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32 Fr. Vincent McNabb
God’s Book and Other Poems
Ditchling, Sussex: St. Dominic’s Press,
1930. Reed Rare Books 1930 EN St Dominic’s. On loan from Dunedin
Public Library.
‘…I thought any fool could print. And there were
books I wanted to print – books about crafts which machinery
threatened with distinction. I felt that the Press, which had destroyed
the kind of civilisation I loved, should be used to restore it…’.
So wrote Hilary Pepler (1878-1951), Quaker turned Catholic, and
founder of St. Dominic’s Press. He did not set out to produce
the ‘Book Beautiful’. To him, the printer’s function
was ‘no more (and no less) than that of the pump which
conveys water from the well to the bucket’ and the book
‘should be to act as mediator between the artistic creation
of genius and the mind of the reader.’ The results (like
the McNabb on display) are unpretentious, yet well crafted. This
copy contains three wood engravings by Thomas Derrick, and is no.326
of 480 copies. |