Thursday 20 April 2023

The Fleuron

The Fleuron, nos. 1-7 [all published]. Ed. by Oliver Simon [later] Stanley Morison. London: At the Office of 'The Fleuron' [later] Cambridge: The University Press. 1923-30. 7 vols. 4to. 28 cm. Insets. Plates. Illusts. Vol. 1 quarter cloth, the rest full cloth. Boards to vol. 1 foxed, some spotting elsewhere, but generally a nice, crisp set, vols 2 & 3 in the original dustwrappers (head of vol 2 chipped). £650

'For me, collecting volume VII of The Fleuron from Zwemmer's in the Charing Cross Road was as heady an aesthetic experience as my first sight of Venice. For others, too. That notable wood engraver, Reynolds Stone...told me of a similar experience. Entering the Cambridge University Press as a trainee...he discovered that one of the printers there...Mr Nobbs, had a complete set of The Fleuron. That journal of typography changed Stone's life, and it changed mine.'

Robert Harling, from his foreword to Grant Shipcott, Typographical periodicals between the wars, Oxford Polytechnic Press, Oxford, 1980.