This book is essentially a survey of British (and some Continental) hand-made paper, manufactured between 1900 and 1970. In 1986, Oxford University Press discovered a trove of forgotten papers left over from production during those years, overlooked in a storeroom and only found when they moved premises. More than twenty thousand sheets of sixty different papers were uncovered, and Whittington Press was able to purchase them. Whittington saved them so that they could be recorded and preserved, documenting essentially the final seventy years of hand papermaking as a trade and as an integral part of book publishing. The publishers refrained from using up the papers in other publications (great as that temptation must have been) so that they could produce this book, and historians of paper, and paper lovers generally, will be greatly in their debt for it.   John Bidwell, then curator of graphic arts at Princeton University, examined the archives of Oxford Press to match the papers to the publications they were ordered and used for, and his detailed descriptions of the samples make up Part Two of the book. Before beginning those descriptions, Bidwell sets out in six chapters an overview of English hand papermaking itself, followed by specifics of the Oxford Press and other twentieth-century English users of handmade paper. His first chapter, The Art of Hand-made Paper, is a brief history of English papermaking generally. "The art prospers while the trade declines," says Bidwell. He describes a brief period between the wars when, spurred by the Arts & Crafts movement, hand paper mills continued to find demand for their product in luxury publishing, even as the general run of printing moved decisively to machine-made paper. In the next chapter, The Manufacture and Sale of Hand-made Paper, Bidwell outlines the techniques the English mills used in their efforts to expand production and lower costs, giving much fascinating information on the actual processes the mills used for mould-making, sizing, and drying.   Fine Printing in a Consumer Society, Chapter Three, touches on the demand between the wars for editions on fine paper as luxury goods and as "craftsman" artifacts. Bidwell argues that handmade paper, with its craftsman's touch, restored authenticity to books for affluent consumers, even books printed in large editions. "Readers could perceive in this uncommon commodity \[the book on handmade paper\] an intrinsic value transcending its wholesale price." For these readers, even quasi-commercial publishers like the Limited Editions Club could "adopt mass-production methods without compromising their typographic credentials."   In the fourth chapter, John Johnson's Typographical Adventure, Bidwell discusses Johnson's tenure as Controller of the Press, from 1925 to 1946. he describes how Johnson selected typefaces and handmade papers for an extraordinary efflorescence (or should one say swan song?) in fine printing at the Press, as he built a public of the consumers described earlier, who were ready to pay for the fine printing on superb paper that the Press provided. Johnson's successors were not able to maintain this consumer demand. The next chapter, Rising Prices and Falling Profits, outlines the decrease in demand for handmade paper at the Press and elsewhere in post–World War II England. Interestingly, Bidwell points out that, even had demand stayed at the level it maintained in the twenties and thirties, the trade would not have been able to meet it, as many younger men chose not to follow their fathers into the arduous and long apprenticeship required for papermaking. Post-war England opened up new, more appealing opportunities in other fields of employment.   The final chapter of Part One, Origins and Specifications of the Oxford Papers, leads in to the samples and Bidwell's discussion of them. The prospectus announcing the book describes the Oxford storeroom of papers as an "Aladdin's cave," and that is indeed what the reader finds when looking through Part Two. Each sample is tipped in on a black page, so that the texture, deckling, watermarks, and other visual qualities are displayed with maximum contrast. The author provides extensive notes on each sample, describing technical specifications along with as much as he could uncover of the history of the producing mill, the Oxford Press volumes for which the sheet was ordered and used, and any watermarking. For some samples, this descriptive information runs to several pages. The thoroughness of Bidwell's research is impressive, at times almost overwhelming. Readers will certainly find this a book that repays careful reading over a long period.   The text is printed in 14-point Centaur, with 30- and 72-point Centaur for display, on mould-made Zerkall paper. As a Bruce Rogers design, Centaur is a wonderful choice for a book about Oxford Press, where so much of Rogers's work was done. Throughout, the typesetting is beautifully accomplished, both fulfilling any Wardean goblet requirements and providing a muscular line with a flowing rhythm, quite at odds with my expectations of this typeface. For those like me who are mostly, if not entirely, familiar with Centaur in fussy digitized versions pushed through Quark or PageMaker on the computer, it is a revelation to see this typeface handled with such skill.   I have one quibble. The book is designed around the paper samples, inevitably, and their generous size is a significant strength. But this makes the text block a little too tall for comfortable reading. There are so many lines on some pages (as many as forty-four in places) that I found myself losing my place more than I usually do. The margin choices seem ideal in relation to the text block when viewed as a whole; it was only as I sat down to read that I was bothered. But the alternative, a separate volume for the text, would be clumsy. Certainly, the pages are very beautiful.   For many readers, the price makes this volume out of reach. Nevertheless, the author's research as an addition to the historical record is so significant, and the opportunity to actually see the range of samples is such an immense pleasure, that the book would be cheap at almost any price. It is also a beautiful example of book making that is fully worthy of the labors of the many papermakers who produced the papers sampled.