Illustrated books -- Bibliography; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
Not content with reviving old type, the younger Whittingham revived also
the use of ornamental initials, causing numerous copies to be cut for
him from the initials used in French books of the sixteenth century.
Some of these are good, some almost bad, or while good in themselves,
suitable only for use with black-letter founts and too heavy for use
with roman letter. Still the attempt was in the right direction, and the
books of this period with the imprint of the Chiswick Press are worth
the attention of collectors interested in the modern developments of
printing. During the succeeding forty years there is little by which
they are likely to be attracted save the issues of the private press
kept and worked by the Rev. C. H. O. Daniel of Worcester College,
Oxford, of which he is now Provost. While he was yet a lad Mr. Daniel
had amused himself with printing, and a thin duodecimo is still extant
entitled _Sir Richard's Daughter, A Christmas Tale of Olden Times_,
bearing the imprint "Excudebat H. Daniel: Trinity Parsonage, Frome,
1852." In 1874 Mr. Daniel resumed his old hobby at Oxford, printing
_Notes from a catalogue of pamphlets in Worcester College Library_, and
in 1876 _A new Sermon of the newest Fashion by Ananias Snip_, of which
the original is preserved in the library of Worcester College. It was,
however, in 1881, by an edition of thirty-six copies of _The Garland of
Rachel_ "by divers kindly hands," that the Daniel Press won its renown.
Rachel was Mr. Daniel's little daughter, and the eighteen contributors
to her "Garland" included Frederick Locker, Robert Bridges, Austin
Dobson, Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, John Addington Symonds, Lewis Carrol,
W. Henley, and Margaret Woods. Each poet was rewarded by a copy in which
his name was printed on the titlepage, and the "Garland" soon came to be
regarded as a very desirable possession. Mr. Daniel subsequently printed
numerous little books by interesting writers (Robert Bridges, Walter
Pater, Canon Dixon, and others), and while neither his types nor his
presswork were exceptionally good, succeeded in investing them all with
a charming appropriateness which gives them a special place of their own
in the affections of book-lovers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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