Goodbye to the wonderful Bird & Bull Press

We just received this unhappy message from our friend Henry Morris at Bird & Bull Press: “The increasing difficulty in finding exciting and interesting book projects, combined with advancing age (87), has convinced me that it is now time to end my 55-year journey with Bird & Bull Press. So this is my last book. I want to thank all my subscribers for their many years of continued interest and support.”

Here are a few words by Jane Rodgers Siegel, from the 2008 American Printing History Association’s ceremony presenting Henry Morris with an award for his distinguished contribution to the study, recording, preservation or dissemination of printing history:
“Morris started Bird and Bull, one of America’s oldest private presses, in 1958 as an outlet for his new-found interest in hand papermaking - an interest sparked by a piece of fifteenth-century paper. Indeed, his strong interest in the art and history of handmade paper has resulted in a variety of books on Western, Japanese, and Chinese papermaking, and marbled and decorated papers, from Henk Voorn on Old Ream Wrappers (1969) to Dard Hunter and Son, by Dard Hunter II (1998), the unforgettably large Nicolas Louis Robert and His Endless Wire Papermaking Machine (2000), and Sid Berger on Karli Frigge’s Life in Marbling (2004). Morris’s 2006 J. Ben Lieberman Memorial lecture describes his belief that “Paper: There wouldn’t be any Printing History without It.”

“…Morris’s publishing program has been a boon to the historian of the book. He is correct when he writes, ‘It pleases me to know that without the Bird & Bull, many books on worthwhile, albeit esoteric subjects would probably never have been published.’ And all these works have been printed by letterpress from metal type on either Henry’s own handmade or on imported mould-made papers.”

Princeton University is fortunate to have been one of Mr. Morris’s subscribers and we are especially glad to received this last volume from the press.