`Though an angel should write, still 'tis devils must print.'
    -- Thomas Moore, 1779-1852, Irish musician and songwriter

Number 56, Spring / Summer 2005

Frank Newfeld
and McClelland & Stewart's
Design for Poetry Series
by Randall Speller

Digitizing the
Canadian Printer & Publisher
by Anne Dondertman
and Marlene Van Ballegooie

In Memoriam, Richard Outram
by Wayne Clifford

Dingbats, Ornaments
and Fanciful Initials
by Tim Inkster

A Rogue's Gallery
of the Canadian Book
and Printing Arts
featuring Will Rueter

Includes a letterpress
keepsake of a design
by Frank Newfeld
printed by Don McLeod
on the Vandercook
at Coach House Printing,
Toronto

Other Rogues
in the series

Stan Bevington

Margaret and Fred Lock

Jan and Crispin Elsted

George A Walker

William Lyon Mackenzie

A Rogue's Gallery
of the Canadian Book and Printing Arts

Will Rueter

    (Photo: Allyson Wenzowski.)

The Aliquando Press was founded in Toronto in 1963 as a private press, to allow me to investigate personally all aspects of the handmade book. I continually attempt to perfect those bookmaking skills through personal involvement with most aspects of a book's creation, and I try to keep faith with the authors' message.

I enjoy selecting texts that interest and inspire me: music, art, and literature (often set bilingually), and I am very fortunate to have a wide selection of typefaces and ornaments. It is challenging to work within the traditional codex format, using handset type and letterpress printing, while attempting to experiment with letterforms, colour, texture, illustration and ornament. I have collaborated with Wesley W. Bates, Maureen Steuart, Don Taylor, and other artists, and I have also created my own wood engravings and linocuts for some texts.

Seven years ago I moved to Dundas (an hour's drive west of Toronto) where I work in a former dairy (ca 1920) that barely contains all my equipment. It is a magical workspace, a constant source of inspiration and contentment.

Recently I completed my ninety-sixth book, the Quebec novelist Gaétan Soucy's The Anguish of the Heron, translated by Sheila Fischman. Future projects include a Boccaccio story, a collection of favourite aphorisms, and a continuing variety of broadsides.

Each new project requires decisions about the choice of format, type, paper, illustration and binding, and demands renewed and improved skills and responsibilities. Through the creation of handmade books I hope to continue respecting the innate qualities of the book form and to discover new insights into the form and content of the book as an entity.

    -- Will Rueter, April 2005.