The Bibliographical Press workshop in the Schola Musicae, Old Bodleian Library, is used for practical teaching of the history of printing.

Equipment at the workshop includes several cast-iron hand-operated presses, a proofing press, a rolling press, type and a type mould.

The room hosts classes in hand-printing for students from Oxford and other universities, and regular workshops for families, adults, and primary school groups.

Presses in the Bodleian workshop:

Albion (demy), serial number 539, (1835), from the Daniel Press. This was the press used by C.H.O. Daniel, Provost of Worcester College, from 1880-1906 and presented to the library in 1919.

Albion (pot), serial number 4993, (1898), from the Moss Press

A Columbian, from the Samson Press

An Albion, from Leonard Baskin’s Gehenna Press

A card-size Albion, maker Ullmer, number 2919

A star-wheel etching press

A ‘Western’ model proofing press, formerly belonging to Vivian Ridler

Where did you get that hat?

from Alexandra Franklin (Bodleian) & Giles Bergel (Engineering)

re-blogged and updated from the Bodleian Ballads blog, 2012

2021: Updating the discovery of detachable woodblock hats in Bodleian broadside ballads, we’ve had a printing block made with the detachable hat, and a matching hat for the woman pictured on the same ballad sheet, ‘Unconstant Phillis’.

The idea of applying image-matching software to the illustrations within the broadside ballad collection occurred to Giles Bergel in 2011. Under a John Fell Foundation-funded pilot project in that year Dr Bergel, in partnership with the Bodleian Library, asked Professor Andrew Zisserman of the Visual Geometry Group at Oxford to test their pioneering technology on a sample of broadside ballads.

The hat — in “Unconstant Phillis”

The hat — in “The Noble Gallant”

The first step was to obtain high-quality images. A sample of 800 ballads dating from the seventeenth century was chosen: this was the period when ballads were most typically illustrated, with a combination of commissioned and stock images. Photography, carried-out by the Bodleian’s Imaging Services studio, was funded with a grant from the John Fell Fund. High-quality colour images (600 DPI, 24-bit) were the result: these are now mounted within the current Ballads database and replace some of the older, lower-quality bitonal images which the Bodleian is hoping to fully replace.
Relja Arandjelovic at the Visual Geometry Group processed the new images and built a test site to demonstrate the image matching. The results were impressive: the pilot proved that software can match woodcut images on multiple printings, in varying conditions. The software, still under development, will be migrated to a new Bodleian Broadside Ballads interface under the current JISC-funded project.

What does “image match” offer to researchers?

Researchers working with ballads quickly notice that the same or similar woodblock-printed illustrations appear on multiple broadsides. The same hand-holding couple appears time and again on ballads of love; the same ships decorate songs of naval battles; the same cityscape appears, surprisingly, in ballads about London and Troy. And sometimes the same illustrations appeared in early modern English books and pamphlets, too. (See A guide to English illustrated books, 1536-1603, by Ruth Samson Luborsky and Elizabeth Ingram).

The repetition of generic illustrations in this way is often derided as evidence of ballads’ lowly status, but (as well as providing evidence for popular iconography), for early-modern bibliographic detectives, the re-use of woodblocks provides evidence for the date of a ballad’s printing: deterioration of a woodblock might be a way to establish a timeline of broadsides that share the same illustration.

But there are other questions to be answered, sometimes questions we didn’t even know we needed to ask, which could be answered by selection portions of woodcut printed images: like, ‘Where DID you get that hat?’

: A ballad sheet in the image matching test site

: Selection of a portion of the image to match in the test site

: The result of matches across 800 digital images of ballad sheets in Bodleian collections

: Different men, same hat, even the same wormholes: evidently the HAT is a woodblock with a life of its own

: The hat — in “Unconstant Phillis”

: The hat — in “The Noble Gallant”

Irish Gothic and Beyond

Elisa Cozzi, The Queen’s College, Oxford
DPhil student in English Language and Literature
shortlisted for the Colin Franklin Prize for Book Collecting, 2021

Figure 1: Frontispiece and title page of Regina Maria Roche’s The Children of the Abbey. Personal copy.

Irish gothic novels were among the first examples of the genre and greatly influenced later authors who played a key role in the development of the novel as a literary form, including Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Walter Scott. Unlike Ann Radcliffe’s popular gothic romances, set in a vague medieval past in faraway southern Italy or France, Irish gothic novels such as Regina Maria Roche’s The Children of The Abbey (1796) and Clermont (1798), Sydney Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl (1806), and Charles Maturin’s The Milesian Chief (1812) and Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) share Irish settings, characters, and themes. They deal, directly or indirectly, with Irish history and politics and were influential in the development of Irish literary nationalism.

