A press as dream and as therapy

 When I was young, I read Leonard Woolf’s account of the founding of Hogarth Press. He and his wife, Virginia, set up a small letterpress in their dining room in 1917.

I was interested in printing and thought it would be a great thing to start a weekly newspaper one day. I read Leonard’s essay because I wanted to learn how to start a publishing business.

In my rush to learn the business, I missed one of the reasons that Leonard gave for wanting to start the press. Both Leonard and Virginia had dreamed of printing things that other publishers wouldn’t. But Leonard also hoped that the activity of setting type by hand would be therapeutic for Virginia, who suffered from periods of mental illness.

Setting type by hand — picking out letters from a California job tray and justifying a line in a composing stick — takes skill and attention.

It’s also repetitive. You have to set many lines before you can make up a page. Perhaps Leonard thought that the repetitive action would be soothing.

In reading his essay now, I can see he hoped that setting type would take Virginia’s mind off her work — her writing — for a while.

Virginia Woolf was an interesting thinker. I admire her essays, especially those devoted to writers who tend to be overlooked.

She was born in London on Jan. 25, 1882, 140 years ago.

Last year, I had a series of notes under the heading “Marking the day.” They marked the birthdays of some of the people who influenced me. You could search this site using that phrase and find most of my literary heroes.

Since they’re heroes, I’ve got to talk about them. But I’ll try to move on from birthdays. This is an exception.

• Sources: Leonard Woolf’s essay was a chapter in Beginning Again; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964. I read the essay as “Hogarth Press” in The Publish-It-Yourself Handbook, edited by Bill Henderson; New York: Pushcart Press and Harper & Rowe, Publishers, 1980. For an explanation of the series “Marking the day,” see “An activity in lieu of making resolutions,” Dec. 31, 2021.