The history of English printing shows one more epoch-making figure. It is that of William Morris, poet, socialist, idealist, and craftsman. Morris is in many ways one of the most picturesque figures of the nineteenth century. Interested in many kinds of craftsmanship, he was particularly interested in printing and in 1891 he set up the Kelmscott Press in order to express his idea of what a book should be. Morris was above all things a man of the Middle Ages. Like the even more famous Ruskin, his spirit revolted from many of the characteristics of the nineteenth century. Whatever he did, thought, or said is influenced by this underlying spirit of mediævalism. In his books and his types we find exhibited the spirit and forms of the fifteenth century, but the vital thing is the spirit and not the form. Although deeply influenced by fifteenth century forms, Morris’s work is not mere imitation. It is rather a reproduction of the old-time spirit. Morris said that in printing it was important to consider “the paper, the form of the type, the relative spacing of the letters, words, and lines, and lastly the position of the printed matter on the page.” The harmony and completeness of the whole, a harmony extending beyond mechanism to the harmony of literary spirit and typographic form, was his fundamental idea. In working this out he adopted as a unit not the single page of type, as had been commonly the case, but the double page, on the ground that when the book is opened we have before our eyes not one page but two, and therefore the two together form a unit of book composition.
Morris designed three types, named from the books in which they were first employed. The first was the Golden, from the Golden Legend, a heavy black roman letter with distinct gothic influence. The second was the Troy, from an edition of Caxton’s Troy book, a modification of a Koburger gothic of the fifteenth century. The third was the Chaucer, so called from an edition of some of Chaucer’s work, which was the Troy reduced in size and slightly modified in face. The initial letters were designed by Morris in imitation of a set used by Sweynheim and Pannartz.
Unfortunately Morris lived only five years after he began to print and his press did not survive him. During that period he published fifty-three books in sixty-five volumes, none of them in large editions. The influence of Morris, however, was very great. Although he was not extensively copied directly, he led in a marked revival of the spirit of the old craftsman and in a renewal of the old conception of the unity and harmony of the book as a whole. The Kelmscott Press was hardly closed when Charles Ricketts opened the Vale Press, which operated from 1896 to 1904. Ricketts had much of the spirit and many of the methods of Morris, but unlike Morris, who approached his type problem from the side of manuscript, Ricketts conceived his forms as cast in metal. Another continuer of Morris’s work was the Dove Press, which was started in 1900.
Morris’s influence extended beyond the Atlantic and shows itself in some of the best American printing, particularly that of Mr. Daniel Berkeley Updike of the Merrymount Press of Boston and Mr. Bruce Rogers of the Riverside Press of Cambridge.
The central feature in the history of printing of the last century has been the development of periodical and commercial printing. Previous to the last hundred years the particular thing was the book, but book printing is now only a small part of the industry. A study of periodical and commercial printing would be extremely interesting, but it lies in the domain of typography rather than in that of the history of printing. With the brief consideration which we have made of the so-called revival of printing under Morris and his successors we may properly take leave of this branch of our subject.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
William Caxton. By Charles Knight. (Popular and in a few respects inaccurate, but excellent for its sketch of the life and conditions of Caxton’s time.)
Life and Typography of William Caxton. By William Blades. (The standard authority, but suited only for somewhat advanced students.)
A Short History of English Printing. By Henry R. Plomer. (A fairly good general view of the subject.)
The Cambridge History of English Literature. Vol. II, Chap. xiii; Vol. IV, Chap. xviii; Vol. VII, Chap. xv; Vol. XI, Chap. xiv. (This work is made up of monographs written by distinguished specialists. The chapters indicated contain a very good general view of the development of British printing and publishing and of the beginnings of journalism in England.)