Roche’s The Children of the Abbey, once among the top bestsellers of the Romantic Age, has had a lasting impact on my studies. While researching material for my undergraduate dissertation I purchased a mid-nineteenth century illustrated edition of The Children of the Abbey from an independent Irish bookshop (John’s Bookshop in Athlone, Co. Westmeath). Printed by William Lane and A.K. Newman’s infamous London-based Minerva Press, which specialised in gothic novels and became the most prolific popular press of the age, my copy is a small one-volume edition, measuring 3x5x1.5 inches and bound in rib grain book-cloth with faint remnants of gilt ornaments on the spine. Although it is undated, the title page of the volume is signed “Elizabeth Jessop, 1859” in faded black ink, while the front free endpaper displays a handwritten place name, “Doory Hall, Co. Longford”.

Figure 2: Indication of “Doory Hall, Co. Longford”

Intrigued by these allusive traces of past readers, I discovered that the Jessops were an Anglo-Irish family of the landed gentry, with their seat in Doory Hall, near Longford. I also found (in Burke’s Peerage) that Frederick Thomas Jessop, Esq. had a child called Elizabeth, born between 1839 and the early 1840s.[1] Thus, she would have been around fifteen or twenty years old when she put her signature in this copy in 1859: the perfect age to enjoy what was, by then, a good gothic classic. I find it fascinating that although the Jessops’ extensive library was sold upon the family’s demise, and their big house fell into ruin in the 1920s, a few of their books, like my own copy, survived to tell the forgotten tale of their past owners. This exciting discovery initiated me to the study of the book as material culture and inspired me to research the history of the Minerva Press and its gothic output. During my postgraduate course at Oxford I turned this research into a paper on Bibliography and Book History and included a bibliographical analysis of my own copy of The Children of the Abbey.

Figure 3: During my MSt at Oxford in 2018-19, I took part in the "Practical Printing Workshops" at the Bodleian Library, where I typeset this frontispiece from the first edition of Roche's The Children of the Abbey. — Figure 3: During my MSt at Oxford in 2018-19, I took part in the “Practical Printing Workshops” at the Bodleian Library, where I typeset this frontispiece from the first edition of Roche’s The Children of the Abbey.

Although technically belonging to the genre of the ‘national tale’, Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl contains strong gothic elements and themes, including a ruined castle on a cliff, a sensitive female protagonist, an ancient crime, and a nocturnal, blood-chilling plot twist. What most struck me upon a first reading was the presence of constant comparisons between Ireland and Italy throughout the novel. Irish places, traditions, landscapes, literature, and art are continually juxtaposed with their Italian equivalents. While the evocation of Italy and things Italian in gothic novels was mainstream, as Italy had been shaped as ‘quintessentially gothic’ since Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) and Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian (1797) and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), I soon realised that, in the Irish context, the Irish-Italian comparisons served a political purpose. In the early 1800s, when The Wild Irish Girl was published, both Ireland and Italy were grappling with foreign domination, fighting to gain independence from England and Austria, respectively. Thus, by bringing Italy and Ireland together, the radical Owenson (one of the founders of Irish cultural nationalism) framed Italy as a compelling mirror-image of Ireland, the epitome of a ‘nation’ oppressed by foreign powers, a politically subversive ‘double’ of Ireland. After all, ‘doublings’ and ‘mirrorings’ are classic features of gothic narratives.

The Wild Irish Girl alerted me to a previously unappreciated wealth of Irish-Italian literary connections in the Romantic period, and has directly inspired my doctoral thesis topic. In the case of Irish gothic novels especially, Ireland and Italy are often brought together and personified in overtly political romance plots. A good example is Charles Robert Maturin’s The Milesian Chief, which tells the story of an Irish-Italian girl called Armida Fitzalban who, although promised to an Englishman, travels to Ireland and falls in love with the Irish Connal O’Morven, the descendant of a dispossessed Gaelic prince, and fights alongside him in a rebellion against the English. A similar politicised Irish-Italian plot is at the centre of Bianca: A Tale of Erin and Italy (1852), another forgotten gothic tale by Maturin’s son Edward. These avenues of research brought me to my current doctoral project, which looks at the literary connections between Italy and Ireland in 1798-1848, with a particular focus on the literary production of Irish exiles and expatriates in the Italian peninsula.

