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23-450: The Doves Press was a private press based in Hammersmith , London. During nearly seventeen years of operation, Doves Press produced notable examples of twentieth-century typography. A distinguishing feature of its books was a specially-devised typeface , known variously as Doves Roman , Doves Press Fount of Type , or simply Doves Type . Financed by Anne Cobden-Sanderson , Doves Press

46-558: A Scottish surgeon and medical researcher, established a private press in 1786 at his house at 13 Castle Street, Leicester Square , in West End of London , in an attempt to prevent unauthorized publication of cheap and foreign editions of his works. His first book from his private press: A Treatise on the Venereal Disease. One thousand copies of the first edition were printed. Porter Garnett (1871–1951), of Carnegie Mellon University ,

69-502: A commercial artist, is lauded for high quality work, namely with Alfred Knopf . And, in contrast to many first-rate book designers joining private presses, he refused. Historian Paul Shaw explained, "He had no patience with those who insisted on retaining hand processes in printing and publishing in the belief that they were inherently superior to machine processes." Dwiggins's "principal concern ultimately centered on readers and their reading needs, esthetic as well as financial. [His] goal

92-503: A more polished digital version of Doves Type. In 2015, after searching the riverbed of the Thames near Hammersmith Bridge with help from the Port of London Authority , Green managed to recover 150 pieces of the original type, which helped him to refine the re-created typeface. Two variants of Green's re-created Doves Type, Text and Headline fonts, are now distributed by Typespec. The Headline variant

115-556: A nearby riverside pub. The Doves Press was responsible for the Doves Bible (5 vols, 1902–1904), which the Columbia Encyclopedia considered one of the best examples of its kind. By 1909, on the dissolution of their partnership, Cobden-Sanderson and Walker were in a protracted and bitter dispute involving the rights to Doves Type. As part of the partnership dissolution agreement, all rights to Doves Type were to pass to Walker upon

138-487: A suitable night, and time". He is said to have completed the task in January 1917, after 170 trips to the river, although his Journals do not mention the culmination. The first digital revival of Doves Type was made in 1994 by Swedish designer Torbjörn Olsson, who added an italic font for the typeface. His fonts reproduce the soft corners and imperfections of the printed characters. In 2013, designer Robert Green began to create

161-586: Is somewhat analogous to that of luthiers ' works of fine string instruments and bows . The private press movement, and its renowned body of work – relative to the larger world of book arts in Western civilization – is narrow and recent. From one perspective, collections relating to book arts date back to before the High Middle Ages . As an illustration of scope and influence, a 1980 exhibition at Catholic University of America , "The Monastic Imprint," highlighted

184-425: Is that for various reasons – namely quality – production quantity is often limited. University presses are typically more automated. A distinguishing quality of private presses is that they enjoy sole discretion over literary, scientific, artistic, and aesthetic merits. Criteria for other types of presses vary. From an aesthetic perspective, critical acclaim and public appreciation of artisans' works from private presses

207-671: Is used by the Thames Tideway Scheme for architectural lettering. Other digital revival projects include "Mebinac" by Alan Hayward as well as "Thames-Capsule" by Raphaël Verona and Gaël Faure. Private press The term "private press" is not synonymous with " fine press ", " small press ", or " university press " – though there are similarities. One similarity shared by all is that they need not meet higher commercial thresholds of commercial presses. Private presses, however, often have no profit motive. A similarity shared with fine and small presses , but not university presses ,

230-432: The 1470s and the lowercase letters were based on typefaces used by Jacobus Rubeus . Atypical punctuation, extremely wide capitals, and an offset dot of the letter 'i' were distinctive features of the typeface. Doves Type was similar to William Morris's earlier Golden Type and, like it, was cut by punchcutter Edward Prince . The press was located at No. 1 Hammersmith Terrace . It was named after The Dove, Hammersmith ,

253-434: The 1950s, there has been a resurgence of interest, especially among artists, in the experimental use of letterpress printing , paper-making and hand-bookbinding in producing small editions of 'artists' books', and among amateur (and a few professional) enthusiasts for traditional printing methods and for the production 'values' of the private press movement. In New Zealand university private presses have been significant in

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276-466: The Victorian era. The books were made with high-quality materials (handmade paper, traditional inks and, in some cases, specially designed typefaces), and were often bound by hand. Careful consideration was given to format, page design, type, illustration and binding, to produce a unified whole. The movement dwindled during the worldwide depression of the 1930s, as the market for luxury goods evaporated. Since

