DANIEL PRESS: BRIDGES, Robert.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Peace. Ode Written on the Conclusion of the Three Years' War. First edition, one of "perhaps 100 copies", printed by C. H. O. Daniel at his private press, of "an ode... in sixteen four-line alcaic stanzas, to celebrate the end of the Boer War" (Madan, p. 131). Madan notes that there were an additional 10 copies on vellum and "with this piece the regular course of the Daniel Press ceased" (Madan, p. 132).Colin Franklin started his survey of Private Presses with the Daniel Press, stating that it "forms a pleasant bridge across from one to another kind of private printing". Daniel started printing from about 1845 to 1859 at Frome, Somerset, and then from 1874 until 1919 at Oxford. His activities therefore significantly predate Morris's Kelmscott Press. Franklin states that Daniel has "some right to be honoured a pioneer in the revival of printing" (Franklin, p. 23). "Daniel Press books are all rare, some of them excessively so... they are rare for us, because they were made for his friends. Some outsiders treasured these books, and after 1884 he printed for sale; no reason why the thing should not pay for itself..." (Franklin, p. 33)."Of the estimation in which the Daniel Press is held among literary men there is abundant proof from many quarters, which may perhaps best be summarized in the words which accompany a portrait of Dr. Daniel in Rothenstein's Oxford Characters... Worth printing, Worth buying, Worth reading, and Worth keeping" (Madan, p. 54).

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