The noble Art and mystery of Printing was first invented by John Gutenburgh a soldier of Mentz in the year 1440 ... The noble art and mystery of printing was brought first into England by Simon Islip in 1471. Starnell Sturman. Lest Art! by which to distant Empire led; We view dark Scenes, and talk with Heroes dead; Whence Tully lives, whence Homer's known to Fame, Till Time shall be no more - preserve THIS NAME

[London]: printed on the Thames when frozen, January 28, 1740. Small letterpress broadside approx. 7¾" x 6½" (200 x 165 mm), incorporating a woodcut of White-Hall central at the top, and all within a decorative typographic border; an rare if not unique survival (the only other known example is at the Bodleian), with loss to the top right and lower right corners affecting the border but not any letterpress, the whole with multiple cracks and tears, but no significant loss, and backed with japanese tissue ca. 1950s? This souvenir, with an engraving of St. John’s Gate in Clerkenwell, labelled “White-hall”, had appeared as the title-page of the "Gentleman’s (truncated) Magazine" in 1733, and is here flanked by some information about the history of printing, mentioning Gutenberg and Simon Islip who ostensibly set up the first printing press in England at Westminster Abbey in 1471, an assertion maded in the early 17th century by John Stowe and later debunked by Oldys in his Life of Caxton. The River Thames has been known to freeze over on several occasions, especially during the “Little Ice Age” of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, upon which the inhabitants of London took to the solid ice for business and pleasure. The most important of these “Frost Fairs” occurred in 695, 1608, 1683-4, 1716, 1739–40, 1789, and 1814. "On Wednesday, the 26th of December, 1739-40, commenced another frost, the most severe which had occurred since 1716. The Thames, as we are told in the "Gentleman's Magazine" of 1740, floated with rocks and shoals of ice; and when they fixed, represented a snowy field, everywhere rising in masses and hills of ice and snow. Of this scene several artists made sketches; whilst tents and printing-presses were erected, and a complete Frost Fair was again held upon the river, over which multitudes walked, though some lost their lives by their rashness" (Rimbault). This bitter cold snap began on Christmas Day, the frost lasting until the following year when the slow thaw started on the 17th of February. Unique to 1739, a powerful storm struck the Thames causing great damage to boats and vessels. During January, London’s entertainers, peddlers and merrymakers took to the frozen Thames to enjoy the food stalls, temporary pubs and printing presses that had been installed on it. These hearty printers offered to personalize souvenirs for the revelers, and in this case, “Starnell Sturman” stepped to the plate. "The Daily Post" of Tuesday, January the 22nd, 1740 notes: "Yesterday morning the inhabitants of the west prospect of the bridge were presented with a very odd scene, for on the opening of their windows, there appear'd underneath, on the river, a parcel of booths, shops, and huts, of different forms, and without any inhabitants, which, it seems, by the swell of the waters, and the ice separating, had been brought down from above. As no lives were lost, it might be view'd without horror. Here stood a booth with trinkets, there a hut with a dram of old gold; in another place a skittle-frame and pins, and in a fourth The Noble Art and Mystery of Printing (my italics), by a servant to one of the greatest trading companies in Europe." The River Thames has been known to freeze over on several occasions, especially during the “Little Ice Age” of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, upon which the inhabitants of London took to the solid ice for business and pleasure. The most important of these “Frost Fairs” occurred in 695, 1608, 1683-4, 1716, 1739–40, 1789, and 1814. In 1684, during the Great Freeze of 1683-4, which was the longest in London’s history and during which the ice reached depths of around 28cm, the diarist John Evelyn recorded the attractions of the Frost Fair: “Streetes of Boothes were set upon the Thames… all sorts of Trades and shops furnished, & full of Commodities… Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stairs too and fro, as in the streets, sleds, sliding with skates, bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and interludes, cooks, tippling and other lewd places, so that it seemed to be a bacchanalian triumph, or a carnival on water”. See Rimbault, Old Ballads Illustrating the Great Frost. London, Percy Society, 1844; and Reed, Frost Fairs oln the Frozen Thames, 2002. Accompanied by: [Fisher, M. F. K.] On the rocks. Printed on the ice of White Bear Lake, Minnesota: Ampersand Club, 1997. Edition limited to approx. 120 copies, this one of 80 copies in gray wrappers, paper label on upper cover; sq. 24mo, pp. [15]; wood-engraved title-page vignette by Gaylord Schanilec; fine. "The untitled and anonymously-compiled word-list was discovered in a small notebook in the library of M.F.K. Fisher. To the first leaf of the manuscript, in Fisher's hand, was attached the following note: "Definitions (alcoholic) by whom? Why? Found in old binder." The mss. consists of 15 pages on graph paper, in pencil, and in a shaky, juvenile hand; but that it was compiled by an adult seems beyond question. The book was printed by the Ampersand Club at its winter meeting on Super Bowl Sunday in 20-degree below zero weather in the middle of White Bear Lake in an ice-fishing house. The Club believes it is the first time a book has been printed "on the ice" in the western hemisphere. Quarter to Midnight A.57.b. See also Matrix 36, Whittington Press, 2017, "I, Pirate," by Rob Rulon-Miller. (Inventory #: 68812)