THE HAND PRESS An Essay Written and Printed by Hand for the Society of Typographic Arts, Chicago, by. H.D.C. Pepler, Printer, Founder of St. Dominic's Press

Ditchling Common, Sussex: St. Dominic's Press, 1934. LIMITED FIRST EDITION SIGNED AND HAND NUMBERED BY PEPLER, number 80 of only 250 copies hand-printed. Laid into this copy is also a schedule of Hilary Pepler's lecture schedule and a notice of the press. A copy with pleasing provenance. Illustrated with six reproduction pages and labels from earlier St. Dominic's Press books, and with woodblock engravings and drawings. 8vo, in the printer's binding of dark blue coarse-wove cloth covered boards with white band across both covers and spine lettered in black on the upper cover and spine. (iv), 79, (1) pp. A fine copy, internally essentially flawless and pristine, the cloth with no wear and only slight mellowing to the spine, the white band nicely aged to ivory. FIRST EDITION WITH ADDED MATERIALS LAID IN AND WITH FINE PROVENANCE. VERY SCARCE, ONE OF ONLY 250 COPIES PRINTED BY HAND, NO TRADE ISSUE WAS DONE. The work is an address given to the Society of Typographic Arts in Chicago by Pepler, arranged by R. Hunter Middleton. The work was printed on a Stanhope hand press by Mark and H.D.C. Pepler on paper by Joseph Batchelor. Pepler was an associate of both Eric Gill and G. K. Chesterton. He founded, circa 1915, the St. Dominic's Press. It published, among other books, important editions for the Ulysses Bookshop in High Holborn, London, owned by Jacob Schwartz, to 1937. These included works of James Joyce and also George Bernard Shaw, John Drinkwater, Augustus John, Chesterton and John Collier.
Laid into this copy is a schedule of Pepler's lectures for 1933 and a press notice for THE HAND PRESS. There is a small neat bookplate on the front endpaper of Albert Sperisen (1908-1999), longtime librarian of the Book Club of California (whose library is now called the Albert Sperisen Library) and a much sought-after consultant in the fields of graphic design, fine printing, and typography. There is a neat pencil notation that this book was from the library of noted San Francisco collector Ted Lienthal and was purchased from David Magee, who in the annals of antiquarian bookselling looms large indeed. During his half-century as an antiquarian bookseller in San Francisco, he produced catalogues that are still used as references (and as models) by book dealers, collectors, and librarians.