No Irish gothic collection would be complete without the Victorian classics Carmilla (1872) and Uncle Silas (1864) by Sheridan Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). The last notable Irish-Italian novel in my collection is a second edition of Luttrell of Arran (1863) by Charles Lever (1806-1872). My 1866 edition is enriched by 44 illustrations by H.K. Brown and has an emerald binding embossed with Celtic patterns. Partly set in Italy and containing humorous-gothic tropes, Luttrell was written in Trieste (about an hour away from my hometown) where Lever, predating James Joyce, spent the last years of his life.

Despite their critical neglect, the enduring appeal of Irish gothic classics is reflected in contemporary publications. For example, Sarah Perry’s Melmoth (2018) reimagines Maturin’s masterpiece in a feminist key, while Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s The Deathless Girls (2019) tells the untold story of Dracula’s three vampire brides.

[1] John Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Colburn, 1847): 649.

‘Extracts. Supplied by a sub-sub-librarian.’ The Melville bicentenary commemoration printing

Libraries and literary institutions around the world in 2019 marked 200 years since Herman Melville’s birth with readings and conferences appreciating his work. At Bodleian Special Collections we took the opportunity to call again on letterpress printers around the world, who provided Shakespeare’s Sonnets in 2016, to celebrate Melville in similar fashion.

Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan, in front of the Weston Library display, ‘Very Like a Whale,’ 15 Nov 2019. The author hosted a screening of the Arena documentary, The Hunt for Moby-Dick, at the Weston Library. Photo: Cyrus Mower

The text was a section of Moby-Dick often overlooked by readers, part of the preliminaries in which Melville introduces the multifarious themes of the work. Eighty extracts are arranged approximately chronologically. Melville writes of his fictional sub-sub-librarian: ‘this mere painstaking burrower and grubworm … appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book.’ And yet, stealthily, these extracts of everything from the Bible to ‘Nantucket songs’ build a dramatic foreshadowing of the destiny of Ishmael and his shipmates.

They bear testimony to the value of collections encompassing a wide variety of texts — devotional works, learned legal treatises, great literature and sea shanties. To join its copy of the first (London) edition published under the title The Whale, the Bodleian now holds a new, collective, version of this section of Melville’s famous novel.

The bulk of the prints received are reproduced here. It is impossible to convey in digital images the quality of the craft and the satisfying variety of the physical items received. One detail must stand for the excellence of these pieces; it is from Richard Kegler’s Extract 13.

Richard Kegler, P22 Press, Rochester, NY; detail from Extract 13: Tanned fish skin printed in silver ink. “Bubbles” printed with wood type dots and Os from 48pt Zeppelin Type.

In addition to printing using various methods (see No. 49) and materials (see No. 13), the printers have incorporated into their works (sometimes literally, see No. 63) the publishing history of Moby-Dick, the ecological crisis of the oceans, awareness of historical racism and the dangerous pace of human exploitation of natural resources on land and in the oceans. Melville’s choice of sources did not go beyond the publication year of the novel in 1851, but many of the themes remain current. To update the ‘Extracts,’ the Bodleian gladly accepted an offer from the volunteers of The National Museum of Computing, to print additional ‘Extracts’ about whales, using their collection of 20th-century printers.

The first extract, from the St James Park Press, begins the series with the title, ‘Moby Dick Extracts’.

Extract 1 James Freemantle, St. James Park Press, London — 1. ‘‘And God created great whales.’ – Genesis. // James Freemantle, St James Park Press, London. Wood-engraving by Garrick Palmer.

2. ‘Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep to be hoary.’ – Job. //Samantha King, Red Eel Press, Leeds. ‘Letterpress printed on a Farley No.11 proofing press; Kitakata Natural made in Japan, 33gsm; Centaur, 12pt. Stock: Canson Mi-Tientese, slate grey, 160gsm; Ornamental border: Monotype 319/320, 24pt. This border is not only the pressmark of the Red Eel Press but if you look closely … it is full of Leviathan/whales’

5. ‘In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.’ – Isaiah. // Peter Cartwright and Ann Pillar, The Lock-up Press, Walsall. Letterpress on 100gsm orange cartridge using a variety of wood and metal type. On a Farley proofing press (c. 1955)

6. ‘The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are: among which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balæne, take up as much in length as four acres or arpens of land.’ – Holland’s Pliny. // Rosie Fairfax-Cholmeley, The Wytham Studio, Oxford

9. ‘He visited this country also with a view of catching horse-whales, which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of which he brought some to the king. * * * The best whales were catched in his own country, of which some were forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was one of six who had killed sixty in two days.’ – Other or Octher’s verbal narrative taken down from his mouth by King Alfred, A.D. 890. // Iain Potter, Oxford Printmakers Cooperative. Linocut; Pfeffer Mediaeval; 1828 Albion Relief Press. Extract in Anglo-Saxon, image incorporating the Alfred Jewel.

