Fleece Press - The Press, that villainous Engine, by Andrew Marvell.

The Press, that villainous Engine, by Andrew Marvell. Wood engravings by Peter Forster. Crown 8vo, 19cm, [12]p, The Fleece Press, Wakefield, January 1984.

One of 250 copies handset and printed in Caslon Old Face on Zerkall paper. Illustrated with seven wood engravings. Marbled paper-covered wrappers by Mark Whittaker with a printed title label, including an engraving, superimposed on the front cover. A fine copy.

One of the earliest productions of Simon Lawrence's Fleece Press, delightfully engraved by the man who caustically described himself as 'The Ralph Chubb of Hampstead Heath', and his art as 'simply a method of amusing cats'. His very high opinion of cats was based upon their never calling wood engravings 'woodcuts'. Professing an inability to afford integrity (belied, incidentally by the satires of his own Malaprop Press productions), he claimed that what kept him going was weak tea and strong Wagner, whilst the Folio Society afforded the cat food.