molds. The roller composition was a mixture of glue and molasses,
consistency varying according to the season of the year. It was
more practicable to buy rollers by this time, but homemade rollers
were still cast occasionally. In a near-by village as late as 1889
a four-column folio weekly newspaper was run off--pulled, I should
say--on a hand-lever press, one page at a time, the same method and
almost the same press as that which printed the _Virginia Gazette_, or
the earlier _Saturday Evening Post_, or for that matter all incunabula.
It is quite likely that all the old-time editors of country
newspapers were printers. The tradition no longer holds, but one
apprentice printer in my old shop whose destiny was no doubt
influenced by this early contact with type was John Finley, who
became editor of the country's greatest newspaper. There are still
men, though not so many as there were once, playing important roles
in world affairs who at some time in their lives experienced the
thrill of handling the twenty-four (now twenty-six) potent little lead
soldiers that change the history of the world. No man ever loses that
sense of the importance of printing, or can look upon a printed thing
with indifference, who has once felt it. Nor for that matter does he
ever forget the lay of the case. It is a craft that gets into the
blood.
In 1889 or thereabouts I witnessed a scene which foretold the great
change that was coming to the art I had learned with such patience and
diligence, as revolutionary as the change of shipping from sail to
steam. There arrived and was set up a machine intended to set type.
Its name was Thorne, and its principle was to release the letter
called for when the key was pressed by means of nicks in the body of
the type, like the tumblers of a Yale lock. The type travelled in
the channels to a galley, and was justified by hand, if I remember
rightly. Obviously the device depended upon a hair-trigger nicety of
adjustment. Even the mechanics who came with it had difficulty in
making it work. It jammed repeatedly, and before many hours the floor
was covered with broken sorts. After a few months it was packed up
and sent back, and the old-fashioned method of setting by hand was
reinstated, until that day when that office, like every one of its
class, was equipped with a battery of linotypes. Thus vanished a craft
that had been four hundred years in the making, that uncanny skill
with which a good printer manipulated type.
The tramp printer, with his thirst, his steel setting rule, his budget
of gossip of all the printing offices in a wide territory, has become
extinct. The callous forefinger of the printer is as much a legend as
the miller's sensitive thumb.
VI
Did they print books in those far-away prairie printing offices? They
certainly did. One of the rarest items of Western Americana bears a
Galesburg imprint. A pioneer of that town, a genius who played the
flute and made many inventions, one of them the rotary plow still
used to clear snow from the tracks of western railroads, was Riley
Root. In 1849 he caught the gold fever and made the trip to Oregon and
California over-land in a covered wagon. He had many adventures, and
on his return wrote a book that was printed in Galesburg and is now
a collector's item. A famous Boston book-seller became excited when
he discovered a copy. "Unknown," he wrote in 1932, "to Wagner, Smith,
Cowan, or as far as we know to any other bibliographer of the West,
and unrecorded in the entire run of American Book Prices Current."
The front wrapper reads:
Journal of Travels / from / St. Josephs to Oregon / with /
observations of that country / together with / a Description of
California, / its agricultural interests, / and / a full description /
of / its Gold Mines. / By Riley Root / Galesburg, Ill. / Intelligencer
Print / 1850.
The matter on the wrapper is repeated on the title page with some minor
variations. The book is a substantial pamphlet, size 9-1/2 by 6 inches,
144 pages, uncut. The Boston bookman continues:
"Riley Root's Journal has everything that a rare piece of Western
Americana should have. In the first place, it _looks_ rare. Like
several rare Western items of which only a few copies exist, it was
printed in a small mid-Western town. 'Galesburg, Illinois, 1850' is an
imprint that has charm for the collector."
It must be excessively rare. The only other copy of which I know,
besides the one described, is now appropriately in the Seymour Library
of Knox College. Of this copy the librarian said (when he acknowledged
the gift to the Library in 1931):
"This little unbound pamphlet was written by Riley Root who came with
his family to this prairie country in 1836, when he was 37 years
old, and helped to build the houses of Log City, the forerunner of
Galesburg.... It was printed in Galesburg in 1850 by the 'Intelligencer
Print' and bears in the border of the cover the name of the compositor,
Southwick Davis, who graduated from Knox in the first class--that of
1846. This creditable piece of printing was done only about fourteen
years after Galesburg was staked out and when Knox College was
graduating its fifth class.