10. ‘And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster’s (whale’s) mouth, are immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in great security, and there sleeps.’ – Montaigne’s Apology for Raimond Sebond. // Emily Martin, Iowa. Letterpress and pastepaint; Type: Baskerville; Paper: Johannot paper

11. ‘Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if is not Leviathan described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job.’ – Rabelais. // photo from Michael Simons, Devil’s Pi Press

12. ‘This whale’s liver was two cart-loads.’ – Stowe’s Annals. // Brian Wood, Dogs and Stars Press

13. ‘The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan.’ – Lord Bacon’s Version of the Psalms. // Richard Kegler, P22 Press, Rochester, NY. Letterpress printed on Curious Cosmic Pulsar Red stock with a Vandercook Universal III. Tanned fish skin printed in silver ink. “Bubbles” printed with wood type dots and Os from 48pt Zeppelin Type. Quote hand-set in 14pt American Uncial. Colophon printed in 8pt Oldstyle Extended.

14. ‘Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale.’ – Lord Bacon, History of Life and Death. // Robert Rowe, Gold Quoin Press, Peoria, Illinois. Linoleum Cut, Hand-set lead type, photopolymer plate, and drypoint engraving; Typeface: Goudy Oldstyle, Printed on a Vandercook #4. Drypoint was included in this piece as a reference to scrimshaw, a traditional art form among the whalers.

15. ‘The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward bruise.’ – King Henry. // Jessica Spring, Springtide Press, Tacoma

16. ‘Very like a whale.’ – Hamlet. // Adam Smyth, The 39 Step Press, Elsfield. Read about the process here. https://www.39steppress.co.uk/very-like-a-whale

18. ‘Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful calm trouble the ocean till it boil.’ – Sir William Davenant’s Preface to Gondibert. // Alexandra Chappell and Jeff Groves, The First-floor Press, Claremont Colleges Library, California. Printed on a cast-iron hand press from hand-set metal type. Columbian hand-press, manufactured by R Ritchie & Son, Edinburgh, c. 1850. 1/2 of the edition printed on Somerset Satin White and 1/2 printed on Stonehenge Grey. Extract and colophon types: 48, 24, 14 10 point Baskerville. Whalestrom types: 72pt Baskerville lower case; 48pt Baskerville lower case; 48pt Alt Gothic caps; 36pt Cloister Text caps; 36pt Cheltenham Condensed caps; 30pt Lydian caps; 24pt Thompson Quill Script caps; 24pt Caslon 540 caps; 24pt Bodoni Book italic lower case; 18pt unlabeled gothic; 18pt Shaded Scroll; 18pt Goudy modern lower case; 18pt Banker Gothic; 14pt Cloister Text caps; 14pt Bodoni italic caps; 14pt Baskerville caps; 12tp Lydian caps; 12pt Large Comstock; 12pt Gothic Outlline; 10pt Typewriter caps; 8pt Baskerville small cap.

Printing of Extract 18: detail of the ‘whalestrom’ on the press.

19. ‘What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid sit.’ – Sir T. Browne’s Of Sperma Ceti and the Sperma Ceti Whale. Vide his V. E. // Michael and Tia Hurley, Titivilus Press, Memphis, Tennessee. Designed in InDesign CS6 and typeset in Igino Marini’s Fell Great Primer, Fell English and Fell Flowers 1. The illustration is adapted from Andre Thevet’s “Cosmographie Universelle” of 1574. The page was laid out according to Tschichold’s “Golden Canons of Page Construction”. Letterpress printed by hand on a 1915 Golding Jobber No. 7 from photopolymer plates on Neenah Environment Quest Ivory 80# Cover in Opaque White, PMS 485 Red and Black inks. The plates were manufactured by Concord Engraving, Concord, New Hampshire.

