Imposition Figures and Plate Gangs in
The
Rescue
by
Matthew J. Bruccoli and Charles A. Rheault, Jr.
[*]
It would not have been wholly frivolous to entitle this note "The Case
of the Unnecessary Numbers," for the problem at hand provides an example
of how the bibliographer's pursuit of the seemingly trivial can lead to the
uncovering of useful information about printing-shop techniques.
Joseph Conrad's The Rescue was originally published
in
America by Doubleday, Page in 1920; a second edition was published in the
same year in England by J. M. Dent & Sons. A first impression of
forty
copies from standing type was distributed by Dent for review. These have
the status of proofs, for the text was revised by Conrad before plates were
made for the trade impression. But in addition to textual alterations, a
curious system of numbers was also introduced before the book was plated.
These figures, which first appear in the Dent second impression, are in the
lower right-hand corners of certain pages. Although a few are absent it is
clear that they constitute three cycles of thirty-two numbers, each cycle
being repeated every eight gatherings. For example, in the first cycle:
Signature |
Page |
Key Figure |
A |
1 |
7 |
|
2 |
23 |
|
3 |
17 |
|
4 |
1 |
|
5 |
3 |
|
6 |
19 |
|
7 |
21 |
|
8 |
5 |
|
9-16 |
-- |
B |
17-32 |
-- |
C |
33 |
15 |
|
34 |
[31] |
|
35 |
[25] |
|
36 |
9 |
|
37 |
[11] |
|
38 |
27 |
|
39 |
29 |
|
40 |
13 |
|
41-48 |
-- |
D |
49-64 |
-- |
E |
65 |
8 |
|
66 |
24 |
|
67 |
18 |
|
68 |
2 |
|
69 |
[4] |
|
70 |
20 |
|
71 |
22 |
|
72 |
6 |
|
73-80 |
-- |
F |
81-96 |
-- |
G |
97 |
[16] |
|
98 |
32 |
|
99 |
26 |
|
100 |
10 |
|
101 |
12 |
|
102 |
28 |
|
103 |
30 |
|
104 |
[1]4 |
|
105-112 |
-- |
H |
113-128 |
-- |
These figures are not signatures (the book is signed A-I, K-U, X-Z,
2A-2C
8), and the figures could not have been of any use
to the
compositor or publisher. The remaining possibility, that the figures were
imposition keys, was put forward by T. J. Wise: "These are control
numbers; they were inserted in the stereo-plates as a guide to the pressman
when laying them down for the printing machine."
[1] It is noteworthy that Wise is the
only
Conrad bibliographer to mention these figures. The plates were cast by the
firm of Richard Clay, and Wise had reason to be familiar with Clay's
operations because his fabrications were printed by Clay.
It remained only to test the explanation by dummying up an
imposition, but no arrangement of the individual plates yielded a meaningful
sequence for the pages with the key figures. The fact that only 25% of the
pages have the figures suggested that the pages were ganged—i.e.,
four
pages were cast as a single large plate and reckoned as one plate in the
imposition. This is represented in the charts for the inner and outer
formes—with the key figures greatly enlarged. The book was
intended to
be printed sixty-four pages up (but only 16 ganged plates). Each sheet
would have been slit in half on press and then slit on the folding machine
into four sections. A standard machine folding (quad not insert) would then
yield four sixteen-page gatherings from each half-sheet, folded twice
parallel and once at right angles.
Gangs have long been in regular use in England for rotary press
work, but they have been used only infrequently and experimentally in the
United States. When the actual ritual of a pressman laying out his pages is
reviewed, the time saving represented by gangs becomes apparent. On
receiving his pages as plates from the foundry, the pressman first divides
them into two stacks. One will be used to print one side of the sheet, the
other for "back-up." He also divides these two stacks into groups of
thirty-two or sixty-four each, depending on how many can be
accommodated by the press bed. Next, carrying the plates to either the front
or back forme (or cylinder), he proceeds to lay them out—not in a
row,
but rather: one at the bottom, one at the top, two in the middle; then he
switches to the next row with two in the middle, one at the top, and ends
with one on the bottom next to the starting point; and so on across the
forme. Next the plates have to be fastened securely and
accurately, probably with two catches on each side—a total of 512
small
adjustments for a sixty-four page forme. This is for only one side of the
sheet, of course. By ganging four pages together, the number of
adjustments per forme is reduced to 128.
The English printer may have hit upon the idea of increasing
efficiency still further by marking the press bed or cylinder with a key
figure and then putting that same figure on the gang. Nothing more difficult
than matching numbers would be required of the pressman. After
imposition, the key figure could easily be chipped off or pounded
flat.
The reason why the figures survived in this case is that The
Rescue was
not in fact printed as planned. The gangs were made at Clay's
Chaucer Press in Bungay for printing on a Goss rotary press at their
London plant, the Cornwall Press. For reasons now obscure, the printing
was actually done at the Temple Press in Letchworth, where flat plates
were cast.
[2] The Temple Press
workmen, being unfamiliar with the use of imposition figures, failed to
remove them when printing the trade copies of
The
Rescue—the only instance in which they have been
noted.
Although the American printing industry's lack of enthusiasm for
plate gangs seems perverse, examination of the problem indicates that the
savings expected from this method may be more apparent than actual.
Experiments conducted by eastern printing houses have shown that the
additional time required for imposing the pages for gang plate making
wiped out some of the savings anticipated in the first printing. In effect,
press-room costs were transferred to the composing room. The difficulty in
handling and storing gangs is also a deterrent. Even more important is the
fact that the American equivalent of the Goss rotary press was not
introduced for book printing until after the second world war. Profitable
operation of these presses requires big runs (25,000-50,000 copies); such
printing orders are unusual for a first printing—and the first printing
is
where the savings from ganged plates would be expected. The factor of
cheaper labor in England probably makes the use of the Goss
rotary press practical for smaller runs.
The nature of ganged plates must also be considered. Once they are
made, there can be no change in imposition. Of course, a one-page cancel
cannot be printed without printing all four pages on the gang. The owner
of the plates would be able to lease or sell the gangs only to a publisher
who was equipped for the work.
The final factor acting against gangs is the introduction of positive
formes in American printing. The acceptance by publishers of minor
irregularities (1/32") in line-up or register prepared the way for the general
use of fixed catches on the press bed. The positive forme method requires
only four catch adjustments per plate, the other four catches being
permanently attached to the bed. The result is that the number of
adjustments required for a sixty-four page forme is 256 instead of
512.[3]
The experiments with imposition figures and plate gangs in The
Rescue were, finally, just experiments. New methods and different
publishing standards make it most unlikely that these experiments will be
repeated. But for the bibliographer, at least, the second impression of the
second edition of The Rescue makes for an intriguing
volume.
Notes
[*]
The authors gratefully acknowledge the
assistance of Messrs. Jacob Blanck and John Cook Wyllie.
[1]
A Bibliography of the Writings of Joseph
Conrad (1920), p. 94.
[2]
We wish to thank Messrs. E. C. Brown of J. M.
Dent & Sons, Ltd. and J. M. Clay of Richard Clay and Co., Ltd. for
supplying information about the printing of this novel.
[3]
Mr. Earl Clouse of the Riverside Press advised
us on current printing techniques.