The Quince Tree Press
The Quince Tree Press is the imprint established in 1966 by J. L. Carr to publish his maps, pocket books and novels.
When Carr took 2-year leave of absence from teaching in 1967 aged 55 years with savings of £1,600, his aim was to see if he could make his living by selling decorated maps of English counties and small pocket books of poems.
[1] These he published from his house at Mill Dale Road in Kettering, Northamptonshire, under the imprint The Quince Tree Press.
[2] Carr's small books are typically 16 stapled pages, usually about 13 x 9 cm, with decorated card covers.
Carr wrote: 'These books fit small envelopes, go for a minimum stamp and are perfect for cold bedrooms - only one hand and a wrist need suffer exposure'.
[1] Many titles are still published by the Quince Tree Press, as well as some new ones, for example Florence Nightingale and Laurence Sterne.
Carr also bought back the rights to the novels A Month in the Country, How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A.
In each of his novels published by the Quince Tree Press Carr cited words by Beatrice Warde, an eminent American typographer: "This is a Printing Office, Cross-roads of Civilisation, Refuge of all the Arts against the Ravages of Time.
From this place Words may fly abroad, Not to perish as Waves of Sound but fix'd in Time, Not corrupted by the hurrying Hand but verified in Proof.
[2] Carr reported that the first four maps he published were of Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Kent and Norfolk and initially sold for £1 each.
[3] However these may have been preceded in late 1965 by what Carr called a 'longsheet', a narrow printed drawing showing towns and places in Northamptonshire which stated at the base: 'Travellers are warned that the use of this map for navigation will be disastrous'.
The number of sheets of the versions recorded with an ISBN and seen or held in private or public collections are given below and range from 250 to 982 with an average of about 750.
The number of different versions published before August 1987, the date of Carr's history of the Press, is shown in parentheses below[1] and at least three new maps (Buckinghamshire, Westmoreland and Wiltshire) were added after 1987.
Carr launched the series in 1966 with books of poems by William Blake, Andrew Marvell and John Clare whose grandson, Albert, a retired co-op milkman, lived on the same road.
[3] The first edition of John Clare's poems was published by Carr for the Northants County Association of the N.U.T., not by the Quince Tree Press.
It seems that Carr applied a partial numbering system retrospectively in the order in which he published the work of a poet.