20. ‘Like Spencer’s Talus with his modern flail /He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail. … Their fixed jav’lins in his side he wears, / And on his back a grove of pikes appears.’ – Waller’s Battle of the Summer Islands. // Robin Wilson, The Wytham Studio, Oxford

21. ‘By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Common-wealth or State—(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man.’ – Opening sentence of Hobbes’s Leviathan. // Matt Kelsey, Camino Press. Letterpress printed using Caslon wood type, and Cooper Black and Bold Antique metal type, engraving reprinted via polymer on Ingres Bluestone paper, using a Challenge proof press

22. ‘Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale.’ – Pilgrim’s Progress. // Erik Spiekermann, p98a, Berlin. Letterpress on a KORREX proof press. Large type laser-cut plywood. Metal type cast on a Ludlow caster in Tempo Bold. Metapaper Warm White 150g

23. ‘That sea beast /Leviathan, which God of all his works / Created hugest that swim the ocean stream.’ – Paradise Lost. // Elizabeth Adams, Juxon Press, Oxfordshire

24. ‘There Leviathan, /Hugest of living creatures, in the deep / Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, /And seems a moving land; and at his gills /Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea.’ – Paradise Lost. // The MIT Beaver Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts

25. ‘The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil swimming in them.’ – Fuller’s Profane and Holy State. // Brittany Starr and Mallory Haselberger, BookLab at University of Maryland. Mixed media (collage and letterpress). Printed on a Line-O-Scribe, Model 1411 on Strathmore printmaking paper using rubber and oil-based ink; includes Jenson, News Gothic and Bookman typefaces with Hamilton wood type

26. ‘So close behind some promontory lie / The huge Leviathan to attend their prey,/ And give no chance, but swallow in the fry, / Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way.’ – Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis. // Michael Daniell, Atlantis Press, Oxford. Letterpress. Caslon and Monotype Glint. Printed on a Furnival Express treadle platen press

27. ‘While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come; but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water.’ – Thomas Edge’s Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchas. // Daisy Davis, Ashvale Press, Isles of Scilly; printed at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press. Letterpress and linocut.

28. ‘In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which nature has placed on their shoulders.’ – Sir T. Herbert’s Voyages into Asia and Africa. Harris Coll. // Frazil Press. Letterpress and linocut; Gill Sans 8pt, 12pt, Gill Sans Italic 12pt; Neenah paper: Classic Linen Bare White 80lb Text Adana 8 x 5.

29. ‘Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship upon them.’ – Schouten’s Sixth Circumnavigation. // Richard Cappuccio, Center for the Book, University of Virginia. Wood type, metal type (32pt Lydian), printed on a Vandercook proof press.

Students from the University of Arkansas answered the ‘Extracts’ call as a class project at the Underground Ink Press, the letterpress and book arts workshop at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith.

30. Underground Ink, the press at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith

32. ‘Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness.’ – Richard Strafford’s Letter from the Bermudas. Phil. Trans. A.D. 1668. // Emily Carrington-Freeman, Oxford. Lino cut & oil-based ink (1/4 with gold leaf)

33. ‘Whales in the sea / God’s voice obey.’ – N.E. Primer. // Jonathan Senchyne, Easy Hill Press, University of Wisconsin. Letterpress, Optima Italic metal type, 8 line wood type. Engraving and copy of the original by Reynolds Stone. Printed on a Vandercook 325G

34. ‘We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to the northward of us.’ – Captain Cowley’s Voyage round the Globe, A.D. 1729. // Larry Hale, Glasgow Press. Letterpress print; Paper: Wild 450gsm; Vandercook Proof Press

35. ‘… and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain.’ – Ulloa’s South America. // Elizabeth Fraser, Frauhaus Press, Cambridge. Handset letterpress. Blind deboss using wood and metal type. Whale created from face and back of woodtype with ornaments for eye and spout. Text 12pt & 6pt Baskerville italic. Whale breath 12pt glint (Monotype B1309 & B1310). Printed on Somerset Velvet 300gsm soft white paper with a tabletop flatbed proofing press

36. ‘To fifty chosen sylphs of special note, / We trust the important charge, the petticoat. / Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, / Tho’ stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale.’ – Rape of the Lock. // Roy Watkins, Embers Handpress. Small letterpress (Adana flatbed 9×7); linocuts with Garamond; Japanese Gampi vellum

38. ‘If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them speak like great whales.’ – Goldsmith to Johnson. // Angie Butler, ABPress. Letterpress and pochoir printed on 280gsm (size: 21″ x 15″; 53.5 x 38 cms); Somerset Newsprint Grey. Caslon 72pt wood-letter. Printed on a Vandercook No. 4

39. ‘In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavour to conceal themselves behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us.’ – Cook’s Voyages. // Andrea Hewes, Oxford Printmakers Co-operative

