J.L. Carr used at least 11 printers to print his small books and other publications. The name of the printer was usually given at the foot of the rear cover, if there was room, underneath a list of other titles in the series. Many titles do not name a printer; it is a more common feature of early titles and impressions than in the later books.
Carr wrote in an article in The Bookseller:
I only deal with printers who will let me talk to the chap on the machine. Once I can get him interested in the job all goes pretty well. I can't afford proof copies so a map or book has to be near-enough right first time. With the printshop proprietor himself, I find the simple logic of "If it looks so awful I can't sell it then I can't give you a re-order" works well.
Occasionally printing went wrong: I have a variant of the first and only edition of Wilfred Owen, printed by Harry Richardson, which has four blank pages (pages 7 & 8 and 11 & 12). I also have a version which is complete. A copy of the first edition of the poems of Flecker at the British Library, also printed by Richardson, also has four blank pages. As Carr's small books consist of 16 pages on 8 leaves (octavo), printed on both sides, they were probably cut from a single sheet of paper, so the right text had to be printed in the right axis on the each side of paper before it was cut into eight strips, gathered and stapled. At least that's how I suspect it was done. Evidently the four blank pages were not spotted before some copies had been stapled in their covers and sold. There was only one edition of the poems of Wilfred Owen.
The eleven named printers of Carr's small books were, in probable order of first use:
Carr listed eight printers of his small books on the back cover of The History of the QTP of whom two are not listed above: Messrs Hunt and Century Press. No books credited to these printers have been seen, but they may exist. If so, Carr used 13 printers. Or he may have got the names wrong? Perhaps Century is Central and Hunt was the name of the chap he dealt with at Dalkeith Press?
The table below lists the small books that I have seen, by their printer. There may be more early impressions that I haven't seen, so this list is probably not complete. The titles are listed in the order in which printers were employed, and then in the order which they might have been printed, based on the likely date of publication, the number of titles listed, or the serial number. Carr may not have used each printer sequentially, but may have mixed printers or returned to a printer after a gap. For example, the number of titles listed in books printed by Harry Richardson jumps from 15-16 to 27 or more, and he may have used both Dalkeith Press and Central Printing Works in between.
Some of the printing plates for small books used by Central Printing Works are illustrated in the entries for Thomas Hardy, Dictionary of English Queens, Dictionary of English Kings and Forrest's Dictionary of Eponymists. I bought them on eBay from a woman who had found them at a car boot sale.
Only one map has been seen with the name of the printer: the second map of Essex was printed by Dalkeith Press of Kettering. Carr recorded in his History of the QTP that they were mostly printed by Messrs Richardson and Seddon.
All of Carr's novels published by the Quince Tree Press and issued before 1994 were printed by Stanley L. Hunt (Printers) Ltd., Rushden, Northamptonshire, which stopped trading in 2016 and was dissolved in 2019.
