About the Donor
Charles Clinch Bubb (1876-1936), or “Canon Bubb” as he preferred to be called,
was a notable American amateur printer. Today we would associate him with the Arts and Crafts movement. As a curate and later rector of Grace Parish Church in Cleveland, Charles Clinch Bubb began the Clerk’s Press using a hand press and operating within the Church. The name of the press comes from Bubb’s consideration of himself as a "Clerk" (pronounced in the British manner) in Holy Orders.
Charles Clinch Bubb
Bubb was also a member of the bibliophilic Rowfant Club in Cleveland from 1912 to the early 1920s. Between the years 1908 and 1919, Bubb produced more than a hundred small editions of beautiful volumes. Bubb would move on to become rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fremont, Ohio in 1921, at which time the output of his press appears to have ceased. Bubb lived in Fremont until his death in 1936.
Following the death of his widow Emma Mary Aston Bubb in Oberlin in December 1939, a portion of Charles Clinch Bubb’s voluminous library was donated (1940) to the Oberlin College Library through Librarian John (“Jack”) Saeger, the executor of Mrs. Bubb’s estate. Special Collections still has the library accession books of this notable book collector, with his handwritten notes cataloging his collection. The gift included not only output of Bubb’s own Clerk's Press, but also what we presume is the bulk of his modern library of hundreds of uncommon private press books. The more antique portions of Bubb’s collection appears to have been sold at auction, while some fine items were given as gifts to friends. As recently as 2009, a gift from George Haley (O.C. class of 1948) included hand printed works from the Clerk’s Press which had been given by Saegar to Haley as a gift (when Haley was a student). Of this small set of 11 Clerk’s Press titles, 8 were missing from our holdings and so presumably can be traced back to Bubb’s private set. It is in Charles Clinch Bubb’s honor that our Private Press Collection is named, even if he is not the source of everything.
Bubb’s books were printed on hand-made Tuscany and Japan vellum paper, and most were sewn into heavy rose or gray paper wrappers. Many of the books in the collection contain interesting initial borders, head and tail pieces, and some even display hand-colored initials and ornaments done with elegance and economy in Bubb’s own hand. Bubb chose from many typefaces, including Jenson, Caslon, Bruce, Civilité, Caxton, Porson Greek, and Unical Greek. His printing subjects varied widely, from a close association with the Imagist school of poetry, corresponding with Ezra Pound, printing Hilda Doolittle’s first book and other works by Richard Aldington, to translations from Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Russian. Special Collections owns manuscript and typescript versions of a few of Aldington’s translations.
Written by Ed Vermue. Last updated August 2026.