J.W. Mackail / William Morris

Cobden-Sanderson was trained as a bookbinder. He would revitalize that art in the late nineteenth century, much as William Morris revitalized the art of fine printing a decade earlier. Emery Walker was a printer and photoengraver who was Morris’ consultant at the Kelmscott Press.

It should come as no surprise that Walker and Cobden-Sanderson became partners during the wave of the English private press movement. The result of their partnership, the Doves Press, was decidedly different from Kelmscott: for Morris decoration and illustration were a key element of “the book beautiful.” At the Doves Press, hand-drawn initials and titles were the only ornament.