Participant: Margaret Lock
Under the Greene Wood Tree, by William Shakespeare, 2008 Type handset, hand-printed on a Vandercook proof press; hand-coloured wood engraving. Broadside, keepsake for the Wayzgoose at Grimsby Public Art Gallery. 29 x 132 mm. 60 copies, of which 15 for sale. $20. [photo: Margaret Lock]
Locks' Press was founded in 1979. Since then it has printed eleven books, fifteen pamphlets, and twenty-four broadsides. The editions are small, 30 to 80 copies. The press prints mainly illustrated editions of unusual but enduring texts, ranging from classical Greece to the early twentieth century.
Fred is the editor and has provided translations for about a third of the titles (from Greek, Latin, Middle English, Provençal, and German). Margaret does the woodcut illustrations, design, typesetting, printing and binding.
The character of the press is conservative and scholarly. Most texts are presented in their original spelling and punctuation. Many of the texts have an underlying serious moral. The presentation is enlivened by the illustrations. Simple, strong, sometimes slightly comic, the woodcuts encourage the reader to reconsider the text, and remember its message.
Poem about nothing, by William of Poitiers, with a translation by Fred Lock. 1995 Type handset, hand-printed on an Eickhoff proof press; 7 colour woodcuts. Accordion-fold format. Page size 268 x 166 mm. 80 copies. $300. [photo: Margaret Lock]
The press is a part-time activity. Fred is a professor of English at Queen's University. He has just finished writing a two-volume biography of Edmund Burke. Margaret is a printmaker. She occasionally writes about the history of bookbinding.