Apprentices Out of Order

At the turn of 1636, Sir John Lambe was presented with a series of complaints by a group of journeyman printers. Lambe was serving as a member of the Court of High Commission, an ecclesiastical court set up by Queen Elizabeth in 1559, whose duties included some degree of oversight

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Printer’s Devils

On February 28, 1963, the television series The Twilight Zone aired an episode entitled “Printer’s Devil,” based largely on a short story by Charles Beaumont entitled “The Devil, You say.” In this episode, the editor of a failing newspaper makes a deal with a stranger who offers to fund the

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Four Beautiful Chapbooks by Asian American Poets to Read during National Poetry Month

  The chapbook, an abbreviated print format that originated with cheap, mass-produced pamphlets hawked by itinerant salesmen in the sixteenth century, is a staple of the modern-day poetry world. Like their historical predecessors, contemporary chapbooks are slim, portable objects, often affordably printed and produced, and devoted to shorter texts. But

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Happy Letterpress Appreciation Day!

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A Tale of Two Presses: Printing comes to Iceland

Gutenberg invented the printing press about 1450 in Germany. Although a technological revolution by all counts, it hardly spread like wild fire, even in Europe. The manuscript tradition continued strong for many decades. In the island territory known as Iceland, the advent of printing was even slower than in most

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Linotype

Linotype fans and mid-20th century-printing nerds should enjoy this video featuring the country’s last Linotype newspaper operation in Saguache, Colorado.

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