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Poem by Lydia Kennaway

The Marker Committee is a collection of poems exploring the ephemerality of the written word and our compulsion to leave our mark.

At the centre of the book is a poem recounting the remarkable story of the Doves Press. Its founders, Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker, set out to create the most beautiful books known to man, but their partnership ended in conflict. Rather than allow the type to pass to Walker after his death, Cobden-Sanderson secretly cast it into the River Thames from Hammersmith Bridge. The final letters of this poem have been printed using original Doves type mudlarker from one of the largest surviving collections: type that lay beneath the murky waters of the Thames for over a century before being recovered.

Edition of 100 broadsides printed at Thin Ice Press: the York Centre for Print.