‘Ocean | Paper | Stone’ exhibition catalogue – Robert Bringhurst, 1984

The catalogue of an exhibition of printed objects which chronicle more than a century of literary publishing in British Columbia: compiled by Robert Bringhurst and published by the Vancouver book seller William Hoffer. The catalogue also lists contemporary practitioners.

In an email dated March 16, 2021 Robert Bringhurst says: “I did indeed do the lettering – crude though it is – for the cover and title page of Ocean Paper Stone. It was flagrantly plagiarized from the lettering on a gravestone from Melos now in a museum in Berlin (image attached). Stanley Morison has a B&W photo of the stone in his wonderful book Politics and Script, which is where I first saw it.”

The image is shown on page 6 of Politics and Script. The inscription reads: 1. Melos. A gravestone. Second half of 6th century B.C. Incised lettering. Berlin, Staatliches Museum. Monumental square capitals; thin monoline; unserifed; between incised rules.

Also see; Reader, Lover of Books, Lover of Heaven, 1978 and Reader, Lover of Books, 1981, two books which chronicle the private press in Ontario. All three books are a valuable record of the small and private press movement in these two provinces.