"In April 1848 Riley Root left Galesburg to make this over-land
journey, crossing the continent by way of the Oregon Trail to Oregon
City, a distance of 1846 miles from St. Josephs on the Missouri River,
which was regarded as the starting point for the long journey through
the Indian Country. Although gold had been discovered at Sutter's
sawmill in California on February 10th, 1848, nearly two months
before Mr. Root left Galesburg, it is not probable that he learned of
that famous event until he reached Oregon in mid-September. The news
spread slowly even on the Pacific coast, credible reports reaching
San Francisco only in May. Mr. Root says that the excitement ('yellow
fever,' he calls it) began in Oregon about the middle of August, and
that within one month nearly 2,000 persons left Oregon for the gold
fields. The purpose of Mr. Root's over-land journey to Oregon is not
stated, but it would seem from an entry in his diary seven months
after reaching Oregon City, to the effect that he had been 'roaming up
and down the valley, in pursuit of information,' that he was scouting
for new lands on a new frontier. Finding himself in the midst of all
the gold rush 'commotion' he may very well have been attacked by the
'yellow fever' bug himself. At any rate he left Oregon in April, 1849,
just a year after leaving Galesburg, and going to San Francisco and the
California gold fields, spent five months, returning to Illinois by way
of Panama and New Orleans. He arrived in Galesburg, January 8, 1850.
"This little pamphlet records the details of this epic journey, and if
Riley Root's reputation rested on this alone he would take high rank
as a historian. It is extremely well done and is a faithful journal of
not only the day to day happenings, but of the country and its climate,
the wild animals, the Indians, the geology and botany, the mountains,
the forests and streams, and many other features that give evidence of
the observant eye of the author. One interesting and important chapter
relates the harrowing details of the Indian massacre of November,
1847, in which Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife lost their lives. This
story was supplied to Mr. Root by eye-witnesses and is said to be its
earliest publication in book or pamphlet form."
Among the many changes of ownership of presses in Galesburg, it would
be difficult to decide whether the shop in which I learned my trade was
a descendant of the Intelligencer Print or not, but it was produced in
just such a primitive and resourceful plant.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] _Plain Printing Types_, Theodore L. De Vinne, New York, 1902.
_James Shand_
_AUTHOR AND PRINTER: G.B.S. AND R. & R. C.: 1898-1948_
From _Alphabet and Image_: 8, Winter, 1948. Copyright by Art and
Technics, Ltd. Reprinted by permission of the author and publisher.
[Illustration: Topolski's drawing from the illustrated Penguin
_Pygmalion_.]
Author and printer, publisher and book-seller; these conjunctions
flow too easily from the pen. They cover an immeasurable sum of human
experience, both melancholy and magnificent, in the long history of the
book trade; they should be used with more reserve.
Fortunately for the reader, the writer is no doctor in bibliography
expounding the perils and diseases of textual transmission, but a
typographical reporter, with an interim case-history of a particular
author, a particular printer and a healthy body of work in progress.
Our author is George Bernard Shaw, sometime of Dublin: our printer, R.
& R. Clark, now, as always, of Edinburgh. The association is unique in
more than a geographical sense; in time it covers fifty years; in space
it defies quantitative analysis. Bernard Shaw's quota, if consigned to
the Society of Authors, would probably make that body independent of
the publishing trade for years to come.
Miss Marjorie Plant has pointed out, in her always readable economic
history, _The English Book Trade_, that there was once a time when
"the person who was of no account whatever in the early years of the
book industry was the author." At a later period when the printer was
dominated by book-seller and publisher, Dr. Johnson wrote in _The
Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1739, "We can produce some who threatened
printers with their highest displeasure for having dared to print books
for those who wrote them!"
