
progress on Pilgrimage views		Three copper plates from a celebrated travelogue of the late seventeenth century. An addition to our titles on place and the history of Oxford University Press. Ad personam copies offered!
planned for May 2026
(Just to recap quickly . . . While chaplain to the 'factory' of the Levant Company in Aleppo, Henry Maundrell joined fourteen others in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. A journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter A.D. 1697, first printed by Oxford University Press in 1703, is his diary and travelogue. It contained thirteen copper engravings by Michael Burghers - three of the original plates remain in the archives of OUP.) Some books seem to go more slowly than others and this is one of them. I have been mostly hand-setting our books recently and this one has required quite a bit of text. However, everything is printed save for spine labels. The illustrations are all landscape which called for a landscape layout of the page. A double-page spread conveniently fitted onto a half-sheet of a stock of a handmade laid paper that I have had for some time, and in just the right amount for the planned edition. The format in turn gave the opportunity of side notes, as well as (of course) footnotes. The paper has no watermark and is probably English. It has quite a rough surface and a seventeenth-century feel about it so it feels right for the subject matter. I'm leaving the deckle edges on, which will annoy some and delight others. (Time to quote Stanley Morison: 'Handmade paper is generally used for éditions de luxe, and none but the brave among publishers will disregard the superstitious love of the book-buying classes for its untrimmed, ugly and dirt-gathering edges. That most of the public prefer to have it so is because a trimmed book looks ‘ordinary’ to them. Any book which is ‘different’ from the ‘ordinary’ in one superficial way or another is apt to impress those lacking trade experience.' So there.) Jim Nottingham has printed the three extant copper plates of the thirteen that Burghers engraved for the original book. (We featured them in a previous newsletter.) Much of our new book examines the sources of Burghers's images - he didn't go on the trip from Aleppo to Jerusalem, so where did he get the images from? A little research has shown that he 'borrowed' vistas from previous artists, some of whom did see what is represented. (The example below is one of the sources that Burghers used (public domain)) The other mystery is why there are a number of architectural drawings of a church in Covent Garden, London. All is revealed in Pilgrimage Views. As well as the new pulls of the three extant plates, the book will contain 25 digital tip-ins, 12 of which are of the reference pulls once made by OUP from the original plates, 12 are of images that Burghers 'borrowed' or copies that were subsequently published, and one of an entry for the book in the Press accounts. Given the number of tip-ins Ludlow Bookbinders are preparing a dummy, mostly to determine how much extra must go in the spine in order to deal with the extra thickness made by those tip-ins. The binding will be quarter cloth with a bold marbled paper in the Turkish style by Rachel Maiden on the boards (see below), and the book will be presented in a cloth-covered slipcase (a rarity for the Press). 68pp. *We are offering the opportunity to have an ad personam* copy**, with your name printed in the colophon at no extra charge. To reserve your personalised copy let us know now as the list closes on 14 March 2026. The edition will be limited to no more than 70 copies. Price still to be decided but between £180 and £200.


*A new broadside*		A few copies for sale

De luxe subscribers to the Fine Press Book Association receive copies that include a portfolio of printed items from FPBA presses around the world. I'm contributing a broadside to issue 50, and I have some copies over. It's an excerpt from Moxon's Mechanick Exercises, detailing the qualifications of a compositor, printed in three sizes of Hunt Roman on a sheet of Abbey Mills laid. It is on an A2 sheet, folded twice as you can see, and features one of our large manicules. A tenner will buy a copy sent to a UK address. First come first served.


*Some other items for sale*		We've run out of shelf space.

Amongst the items offered for sale is a complete run of Multiples, the Society of Wood Engravers newsletter: issues 1 to 64. Free to anyone willing to pay the packing and shipping. You can view the full list here of what's on offer. (Anyone know how to stop new books from arriving?)

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Copyright © Martyn Ould 2026