Wright & Albright. Bristol. Circa 1839. 28 printed pages. Printed by J. Wright's (John Wright and Company) Steam Press. 27 x 32 mm. Beautifully rebound, possibly by L.G. Challenger or by Thomas Francis Ford, in full slate grey calf circa 1960; spine with four raised bands and horizontal gilt rules; covers with single blind-stamped borders. Presented in attractive matching slipcase. Original intricately decorated card covers and yellow endpapers bound in. Not in Bondy, nor Spielmann nor Welsh. WorldCat locates no copies worldwide. Wright and Albright were provincial publishers of Christian publications. Mechanization of printing through a steam-powered cylinder press was first managed in London by printer and inventor Friedrich Koenig by 1814. John Wright and Company was founded in
1825 by a Quaker, and the firm is reputed to have installed the first book-perfector printing machine in the west country in 1834. Wright's presses were destroyed during bombing in WW2. Thomas Francis Ford (1891-1971), Fellow of Royal Institute of British Architects, and Ashpitel Prize winner for outstanding architectural achievement (1919), was a successful Soaneian Classic architect of commercial, cinema, educational, and ecclesiastical buildings. Ford's passion was for bookbinding. L. G. Challenger – book dealer and amateur bookbinder, whose 1960's miniature book bindings are a niche collecting field, and becoming increasingly hard to find; they all have a naïve charm.