The Fleece Press Information

The Fleece Press is the one-man enterprise of Simon Lawrence, whose family made woodblocks for wood engravers from 1859 until quite recently. I started to print in 1980, having visited John Randle's Whittington Press. John had agreed in late 1979 to print a book of wood engravings by leading engravers, in secrecy, to celebrate my grandfather's 80th birthday the following year. When I walked through the Press door, my life changed and from that moment in April 1980, thirty seven years ago, I have sought to make a living from printing and publishing hand-made books, usually illustrated by or about wood engravers and printmakers, though with healthy interests in the official war artists, collections of letters, miniature books and T. E. Lawrence (but with a decided and almost complete absence of poetry - simply because it's published expertly by many other presses and I like to forge new directions). I publish what I am interested in, and by extension, what many of my customers will want to read and see, but always new subjects and I run away from a bandwagon.