One Hundred and Fifty Wood Cuts title page

As in certain other pioneering works printed by machine that he published, Knight reproduced the vignette of the Applegath and Cowper steam-powered rotary press on the title page.

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The First Art Book Printed on a Printing Machine

1835
Woodcuts of the Penny Magazine binding

The original cloth binding issued with copies of the first art book printed by a printing machine.

As a byproduct of the periodical, in 1835 Charles Knight issued a volume of One Hundred and Fifty Wood Cuts, Selected from The Penny Magazine; Worked, by the Printing-Machine from the Original Blocks. The title page incorporated a small woodcut of the Applegath & Cowper printing machine. This was undoubtedly the first "art book" printed on a printing machine rather than a hand press, and the title makes the point that the impressions of the woodcuts were made from the original woodblocks rather than from the stereotype plates used to print the same woodcuts in The Penny Magazine.

Knight had this book printed by William Clowes on fine paper in a small folio format, and it is likely that the edition was relatively small. The title page indicates that the book sold for "Fourteen shillings, bound in cloth, with gilt edges." Captions to the 149 images plus the frontispiece sourced them to their original appearance in The Penny Magazine

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