Fine Printing

AN important exhibition of printed books from the better-known private presses of this country is opened to-day at the rooms of the Medici Society in Grafton Street. While it is primarily designed to show the influence of William Morris and the Kelmscott Press on the fine printing of to-day, it includes other productions, such as those of the Daniel Press, which was derived from an earlier impulse, and took up on the whole an antagonistic position, though even here the infIuence of Morris can be traced. Readers of The Athenæum will be familiar with the characteristics of the majority of the presses here represented, but they will value the opportunity of seeing them side by side and comparing their qualities, here seen to the best advantage.

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The Vale Press is represented by some of its finest works, designed to show the harmony between the engraver and the type-designer’s work. Morris was a calligrapher, Ricketts an engraver, and their books can be best compared from this point of view.