The Vale Press

The Vale Press is the story of typographer, publisher and wood engraver Charles Ricketts (1866-1931) and his famous press. Ricketts was a versatile and innovative practitioner of the printing arts who exerted a powerful influence on the development of modern book design. The Vale Press is the most comprehensive history of this early private press. Beginning with his work as "a designer of books and bindings" for Oscar Wilde, the story of the Vale Press reveals for the first time the nature of Ricketts's collaboration with the master printer Charles McCall of the Ballantyne Press, and the degree to which his success, both artistic and commercial, depended upon the transformation of his redundant skill as a wood engraver into a positive medium of artistic expression. This work includes a complete bibliography of the Vale Press' books and ephemera and is illustrated in colour and black and white.