News & Work in Progress

Worth and Value

Worth and Value

Sometime in the early 1960s, my new job involved lots of driving round the country (UK) but I always tried to find a moment to pop into any antique or second-hand bookshop I passed. My funds then were by no means lavish but I did pick up one or two items which still...

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Another coincidence

Another coincidence

For the past many weeks, I have hardly been in my printing office at all . . . rather I have been holed up with my computer, camera, Photoshop and InDesign wrestling with (but actually much enjoying) the putting together of the 'sequel' to our Bibliography, now ten...

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Sensuality in the garden!

Sensuality in the garden!

When, years ago, I first saw the flower photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, I stared and stared to try to work out how he made them so unashamedly erotic. Yes there was choice of subject, angle, reflections on the surface and so on but I ended up reckoning that much,...

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Silent Printer

Silent Printer

A dish of elderflower cordial to share with all those with whom I used to communicate on a reasonably regular basis but have hidden away from for far too long! I am so sorry. I am not going to attempt excuses or even explanations. It is just that this exquisite month...

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“Never knowingly understood”

“Never knowingly understood”

The photograph immediately above will be instantly recognizable (to all that have fallen under his spell over the years) as Ivor Cutler . . . of blessed memory. The, probably unfinished, portrait above was painted by Hans Schwarz (who was a neighbour and purveyor of...

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And yet . . .

And yet . . .

. . . having said so firmly that I was not going to 'traipse round with my camera', today was so deliciously lovely that I couldn't resist! I will just let these images speak for themselves on the subject of the piece of heaven in which we are lucky enough to live....

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Transfiguration

The dramatic blast and whoosh of Spring this month (despite jackets and heating still being needed the moment the sun goes behind a cloud) has been so universally felt and talked about that I do not feel a traipse round the garden with a camera would add very much to...

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Transfiguration

Transfiguration

The dramatic blast and whoosh of Spring this month (despite jackets and heating still being needed the moment the sun goes behind a cloud) has been so universally felt and talked about that I do not feel a traipse round the garden with a camera would add very much to...

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Abstracts at the seaside

Abstracts at the seaside

He's been at it again! Down to Pembrokeshire we went, the moment a big sun showed up on the online weather forecasts for more than an hour or two at a time. Wonderfully restorative. Snow? What snow? It is frustrating not to be able to paint pictures like this but very...

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One tiddler does not a fish supper make . . .

One tiddler does not a fish supper make . . .

. . . but this poor little creature (help came too late, I am afraid) is the very first to have been discovered on our riverside field! High tide this morning and a lot of rain on previous days so the river overran its banks. Our small friend must have swum happily...

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Renewed elegance for our Website

It seems (was) aeons ago that we first dreamed of having a website but wondered who would have the knowledge and experience to work the dark arts but be sensitive enough to avoid the cheap and garish excesses that, even then, tended to make web surfing a less than...

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Lithographs from the ‘fifties

Lithographs from the ‘fifties

I was recently rambling round the website of a friendly art dealer and identified a couple of lithographs dating from the mid- (nineteen) fifties and deliciously redolent of the period. I did not recognize either of the names involved, but that did not seem to matter...

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Stunning “Plague” images

Stunning “Plague” images

We have described HERE the saga of how the final copy of the extraordinary piece of work, that Angela Lemaire made in a tiny edition when she was a student, came to us and was eventually given a designed binding for our library by Nesta Rendall Davies. HERE, more...

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It’s even deeper in Greenland!

It’s even deeper in Greenland!

The redoubtable Nancy Campbell was most recently staying here about a month ago in order to work with us on the preparation of the second helping of our Bibliography. More about that anon. She was regaling us with excitements and fears about her upcoming adventure - a...

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A few dates . . .

A few dates . . .

For those eager book buyers who like to see and handle books before adding them to their shelves, here are some occasions during the year when you have the opportunity to enjoy displays - not just of The Old Stile Press books - but those from other presses too. During...

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Congratulations to Philip Gross

Congratulations to Philip Gross

I would like to lie and say that this was a photograph I took this very morning to catch the moment when the poet was told that he had won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry for 2009 but, apart from fear of my nose growing long, the scene of Summertime outside the window...

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I know I promised. . .

I know I promised. . .

. . . but it seems to have taken over everybody's lives! Just as the first lot of snow was showing slight signs of beginning to melt away, there was a grand encore (especially dramatic in this part of the world) which revealed this lot as morning broke yesterday and...

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A Very Happy Christmas!

A Very Happy Christmas!

Snow finally fell last night and enabled me to post this 'card' to all of our friends at this festive time of the year. I do, however, promise to spare you any further snow photos. We have, I reckon, had many too many this year already!

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Progress with “The Plague”

Martyn Grimmer, the master printer charged with the printing of Angela Lemaire's etched plates for the publication described earlier on this Blog - HERE, has just said that he is about halfway through the project and will finish in December. We have not yet been too...

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A change of scene

A change of scene

We decided to take ourselves away for a couple of days to try to rid ourselves of some accumulated end-of-summer-that-hardly-was glooms. Partially successful only, to be honest, but I was happy to return with some of the inevitable camera full of photographs . . . of...

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It must be Autumn

It must be Autumn

First of all, an early morning spider's web taken just before we went to London for the shenanigans described below and when, if I am honest, I was having my usual 'missing you already' feelings about this place before leaving it even for a couple of days! The...

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Fun and Games at The Whitechapel Gallery

Fun and Games at The Whitechapel Gallery

The McDowalls stepped out of their hotel and were assailed by wafts of warm air bearing scents of exotic food preparation and the sounds of multifarious city life. Had they returned to Italy for another holiday? Sitting down for a pavement breakfast, Frances sips her...

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EQUUS: here it is at last!

EQUUS: here it is at last!

EQUUS The play by Sir Peter Shaffer Images by Clive Hicks-Jenkins Equus was first produced on stage in 1973 and, in its first published form, Peter Shaffer wrote of the dangers of ‘flatly setting down on paper what was far from flat on the stage, and listing...

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EQUUS: how the OSP edition came about

EQUUS: how the OSP edition came about

Over the years, there have been many ways in which we have found texts which tempt us to work with them and many ways also in which we have discovered artists whose work we can visualise within one of our books. Our newest venture is a dramatic example of these arcane...

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