Frances had a very good (if totally exhausting) time at the Royal Academy Exhibition. I went up on the last day, met some great people and scooped her up with all the stuff and drove back home. I would love to say she could then rest but there was (and still is as I...

We now have in our hands the first copy to be bound of our latest book so that we could photograph it and give its details before it goes into our website. The Fine Bookbindery have pulled out all the stops to get copies ready for our visit to London to show at the...

Yesterday the forecasters had offered us exactly half a day of sun after days of rain and before more days of the same. We, of course, rushed out to make best use of it, feeling a bit like the prisoners in Fidelio as they blunder and grope out into the light. It was...

For the first time last year, a small number of Private Presses including The Old Stile Press, participated in the exhibition, Covered!, alongside art galleries showing paintings, drawings and prints at the Modern Works on Paper part of the Watercolours and Drawings...

May all the happinesses and the beauties of the Season come to you and all our friends! Frances & Nicolas

Temporary fence-strengthening against invasion by especially athletic sheep from next door. I'd like to say that this is our latest purchase by way of riverside sculpture, but . . . When 'bindertwine' is so effective for fixing a gate to its post, who would bother...

The Fine Press Fair at Oxford happens only every two years. When it finally comes around, after this long interval, WHOOSH and suddenly it is all over! We had a very successful time, though, talking both with many long-standing customers and with some folk who have...

A few days ago, the weather man came on the television looking particularly pleased with himself and announced that there were to be a couple of superb days of almost universal sunshine before we sink yet further into Autumn. One of the many great things about being...

This post is for Natalie d'Arbeloff - to take her mind off things for a bit. This morning was autumnally beautiful. We were to expect the arrival of some friends so, rather than start something I could not finish, I grabbed the camera. Encouraged by the fact that some...

We've been down in Pembrokeshire for a few days, mostly improving our 'Box' with a bit of paint but also enjoying some glorious sun, all the more magical after, it seems, weeks of rain. A few months ago I posted some results of my fixation with photographing rocks as...

  I (that is Frances on this occasion) was recently asked to talk to IAPMA (the International Association of Hand Papermakers and Paper Artists) at their conference in Wadham College, Oxford. There were indeed papermakers from many countries discussing the...

Over the years, we have been tremendously happy to have had the opportunity to work with our friend Clive Hicks-Jenkins to produce three large books and two small ones . . . and we are about to begin work on another, a very exciting development for us, news of which I...

If The Old Stile Press was looking for a design for a new flag, this would be rather jolly! Having had to get out of bed a bit earlier than usual in order to provide a cup of coffee to staying friends with a plane to catch, I realized that the rising sun was further...

For most of our books, we at The Old Stile Press are responsible for every aspect of their making except for the paper and the binding . . . and sometimes Frances even makes the paper. For very many years the physical aspects of our bindings have been dealt with by...

Although the majority of the books we have discovered over the years and now treasure were published in the UK, there have always been some (from the US or from Europe, say) that have caught our attention and have made sure that the rule was broken. One such is Macao...

One of the most exciting and yet daunting stages in the process of our book building is when we take over from an artist the blocks which we know have taken months if not years for him or her complete. Recently, on the way to Glasgow for an all too rare visit to our...

In an earlier post, I gave photographs of the two printings I had done towards the binding of this new book . . . but gave no clue as to how they would be deployed. We have now had a first sample from the binder and the answer can be seen. Further experimental work...

For the last few years we have been planning, together with Mark Cazalet (seen here with his wife Harriet, Felix and Freya), a selection from Hardy’s poems, written in 1912-13 about his wife, Emma. Here we quote from Claire Tomalin's recent book Thomas Hardy, The...

At last, the artist gets to sign! For various reasons, mostly from other parts of our lives, Black Marigolds has taken much longer than expected to be completed. The final printing has now been done and, with the signing of the final signature completed [we do that...

It will not have escaped the notice of those who follow the doings and interests of the two of us at The Old Stile Press that music is hugely important to our lives and, indeed, has often provided the starting point for our books. Peter Grimes and Abraham and Isaac...

Leading the Cranes Home has been one of the most successful and best admired of our books in the past few years. Click on the title to see its full description and slide-show! The creator of its fantastic colour woodcuts, Ralph Kiggell, has just been here, having...

This book, being a straightforward trade children's book is a different thing completely from the special and wonderful books I have included before in this mini-series but anyone who has read our Bibliography or heard us speak will know much I love it and how...