Emerson Wulling has been printing for pleasure for over eighty years. The quintessential hobby printer, he has maintained his shop in several locations over those eighty years, producing a variety of books, pamphlets, and ephemera. A retired English professor and a lover of books, his printing, with much of the text written by himself, consistently displays a lively sense of humor and a clever literary wit. During these eighty years he has carried on correspondence with numerous important people in the book world including William Rudge, George Parker Winship, Ward Ritchie, Rockwell Kent, Paul Hayden Duensing, Walter Hamady, Frederic Goudy, Dard Hunter, Bruce Rogers, Norman Forgue, T. M. Cleland, Carol Blinn, Abe Lerner, and Leonard Bahr, among others.

While the volume of his output might not measure up to that of some who have taken on fine printing as a profession, his work retains a pristine quality, like a rare patch of native prairie grass. His printing has not been driven by the marketplace or by any of the other pressures that come to bear on the professional printer. Instead, without exception, he has printed for pleasure. I believe this lends significance to his work in the overall history of the private press. He also serves as a reminder to those of us who are private press printers by profession, who out of necessity are influenced by the marketplace and by the unavoidable posturing of the professional. He reminds us of that essential flame that brought us all to printing in the first place, but a flame that inevitably flickers in the struggle to survive.

It is a pleasure to present Emerson G. Wulling: Printer for Pleasure. The text of the book is derived from conversations with Mr. Wulling which I recorded between 1995 and 1999. Robert Rulon-Miller has graciously contributed both an introduction and a complete checklist of Mr. Wulling’s printing. Interspersed with the text are examples of his work printed from his original linecut blocks, archival ink-jet reproductions of his printing, and two pieces printed by Mr. Wulling himself. I have also added seven impressions of my visits with him in the form of color wood engravings.

The book was printed on Hahnemuhle mouldmade paper in a signed edition of 166 copies. 140 numbered copies are bound in cloth and enclosed in a slipcase. 26 lettered copies are obund in quarter leather. The leather edition is enclosed in a clam shell box along with 45 additional pieces printing by Mr. Wulling. The Poliphilus type was set by Michael and Winifred Bixler. Hand-bound at the Campbell-Logan Bindery.

76 pages. 9 x 14 inches.