John Fuller & the Sycamore Press: A Bibliographic History (review)

The Sycamore Press was run by John Fuller in his garage in Oxford between 1968 and 1992, chiefly for the pleasure of producing small books in company with friends and fellow poets, and to help broadcast the contemporary poetry he loved. The Press did not aspire to great typography and its publications were printed with more enthusiasm than skill, usually on cheap machine-made papers with occasional 'found' illustrations and decorations. Nevertheless, they have great charm as handmade books, and the texts Fuller chose are of importance. He published collections of new work by significant and coming poets of the period (including Gavin Ewart, James Fenton, Peter Redgrove, and Fuller himself), and single-poem 'broadsheets' by many hands (including W. H. Auden, Douglas Dunn, Thom Gunn, Philip Larkin, Andrew Motion, Peter Porter, and Craig Raine).

Ryan Roberts's account of the Press consists of five main sections. There is a foreword by Fuller, a shortish introduction by Roberts, a series of 'Authors' Contributions', 'A Conversation with John Fuller', and the 'Descriptive Bibliography'. The book concludes with an index of authors and titles.

This is, I believe, the first history and bibliography of a hand-press to have been issued by the Bodleian since Falconer Madan's The Daniel Press: Memorials of C. H. O. Daniel, with a Bibliography of the Press 1845-1919 was published (and printed) by the Library in 1922. As such, and as a symbol of the Bodleian's ambitions to expand its publishing programme — which has recently concentrated on reprints of rare and/or entertaining material from its holdings, and on exhibition catalogues and related books — it is very much to be welcomed. However, due to a series of misunderstandings, the book was published without any significant editorial intervention on the part of the Bodleian, and without being read by a learned bibliographer (of which the Library can boast one or two). Regrettably, the book was in need of some such intervention, as the text generally, and the bibliography in particular, are rather less consistent, accurate, and clear than they should be.

Roberts is the librarian at Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, Illinois. His expertise is evidently in the editing of 'conversations', and he has published collections of interviews with Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan. This skill has informed the present book, so that the first eighty pages are largely a series of remarks by Fuller and some of the authors he worked with. This approach renders the subtitle of the book a little misleading; something like 'conversations on printing poetry' or 'reflections on a small poetry press' would have been more appropriate. Inevitably perhaps, the quality, tone, and focus of the 'Authors' Contributions' vary a great deal. Some writers are keener to speak of themselves and their work than of Fuller and his printing. Nevertheless, these memoirs give insight into the Sycamore Press and its proprietor, and some are very well written indeed. Fuller's own contributions are excellent. His foreword is erudite and the lengthy 'Conversation' with Fuller is entertaining and, as far as it goes, informative. What shines through the first four sections of this book is the light of Fuller's enthusiasm for, and understanding of, modern poetry. These sections do not, however, provide a thorough and coherent 'Bibliographic History' of the Sycamore Press.

The 'Descriptive Bibliography' is the most problematic part of the book. Roberts is a relatively young bibliographer and this is his first major undertaking. He can be forgiven some at least of the faults of his text, but must learn a greater rigour for future work. He should check transcriptions thrice (at least), take nothing at face value (especially someone else's description of paper or type), apply a rigorously consistent structure and wording to the formulaic parts of his bibliography, and learn to use square brackets correctly...