“A Bird’s Eye View of The Whittington Press”

GERRY, Vance (1929-2005). "Los Angeles Printers: Some Recent Books About Them," In: Matrix, Number 7, Winter 1987, pp. 93-97.
WITH: RITCHIE, Ward (1906-1996). "A Medley of Printers Past," pp. 83-92.
WITH: RANDLE, John. "A Bird's Eye View of The Whittington Press," pp. 164-166.
Manor Farm, Andoversford, Glouchestershire: The Whittington Press, 1987. 4to. 11 1/4 x 7 3/4 inches. [vi], (168) pp. Gerry's article lists 11 recent publications about Los Angeles printers, and 4 books in progress with bibliographical descriptions and comments upon the contents, plus a tipped-in photograph of the books under discussion. Ritchie's article reminiscences (truncated) about the fine printers that influenced his development as a printer, and includes 2 photographic illustrations of influential books, Randle's article accompanied by a folding plate, "Bird's Eye View of the Whittington Press," typical illustrations and plates accompanying the various articles; text clean, unmarked. Patterned paper over flexible-paper wrappers, printed dust-jacket; binding square and tight, spine lightly faded, head of spine and top edge of front panel of dust jacket with tears and fading, corners of the binding lightly bumped, as they extend over the text-block yapp-style. PD123-002. Very Good.
LIMITED EDITION of 960 copies, this is one of 850 copies in wraps, set in 12-point Monotype Caslon, printed at the Whittington Press on Sommerville Laid and Zerkall Halbmatt papers. For this observer, the most interesting article in this issue is the John Randle article on the Miriam Macgregor Bird's Eye View. This illustrates how printers and artists in different countries can inspire and provoke one another to exciting work. Randle writes: "We were so intrigued with Vance Gerry's 'A Map of the Castle Press circa 1943, as it is sentimentally if not accurately remembered by a printer's devil' which appeared in his Weather Bird no. 7 in 1981, that we reprinted it in Matrix 6 to illustrate his article 'Some Fond Reminiscences of a Boy Printer at the Castle Press.' We have now gone one stage further and taken a leaf out of Vance's book by doing the same thing for the Whittington Press. It took some persuasion to get Miriam Macgregor to agree to do it. Vance's easy (but accurate) line makes the job seem deceptively simple. But finally, after much talk of perspective and vanishing points, and balancing precariously on stools, Miriam succeeded in recording the Press at one instant in its life. I would rather she had been a little less literal (tidier floor and emptier waste-paper baskets) but she has preferred to show it warts and all. It was originally drawn as a keepsake for our trip to America in May, but then we thought it would also be of interest to those readers of Matrix who have hot had the opportunity to visit the Press." p. 164. In addition, this issue of Matrix contains 24 other articles on all aspects of the book arts by such contributors as Simon Lawrence, Christopher Skelton, Sebastian Carter on Victor Hammer, Roderick Cave, John Dreyfus, Brooke Crutchley; on the distaff side we find Edwina Ellis, Fiona Ross, and Enid Marx, among others. (Inventory #: PD123-002)