Ocean, Paper, Stone – exhibition catalogue, William Hoffer, Robert Bringhurst, 1984

Published in the spring of 1984 by Vancouver bookseller William Hoffer, Ocean, Paper, Stone is a catalogue of printed works chronicling more than a century of literary publishing in British Columbia. Compiled and designed by poet and typographer Robert Bringhurst, the book documents the region’s long-standing engagement with the printed word – from early colonial publications to the small presses and independent publishers of the late 20th century. It also includes contemporary practitioners, offering a living record of British Columbia’s typographic culture.

Bringhurst’s hand-lettered cover title was inspired by a 6th-century B.C. Greek inscription from Melos, which he first encountered in Stanley Morison’s Politics and Script. In a personal note to Rod McDonald dated March 16, 2021, Bringhurst wrote:

“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... Morison has a B&W photo of the stone in his wonderful book Politics and Script, which is where I first saw it.”

With its careful selection, subtle typography, and classical influences, Ocean, Paper, Stone stands alongside Reader, Lover of Books, Lover of Heaven (1978) and Reader, Lover of Books (1981) as a quietly monumental record of Canadian small and private press culture. Where the Reader volumes document the Ontario scene, Ocean, Paper, Stone does the same for British Columbia – and together, these three works offer a rare and invaluable typographic portrait of two literary regions. – Rod McDonald