The Vine Press

The Vine Press was founded by Victor B. Neuburg and Hayter Preston in 1920 and remained in Neuburg's personal ownership until 1930 when the press went out of business. There was a brief attempt to revive the press in 1947 by Neuburg's partner Runia MacLeod, but this produced only one publication.

TO-DAY

London, England

June 1923

(pages 139-143)

THE VINE PRESS.

“Lilly-White” from Lillygay.

By courtesy of the Vine Press.

Steyning, in Sussex, is the home of the Vine Press. It was established there some three and a half years ago by Mr. Victor B. Neuburg. The books of the press have the pleasant crudity of the chapbook, largely the result of the quaint woodcuts in the illustrated volumes, of which there are two, and of the naïve typography in those which are unpictured. It is not clear whether this crudity is deliberate or accidental. Probably both taste for primitive printing and circumstances have played their parts in the production of a series of books which are as certainly unlike any other books now being published as they are far removed from that revival of good printing which has once more raised typography to the dignity of an art.

“Bowpots” from Larkspur

If the Vine Press books were produced in America they would be advertised in the Greenwich Village reviews as “Books that are Different,” or “Tomes with the Neighbourhood Note.” Their relationship to the best modern printing is as the relationship of “cottage” pottery to Crown Derby. They would go exceedingly well with Messrs. Heal and Sons’ furniture. They are a sort of “barbaric yawp”—with a public-school accent; and they have just a hint (in the decorated initials), a faded memory of the Arts and Crafts Movement of a quarter of a century ago. In short, they look as though they had been produced under joyful but difficult conditions by someone who ignored or was ignorant of the best principles of typography.

“Bonfire Song” from Lillygay

If the result is agreeable and refreshing, as it certainly is, it is due very largely to the very delightful woodcuts which give two of the volumes, Lillygay and Larkspur, an irresistible charm. These cuts, by Eric and Percy West, successfully recapture an ancient simplicity without being merely archaic. Some of them have decorative beauty and others a sly humour which is altogether delicious. Not since Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osborne engraved their sense of fun on blocks of wood at DavosPlatz some forty years ago have we had such pleasantly inconsequential cuts. By courtesy of Mr. Neuburg a selection of these woodcuts have been used to illustrate this note.

The following books have been issued: Lillygay: An Anthology of Poems, 1920; Swift Wings: Songs in Sussex, 1921; Songs of the Groves, 1921; Songs of a Sussex Tramp, by Rubert Croft-Cooke, 1922; Larkspur: A Lyric Garland, 1922. Five hundred copies on antique laid, and forty on hand-made paper, of each of the volumes have been issued, with the exception of the Songs of a Sussex Tramp, of which the quantities are six hundred, and twenty, respectively. The copies in each class are numbered.

“The Milk-Maids” from Larkspur

For authorship—Mr. Neuburg is responsible for all the volumes save one. He is editor of the admirable collection of old songs brought together under the beautiful title of Lillygay, and for such songs, no more appropriate typography could be imagines than that of the Vine Press. Larkspur is another anthology of jolly old songs, including rollicking “numbers” from Robert Green, Tom D’Urfey, Aphra Behn, Edmund Waller and John Keats, interspersed with certain quaint imitations of the antique, under various names, such as Chrystopher Crayne, Paul Pentreath, Harold Stevens, Arthur French and Nicholas Pyne, who are but disguises for Mr. Neuburg himself. Swift Wings and Songs of the Groves are volumes of poems by Mr. Neuburg. The former might be described as a modern echo of the earlier and more “native woodnotes wild.” Some of the pieces are just pleasant, yet clever, jingles; others are boisterous expressions of a live Paganism, but the best are quietly impassioned word pictures of life in Sussex. One of the best of these is the little poem called “Sheep”:

Colophon from Larkspur

The old frocked, bearded shepherd drives his cloud

Of fleecy white across the sunny meadows

Up the hill-side, The idle, crying crowd

Dallies to browse, pasturing midst the shadows

Of gorse and bracken. Slowly the flock passes

Over the turf, amongst the rushy grasses.

