The Happy Dragons' Press is a non-profit private press in North Essex, England,[1] which publishes limited-edition volumes of poetry using letterpress printing methods.
There are two series produced by the press, the Dragon Poems in Translation series (edited by Shirley Toulson) and the New Garland series (edited by Rosemary Grant).[1] The books are hand-printed in-house by founder Julius Stafford-Baker.
History and operations
Founded in 1969 but originally producing only ephemera and the occasional book,[2] the press was asked to adopt the Keepsake Poems project after the death of long-term collaborator Roy Lewis (founder of the Keepsake Press)[3][4] and has since published 21 titles.
Wartime English by Taner Baybars, Turkish by Mehmet Yashin, illustrated by John R. Smith (2007)
Small Parcel of Bones by David Charleston, illustrated by Penny Berry (2008)
The Bone in Her Leg by John Mole, illustrated by Rigby Graham (2008)
What It Is by Jane Wilde, illustrated by Olga Sienko (2009)
Other Voices of the British Isles, an anthology of poetry in translation, featuring four dialects and nine languages (2010)[10]
Poetry in Translation
The press is notable for its focus on Poetry in Translation. Languages published to date include Cornish, German, Hebrew, Irish, Latin, Manx, Polish, Russian, Scots Gaelic, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. A number of poems in local dialects such as Perthshire, Northumbrian, Lincolnshire and Shetland have also been published by the Happy Dragons' Press.
Letterpress packing
The press is also notable for popularising a type of letterpress packing, used behind paper to improve impression quality, which they call Swiss Style Packing. The packing consists of a synthetic foam rubber blanket and a hard plastic top layer.[11]
