# Daniel Press

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Daniel_Press
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Daniel_Press.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Press
> Source revision: 1347752430
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

Private press in England

Title-page of *The Daniel press. Memorials of C. H. O. Daniel, with a bibliography of the press, 1845-1919* (1921)

The **Daniel Press** was a [private press](/source/Private_press) in England, run by [Charles Henry Olive Daniel](/source/Charles_Henry_Olive_Daniel) (1836–1919), his wife Emily and later even their daughters, firstly at [Frome](/source/Frome) and afterwards in [Oxford](/source/Oxford).[1]

Henry Daniel began printing in 1845, when still a schoolboy, at Frome in Somerset, and he continued to print books and [ephemera](/source/Ephemera) well into the twentieth century, latterly at Oxford where he ultimately became Provost of [Worcester College](/source/Worcester_College%2C_Oxford).[2]

His [typography](/source/Typography) was antiquarian in style, and the quality of his printing might be described as vigorous rather than fine. However, he was a great enthusiast for [letterpress](/source/Letterpress), and is notable for the early date of his private press activities (starting more than forty years before [William Morris](/source/William_Morris) conceived the [Kelmscott Press](/source/Kelmscott_Press) and the so-called 'private press movement' began).

The Daniel Press is interesting too for the works printed and published there, including reprints of little-known early-modern texts, major works by [Keats](/source/John_Keats), [Milton](/source/John_Milton) and others, and original literature, including poetry by his friend [Robert Bridges](/source/Robert_Bridges).[3] In 1881 he printed *The garland of Rachel by divers kindly hands* to mark the first birthday of his daughter of that name. Daniel persuaded many of the leading English poets of the day, including Bridges, [Austin Dobson](/source/Austin_Dobson), [Andrew Lang](/source/Andrew_Lang), [John Addington Symonds](/source/John_Addington_Symonds), [Lewis Carroll](/source/Lewis_Carroll) and [Edmund Gosse](/source/Edmund_Gosse) to contribute.

He was also notable for using the [Fell types](/source/History_of_Western_typography),[4] and a number of historical ornaments, cast by [Oxford University Press](/source/Oxford_University_Press) when these were considered unfashionable by most other printers and publishers.

In his later years Daniel's printing activities declined. On his death in 1919 his large [Albion press](/source/Albion_press) (acquired in 1887) and types were bequeathed to the [Bodleian Library](/source/Bodleian_Library). Here they were used (by a team of compositors and pressmen borrowed from the University Press) to print an account of Daniel's life and work as a printer and man of letters, with an extensive bibliography written by [Falconer Madan](/source/Falconer_Madan). The press and some of the Fell types are still held by the Library, and are now used for teaching.

The Daniel Press was inherited by Daniel's nephew, [Henry Martin Daniel](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_Daniel_(naval_officer)&action=edit&redlink=1) [[Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityPage/Q131341472#sitelinks-wikipedia)] (1888-1955), who used it to print and publish his own *His Majesty's Valiants: Being a Short Account of Valiant Deeds Accomplished by the King's and Queen's Ships of that Name Between the Years 1759 and 1922* in 1923, to the chagrin of Emily Daniel, the founder's widow.[5] H. M. Daniel, a [Royal Navy](/source/Royal_Navy) officer, was famously court-martialled in [the Royal Oak affair](/source/The_Royal_Oak_affair) of 1928 and subsequently worked as a journalist.[6]

## References

Albion press

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** ["Private presses in the Sterling Library: The Daniel Press"](https://web.archive.org/web/20160304073622/http://senatehouselibrary.ac.uk/2013/12/09/private-presses-in-the-sterling-library-the-daniel-press/). Senate House Library. Archived from [the original](http://senatehouselibrary.ac.uk/2013/12/09/private-presses-in-the-sterling-library-the-daniel-press/) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2015.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** ["Daniel Press"](https://web.archive.org/web/20160304214136/https://fromemuseum.wordpress.com/collection/printing/daniel-press/). Frome Museum. Archived from [the original](https://fromemuseum.wordpress.com/collection/printing/daniel-press/) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2015.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** ["Dr. Daniel and the History of the Daniel Press"](https://web.archive.org/web/20160304095405/http://capping.slis.ualberta.ca/cap05/mary-ellen/history.html). University of Alberta. Archived from [the original](http://capping.slis.ualberta.ca/cap05/mary-ellen/history.html) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2015.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** ["The Private Press in Britain"](http://www.aragopress.arago.co.uk/private.html). Arago Press. Retrieved 20 October 2015.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** ["Daniel, Henry M His Majesty's Valiants: Being a Short Account of Valiant Deeds Accomplished by the King's and Queen's Ships of that Name Between the Years 1759 and 1922 by Henry M. Daniel on Nudelman Rare Books"](https://www.nudelmanbooks.com/pages/books/6061/henry-m-daniel/daniel-henry-m-his-majestys-valiants-being-a-short-account-of-valiant-deeds-accomplished-by-the). *Nudelman Rare Books*. Retrieved 27 November 2024.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** Gardiner, Leslie (1965). *The*Royal Oak*Courts Martial*. Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons. [OCLC](/source/OCLC_(identifier)) [794019632](https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/794019632).

## Further reading

- [Falconer Madan](/source/Falconer_Madan) et al., *The Daniel Press: memorials of C. H. O. Daniel, with a bibliography of the Press 1845–1919*. (Oxford: Printed on the Daniel Press in the Bodleian Library, 1922. Reprinted: Folkestone: Dawsons, 1974. Addenda and corrigenda, 1922.)

- [Colin Franklin](/source/Colin_Franklin_(writer_and_bibliographer)), *Poets of the Daniel Press*. (Cambridge: [Rampant Lions Press](/source/Rampant_Lions_Press), 1988.)

- D. Chambers, M. Ould, *The Daniel Press in Frome* (2012. Old School Press.)

- *Printing at the Daniel Press* (2012. Old School Press.)

Authority control databases International VIAF National United States Israel Other Yale LUX

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Daniel Press](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Press) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Press?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.