24. The Stone House Press (Morris Gelfand)

In A Type Miscellany, Morris Gelfand, proprietor, described The Stone House Press as a private press “dedicated to good design and fine letterpress printing of literary texts by living authors. Despite the manifest attraction of the computer, the Press will persist in printing by letterpress. The fascination of designing and printing real books on fine papers remains irresistible.” The Stone House Press specialized in contemporary poetry. Among the living poets it published were such prominent names as William Jay Smith, May Swenson and William Heyen, and many lesser-known, Constance Carrier, Stephen Stepanchev, Susan Astor, Norbert Krapf, Dorothy Hatch, Gerard P. Meyer, and Jim Elledge. It also published early poems by the prominent American historian, James Thomas Flexner, and a poem by the novelist, Joyce Carol Oates, in addition to an anthology of poems about William Cullen Bryant. DePol illustrated 14 books and 14 broadsides for The Stone House Press between 1982 and 1995, and contributed engravings for catalogs, keepsakes, and occasional publications, such as, in 1996, an engraving for an announcement card for Gelfand’s move from Roslyn to New York City. DePol’s collaboration with Morris Gelfand stands beside those with John Anderson, James Fraser and Don Weseley as the most productive of his career. For more information regarding John DePol and the Stone House Press held in Rutgers University, Special Collections and University Archives, see the Stone House Press Archive.