The old, wise dog chases the lingering sheep

With modulated barking; the bell-whether

Tinkles to his lazy followers: the steep

Hillock’s alive. The white cloud runs together

Baaing, the dour grey shepherd following;

In noon-tide’s blare the tinny sheep-bells ring.

Songs of the Groves shows Mr. Neuburg in a more modern vein, and less bucolic, but always in love with life and living things, not always of the hillside and the field, but the equally living things of art and legend.

THE WORTHING HERALD

Worthing, Sussex, U.S.A.

28 March 1925

(page 21)

THE HISTORY OF A SUSSEX PRESS.

The Vine Press, one of the very few Sussex publishing houses, and probably the youngest of them, was founded in Steyning in 1920 by one or two enthusiasts [Victor B. Neuburg & Hayter Preston] who were so optimistic as to dream of great things beginning in a small way, and of Steyning taking its place among the world’s literary centres. A slightly ambitious programme, perhaps; but, after five years’ toils and anxieties, in a fair way—actually!—to be realised.

To-day, with an armful of books to its credit, the Vine Press is famous throughout literary England, and in a year or two may be known throughout the world.

The chief aim is to produce beautiful books, and live books, and books that are within reach of poor book-lovers, that shall yet be a delight to the brain and the eye.

The troubles that attend the early years of a young but indomitable “house” will suggest themselves to anyone who has entered “on the ground floor.” But—be it noted!—there are no troubles that may not be surmounted. That, at any rate, is the experience of the founders of the Vine Press.

After the greys and drabs of the last few years, the Press aims at giving pleasanter and more coherent literature than we are supposed to have “enjoyed” lately.

The books already issued are an earnest of what the press hopes to do in the next few years. The most characteristic are specifically Sussex books, “Swift Wings,” “Songs of a Sussex Tramp” and “The Way of the South Wind,” and all these should appeal on all grounds to South Downs people, for these Sussex books are conceived, written and produced entirely in the South country.

Decentralisation is necessary if hand-made, rare, local things are to get a chance; and the Vine Press people “feel” that there is a public large enough to appreciate and—even more important!—to patronise wares in the book-line that are set up by hand, hand-touched, and hand-finished, instead of being produced by machinery and chucked out, all exactly alike, with no touch of individuality, by the million.

Every copy of every edition of every Vine Press is numbered, thus obtaining a separate “life” and individuality. (The same method, by the way, is adopted by the Mercure de France publications, in Paris.) The hand-made copies are signed by their authors.

Of each book an édition de luxe is issued, printed upon hand-made paper, and in some cases coloured by hand. Only a very limited number are printed in this form.

Wood-cuts have been used so far as illustrations; and these blocks are cut in Steyning by Steyning men. They recall the blocks of three or four centuries ago, being made by exactly the same process. The coloured copies of these are delightful; and the de luxe editions are very nearly out of print. The artists—three Steyning brothers—are the Wests, of the “discovery” of whom as wood-cutters the editor of the Vine Press is not a little proud.

Care in production, and a “considered” format, here already secured for the Vine Press books a high and distinctive position amongst present-day publications; and it is intended that the productions of the Sussex publishing house shall be second to none, in beauty and variety, in England or the United States. Profiting by experience, the Press is working towards the perfect book.

In addition to the original works already issued, or to be issued in the future, the Press will publish reprints of scarce, interesting, and more than half forgotten books. Innumerable are the neglected treasures in the bye-paths of literature. Some of them the editor has dug out; he hopes to present them in cheap and beautiful form to book-lovers.

Having unreservedly put both hands to the plough, the promoters of the Vine Press have no intention of looking back; the rate at which they can go forward must depend upon the measure of support accorded them by the public of readers and book-lovers; and especially by that section of it that dwells in the South Country: a word to the wise!