Seventy years ago the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, the only sovereign that almost all of us have ever known, began. She is now the longest serving monarch in English history and the achievement is being marked by celebrations, a long weekend and art events up and down the UK. There is also a list of 70 books, ten each from the seven decades of the reign.
The choices are already coming in for criticism – no JK Rowling, no JRR Tolkien for example – but most will concur that the selection hits the mark of reflecting changing experiences and sharing stories from across the Commonwealth. What is not mentioned is the way that the production of these books has evolved over the same period of time. At the start of the reign, letterpress was the king of print processes, litho a side note and digital unheard of. Today letterpress is virtually unheard of, even for the majority of the Folio Society output, and all these books will exist in digital form whether printed digitally or litho.
It is not so much that the technology has shifted – and in finishing as much as in printing – papers too have moved on. It is that there is now a vastly increased choice. It is possible to print successfully in micro numbers to millions of copies. In 1952 that simply was not feasible. That shift has occurred in the span of one reign, a change more profound in the printing industry than in any other seventy-year period. In 1882, for example, mechanical composition was state of the art and seventy years later remained state of the art. In seventy years’ time, assuming that books are still printed, it will be using today’s state of the art process – inkjet printing of some kind. And for those wanting to mark a special occasion – say 70 years in the same job for life – perhaps a letterpress edition will be the ideal choice.
The Queen’s printed reading list
Seventy years ago the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, the only sovereign that almost all of us have ever known, began. She is now the longest serving monarch in English history and the achievement is being marked by celebrations, a long weekend and art events up and down the UK. There is also a list of 70 books, ten each from the seven decades of the reign.
The choices are already coming in for criticism – no JK Rowling, no JRR Tolkien for example – but most will concur that the selection hits the mark of reflecting changing experiences and sharing stories from across the Commonwealth. What is not mentioned is the way that the production of these books has evolved over the same period of time. At the start of the reign, letterpress was the king of print processes, litho a side note and digital unheard of. Today letterpress is virtually unheard of, even for the majority of the Folio Society output, and all these books will exist in digital form whether printed digitally or litho.
It is not so much that the technology has shifted – and in finishing as much as in printing – papers too have moved on. It is that there is now a vastly increased choice. It is possible to print successfully in micro numbers to millions of copies. In 1952 that simply was not feasible. That shift has occurred in the span of one reign, a change more profound in the printing industry than in any other seventy-year period. In 1882, for example, mechanical composition was state of the art and seventy years later remained state of the art. In seventy years’ time, assuming that books are still printed, it will be using today’s state of the art process – inkjet printing of some kind. And for those wanting to mark a special occasion – say 70 years in the same job for life – perhaps a letterpress edition will be the ideal choice.
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