About

We are gradually building our database of Tragara Press publications. This project started in the first months of 2023 and it is expected to last for several years, with editions, photos, and essays being added at a steady pace.

Edition information on this website comes, in the vast majority of cases, from direct inspection of copies at hand. Further information on editions and variants is gathered from the following sources:

• The two bibliographies compiled and published by the printer himself in 1979 and in 1991. These cover the periods from 1954-1979 and 1979-1991 respectively, and, with very few exceptions, only mention in-series standard and special variants. Out-of-series special issues, series of proofs, single-sheets, broadsides and ephemera are outside the scope of those two bibliographies, while only basic information is provided by the printer on commissioned works (title, author, number of pages, and number of copies).
• The online listings of public libraries such as the National Library of Scotland and the University of Delaware Library.
• Bookseller and auction house printed, digital, and online catalogues. Particularly important are the catalogues of George Sims (1923-1999), Peter Jolliffe (1947-2007) / Ulysses Bookshop, James Fergusson and Peter Ellis, and the online listings of Tragara Press lots on the Lyon & Turnbull website, although the latter are only vaguely, or inadequately, described.
• The typescript catalogue of the personal collection of the bookseller George Sims, entitled "The Tragara Press - A Catalogue of a complete collection of the Press's publications from its inception in 1954 to 1980; also of the privately issued & commissioned work, some unique items & the printed ephemera".
• Letters written by Alan Anderson and addressed to friends, authors, editors, and other people in the printing, publishing, and bookselling trade.

In certain cases, especially in the case of series of proof copies, even though our information comes directly from inspected items, in reality a single copy is not sufficient to describe a variant accurately or completely. For instance, different kinds of marbled paper may be used to wrap the four or five copies in a series of proofs, which effectively results in each of the copies being a (sub-)variant itself.

References to Steven Halliwell's bibliography (Fifty Years of Hand-Printing: A Bibliography of the Tragara Press, Rivendale Press, 2005), which lists editor & other out-of-series copies, single-sheets and ephemera not present here, are made wherever possible.

We welcome feedback from collectors and booksellers on editions and variants that are either not present on this website or that are inaccurately presented. Please contact us using the general contact form, or the form relevant to each edition in the Publications section.

The Tragara Press logo and the fleuron are used with the kind permission of Penelope Stevenson, Alan Anderson's daughter, to whom we are grateful.

 

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