Printing about the Handpress Using Photo-Offset

1998

Richard-Gabriel Rummonds's Printing on the Iron Handpress was published in 1998. This elegantly produced definitive book on the operation of historic handpress printing technology, illustrated by photographs and line drawings, was printed by high-speed photo-offset rather than manual letterpress printing. It included an annotated bibliography of prior printing manuals published in English. The introduction by Harry Duncan concluded:

". . . anyone who does stay the course and follow to the end the directives given here can count on acquiring a consummate, tried, and true method for handling an instrument that has never been surpassed, that still calls for a printer's full participation, physical as well as mental, in order to achieve the best work of which he is capable."

"In the summer of 1988 soon after printing Seven Aspects of Solitude, a sixteen page keepsake and the last publication to bear the imprint of the Plain Wrapper Press, Rummonds sold his printing equipment and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in screenwriting" (legacy.www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/rbk/faids/rummonds.pdf, accessed 03-18-2012)

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