The Canterbury Tales (facsimile)

1929-1931 [2010]

Special Collections PR1865 2010

Waltham St Lawrence, Berkshire: The Golden Cockerel Press [London: Folio Society]

As director of The Golden Cockerel Press, Gibbings oversaw press production. He was reliant on compositors Frank Young and Harry Gibbs, and pressman Albert Cooper. Proofing for ‘Canty Tales’, as Gill called it, was done on a Columbian press; the final copy (using dampened paper) was printed on a Phoenix platen press. 500 copies were printed: 15 on vellum; 485 on Batchelor hand-made paper. Gill was commissioned to do the wood engravings – some 26 half-page images, plus border decorations and tailpieces, and over 60 initial letters. Gill once wrote ‘the engraving is part of the typography’. This Folio Society facsimile captures well the desired result of balancing text with image.