The Canterbury Tales (facsimile)

Date

1929-1931 [2010]

Identifier

Special Collections PR1865 2010

Type

Publisher

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

Abstract

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.

Files

Cabinet 1 image-0001 Canterbury Tales.jpg

Citation

Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Canterbury Tales (facsimile),” ourheritage.ac.nz | OUR Heritage, accessed March 29, 2024, https://ourheritage.ac.nz/items/show/9283.