41a. ‘The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen.’ – Thomas Jefferson’s Whale Memorial to the French Minister in 1778. // Emeline Marcelin, Bodleian Bibliographical Press, Oxford

41b. ‘The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen.’ – Thomas Jefferson’s Whale Memorial to the French Minister in 1778. // John Benson, Ormpress. Letterpress and linocut printed on a 5″ x 8″ Excelsior Kelsey Press. Type: Bodoni Bold 18pt; Bodoni Bold Italic 18pt. Paper: Fabriano Tiziano 160gsm

42. ‘And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?’ – Edmund Burke’s Reference in Parliament to the Nantucket Whale Fishery. // Stephanie Newman, Faux Pas Press, Bozeman, Montana. Letterpress: photopolymer plates, Vandercook No. 3 proof press; Crane Lettra paper, Kozo chine colle, rubber base ink

43. ‘Spain—a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe.’ – Edmund Burke. (Somewhere.) // Miles Wigfield, Reading Room Press, Gloucestershire. Letterpress: Albion; Type: Goudy Cloister Initials and Imprint Shadow on Zerkall Ingres paper. Commemorates the centenary of the Society of Wood Engravers.

44. ‘A tenth branch of the king’s ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the property of the king.’ – Blackstone. // Olivia Lefley, Northamptonshire. Letterpress, linocut. Printed on a Westen proofing press. Modern 20 typeface. Paper provided by G F Smith

46. ‘Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires, / And rockets blew self driven, / To hang their momentary fire / Around the vault of heaven. // ‘So fire with water to compare, / The ocean serves on high, / Up-spouted by a whale in air, / To express unwieldy joy.’ – Cowper, On the Queen’s Visit to London. // John G Henry, Cedar Creek Press. Letterpress (2 colours) & embossing; Reeves Heavyweigh Gray Paper; printed on a Vandercook Universal III press

47. ‘Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with immense velocity.’ – John Hunter’s Account of the Dissection of a Whale. (A small-sized one.) // Elpitha Tsoutsounakis, Salt Lake City, Utah. Letterpress on Savoy/Vandercook III; watercolour with ochre from the San Rafael Swell

49. ‘The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.’ – Baron Cuvier. // Arcangela Regis, Lauren Press, Barcelona, Spain. Monoprint (footprints in acrylic); Letterpress printing with woodtype on an Albion Press; Invercote Creato 290gr 64x92cm

50. ‘In the free element beneath me swam, /Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle, / Fishes of every colour, form, and kind; / Which language cannot paint, and mariner / Had never seen; from dread Leviathan / To insect millions peopling every wave: / Gather’d in shoals immense, like floating islands, / Led by mysterious instincts through that waste /And trackless region, though on every side / Assaulted by voracious enemies, / Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm’d in front or jaw, /With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.’ – Montgomery’s World Before the Flood. // Randolph Chilton, In Which Press, Nevada City, California. Letterpress: Chandler and Price Old Style 10×15; typefaces mainly 14pt Caslon Old Style 337, 36pt Huxley Vertical, six-line 19th century English and-carved wood block (colophon mainly 12pt Caslon); paper #110 Rives BFK

52. ‘Io! Pæan! Io! sing, / To the finny people’s king. / Not a mightier whale than this / In the vast Atlantic is; / Not a fatter fish than he, / Flounders round the Polar Sea.’ – Charles Lamb’s Triumph of the Whale. // Lauren Williams, Book Arts Lab, McGill University Library, Montreal. Letterpress; printed on a Farley Proofing Press, in 18pt Bembo, on Canson paper

53. ‘In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed; there—pointing to the sea—is a green pasture where our children’s grand-children will go for bread.’ – Obed Macy’s History of Nantucket. // Bob Oldham, Ad Lib Press, Turrialba, Costa Rica. Handset type on poured pulp paper, printed on home-made Medhurst press

54. ‘I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale’s jaw bones.’ – Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales. // Sarah Teppen, Bone Earring Press, East Lansing, Michigan. Letterpress, linocut (original); Stonehenge warm white paper, C&P 8×12, Type: Berhardt Gothic Medium

55. ‘She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago.’ – Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales. // Chloe Foster, Chloe Arielle Studio, Clarkson, Michigan. Printed on a Kelsey 3×5 press.

56. ‘“No, Sir, ’tis a Right Whale,” answered Tom; “I saw his spout; he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to look at. He ’s a raal oil-butt, that fellow!” – Cooper’s Pilot. // Charlie Davies, Oxford Printmakers Cooperative, Oxford. Etching on Fabriano Paper

57. ‘The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that whales had been introduced on the stage there.’ – Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe. // Patrick Goossens, Letter-kunde , Antwerp.

