#william pickering

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

WHITTINGHAM INITIALS

The Whittinghams, Charles the Elder (1767-1840), who founded the Chiswick Press, and his nephew and successor Charles the Younger (1795–1876), were among the finest English printer/publishers of the 19th century, noted especially for the quality of typographic design and evenness of printing. Their firm was also the chief printer for bookseller/publisher William Pickering, whose own devotion to quality was exemplified in his use of Aldus Manutius's anchor & dolphin printer's mark, combined with the motto Aldi Discipulus Anglus (Aldus's English Disciple).

Many of the distinctive, wood-engraved initials the Whittinghams used were designed by Charles II himself along with his artist daughters Charlotte and Elizabeth, almost all of which were engraved by English book illustrator and wood engraver Mary Byfield (1795-1871). The Whittingham initials shown here are from the 1896 Grolier Club publication, The Charles Whittinghams Printers by Arthur Warren (1860-1924), which itself is printed by one of the finest 19th-century American printers, Theodore Low De Vinne (1828-1914), who printed the book on handmade paper in an edition of 185 copies. Our copy is another gift from our friend Jerry Buff, a Grolier Club member.

View our other Typography Tuesday posts.

[shihlun]

St. Julian Hugh Edwards

- Exploring party under a banyan tree near Ty-ka

大甲附近榕樹下的探險團隊

1869

[uwmspeccoll]

Fore Edge Friday

This week’s #Fore Edge Friday example is a 3-volume set of The Poetical Works of William Cowper printed in Chiswick by Charles Whittingham for the London publisher William Pickering in 1843. The volumes are bound in gold-tooled and stamped calf skin and all edges and endpapers are marbled in what is called a Nonpareil pattern. 

According to the University of Washington’s site on Patterned Papers, the “ pattern is created when the desired colors are dropped sequentially onto the bath using some sort of implement to regulate the drop sizes. . . .  a comb with one set of teeth set at intervals of 15-30mm is drawn through the bath horizontally, once in either direction with the second pass halving the first. Then another comb with teeth set at 2-3 mm is drawn once across the bath vertically (or horizontally).”

As we have mentioned before, when marbling the edges of a book, the text block is clamped tightly shut, and once dipped, the excess fluid is blown or shaken off quickly to prevent it from running into the book. Once dry, the marbled edges are burnished.

The publisher William Pickering thought of himself as a modern-day Aldus Manutius because of his well-printed (thanks to the Whittinghams’ Chiswick Press), pocket-sized, and carefully-edited editions. Pickering even used Aldus’s famous anchor and dolphin printer’s mark with the Latin phrase Aldi Discip Anglus (the English Disciple of Aldus), as can be seen here on the title page. This set forms part of Pickering’s famous 57-volume series “The Aldine Edition of the British Poets.” Our Cowper set is a second edition, the first being published in 1830. The engraved frontispiece portrait of William Cowper is by Henry Robinson. 

View our other Fore Edge Friday posts.

[uwmspeccoll]

Spotlight Post: Robin Hood 

Today we present our second edition of Joseph Ritson’s Robin Hood: A Collection of all the Ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads, Now Extant Relative to that Celebrated English Outlaw; to which are Prefixed Historical Anecdotes of His Life, published posthumously in two volumes at London by William Pickering in 1832. Pickering added more stories to this edition which Ritson had compiled since the first edition in 1795 by T. Egerton, Whitehall, and J. Johnson in London. The Pickering edition was printed by Charles Whittingham the Elder at his Chiswick Press. The history of texts begin in the oral tradition as ballads and songs. These can be very tricky, because they can vary by region and even from telling to telling. The Robin Hood story came out of the troubadour stories of the Middle Ages, which is why the title describes the book as a collection of poems, songs and ballads. The oldest surviving tale of Robin Hood is an English folk ballad entitled A Gest of Robyn Hode printed around 1500, but it would not necessarily be recognizable as the Robin Hood in our edition or the stories we know today. 

Some of the significant additions made by Ritson were the first printing of the ballad of Robin Hood and the Potter, and the omission of Robin Hood and the Monk, which was added by Pickering to the second edition’s appendix. Ritson also wrote a preface that is the first attempt to tie the character of Robin Hood to a historical figure, Robert Fitzooth c.1274 or alternatively Robin Fitz Odoth. Scholars, however, now believe that these were also false names, because there was never a Robert, son of the Earl of Huntingdon. 

The illustrations, done in “the improved art of wood-cut-printing“ that were also used in the 1795 edition, were designed by “the celebrated Bewick,” i.e., Thomas Bewick, but also include engravings by his nephew John Bewick. Our copy, another gift of our friend Jerry Buff, has several pages that are unopened, which shows that it was mostly kept as a collector’s piece and not read extensively.

View another Robin Hood post.

View more Thomas Bewick posts.

View another post on a book published by William Pickering.

 --Claire, Special Collections Graduate Student Intern

[theladyelizabeth]

So I'm reading up a bit about William Pickering since he's making an appearance in this chapter and:

Of his career and activities nothing further has been traced until 2 Feb. 1543, when he went with several other young bloods led by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, on a nocturnal spree in London, smashing windows and firing crossbows at passers-by.

Dude what the fuck?

Oh and it gets worse:

They spent a month in the Tower before being released on recognizances of £200. Surrey tried to maintain that the group’s antics were intended to remind the citizens of the suddenness of God’s judgment, but he, too, found it prudent to retract and to attribute it to the reckless folly of youth: he employed Pickering as an envoy to the Council to ask for mercy.

[gregorygalloway]

William Hayward Pickering (born Wellington, New Zealand, 24 December 1910 – 15 March 2004) 

[theartofprose]

Send help: I think I’m becoming a victorianist again.

[uwmspeccoll]

Spotlight: 1662 Act of Uniformity

On this date, August 24, 1662, the Act of Uniformity required the use of the rites and ceremonies in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in Church of England services.

This reprint, published by William Pickering (note his use of the Aldine anchor and dolphin, taking on the mantle -- and symbol -- of that great 16th-century printer/publisher) and printed by Charles Whittingham (the younger; proprietor of the equally venerable Chiswick Press), is from “the sealed copy in the Tower of London.” Unfortunately, the binding on the spine gave way. But, it did reveal this curious form underneath:

“To be filled up by the Master of the Workhouse with the Articles actually given.” The list includes Coffee, Wine, Beer, Porter, Brandy, and Gin.

The signature on the flyleaf may be that of Henry Martyn Dexter, American clergyman and author, who graduated from the Andover Theological Seminary in 1844, the date this volume was published.

And . . . Happy St. Bartholomew’s Day!

The Book of Common Prayer: As Revised and Settled at the Savoy Conference, Anno 1662, 14 Charles II