The Grammar of Lithography
A Practical Guide for the Artist and Printer in Commercial and Artistic Lithography, and Chromolithography, Zincography, Photo-lithography, and Lithographic Machine Printing

A comprehensive practical guide to the many lithographic techniques current in the nineteenth century.

W. D. Richmond (Author)

9781108009072, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 March 2010

276 pages, 18 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.35 kg

W. D. Richmond's The Grammar of Lithography (1878) is a comprehensive and instructive work on the many varieties of lithography - with all their attendant materials and instruments - described and explained in practical terms for the active participant and the amateur enthusiast alike. Richmond's Grammar should also be understood as part of a wider movement of nineteenth-century industrial disclosure, where pockets of masterly knowledge previously available to apprentices and company employees alone were being made much more widely available through impartial manuals and guides. This noble cause was intended to bring down the walls of ignorance and trade secrecy and to foster an open atmosphere of mutual understanding. In the realm of lithography, Richmond's Grammar was the first treatise to achieve this. While the work forgoes any historical or overly theoretical discussion, it does provide an excellent example of practically oriented expertise in the graphic arts.

Part I: Drawing, Transferring, and Printing: 1. Introductory
2. Mechanical and chemical principles of some of the lithographic materials used in printing
3. Instruments, tools, and appliances used in drawing and writing
4. Instruments, tools, and apparatus used in printing
5. Accessories to the lithographic printing-press
6. Grinding and polishing stones
7. Lithography on paper or transfer lithography
8. Ink writing and drawing on stone
9. Chalk drawing on stone
10. Etching chalk drawings on stone
11. Taking impressions for transferring
12. Transferring
13. Proving and printing
14. Printing (continued)
15. Printing (continued)
16. Miscellaneous processes
17. Miscellaneous processes (continued)
18. Engraving on stone
19. Zincography
20. Chromo-lithography
21. Chromo-lithography (continued)
22. Chromo-lithography (continued)
23. Chromo-lithography (continued)
24. Photo-lithography
Appendix: Recipes
Part II. Lithographic Machine-Printing
1. Introductory
2. Preparation of the stone
3. Importance of a proper choice of paper
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Publishing industry & book trade [KNTP]