“Yet I think that to all living things there is a pleasure in the exercise of their energies, and that even beasts rejoice in being lithe and swift and strong. But a man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works. Not only his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages guide his hands; and, as part of the human race, he creates. If we work thus, we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.”

Morris, Useful Work vs. Useless Toil, 1888

Cobden-Sanderson was deeply committed to his ideals in book design and handcraftsmanship. Upon the Doves Press’s closure, he was so worried that his beloved Doves type would be used for commercial purposes that he became determined to destroy every type piece. Acting directly against an agreement to share the type that he had made with Emery Walker, he did. This reprinted excerpt from his personal journal permits a glimpse into the mind of the frail, 76 year old man who cast hundreds of metal type pieces into the River Thames. He was ruthlessly determined, carrying them in a bookbinder’s tool box, in his pockets and even in his fists, so worried that he would be discovered that he waited for the noise of a passing motorcar to disguise the sound of the splash. In just over five months, the Doves Type was gone, with the exception of a few pieces that had been set aside to print a greeting card.

The Doves Press Bible is considered to be the Press’s crowning achievement in both typography and design. Cobden-Sanderson’s conception of the Bible was, like much of his life, unusual for the time. He was an avowed non-Christian and saw the Bible not as a religious text, but as a challenge: a means to experiment with typography and layout on a monumental scale. He wrote in his journal in 1902 that “[his] only fears should be that [he] may not live to accomplish it”. The text is set in Doves Press type, which was designed by Cobden-Sanderson and Walker and inspired by 15^th and 16^th century Venetian typefaces. Though pleased with the type, Walker critiqued the book’s layout, hinting the disintegrating artistic unity between the two craftsmen. In particular, he disapproved of the extended capital “I” reaching from the first line down to the very bottom of the page, now considered its most innovative aspect. Though devoid of imagery and ornamentation, Cobden-Sanderson’s design finds an expressive power in the slender line linking the top and bottom of the page, as if to demonstrate through typography the link between heaven and earth.

The Doves Press was founded by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson in March 1893. It was a communal enterprise in which Cobden-Sanderson designed the books and supervised their production, while a fellow craftsman Emery Walker supervised technical production.

Cobden-Sanderson himself had arrived at the bookbinding trade in a curious manner, one that highlights the interconnected nature of the Arts and Crafts circle. A chance dinnertime conversation with William Morris’s wife, Jane, on June 24, 1883, during which she casually suggested that he try bookbinding, resulted in a lifelong passion for the trade. He designed his own tools, was consistently innovative and ruthlessly critical of himself, personally completing every aspect of the binding process except for the sewing. This he entrusted to his wife, Annie Cobden, a vegetarian suffragette with whom he had combined his surname in a symbolic act of union, a surprising move which indicates the progressive nature of their circle.

After founding the Doves Press, Cobden-Sanderson never bound another book but instead focused on design. The Press’s greatest achievement was the Doves Press Bible, and soon after its production rising expenses and the disintegrating relationship between Walker and Cobden-Sanderson led to its closure.

Essex House Press struggled financially, with the situation growing ever more precarious after 1904, when an ambitious print run of 300 copies of the Essex House Bible was met with only 40 subscribers and the printers were put on half time. The Press finally ceased production altogether in 1906. Ashbee, however, was convinced that someday collectors would come to appreciate his beloved books. This bibliography carefully notes the details of each edition in what almost seems like an anticipation of the curiosity of future collectors.

“Alas that we could not go on with our work for we all of us loved it so and I think the book collectors of a day to come will probably prize some of the books…”

Ashbee Memoirs, 31 August 1906

Though C.R Ashbee began his design career as an architect, he also crafted intricate silver tableware and jewelry, so it is fitting that Benvenuto Cellini’s treatise would be among the most ornate and ambitious books to emerge from the Essex House Press. The Treatises was first published in Florence in 1568, three years before Cellini’s death, and is a record of his techniques and experimentation in metalwork. Ashbee himself completed this first English translation, attempting to stay true to what he called the “workshop vernacular” of Cellini’s original. The 7 illustrations and 11 engraved plates provide a detailed visual accompaniment to the text. The book is not simply a fine reprinting of a renaissance classic but a teaching tool in itself and one can imagine Ashbee poring over its diagrams in the workshop with his pupils and fellow craftsmen.

Influenced by the work of Ruskin, Ashbee believed that a healthy work environment was necessary for good craftsmanship, and the Guild of Handicraft’s location in smoky industrial Whitechapel was certainly not such a place. In 1901 he set his eye on Chipping Campden, a medieval wool town that had fallen on hard times. Many of the houses were empty, and Ashbee envisioned the town filled with new life and the sound of goldsmith’s hammers, carpenter’s saws and click-clacking looms.  The Guild took a vote, and with a clear majority in favour they made the move in 1902. In their new home they set up workshops, cultivated extensive gardens and even assembled a library. The countryside was perhaps too idyllic for some members of the community, however, who grew restless in the slow, quiet atmosphere. The Guild also struggled to find a balance between art, intellectual activity and labour. It soon became apparent that no matter how worthwhile it was to have long afternoon sketching classes, someone had to weed the gardens.

This account of the Cotswold Games, a sporting event begun in the 17^th century and held near Chipping Campden, is an example of Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft’s fascination with what they considered to be a primitive rural life, free from the restraints and distractions of the city.