299-506: The book as a work of art and manual skill, as well as a medium for the transmission of information. Morris was greatly influenced by medieval codices and early printed books and the 'Kelmscott style' had a great, and not always positive, influence on later private presses and commercial book-design. The movement was an offshoot of the Arts and Crafts movement , and represented a rejection of the cheap mechanised book-production methods which developed in

322-468: The books he and Walker printed. The press produced all its books using a single 16-point size of this house typeface between 1900 and 1916. The press is considered to have been a significant contributor to the Arts and Crafts movement , whose founders were associated with William Morris and the Kelmscott Press . The capital letters of Doves Type were based on typefaces used by Nicolas Jenson from

345-536: The death of Cobden-Sanderson. Instead of letting this happen, on Good Friday, 21 March 1913, Cobden-Sanderson threw the matrices and punches into the River Thames off Hammersmith Bridge in London, a short walk from the press. In the journals of Cobden-Sanderson, however, he recorded that he began the destruction of the typeface matrices and punches three years later, beginning on 31 August 1916 at midnight, when "it seemed

368-576: The founding of Morris' Kelmscott Press in 1890, following a lecture on printing given by Walker at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in November 1888. Morris decried that the Industrial Revolution had ruined man's joy in work and that mechanization, to the extent that it has replaced handicraft, had brought ugliness with it. Those involved in the private press movement created books by traditional printing and binding methods, with an emphasis on

391-931: The influence of book arts and textual scholarship from 1200 to 1980, displaying hundreds of diplomas, manuscript codices , incunabula , printed volumes, and calligraphic and private press ephemera . The displays focused on five areas: (1) Medieval Monasticism , Spirituality, and Scribal Culture, A.D. 1200–1500; (2) Early Printing and the Monastic Scholarly Tradition, ca. 1450–1600; (3) Early modern Monastic Printing and Scholarly Publishing, A.D. 1650–1800; (4) Modern Survivals: Monastic Scriptoria, Private Presses, and Academic Publishing, 1800–1980. The earliest descriptive references to private presses were by Bernardus A. Mallinckrodt of Mainz , Germany, in De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae dissertatio historica (Cologne, 1639). The earliest in-depth writing about private presses

414-685: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Englishman William Morris wanted to counter the industrialization of culture through a revival of craft in printing, printmaking, and publishing. One of the books they published was the Kelmscott Chaucer . Soon, fine presses began to spring up in the United States as well; the most prominent was the Roycroft Press . Los Angeles was a center of the fine press movement, particularly centered on

437-557: The private press movement. Private presses are active at three New Zealand universities: Auckland ( Holloway Press ), Victoria (Wai-te-ata Press ) and Otago (Otakou Press ). A 1982 Newsweek article about the rebirth of the hand press movement asserted that Harry Duncan was "considered the father of the post- World War II private-press movement." Will Ransom has been credited as the father of American private press historiographers . Beyond aesthetics, private presses, historically, have served other needs. John Hunter (1728–1793),

460-469: Was an exponent of the anti-industrial values of the great private presses – namely those of Kelmscott , Doves , and Ashendene . Following Garnett's inspirational proposal to Carnegie Mellon , Garnett designed and inaugurated on April 7, 1923, the institute's Laboratory Press – for the purpose of teaching printing, which he believed was the first private press devoted solely for that purpose. The press closed in 1935. William Addison Dwiggins (1880–1956),

483-481: Was by Adam Heinrich Lackmann (de) (1694–1754) in Annalium Typographicorum, Selecta Quaedam Capita (Hamburg, 1740). The term "private press" is often used to refer to a movement in book production which flourished around the turn of the 20th century under the influence of the scholar-artisans William Morris , Sir Emery Walker and their followers. The movement is often considered to have begun with

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506-411: Was founded by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson sometime before 1900 (when he invited Emery Walker to join him). Their partnership was dissolved in 1908, but Cobden-Sanderson continued printing. Cobden-Sanderson had commissioned the press's own typeface – Doves Type – that was drawn under the supervision of Walker. The Doves Bindery that Cobden-Sanderson had set up in 1893 bound

529-403: Was to make books that were beautiful, functional, and inexpensive." including: Fine press Fine press printing and publishing comprises historical and contemporary printers and publishers publishing books and other printed matter of exceptional intrinsic quality and artistic taste, including both commercial and private presses . As part of the Arts and Crafts movement in

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