In the history of English literature the relations of author, printer
and publisher have often been bitter and obscure, posing many problems
in bibliography and textual criticism. Dr. McKerrow, introducing the
literary student to bibliography, suggests that "the best way of
obtaining a clear and lively comprehension of the processes by which
the books of Shakespeare's time were produced" would be by actually
composing a sheet or two in exact facsimile of an Elizabethan quarto
and printing it on a hand-press. "Once he does this," he adds, "he
will find that the material book, apart altogether from its literary
content, can be a thing of surprising interest."
The surprise of Dr. McKerrow's student trying to disentangle the
impositions by which the Penguin edition of more than a million copies
of Shaw's plays were produced on modern perfector printing presses and
automatic folding machines would indeed be considerable. Nevertheless
it is to be doubted whether there are as many bibliographical vagaries
and obscurities in Shaw as in the folios and quartos of Shakespeare.
Certainly there is something of the same fascination in the printing
and production of the "material" books of the later playwright; apart
from the literary antics of an ebullient Irish author with that most
emotional of all romantic characters: seemingly hard-headed Scots
printers.
Since we are presenting the romance of playwright and printer,
without benefit of publisher, let us set our characters in their
dramatic place and scene. The place is Edinburgh; the scene R. & R.
Clark; the principal characters, Edward Clark, Bernard Shaw and William
Maxwell; with a faint echo off-stage from that habitual bankrupt,
Grant Richards, later deserted for the more solid attractions of a
"commissioned" Constable.
[Illustration: Shaw's original shorthand draft of his letter to Maxwell
on the centenary of R. & R. Clark in 1946.]
Professor G. M. Trevelyan, in one of those two brilliant chapters on
Scotland in his _English Social History_, points out that rapidly
developing eighteenth-century Edinburgh "was hardly less important than
London in the British field of letters."
Mr. Stanley Morison, speaking in Edinburgh in 1944 on the subject
of _The Typographic Arts_, pointed out that the first history of
typography ever written for the instruction of the trade was James
Watson's _The Art of Printing_, published in Edinburgh in 1713.[39] A
few years later the Edinburgh book-seller, Alexander Donaldson, who
set up shop in the Strand and put Edinburgh printed classics on sale
at 30 per cent to 50 per cent below the usual prices, was largely
responsible for the creation of a "permanent and enlarged printing and
type-founding industry in Edinburgh." Mr. Morison also asserts that in
the last quarter of the eighteenth century Scotland led the interest in
technicalities of printing.
The first edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, printed in
Edinburgh in 1771, was brought out by "a Society of Gentlemen of
Scotland." John Bell's _British Poets_ and _British Theatre_ were
printed at the Apollo Press by Gilbert Martin, an Edinburgh printer of
whom Mr. Morison would gladly know more.
"The social, imaginative and intellectual life" of Scotland in the
early nineteenth century centred largely in Edinburgh on Burns and
Scott, Adam Smith and _The Edinburgh Review_. The familiar publisher
names, Ballantyne, Blackwood, Chambers, Constable, Nelson, were also
printers. In type-founding, Miller & Richards' Scotch Roman cut in
1803, and the later Old Style, were widely used throughout the trade,
at home and abroad, right up to the present day.
It was in 1846, six years before Alexander Phemister cut the now
famous Old Style, that Robert Clark, with a loan of £200, laid the
modest foundations of R. & R. Clark. After serving his apprenticeship
in Montrose as compositor and pressman (what is called in the Edinburgh
trade a "twicer") he sought experience in London as a journeyman,
before returning to Edinburgh to start his own business. His London
experience must have been of some value to him because it was not long
before he and his partner, James Kirkwood, had developed an active
business with London publishers: Macmillans, Bentley, John Murray,
Smith Elder, A. & C. Black, amongst others.
Robert Clark's policy of providing fine quality, with conscientious
service at the highest possible price, no doubt contributed to the
financial success of a rapidly developing business which moved to the
present printing works at Brandon Street in 1883. Robert Clark's only
surviving son, Edward, took over sole control after his father's death
in 1894. William Maxwell first appears on the scene at this time,
entering R. & R. Clark as a shorthand writer in 1892.
