Introduction to Letterpress Printing

The first virtual tour of the Bibliography Room in the Robertson Davies Library, Massey College, University of Toronto. For more information about the collections held at the Bibliography Room and the Robertson Davies Library, check out our website: www.masseycollege.ca/library/
This tour was filmed for the Introduction to Book History course in the University of Toronto’s Book History and Print Culture collaborative specialization, though all viewers are welcome.
The books used in these demonstrations are part of our teaching collection; no books were harmed in the filming of this video!
Another special thanks to BHPC Printing Fellows 2019, Megan E. Fox and Chelsea Humphries for their hard work in designing the beautiful quarto used in these demonstrations.
Featured images:
1) "Composition": Illustration of a pressroom in, Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers … Paris: Briasson [etc.], 1751-1765.
2) "Imposition": Plate 26 in Joseph Moxon's Mechanick exercises; or, the Doctrine of handy-works applied to the art of printing ... London: for Joseph Moxon, 1683. archive.org/details/moxonsmec...
3) "Printing": Jost Amman's Stände und Handwerk ... Munich: Hirth, 1884. archive.org/details/b24852429...
4) "Paper dampening": Joseph Moxon's Mechanick exercises, 1683.
5) "Ink balls": Distributing ink upon ink balls in Jacob Abbott's The Harper Establishment: How books are made. New York, 1855. printinghistory.org/heavy-met...

[@karancoyne7719]

best video on letterpress ever!!! take a bow guys, as we say here in ireland "fair playd to ye"

[@headleycaryer3795]

As compositor since 1951 it is nice to see a video that has almost everything correct!

[@francoisjarzabek1412]

Great video, most enjoyable. Thank you very much for this full break down "start to finish process".

[@julianataboada1721]

Thank you for sharing this video with so many details of printing processes!
And congrats for the thorough work.
Obrigada (from Brazil)!

[@TheRobertsonDaviesLibrary]

You are so welcome! Glad it was helpful. Hi from Canada!

[@FriarsMillPress]

Great video! I Thoroughly Enjoyed your Introductory Walkthrough of the Letterpress Process! Question: Where are you getting the statistic 240 sheets per hour from? As far as my understanding allows, 60 - 100 impressions per hour was considered good work. If you're counting quarto impressions then yes, 60 x 4 to accomplish 240 printed pages is an achievable hourly goal for a team. As for 240 unique impressions, I can't imagine that working out but I'm really interested to know where you found your statistic. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Keep up the brilliant work!

[@billm.2677]

If the verbiage in the story you were printing required more space for type than the chase allowed, I suppose you could possibly truncate the story somewhat just to get the main points across
OR…. CUT TO THE CHASE…. Oops, that term wasn’t used until silent movies in the 1900’s
Probably would have more sense to most folks except…in silent movies nobody cared about the story when they could just watch the cops, robbers, cowboys, and Indians chasing each other around.