| Printer | Book | Titles | Month & Year | Serial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| V.B. Pike | Robert Bloomfield | 0 | (1966) | |
| V.B. Pike | Clare 1 | 0 | (1966) | |
| V.B. Pike | Clare 2 | 0 | ||
| Dalkeith Press | Tennyson 1 | 0 | 1967 | |
| Dalkeith Press | Joseph Goodson | 0 | 1968? | |
| Dalkeith Press | Northants Campaigner, Winter 1970 | 0 | 1970 | |
| Dalkeith Press | Barnes 1 | 0 | 1970? | |
| Dalkeith Press | Blake 1 | 0 | 1970? | |
| Dalkeith Press | Blake 2 | 0 | 1970? | |
| Dalkeith Press | Essex map 2 | 0 | 1971 | |
| Dalkeith Press | Herbert 1 | 17 | ||
| Dalkeith Press | Aubrey 1 | 20 | 1976? | |
| David Green | Tennyson 2 | 0 | 1969? | |
| David Green | Clare 3 | 0 | 1970? | |
| Harry Richardson | Blake 2 | 0 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Clare 4 | 0 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Herrick 1 | 0 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Forefathers 1 & 2 | 0 | 1980/81 | |
| Harry Richardson | Owen | 8 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Omar Khayyam 1 | 8 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Blake 3 | 10 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Barnes 2 | 10 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Tennyson's Lincolnshire Verse 2 | 10 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Thomas 1 | 10 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Milton 1 | 14 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Arnold 1 | 15 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Clare 5 | 15 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Flecker 1 | 15 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Shakespeare 1 | 15 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Stevenson 1 | 15 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Wordsworth 1 | 15 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Donne 1 | 16 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Coleridge 1 | 27 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Goldsmith 1 | 27 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Marvell 3 | 27 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Chaucer 1 | 30 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Grey 1 | 37 | ||
| Harry Richardson | Dictionary of Eponymists 4 | 37 | 1979 | |
| Central Printing Works | Blake 5 | 0 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Blake 8 | 0 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Cowper 1 | 17 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Hardy 1, 2, 3 | 0 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Longfellow 1 | 22 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Queens 1 | 24 | (1977) | |
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Queens 3 | 24 | 1977 | |
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Queens 4 | 27 | 1977 | |
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Cricketers vol 1, 2 | 27 | August 1977 | |
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Cricketers vol 1, 3 | 27 | September 1977 | |
| Central Printing Works | Austen 1 | 27 | November 1977 | |
| Central Printing Works | Forrest's Eponymists 1 | 1978 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Cricketers vol 1, 4 | 30 | January 1978 | |
| Central Printing Works | Johnson 1 | 30 | 1981 | |
| Central Printing Works | Bewick 1 | 30 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Cricketers vol 1, 5 | 30 | June 1978 | |
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Cricketers vol 1, 6 | 30 | October 1978 | |
| Central Printing Works | Austen 3 | 27 | January 1979 | |
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Queens 6 | 30 | 1979 | |
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Queens 7 | 30 | 1981 | |
| Central Printing Works | Bewick 2 | 31 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Blake 6 | 31 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Longfellow 2 | 32 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Dictionary of Queens 9 | 33 | 1983 | |
| Central Printing Works | Blake 7 | 34 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Johnson 2 | 34 | ||
| Central Printing Works | Hassall 1 | 35 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Brooke/Owen 1 | 0 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Brownings 1 | 0 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Brownings 2 | 0 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Rossettis I | 0 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | D.G. Rossetti | 17 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Omar Khayyam 2 | 19 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Dryden | 20 | 1970 | |
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Cobbett 1 | 21 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Crabbe 1 | 24 | January 1977 | |
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Tennyson 4 | 31 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Omar Khayyam 3 | 33 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Wordsworth 2 | 31 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Thomas 2 | 31 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Bunyan 1 | 35 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Bewick 3 | 39 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Crabbe 2 | 39 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Keats 1, 2 | 39 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Omar Khayyam 4 | 39 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Macaulay | 39 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Tennyson 5 | 39 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Tennyson 6 | 39 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Wellington 1 | 39 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Wordsworth ? | 39 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Cobbett 2 | 40 | ||
| G. Smith (Thrapston) | Smith 1 | 40 | ||
| Arkle Print | Austen 5? | 32 | ||
| Arkle Print | Kings 8 | 32 | ||
| Arkle Print | Cricketers vol 1, 8 | 39 | ||
| Seddon Packaging | Mackley 1 | 0 | ||
| Seddon Packaging | Shakespeare | 32 | ||
| Seddon Packaging | Forrest's Eponymists 7 | 37 | ||
| Sally Jones | Smart | 0 | No. 63 | |
| Sally Jones | Pope | 0 | No. 65 | |
| Sally Jones | Skelton | 0 | No. 66 | |
| Peter Dawes | Mackley 2 | 0 | ||
| Peter Dawes | Mackley 3 | 0 | ||
| Peter Dawes | Paynter 1 | 0 | ||
| Peter Dawes | Ellis 1 | 0 | ||
| Unity Print Limited | Poole 1 | 0 | No. 84 |