General Printing: An Illustrated Guide to Letterpress Printing

Having just purchased some Adana's to begin letterpress printing, I felt at a loss as to how to proceed. After umming and ahhing over which letterpress book looked the most useful, I decided on this one - and have not been disappointed! The content is all very old - including black and white photos and illustrations - but that doesn't matter as the art itself is old and so every technique you could need is clearly demonstrated through photos and notes. I also paid to have a day class in letterpress printing, and they didn't teach me anything this book hadn't already shown me - it now means I have the perfect reference text to refer to if I get stuck!

For a book on printing you'd think the internal pages would have been printed better. The pages look to have been zeroxed and then printed, but once you get over that the contents are remarkable. The only other book you'll need to learn letterpress printing is Polk's The Practice of Printing. There are things in General Printing that don't appear in Polk's so buy this book. This book is recommended by all the print supply retailers and for good reason it is a step back in time to the era of letterpress, it is like having an old pro there to help you be a better printer or just to understand how things are done before press, during and after.

I bought this book after acquiring an 1876 platen-style letterpress. It answered all of my questions, and covered the process of printing in great detail. It's not a great book for modern printing methods, and If you have questions about digital pre-flight, you should find another book. It doesn't cover polymer plates, since those are a digital development. It'll show you how to set movable type or wood blocks, and operate your press.

best book to instruct on printing on the market

Great must have to your library