From 1897, Ricketts had copies of the publications of the Vale Press (Hacon & Ricketts, At the Sign of the Dial) printed on vellum in addition to copies on paper; the maximum number of copies on vellum was established at ten.
Almost immediately, from 1898, he decided to make special binding designs for the deluxe copies if buyers and collectors requested them. The spines of these copies on vellum were narrower, leaving less space for the author's name and the title of the book. For the books that were bound in (decorative) paper bindings, he used labels that could be printed on paper at Ballantyne's printing establishment in London. However, Ricketts could not use such labels for the pigskin, goatskin and vellum bindings.
For the linen-bound books, Ricketts wanted the title in gold on the spine. The first title - Milton's Early Poems - came with a variant binding that had a linen label applied to the binding alongside copies with the title stamped in gold on the spine (sometimes this label has since come off and the spine is untitled). This was done by photographing a title set in 12 pica Vale Type and having a plate made from it, slightly reducing the size. In the bindery, this could be stamped on the spine of the book.
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| The Poems of Keats, volume II (Vale Press, 1898): spine |
Indeed, later editions, such as those of Keats, Shelley and Tennyson, show these characters, all of a uniform size: c.3 mm high (the Vale type capitals measured c.3,5 mm).
For the vellum and leather copies, special punches were produced in an even slightly smaller format (c.2.5 mm).
The difference is readily apparent by placing a copy printed on paper and a copy printed on vellum side by side. The edition of The Parables (1902) is a case in point.
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| The Parables (Vale Press, 1902) Upper part of the spine of a paper copy (left) and a vellum copy (right) |
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| The Parables (Vale Press, 1902) Upper part of the spine of a vellum copy |
These deluxe copies were not bound as editions (like the paper copies), but were made one by one by hand, with the bookbinder using special stamps or dies for ornaments and binder's flowers and thus also for the characters that were applied separately (not at the same time through a plate).
This is what Charles Ricketts wrote about in a letter to one of his most loyal collectors, Laurence Hodson in Wolverhampton. The letter dates from 1 September 1898 and is kept in the collection of the Boston Atheneum.
My dear Hodson[...]
With regard to your very own extra special design I am hesitating about the future use of plate blocks, and in the light of recent investigations we may leave the good Riviere for the gooder Leighton who used to bind for Morris (he has lost all his hair) he has the use of the Kelmscott founts for Kelmscott bindings (we have just cut a Vale set of punches) a great advantage this for the bindings of our beautiful books. [...]
This letter to Hodson is extremely interesting from beginning to end - and has been quoted in full in an earlier blog no. 111 (11 September 2013). For now let's focus on that comment placed in round brackets:
(we have just cut a Vale set of punches)
These special punches were used only for the copies on vellum or for the specially designed morocco bindings, such as the two volumes of the Keats edition that were specially designed for the Scottish collector John Morgan (see blogs nos. 357 and 358 about the collector John Morgan). On the spines we see small heart-shaped decorations and a leaf. The lettering is applied in the same way, character after character. In some cases, the ornaments and letters are placed slightly further apart than intended, or, on the contrary, they are placed too close together, as can be seen on the spine of the vellum edition of The Parables: some dotted circles are right up against each other, while space has been left between others.
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| Dotted circles on the spine of the vellum edition of The Parables (Vale Press, 1902) |
What happened to these special punches?
In 1906, Ricketts gave novice bookbinder Sybil Pye a set of his binding tools. These are illustrated in Marianne Tidcombe's Women Bookbinders, 1880-1920 (published in 1996): leaves, wheat, and ornaments such as brackets. The dotted circle and the heart-shaped form are not part of this series of tools, indicating that Ricketts did not give her all the punches he had made for the use of his binders at Riviere and Zaehnsdorf.
He did not hand her his punches of the small Vale type characters. Why not?
Ricketts, in A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts (1904), explained why he did not want to keep the matrices and punches for his types or give them to others for use:
As it is undesirable that these founts should drift into other hands than their designers' and become stale by unthinking use, it has been decided to destroy the punches and matrices, and type with the winding up of the firm which has used them.
The type was melted down, which will have brought in a fair sum of money.
Ricketts continued:
The punches and matrices are for the most part in the Thames [...].
The specially made binding tools - also called punches - were kept and later given to Pye with the exception of the ones that were used for the titles on the spines of vellum and leather copies of the Vale Press books. These were thrown into the Thames as well. This explains the phrase 'for the most part' - Ricketts must have thought that these (beautiful and costly) tools would come in handy one day. In the end, he never used them again, but Pye used them for most of her bindings.
[See earlier blogs about Sybil Pye's use of tools: No. 66. A Sybil Pye Binding and No. 442. Sybil Pye's Use of Vale Press Type for Bookbindings].