It was in 1892 that Shaw's first play, _Widowers' Houses_, was
produced; 1898 when _Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant_, published by Grant
Richards, were printed by R. & R. Clark.
Few living authors nowadays can claim continuous direct relations
with one printer over a period of fifty years. Books are now the
product of mechanical composing machines, automatic printing presses,
and mechanized binderies. They require expert control by experienced
production staffs dealing with many different paper-makers, printers
and binders. For this reason alone the printed works of such a
productive author as Bernard Shaw are a remarkable exception to the
general rule in the highly-organized printing and publishing trades.
Commission publishing is the resort of authors whose reputation
guarantees a lucrative circulation and who can afford the necessary
capital. Shaw now deals directly with his printer and binder, buying
and paying for his own composition, machining, paper and binding.
Shaw had always very definite ideas about the format of his books and,
with the complete and friendly co-operation of his present publisher,
has dealt continuously with R. & R. Clark since 1898. Clarks are now
102, Shaw 92, Maxwell 75; this unique association of author and printer
is also a competition in longevity.
[Illustration: Page from the Standard Edition, which began publication
in 1931, in Fournier small pica, 1-1/2 points leaded, large crown
octavo, 5x8 inches.]
The influence of Bernard Shaw on our time has been profound; in
the theatre, in films and in broadcasting. The circulation of his
printed works has been immense. His direct collaboration with his
printer over a long period is of more than professional interest to
publishers, printers and bibliographers. This unique author-printer
relationship provides an unusual aspect for us of the wit, vigour and
working methods of one of the most successful authors and playwrights
of our time; demonstrating also in no uncertain terms the integrity,
craftsmanship and mechanical resource of the printing house of R. & R.
Clark, so soundly based and flexibly developed over the last hundred
years in the solid traditions of the Edinburgh book-printing trade.
In 1946, on the occasion of the centenary of R. & R. Clark, Shaw wrote
of that renowned Edinburgh printing firm, "Ever since it printed my
first plays, _Pleasant and Unpleasant_, in 1898, it has been as natural
a part of my workshop as the pen in my hand." Few printers can ever
have received so eloquent a tribute from so eminent an author.
As a young author, Shaw's experiences with publishers had not been
exactly encouraging. Between 1879 and 1883, as regularly as clockwork,
at the rate of one a year, they rejected all his novels. The climate
in publishing at that time is best described by Shaw himself writing
to Daniel Macmillan in 1943. The letter is quoted in full in Charles
Morgan's _The House of Macmillan_; a small portion bears reprinting
here. After describing how Meredith turned him down for Chatto's
without extenuating circumstances; how Blackwood accepted his first
novel but reneged; how Smith Elder were polite and asked to see future
efforts, Shaw goes on to write: "I am now one of the few who personally
remember the Grand Old Men of the publishing world of that day:
Alexander Macmillan, Longmans and Bentley. They were so powerful that
they held the book-sellers in abject subjection, and were denounced by
Walter Besant and his newly-organized Society of Authors as remorseless
sharks. When they died and were succeeded by their sons, the hereditary
system did not always work as well as it did in Bedford Street; and
the book-sellers got the upper hand. John Murray's Byronic prestige was
so select that I did not dream of trying him until years later, when
I was an author of some note and had already helped to bankrupt three
publishers. I offered him _Man and Superman_. He refused in a letter
which really touched me. He said he was old-fashioned and perhaps a bit
behind the times; but he could not see any intention in my book but to
wound, irritate and upset all established constitutional opinion, and
therefore could not take the responsibility of publishing it. By that
time I could command sufficient capital to finance my books and enter
into direct friendly relations with the printers (this began my very
pleasant relations with Clarks of Edinburgh). I took matters into my
own hands and, like Herbert Spencer and Ruskin, manufactured my books
myself, and induced Constables to take me "on commission."
