The Porcupine's Quill

The Porcupine’s Quill has built, since 1974, an enviable reputation for expertise in the use of twentieth-century offset printing technology to replicate the quality look, and feel, of a nineteenth-century letterpress product. Most of the production work is completed at the shop on the Main Street of Erin Village, where books are printed on a twenty-five inch Heidelberg KORD, folded, and then sewn into signatures on a 1905 Model Smyth National Book sewing machine. Push the arrows at the bottom right in this window to learn more about our books, and our authors.

 

Spring 2011 Releases.

 

New Fall 2010 Releases.

 

The Wordless Novel Series.

Edited by wood engraver George A. Walker, these wordless novels are created using 19th century printmaking techniques (linocut and wood engraving) to create visual narratives which are then scanned and published in a format that uses 20th century offset printing technology. This is contemporary work, though often sharing in the themes of social injustice, which are central to the classics of the genre created by the likes of Frans Masereel and Lynd Ward.

 

 

The Essential Poets Series.

‘Will the poems that one has made, in answer to some deepseated prompting, find readers in the big world and stay with them for a while? Of the thousand thousand pages of verse that are published and recited, only a few will do this, and who knows which ones, or what about them will make them remembered?’ — George Johnston

 

 

Many thanks to Richard Clewes at Clique Communications for the re-branding programme that will roll out incrementally over the coming months.

 

 

The Porcupine’s Quill is remarkable in Canadian publishing in that most of the physical production of our journal is completed in-house at the shop on the Main Street of Erin Village. We print on a twenty-five inch Heidelberg KORD, typically onto acid-free Zephyr Antique laid. The sheets are then folded, and sewn into signatures on a 1907 model Smyth National Book Sewing machine.

To take a virtual tour of the pressroom, visit us at YouTube for a discussion of offset printing in general, and the operation of a Heidelberg KORD in particular. Other videos include Four Colour Printing, Smyth Sewing and Wood Engraving. Photographs of production machinery used on these pages were taken by Sandra Traversy on site at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill, December 2008.