58. ‘“My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?” I answered, “We have been stove by a whale.”’- Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship Essex of Nantucket, which was attacked and finally destroyed by a large Sperm Whale in the Pacific Ocean. By Owen Chace of Nantucket, first mate of said vessel. New York, 1821. // Andrew Rippeon, The Davidson College Letterpress Lab, North Carolina. Printed using wood and metal type in a variety of sizes and faces (extract: Gothic wood type in various sizes, large metal type from 72pt to 60pt; attribution: from 30pt to 10pt Craw Clarendon; colophon: 10pt Venus Light: magnesium printing die, (review material from The Literacy World); and laser-cut plexiglass plate (whale and pressure-printed ‘waves’). Printed on dampened Stonehenge (Polar White), using a Vandercook #4 (ser. #13096), rescued from a barn in central New York and restored by Andrew Rippeon

59. ‘A mariner sat in the shrouds one night, / The wind was piping free;/ Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale,/And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale,/ As it floundered in the sea.’ – Elizabeth Oakes Smith. // Ryan Cordell, Huskiana Letterpress Studio, Boston. Letterpress with 2 woodcuts, Caslon type (mostly), Golding Pearl #14

60. ‘The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the capture of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or nearly six English miles. …
‘Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which, cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four miles.’ – Scoresby. // Two moveables, a spool and a whip-crack, by Jonathan Bath, Oxford

61. ‘Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he rushes at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him with vast swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed. … It is a matter of great astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so interesting, and, in a commercial point of view, so important an animal (as the Sperm Whale) should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them competent observers, that of late years, must have possessed the most abundant and the most convenient opportunities of witnessing their habitudes.’ – Thomas Beale’s History of the Sperm Whale. 1839. // Martyn Ould, The Old School Press, Seaton. Letterpress text in Hunt Roman on Somerset. Linocuts by John Watson. Printed on a 30-inch Western Proof Press

63. ‘October 13. “There she blows,” was sung out from the mast-head.
  “Where away?” demanded the captain.
  “Three points off the lee bow, sir.”
  “Raise up your wheel. Steady!”
  “Steady, sir.”
  “Mast-head ahoy! Do you see that whale now?”
  “Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales! There she blows! There she breaches!”
  “Sing out! sing out every time!”
  “Ay, ay, sir! There she blows! there—there—thar she blows—bowes—bo-o-o-s!”
  “How far off?”
  “Two miles and a half.”
  “Thunder and lightning! so near! Call all hands.”’ – J. Ross Browne’s Etchings of a Whaling Cruise. 1846. // Paul Hatcher, Allamanda Press, Woodley. Hand-set letterpress and original linocuts. Typeface is Verona. The substrate is hand-cast board made at the press from pulped copies of the 1950s bowdlerised and abridged edition of Moby Dick, published by Collins. Printed using an Adana QH horizontal platen (the poor man’s Albion). There are eight copies in total on this board.

64. ‘The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of Nantucket.’ – Narrative of the Globe Mutiny, by Lay and Hussey, Survivors. A.D. 1828. // Isobel Lewis, The Kelpie Press, in collaboration with Richard Reitz Smith, Maine, USA; with Marbled paper, Letterpress, collage. Set in Caslon, printed on a Vandercook Universal III.

65. ‘Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable.’ – Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennett. // William Rowsell, Oxford Printmakers Cooperative, Oxford. Linocut.

66. ‘Nantucket itself,’ said Mr. Webster, ‘is a very striking and peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of eight or nine thousand persons living here in the sea, adding largely every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering industry.’ – Report of Daniel Webster’s Speech in the U.S. Senate, on the Application for the Erection of a Breakwater at Nantucket. 1828. // Martha Chiplis, Berwyn, Illinois. Letterpress printed from wood type, linoleum, and photopolymer plate. Handmade paper, LTC Cloister (digital type), Vandercook Universal I. Drawing of map based on 1869 historical map of Nantucket.

67. ‘The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a moment.’ – The Whale and his Captors, or the Whaleman’s Adventures and the Whale’s Biography, gathered on the Homeward Cruise of the Commodore Preble. By Rev. Henry T. Cheever. // Elizabeth Moriarty. Linocut.

68. ‘“If you make the least damn bit of noise,” replied Samuel, “I will send you to hell.”’ – Life of Samuel Comstock (the Mutineer), by his Brother, William Comstock. Another Version of the Whale-ship Globe Narrative. // Christopher Barker, The Smallprint Company, Derby.

