The Wanderer. The Women at the Pump

Citation

Rogerson, I. (2002), "The Wanderer. The Women at the Pump", Library Review, Vol. 51 No. 7, pp. 385-385. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.2002.51.7.385.9

The private press is a broad church which attracts a narrow band of the book collecting fraternity. For many of those for whom that church is of some interest, the term brings to mind the pseudo‐mediaeval artefacts of William Morris, constructed of the finest materials to exacting standards at his Kelmscott Press. At the other end of the spectrum, the private press can be an outlet for an unpublishable poet whose execrable verse is badly composed, badly inked and indifferently printed on poor paper subjected to bad folding. Definition of the term “private press” has always brought controversy and Cave has not been afraid to tangle in that emotive area of book production. Although the title of this collection of interesting and provocative essays might suggest that fine printing and private presses march forward hand in hand, the truth is somewhat different.

The British Library has honoured Roderick Cave in publishing this collection of essays, many of which will have escaped the notice of all but the most dedicated of followers of twentieth‐century book history, much of which is published in the form of conference proceedings. The experience of this reviewer is that it is a rare experience in such compilations to find all the papers of interest. Here, despite a wide spread of subject matter among the 29 papers, there is something of solid worth in each.

A number of the papers deal with the Golden Cockerel Press, on which Cave is an expert, but equally valuable are his essays on the commercial publishers. He draws our attention to minor publishers’ series, such as those of Ernest Benn, and it is hoped that his views will stimulate further work in this field. Lone strugglers such as Guido Morris, Roy Lewis, Count Potoki and Morris Cox are awarded their due and Cave draws attention to the problems in dealing with the historiography of the private press.

As a historian of the private press movement, Cave’s contribution has been substantial. His monograph The Private Press, first published by Faber and Faber in 1971, has stood the test of time and not been surpassed and this substantially referenced selection of papers deserves an equally wide readership. Designed by John Trevitt, the text is well printed although a few of the illustrations are rather grey. Curiously, the opportunity to demonstrate fine printing on the book jacket has been missed and it is a matter of regret that Cave’s opinions on twentieth‐century typography have not been more strongly represented.