December 2022

Galleys are metal trays with an open end. These ones hold the type set on a Monotype machine by Effra Press for ‘Frozen Hell’ an Arete Editions project.

Used type from our latest project ready to go back to Effra Press to be melted down and re-used.

We’ll be presenting our Arete Editions schedule for the coming year very soon!

In the meantime, Phil Abel’s Hand and Eye editions wonderful book of the Wind in the Willows is nearly sold out! Grab one of the last few copies for Christmas, it is a letterpress printed book with over eighty relief print illustrations throughout, beautifully bound by Ludlow Bookbinders. It’s a lovely book, tactile and warm, made in the best Fine Press tradition, signed and numbered. You can get them with, or without, a slipcase. https://www.handandeye.co.uk/…/The-Wind-in-the-Willows…

A pair of tied-up pages from Frozen Hell by John W Campbell Jnr, our next Arete Editions project. The type was cast in columns by Effra Press and we’ve made it up into pages and proofed it on our FAG proofing press.

This box of floating accents came from the composing room of Barnard & Westwood, our landlords for 15 years and one of the few trade firms who didn’t abandon letterpress. The writing on the lid was the work of the late Ray Evans, who surely the last full-time compositor in London.

The dots, stars and boxes also came from Barnard & Westwood. We’re using some of the stars in Frozen Hell, the next book from Arete Editions

Packets of type from Effra Press for our next Arete Editions project. “Frozen Hell” the original, longer version of John W. Campbell Jr.’s “Who Goes There?” which was made into the movie “The Thing” by John Carpenter. The novel-length manuscript was rediscovered in 2019. The story will be illuminated with sixteen oil paintings, some printed on single pages and others on two- and four-page foldouts. There will also be many black and white illustrations and decorations. The artist is Greg Manchess.