Next through the press were: Thomas Bewick 1753 – 1828, An Essay by Llewelyn Powys, The Gravesend Press 1951. And in the same year, Edna Ferriss’s 21 Engravings, [by] Thomas Bewick. Privately Printed: St. Charles Illinois 1951. The book published in two volumes and limited to 500 copies in fact contained a total of 42 different engravings – some of the choicest possible from the Bewick hoard.
In her ‘Note’ to 21 Engravings, Edna Ferris wrote:
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‘In Chicago a decade ago, there were many of us who never passed the door of Ben Abramson’s bookshop without stopping, because across the threshold was a cerise shirt, a tongue that wagged of Marcus Aurelius or of Mother Goose and complete oblivion to worldly cares. And so one morning found me there looking idly at hundreds of little black blocks neatly arranged in tiered cases. Mr. Abramson said they were Bewick woodblocks recently arrived from England. Though I knew nothing about Bewick, I frantically assembled a tier for mine own. That day’s collection was the forerunner of an unlimited output of amateur smears, spoon printed by our whole family...’ |
From 21 Engravings
Philip Reed printed both books at his offices in Chicago using – in the case of the Powys – a soft brown ink for the engravings; on French Glaslan paper within green paper boards.
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Probably a few extra sheets of the 1951 printing were done on ordinary paper; as an otherwise typographically identical reissue appeared in 1954 but with a new introduction and under Reed’s imprint. Bound in pictorial boards and enclosed in a dust wrapper, the flap mentions: ‘42 Engravings...a few sets left at $25’. It’s clear from the new introduction Philip Read was exploiting the interest generated in Thomas Bewick the previous year.
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It is recorded that Mrs Ferriss bought only occasionally after 1943; Joe Graves had acquired at least one of his blocks during September 1946. Philip Reed – who was also an engraver – is recorded as buying in his own right from the busy month of March 1943 onward.
