David Sellers, the proprietor of Pied Oxen Printers, designs, hand-sets in metal type, prints and binds each book, while sometimes collaborating with an artist in the production of original graphic art. Monotype composition may be used in the rare occasions when the text exceeds the press's hand-setting capacity. Each book is signed by the poet, artist and printer. The press strives to create an original design for each edition and to use materials and processes that will pass the tests of time.
Titles published by Pied Oxen Printers include poetry by influential and celebrated poets, including Anne Waldman, Adrienne Rich, Gary Snyder, C.K. Williams, Clayton Eshleman, Jorge Guillén, Bei Dao, Paul Muldoon, Reginald Gibbons and Susan Hahn. The press has worked with various artists, including Nancy Grossman, Bill Paden, Diarmuid Delargy, Charles Wells, and Mary Azarian.
PIED OXEN’s books are in the special collections of a number of institutions, including the Library of Congress, British Library, National Library of Ireland, Biblioteca Nacional de España, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York Public Library, and university libraries at Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Texas, University of California, among others.
Located in Hopewell, New Jersey, the fully-equipped workshop comprises a collection of metal types, presses and related letterpress and hand-bookbinding equipment. Materials and processes conform to archival standards.
A note on the press's name: The press was established in 1981 under the precursor imprint Eleutherian Printers, which is reserved for future publications. "Pied Oxen Printers" comes from a scene in Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, where the protagonist and his squire Sancho Panza are passing pied (i.e., parti-colored) oxen grazing on a hillside. Arguably, making books by hand in the 21st century is a "quixotic" pursuit. And, when a printer's type is scattered it's said to be "pied," or in chaos.
A book or linen press at the Press.
Bookbinding tools and bone clasps for assembling Gary Snyder's The Mountain Spirit. Photo by David Ackerman.
2015 Princeton Phi Beta Kappa poem ready for sewing.
Detail of the Hopewell Sesquicentennial broadside.
Tools on the Vandercook bed.
Back-lit mulberry washi used in making the cover to Gary Snyder's The Mountain Spirit. Photo by David Ackerman.
David Sellers was introduced to letterpress printing in a workshop at the Center for Book Arts’ original location on Bleecker Street in New York City, where he later learned the basics of leather bookbinding restoration in a workshop taught by Bernard Middleton. He learned the basics of gold tooling leather bindings in a Guild of Bookworkers workshop conducted by Gérard Charrière at the Bronx Botanical Gardens. Additional private lessons provided instruction in fundamental letterpress and bookbinding techniques.
During the Spring semester 2023 David Sellers co-taught, with Claudia L. Johnson, Murray Professor of English Literature in the English Department at Princeton University, ENG 573: Making Books, a graduate level course. For the occasion he refurbished a c. 1840s Frederick Ullmer Albion hand-press located in Princeton University Library’s Special Collections, and loaned the types and hand tools necessary to install a working letterpress studio in the library. The class produced a chapbook of a poem, printing on dampened paper, using this historic press. See https://www.piedoxen.com/chapbooks-etcetera#/auras-by-gwyneth-lewis/
From fall 2010 to Spring 2015, David Sellers was a Visiting Artist at Princeton University, Lewis Center for the Arts, in the Visual Arts Program's Typography Studio, where he conducted the letterpress sections of courses in Graphic Design, participated in critiquing end-of-semester student projects, and produced the annual Phi Beta Kappa Poem. Pied Oxen Printers produced the 2016-2023 Phi Beta Kappa Poems in its Hopewell workshop. (See CHAPBOOKS et cetera). During fall 2014 to spring 2015 he advised and instructed the nascent student Princeton University Letterpress Club.
