st james park press
george orwell
ANIMAL FARM
Animal Farm, an anti-utopian satire by George Orwell, published in 1945. One of Orwell’s finest works, it is a political fable based on the events of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution and the betrayal of the cause by Joseph Stalin. The book concerns a group of barnyard animals who overthrow and chase off their exploitative human masters and set up an egalitarian society of their own. Eventually the animals’ intelligent and power-loving leaders, the pigs, subvert the revolution. Concluding that “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” (with its addendum to the animals’ seventh commandment: “All animals are equal”), the pigs form a dictatorship even more oppressive and heartless than that of their former human masters.
THE EDITION
Printed from Intertype cast type - cast on a working farm! - the first use of Intertype for the Press.
Printed on Zerkall ohne-Silurian mould-made paper.
The illustrations printed on Barcham Green Hayle hand-made antiquarian watermarked paper.
Printed on the same Zerkall used for the press’s edition of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. ‘Zerkall’ is now a paper no longer made, and like many papers used in fine press works, once the remaining stock of Zerkall that exists in the world as of now is utilised, there will be no more of it.
The edition is in keeping with the original Penguin paperback's that saw Orwell's works published, by retaining a similar size.
The edition is softcover. Hand-sewn, with heavyweight endpapers and a removable folded dust-wrapper. The edition housed in a transparent acrylic display case to showcase the multi-coloured dust wrapper.
SAMPLE PAGES from LETTERPRESS PRINTED MOCK-UP COPY
HAND SEWN BINDING
illustrations
The edition features 21 multi-colour linocuts by artist Hugh Ribbans. Hugh trained at Canterbury College of Art. Relief printmaking was his craft subject at college, particularly linocutting. He has exhibited at the Barbican Gallery, the National Theatre, the National Print Exhibition, the Printmakers Council Open, The Society of Wood Engravers, and the Society of Wildlife Artists.
The binding for the edition is a multi-coloured linocut wrap-around dust jacket, featuring a detailed scene. Hugh’s brief for the dust wrapper was to create a multi-coloured linocut resembling a “Where’s Wally?” (“Where’s Waldo?” in Canada and the USA) of Animal Farm, albeit for adults and without the search and find element of that 1980’s British childhood classic.
[Hugh was also commissioned for a small illustration of an "animal" in the press's edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, as a way to connect the editions].
FIVE COLOUR LINOCUT
LETTERPRESS PRINTED DUST WRAPPER
(STAGED COLOUR PROOFS)
LINOCUT CHAPTER HEADINGS
SELECTION of LINOCUT ILLUSTRATIONS
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HAND CARVED LINOCUT IN PROGRESS
type
casting
Printed in 12pt Intertype Times Roman, cast by Tom Dunn at the Bannock Farm Press on an Intertype Model C4.
The Bannock Farm Press, run by Nigel Goldsmith in the heart of Somerset, England, is a British smallholding farm, which also has a print room in which stands an Intertype C4 typecaster. Nigel’s father had run a small printing company since the 1960s and Nigel continued the tradition, studying printing at College and working in the printing and allied trades thereafter. In 2012, the Bannock Farm Press was formed, taking advantage of a new barn at the farm and Nigel’s passion for print.
A chance meeting with Tom Dunn in the middle of 2020 started a restoration and revival of the Intertype at the farm. Tom served a five year apprenticeship as a compositor and Intertype operator in 1957, working as a Linotype and Intertype operator thereafter for more than 20 years. When the craft of letterpress began to wane in the 1980s, Tom continued to work in the print trade, until his retirement in 2006.
Tom was over 15 years into his retirement before kindly returning to the fray to professionally operate the Intertype at Bannock Farm alongside Nigel, and give it its first substantial casting project and the first use of Intertype for the St James Park Press, all for Animal Farm.
[For the press's edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, an illustration of a similar caster was used as a connecting factor between editions].
times roman
Times New Roman was designed for Monotype casting by British typographer Stanley Morison for The Times newspaper in 1932, the name a result of the previous face used having been informally referred to as Times Old Roman. For linotype (and Intertype) casting, an almost identical version was designed, called Times, or Times Roman.
Although Times was dropped by the paper in 1972, the typeface became a staple of word processors, which in modern times effectively ruined the importance and beauty of the face through overuse in a commercial and digital setting.
Fortunately, ‘The Times are a-Changin’ again, as headlined in a message sent within the US State Department recently, which decided that Calibri would now become the staple choice of font for their use. A year before this, the UK Home Office had already made the decision to drop its use. Businesses around the world have also started to adopt such faces as Arial or Calibri instead. In all ways, Times can now be seen with fresh eyes by the next generation of readers, who won’t have been inflicted by its use in the workplace.
[For the press’s edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Times New Roman was used for the border text printed in the edition, as well as in the Special Edition accompanying volumes. Its use here is a connecting factor between these Orwell novels].
The INTERTYPE on which the
metal type was CAST
release
promotion
Storytellers Exhibition at the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge (December 2023 to February 2024)
special edition
The standard edition is accompanied,
for a special edition in only 10 copies (limited by nature of the available original printing plates),
with a box containing:
(i) an original metal printing plate used for one of the ten full page illustrations (all different)
(ii) one or more lines of the metal type from which the edition was printed relating to that specific image
(iii) staged colour proofs of the cover art
(5 separate colour prints and an alternate 6th colour print)
(iv) the original colour cover art unfolded,
and an alternate colour proof of the cover art using Pantone Yellow in place of Bright Yellow ink (as originally planned)
(v) colour separation prints for all the 20 further illustrations, printed on Munken Lynx paper
(vi) separate prints of all 21 illustrations printed from the original linocuts on Munken Lynx paper
and
(vii) a stitched booklet featuring two alternative Prefaces written by George Orwell for Animal Farm,
printed letterpress from cast linotype
(2023)
185 x 125mm
c. 140 pp.
The edition will be limited to 140 copies for sale
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