Day Dreams was
printed by letter-press
printing – I say this not only because that was the way to print text at the time, but because when I run my fingers over the page I can feel
the indentations from the pressure of type against paper. In letter-press printing surfaces are cut in relief (that is, the object to be printed,
e.g. a letter, juts up from the base), coated with ink, then pressed to
paper to transfer the impression.
Black printing ink of the nineteenth century was made of lampblack or similar pigment added to oil. It had to be viscous enough not to run, but liquid enough to be spread across the type. It was said a pound of ink could cover 7,000 square feet of type. Although by the time Day Dreams was printed few printers produced their own ink, many printers added some “secret ingredient” that made their ink theirs.
It was the printing press, however, which undertook the important role of transferring ink to paper. Like paper, like type – like just about everything involved in printing – the Industrial Revolution had a big impact. Printing presses had improved since Gutenberg’s first printing in Mainz, but not by much. The Industrial Revolution changed that. Presses became iron instead of wooden, they became bigger and faster – and they could be powered by steam instead of by hand.
Black printing ink of the nineteenth century was made of lampblack or similar pigment added to oil. It had to be viscous enough not to run, but liquid enough to be spread across the type. It was said a pound of ink could cover 7,000 square feet of type. Although by the time Day Dreams was printed few printers produced their own ink, many printers added some “secret ingredient” that made their ink theirs.
It was the printing press, however, which undertook the important role of transferring ink to paper. Like paper, like type – like just about everything involved in printing – the Industrial Revolution had a big impact. Printing presses had improved since Gutenberg’s first printing in Mainz, but not by much. The Industrial Revolution changed that. Presses became iron instead of wooden, they became bigger and faster – and they could be powered by steam instead of by hand.
In 1852, twelve years before Day Dreams, the firm T. Constable had sixteen presses as well as a cylinder and three platen machines. One press was a Stanhope (probably originally belonging to his grandfather Willison) and two were Columbian presses from the 1830s. The other presses – and which one might have printed Day Dreams – are unknown. The Stanhope and Columbian presses are hand-operated and less productive than the machine presses introduced mid-nineteenth century. Given that T. Constable was one of the bigger printing firms in Edinburgh, a centre of printing, it seems reasonable to assume they would have had fairly up-to-date equipment and bookwork would have been done, where possible, on machine presses for speed. It's worth noting, though, that Southward’s 1882 Practical Printing gives instructions for doing bookwork on both hand and machine presses, implying the former were still used for printing books.
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The particular printing press in this video, a kind of cylinder press, is probably too recent to be the kind of press used to print this book, but you can see some principles of machine printing. The paper is wetted and taken up by the cylinder from the top. At the other end you can see the printed papers coming off. There are multiple book pages on each piece of paper: after printing this paper is folded to make quires, or collections of pages, and then cut. Below the cylinder you can see the flat bed of the metal type of the pages moving back and forth; this machine is automatically inking the type. Power is provided here by a steam engine (before cylinder presses, printing presses relied on human power).
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This copy of Day Dreams is labelled “second edition”. That didn’t mean then quite the same as it does now. From booksellers’ sites, it seems the first edition of this book was also printed in 1864. This means the book might have been more popular than expected, so the pages were re-set in type and a “second edition” put out same as the first – or the book might have been less popular than expected and the “second edition” title page was added to the original pages to try make it look more popular than it was. There are, however, at least two “second editions”.
Google Books has a scanned copy of Day Dreams with the same title page, right down to the “second edition” label. However, it has additions of a half title (a page before the title page with just “DAY DREAMS.” written on it) and advertising material for Edmonston & Douglas at the back. Most tellingly, though, page 177 has the correct page number. My copy of Dream Days has the number as 717 (see below). The two “second edition”s could be from completely different type settings. (It's also possible my book is an earlier impression and the type block was corrected before the other copy was printed.)
Google Books has a scanned copy of Day Dreams with the same title page, right down to the “second edition” label. However, it has additions of a half title (a page before the title page with just “DAY DREAMS.” written on it) and advertising material for Edmonston & Douglas at the back. Most tellingly, though, page 177 has the correct page number. My copy of Dream Days has the number as 717 (see below). The two “second edition”s could be from completely different type settings. (It's also possible my book is an earlier impression and the type block was corrected before the other copy was printed.)
For more information see:
IARC. 1996. Printing processes and printing inks. IARC Monographs, 65, 33-147. http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol65/mono65-5.pdf
Information about ink history and composition through to the end of the twentieth century.
Printing Yesterday and Today. http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/educator/modules/gutenberg/books/printing/
A brief survey of changes in printing technology since Gutenberg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCvZnmgp6-0&feature=endscreen&NR=1
A demonstration of locking up type and printing.
Southward, John. (1882) Practical Printing. A handbook of the art of typography. “Printers’ Register” Office: London.
A fascinating book, written by a working printer of the 1880s to provide information to novices beginning in the field of printing who required practical information about the tasks at hand. A great look at how printing really happened in the 1870s and early 1880s.
Out of Sorts Press. http://www.outofsortspress.com/letterpress/index.html
Information about letterpress, including animations of three kinds of presses. Requires Flash.
Adams, Thomas F. (1854). Typographia; or, The printer's instructor: a brief sketch of the origin, rise, and progress of the typographic art, with practical directions for conducting every department in an office, hints to authors, publishers, &c. Philadelphia: L. Johnson, 1854. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/aey5047.0001.001
Book of the period with instructions for practising printers. Interesting, but a little abstruse for the casual reader!
IARC. 1996. Printing processes and printing inks. IARC Monographs, 65, 33-147. http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol65/mono65-5.pdf
Information about ink history and composition through to the end of the twentieth century.
Printing Yesterday and Today. http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/educator/modules/gutenberg/books/printing/
A brief survey of changes in printing technology since Gutenberg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCvZnmgp6-0&feature=endscreen&NR=1
A demonstration of locking up type and printing.
Southward, John. (1882) Practical Printing. A handbook of the art of typography. “Printers’ Register” Office: London.
A fascinating book, written by a working printer of the 1880s to provide information to novices beginning in the field of printing who required practical information about the tasks at hand. A great look at how printing really happened in the 1870s and early 1880s.
Out of Sorts Press. http://www.outofsortspress.com/letterpress/index.html
Information about letterpress, including animations of three kinds of presses. Requires Flash.
Adams, Thomas F. (1854). Typographia; or, The printer's instructor: a brief sketch of the origin, rise, and progress of the typographic art, with practical directions for conducting every department in an office, hints to authors, publishers, &c. Philadelphia: L. Johnson, 1854. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/aey5047.0001.001
Book of the period with instructions for practising printers. Interesting, but a little abstruse for the casual reader!