Sidney and Beatrice Webb sent Shaw to their Edinburgh printer. An
informative and amusing correspondence reprinted at length by Grant
Richards in _Author Hunting_ reveals how he was ruled and educated by
Shaw in the choice of type, "Morris" margins, specimen pages, paper
and other details of production. Holbrook Jackson has pointed out in
an article in number four of _The Fleuron_ that Shaw's books followed
the model of William Morris's _Roots of the Mountains_, printed in
Caslon Old Face at the Chiswick Press in 1892. Shaw, Socialist intimate
and admirer of Morris, was also in close touch with Emery Walker, and
familiar no doubt with the typographical ideas of Morris, Walker and
Cobden-Sanderson, first elaborated in Edinburgh in 1889 at a meeting
of the National Association for the Advancement of Art, and later
published in _Arts and Crafts Essays_ printed in Edinburgh in 1893.
In preliminary discussions of the production of _Plays Pleasant and
Unpleasant_, Shaw insisted on a trade union printer. Grant Richards
doubted whether a union house could do justice to his ideal of the
book beautiful. "I had few notions of what makes a union house," wrote
Grant Richards. "I do not think I had a union house on my list. The
problem shifted to the question of fair wages, and R. & R. Clark were
approved." Shaw, in a letter to Grant Richards in 1897, observed,
"Clark is all right; a first-rate house. I enclose a letter which you
can hold as a certificate of compliance with my fair wages clause."...
Edward Clark doubtless also got much entertainment from his dealings
with a teetotal, non-smoking, vegetarian, Socialist of an author. There
is a story that, on one specimen, Shaw's instructions for close and
mechanically-equal spacing between words were so precisely followed by
the pragmatical Scots, that at the end of some closely spaced lines
the definite article "the" was divided "t-" and "he" turned over, and
the indefinite article "a-" with "n" turned over. Shaw's comment when
returning the specimen, as Maxwell tells the story, was, "Excellent;
but please do not go so far as to prove the author is really a damn
fool." Shaw denies the story; nevertheless, true or untrue, it has a
Shavian flavour.
Shaw's choice of Caslon for his original edition was inevitable. We
know that he picked up the pre-Kelmscott formula ready-made from
William Morris; but, unlike the founding fathers of the private press
movement, he lacked the unearned income to indulge in a privately-cut
type-face. In 1897 we must remember that there were only two text-types
available in most book-houses: Old Style or Modern. More often than
not, before mechanical type-setting, there was not even any choice.
Publisher and author often had to accept the type of which there
happened to be, at any given moment, the greatest amount of "dis."
Shaw's original hand-set page in type-founder's Caslon, long primer
solid, stood up to thirty years' constant use. To our post-war eyes,
conditioned by authorized economy standards, the precise and consistent
setting of the plays, with their even Roman small caps, lower-case
italics in square brackets, with occasional lower-case Roman words
letter-spaced, has considerable nostalgic typographical charm. Here is
sense and sensibility in book-making, well ahead of its typographical
time. Of course, there are many people, William Maxwell and Bernard
Newdigate amongst them, who protested that long primer Caslon set solid
was too small and too difficult to read. But Shaw proved faithful to
his original style and to his original setting until the plates wore
out. He liked a colourful block of letter-press without white "rivers."
He complains that modern printing ink is not black enough.
In the middle twenties when the project of a Limited Collected Edition
was discussed, Shaw still preferred Caslon, but agreed to a larger
size, pica solid, on a larger page, medium octavo. But, and to William
Maxwell it was a considerable but, Shaw specified hand-setting. As
a disciple of William Morris, Shaw objected to setting his books by
machine. Our William from Edinburgh thereafter called on Shaw with
two different specimen pages, one hand-set in original Caslon and one
"machine-justified" in Monotype Caslon. Both were submitted to Shaw
without saying which was which. The suspected Monotype "justification"
was preferred. Maxwell triumphed. Emery Walker, consulted by letter,
also approved the machine-set page.
What a victory for the machine! Or rather, what a subtle example of
Maxwell's typographical tact and persuasiveness! The re-setting of the
whole of Shaw by hand would have been an inexcusable and expensive
drudgery. Maxwell convinced Shaw that the mechanical composing machine
could equal hand-setting in typographical quality and close spacing
between words and sentences.