Change, The Beginning of a Chapter. In Twelve Volumes.
Plaistow, London: The Decoy Press, 1919. First Edition. Hardcover. Volumes 1 and 2 (all published), sixmo size, 107 pp. [and] 101 pp., respectively. Very good +. Item #18041738
These two slender volumes piqued my curiousity the moment I laid my eyes upon them. I had never heard of The Decoy Press. Thanks to an online article (see "Citations" below) I learned that Decoy was the "publishing imprint [of Joseph Thorp] only, not a printing press, used sometimes by the Curwen Press when it was impolitic to use their own imprint" (n.b., from Selborne, "British Wood-Engraved Book Illustration, 1904-1940", p. 122).
WWI, the "Great War", had ended just two months prior (November, 1918). There were great hopes that there would be "a new post-war order based on socialist and spiritual values" (n.b., Neil Philip, "Adventures in the Print Trade). The "Letter Dedicatory" in the first volume gives the publisher's mission statement: "...the urgent work of the future is not material but spiritual, is the freeing and development of personality not the multiplication and sale of things. If the first be done these last shall be added unto us" (pp. 10-11).
Thus, "Change" was born. Envisioned to be twelve volumes, only the January and February volumes would be published....I cannot find any mention of what occasioned the publisher to cease after only two volumes. These two are packed with examples of woodcuts and wood-engravings done between the wars by notable artists of the day: Lovat Fraser, Robert Gibbings, Eric Gill (who engraved the Press device, P35), Vivien Gribble, Philip Hagreen, Millicent Jackson, Rachel Marshall, Gabriel J. Pippet, Herbert Rooke, and Paul Woodroffe.
While not difficult to find individual volumes, we discern, written in very light pencil (as to almost be invisible) on the front board of Vol. I, "HSC's Desk copy". It is entirely possible that "HSC" was Harold Curwen, grandson of the founder of the Curwen Press, who ran the Press beginning in 1916. This is further borne out by the Curwen Press Ex-Libris being mounted onto the recto of the flyleaf, "From the Library of the Curwen Press, London" with a private library number of "H.23" being written in one corner.
___DESCRIPTION: Both volumes bound in tan paper over boards with a tan cloth spine, gilt lettering and ornament on the spine, paper label mounted onto the front boards with black lettering and border, pictorial endpapers (different in each volume), small device of a flying duck in different colours on the half-titles, Volume 1 title page in blue and black, Volume 2 title page in red and black, different title devices both done by Paul Woodroffe, both volumes with short essays, poems, and illustrations by the artists listed above, Vol. 1 with the Ex-Libris of the Curwen Press as noted above and "HSC Desk Copy" lightly written in pencil on the front board, Vol. 1 with Errata slip tipped onto p. 16, Vol. 1 with (in addition to numerous black-and-white illustrations) (i) a tipped-in coloured illustration on p. 34, "John Crabtree", (ii) a tipped-in coloured illustration on p. 39, "Cyrus T. Wabash", and (iii) a colour illustration on p. 100, "The Sportsman", all three by Lovat Fraser, Vol. 2 with no colour illustrations but replete with black-and-white, Press device by Gill at the end of both volumes; sixmo size (6 1/2" by 4 1/8"), pagination: Vol. 1, [1-8] 9-104 [2, blank] [1, Press device] and Vol. 2, [1-6] 7-100 [1, Press device].
___CONDITION: Both volumes a bit better than very good, the boards mostly clean but with some light stray soil marks, straight corners with minimal rubbing, strong, square text blocks with solid hinges, the interiors clean and bright; sunning and light soil to the cloth shelfbacks, the paper on the back board of Vol. 1 beginning with some wear at the joint, a few gutters begining to crack but all signatures secure, prior owner markings include the Curwen Press Ex-Libris and a correction in pen to p. 103 of Vol. 1 striking a comma and changing one word.
___CITATIONS: Neil Philip, "Change", from the web site "Adventures in the Print Trade", published online on February 17, 2010; Joanna Selborne, "British Wood-Engraved Book Illustration, 1904-1940"; Skelton, "Eric Gill, The Engravings".
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Price: $350.00