69. ‘The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in order, if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though they failed of their main object, laid open the haunts of the whale.’- McCulloch’s Commercial Dictionary. // Linda Stinchfield, Turtlesilk Press, Los Gatos, California. Letterpress, handset and photopolymer; paper: Flurry Cotton, Boxcar; Typeface: Centaur & Arrighi (italic); Press: Vandercook SP15

70. ‘These things are reciprocal; the ball rebounds, only to bound forward again; for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the whalemen seem to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same mystic North-West Passage.’ – From ‘Something’ unpublished. // James Bradley, Book Arts Collaborative, Indiana. Linocut and letterpress. Printed in Franklin Gothic and Playbill typeface on a Vandercook SP15 press. Reverse side printed in Universe 12pt type on a a Chandler & Price 12×18 press. Mohawk Superfine Ultra-white 65lb cardstock

71. ‘It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around them, has a totally different air from those engaged in regular voyage.’ – Currents and Whaling. U.S. Ex. Ex. // Jennifer Farrell, Starshaped Press, Chicago. Letterpress: metal type + rule, linocut. Paper: Fabriano Tiziano. Printed on a Vandercook SP15

72. ‘Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to form arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps have been told that these were the ribs of whales.’ – Tales of a Whale Voyager to the Arctic Ocean. // Hugh Macfarlane, Tudor Black Press, Marnes, France. Printed on a Cropper treadle press.

73. ‘It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these whales, that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the savages enrolled among the crew.’ – Newspaper Account of the Taking and Retaking of the Whale-ship Hobomack. // Rosemary Everett, Gifford, Scotland. ‘Wood engraving. Letterpress, Collage; Lemonwood block; Tosa Washi paper. Printed with a burnisher (wood engraving) and a book press (letterpress). The Extract is cut up and collaged onto the print. This is intended to emphasise the “savagery” of whaling theme. Also the words are jumbled, to reflect the theme of confusion and lack of knowledge and understanding.’

75. ‘Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale.’ – Miriam Coffin or the Whale Fisherman. // Alexandra Chappell, Pasadena, California. Printed on a cast-iron hand press from hand-set metal and wood types. Press: Columbian hand-press, manufatured by R Ritchie & Son, Edinburgh. Type: 24 line gothic condensed wood type; 48, 30 and 14 point Liberty foundry type. Paper: Somerset Book.

76. ‘The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but bethink you, how you would manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope tied to the root of his tail.’ – A Chapter on Whaling in Ribs and Trucks. // Armina Ghazaryan, Type & Press, Ghent. Letterpress printed from wood/metal type on FAG TP-510, paper Wild 150gm

77. ‘On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male and female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a stone’s throw of the shore’ (Terra del Fuego), ‘over which the beech tree extended its branches.’ – Darwin’s Voyage of a Naturalist. // Li Jiang, Lemoncheese Press, Berkeley, California. Letterpress, polymer plate. Digital type: Geographica; Paper: Stonehenge White 250gsm; Press: Vandercook SP15 10″ x 15″, 3 colours

78. ‘“Stern all!” exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw the distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the boat, threatening it with instant destruction;—“Stern all, for your lives!”’ – Wharton the Whale-Killer. // Kimball Hamilton, Two Left Hands Press, Los Gatos, California. Printed letterpress from photopolymer plates and hand set 12pt Weiss type, on Flurry 1-ply cotton cover, using a 1896 Chandler & Price Old Series 10×15 plated press

79. ‘So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, / While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!’ – Nantucket Song. // Arie Koelewyn, The Paper Airplane Press, East Lansing, MI. One version of the verse is here: http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/view/edition/24312

80. ‘Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale,
In his ocean home will be
A giant in might, where might is right,
And King of the boundless sea.’
– Whale song. // Joe Swift, Distant Press. Printed Letterpress from wood and metal type on a Columbian hand press

Post-1851 ‘Extracts’ An exciting offer came from the volunteers at the National Museum of Computing, offering prints from a variety of newer machines: a 1940s German Lorenz teleprinter, a 1980s ICL computer line printer, and a Braille printer. This offer inspired the library to bring the extracts up to date in 2019, with additional quotations from Rachel Carson’s book, The Sea Around Us (1951), and from M.P. Simmonds, “Evaluating the Welfare Implications of Climate Change for Cetaceans,” in A. Butterworth (ed.), 2017, Marine Mammal Welfare (17th edition).