Small Books
Carr's small books are typically 16 stapled pages with illustrated card covers unless otherwise noted. Carr launched the series in 1966 with books of poems by William Blake, Andrew Marvell and John Clare whose grandson, Albert, a retired co-op milkman, lived on the same road. The first edition of John Clare's poems was published by Carr for the Northants County Association of the N.U.T., not by the Quince Tree Press. The early books of poems were given ISBNs and were registered as published in a Florin Poets Series or a Mini-poets Series.
A few books are dated or can be dated by their publication to coincide with a particular event, such as the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Some books are numbered, but the numbers are not always unique: at least nine are numbered 71 (Francis Bacon, Thomas Bewick, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Donne, Hilda Frank, Joan Hassall, Samuel Johnson, Bryan North Lee and the Rossettis) and six are numbered 85 (John Bunyan, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edwards Lear, the Devil's Dictionary, The Dictionary of Parsons and Henry Vaughan). It seems that Carr applied a partial numbering system retrospectively in the order in which he published the work of a poet. For example, a later impression of the poems of Andrew Marvell is numbered 3, but no impressions of any small books numbered 1 or 2 have been seen while no small books numbered 4,5 or 6 have been seen but two are numbered 7 (Rupert Brooke/Wilfred Owen and William Barnes). A few of the dictionaries list the impressions published but none of the books of poems list the printing history. Carr mostly had 3,000 copies printed at a time, sometimes using a different background colour on the cover for a new impression. Carr is known to have published at least 103 small books, most of which are listed below. Many titles are currently reprinted by the Quince Tree Press, which is now run by Robert and Jane Carr in Bury St Edmunds, and they have published several new titles, which are noted.
Read more about this topic: The Quince Tree Press
Famous quotes containing the words small and/or books:
“Beauty depends on size as well as symmetry. No very small animal can be beautiful, for looking at it takes so small a portion of time that the impression of it will be confused. Nor can any very large one, for a whole view of it cannot be had at once, and so there will be no unity and completeness.”
—Aristotle (384 B.C.–322 B.C.)
“Be a little careful of your Library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you? You will come here & get books that will open your eyes, & your ears, & your curiosity, & turn you inside out or outside in.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)