A letterpress in the Rupriikki Media Museum, Tampere, Finland. By Joonas Suominen, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=29528134n. (also letter press)a printing technique using raised type that is inked and then pressed into paper or other materialMorison and Jackson 1923, 84Letterpress: Surface printing from type or blocks, as distinct from lithographic, collotype and plate printing, etc.Sanborn and Burr 1954, 266Our experience at the Government Printing Office has been that letterpress produces the best job and is the most economical within the framework of our operations.Glaister 1960, 218letterpress: 1. the text of a book, including the line illustrations, but not any ‘plates’. 2. printing done from raised types or blocks as distinct from intaglio or lithographic plates. A feature of letterpress printing is its crispness due to pressure on the type tending to concentrate the ink at the edges of the letters.Lee 1965, 352The word “letterpress” means printed or nonphotographic reproduction. “Letterpress” here includes reproduction of printer’s type on paper by offset lithography as well as by linotype, monotype, or plates. It does not include, however, facsimile reproduction of documents on paper by lithography, collotype, or other methods—special types of reproduction that are needed only to meet special problems on special occasions.Daniels 1980, 324During the nineteenth century, letterpresses of many forms were developed including presses that exerted their pressure through levers, portable rolled versions, and screw-type presses.AIC 1994, 23Letterpress - A printing method in which dies with individual raised letters are set in sequence in a chase. When paper is placed over the inked form and run through a press, ink transfers to the paper and a [sic] inked impression of the letters is made in the paper. Letterpress printing is characterized by recessed inked letters on the recto, and on the verso the impressions if still intact can be felt and seen easily.Schenck 1995, 117, fn. 5In 1860 Charles Hancock invented “electrophotographs” by placing a drawn glass plate on top of a light-sensitive prepared zinc plate, exposing them to light, etching the zinc plate, and then inking and printing the plate in a letterpress.Carter and Barker 2004, 139LETTERPRESS ¶ (1) The process of printing from metal type or any other relief surface. ¶ (2) More loosely, the words, as opposed to the pictures, in a book.Russell 2013, 203Many archivists and users of nineteenth-century records are familiar with “press books”—the bound entry books in which an agency retained office copies of outgoing letters. Some form of technology for the production of copies using a wetted paper process and a letterpress was established in businesses as early as the 1820s.AAT 2021[letterpresses] Printing presses that produce prints by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against paper. The matrix is composed from movable type set into the bed or chase of a press and locked and inked, then the paper is brought into contact against it to transfer the ink from the type, which creates an impression on the paper. Letterpresses have many forms, but variations have been in use from their invention by Gutenberg in the 15th century through the 19th century, and remained in wide use for books and other uses until the advent of offset printing.material printed using this techniqueGlaister 1960, 218letterpress: 1. the text of a book, including the line illustrations, but not any ‘plates’. 2. printing done from raised types or blocks as distinct from intaglio or lithographic plates. A feature of letterpress printing is its crispness due to pressure on the type tending to concentrate the ink at the edges of the letters.Lee 1965, 352The word “letterpress” means printed or nonphotographic reproduction. “Letterpress” here includes reproduction of printer’s type on paper by offset lithography as well as by linotype, monotype, or plates. It does not include, however, facsimile reproduction of documents on paper by lithography, collotype, or other methods—special types of reproduction that are needed only to meet special problems on special occasions.Butterfield 1966, 359The manuscript of Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book, for example, could not possibly have been as faithfully rendered in type as the Betts edition produced at Meriden and Princeton in 1953 rendered it by collotype facsimile, supplemented by other relevant textual matter and a full editorial apparatus printed in letterpress.Roberts and Etherington 1982, 156letterpress. 1. See: LETTERPRESS BINDING. 2. The text of a book as distinguished from its illustrations. 3. Matter printed directly from a raised surface.the text of a book as distinguished from its illustrationsGlaister 1960, 218letterpress: 1. the text of a book, including the line illustrations, but not any ‘plates’. 2. printing done from raised types or blocks as distinct from intaglio or lithographic plates. A feature of letterpress printing is its crispness due to pressure on the type tending to concentrate the ink at the edges of the letters.Roberts and Etherington 1982, 156letterpress. 1. See: LETTERPRESS BINDING. 2. The text of a book as distinguished from its illustrations. 3. Matter printed directly from a raised surface.Carter and Barker 2004, 139LETTERPRESS ¶ (1) The process of printing from metal type or any other relief surface. ¶ (2) More loosely, the words, as opposed to the pictures, in a book.
Notes
Works made using the letterpress process usually differ from records in a letterpress copybook, which are most often made using a transfer process involving moisture and pressure in a copy press.
A letterpress in the Rupriikki Media Museum, Tampere, Finland. By Joonas Suominen, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=29528134
n. (also letter press)
a printing technique using raised type that is inked and then pressed into paper or other material
material printed using this technique
the text of a book as distinguished from its illustrations