Book excerpt: The renaissance of printing is generally accepted as starting in 1891, the date of the first publication from William Morris's Kelmscott Press. In that year, Morris printed his own Story of the Glittering Plain, so beginning a movement that was to continue until 1939. The author begins his survey with the Daniel Press, started by the Provost of Worcester College, Oxford, and traces the development of the private movement in printing which flourished between 1891 and 1914: these presses include Kelmscott, Ashendene, Essex House, Vale and Doves. Between the wars in Britain three presses stand out: the Gregynog Press, Shakespeare Head, and Golden Cockerel. This book is the only one of its kind to trace the history and development of these presses, publishers of some of the finest examples of printing of English books that has ever been known.