Workshops producing poetry chapbooks have involved graduate students, faculty and staff of the Department of English, Princeton University (Spring, 2017, 2018, 2022 in Hopewell, NJ), and students at Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English (Summer, 2017-19 in Ripton, VT). The Bread Loaf 2022 poem was produced in Hopewell, NJ. See CHAPBOOKS et cetera: https://www.piedoxen.com/chapbooks-etcetera
Workshops in 2022-24, produced four “Keepsake Specimens” printed on an 1848 Hopkinson & Cope Albion press: three for the Rare Book School (University of Virginia) and Princeton University Library, and one for the Student Friends of Princeton University Library. See CHAPBOOKS et cetera: https://www.piedoxen.com/chapbooks-etcetera#/rare-book-school-caslon-specimen-keepsake/https://www.piedoxen.com/chapbooks-etcetera#/rare-book-school-keepsake-specimen/https://www.piedoxen.com/chapbooks-etcetera#/student-friends-of-princeton-university-library/
David Sellers has an undergraduate degree in political science and theory and a graduate degree in public administration, with a concentration in public financial management and budgeting. He’s been employed as a risk manager and financial advisor at U. S. and international financial institutions, a federal employment and training program monitor in city government, a Library of Congress cataloguer, and a union organizer.
Index photo by Andrew Wilkinson.
Marking to trim printed sheets for Gary Snyder's The Mountain Spirit . Photo by David Ackerman.
Rounding signature folds for Adrienne Rich's Letters Censored.
Setting up to print on the Vandercook SP20 in the Typography Studio, Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University.
Photo by David Ackerman.
Index image: Nathan Sellers (1751-1830) by Charles Willson Peale.
It so happens that several of the printer’s paternal and maternal great grandfathers were involved in pursuits related to printing. Nathan Sellers (1751-1830) and David Sellers (1757-1813) manufactured the first paper moulds in North America. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) established a proprietary press called “The Museum Press” in Philadelphia in 1804, a footnote to his other accomplishments. Coleman Sellers (1781-1834) invented and manufactured some of the earliest machinery for producing paper in volume. Oliver Wells (1774-1836) and his son Horace Wells (1797-1851) established the Cincinnati Type Foundry, supplying printers in the westward expansion with type, presses and equipment. Among many endeavors, Coleman Sellers II (1827-1907) authored The Lanston Type Machine: Expert Report (Philadelphia, 1889), and in other ways played an instrumental role in advancing production of the earliest commercially viable typecasting machines.
Coleman Sellers (1781-1834) by his father-in-law, Charles Willson Peale.
Self-portrait by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827)
PIED OXEN's collection of American and European foundry and Monotype types includes:
Caslon (ATF; Stephenson & Blake)
Garamond (ATF)
Garamond 156 & Garamont 248 (Monotype)
Palatino (Stempel)
Optima (Stempel)
The press is always interested in purchasing additional type in the above and other book faces, particularly 12, 14, 16, & 18 point sizes.
American Type Founders 8 point Garamond italic pattern.
American Type Founders 72 point Garamond (Didot) matrices.
72 point Stempel foundry Michelangelo.
Detail of ATF Caslon cabinet. Photo by Andrew Wilkinson.
42 point Stempel foundry Palatino italic with swash.
Pending broadside, "Practice Random Acts of Flagrant Typography," in 10, 15, 20 and 30 line wood type.
Unopened Stempel Palatino, Klingspor Jessen & ATF Garamond.
Late afternoon sunlight.
One of two type condos filled with members of the Bauer Folio family.
6-48 point coppers & brasses.
Vincent, type cabinet mouser.
Theo, the other type cabinet mouser (photo by David Ackerman).
PIED OXEN's workshop includes a variety of presses, allowing a range of sizes and print techniques:
Vandercook Universal I proof press
Chandler & Price job press, 8 x 12 inches, foot treadle
Golding Pearl job press, 7 x 11 inches, foot treadle
Hopkinson & Cope Albion 1848 hand-press, double crown, 22 ½ x 34 inches
A. B. Taylor Washington style hand-press, imperial no. 4, 24 x 37 inches
R. Hoe Washington style hand-press, super royal, 21 x 28 inches
N. W. Ayer roller proof press (c. 1865)
Fuchs and Lang stone lithography press
Rembrandt Graphic Arts intaglio press
A. B. Taylor Washington-style hand-press (imperial no. 4.) Photo by Andrew Wilkinson.
Vandercook Universal I proof-press.
Hopkinson & Cope Albion hand-press (1848).
Foot-treadled old-style Golding Pearl and Chandler & Price job presses.
Rembrandt Graphic Arts etching press.
