In fifteenth-century Germany, Gutenberg invented a form of printing by casting movable letters, a process which over time and through invention has evolved into mass-production printing.

Yet there is still a remnant of the old ways to be found in quiet Owen County, where printer and craftsman Gray Zeitz creates works of art through the printing process. Zeitz produces books the old-fashioned way, using letterpress printing, a process in which inked type is pressed onto paper. Zeitz sets each piece of lead type by hand, one letter at a time, feeding one page at a time into hundred-year-old presses. His Larkspur Press is set up on his farm outside of Monterey, Kentucky, a town of 200 people on the Kentucky River seventeen miles north of Frankfort.

A preserver of a nearly lost art form, Zeitz was honored by Southern Living magazine in 1994 as Outstanding Southerner. Despite all the time and labor involved, he revels in printing as if it were still the seventeenth century. "I'm interested in the art of printing and I'm interested in contemporary writers," Zeitz said of the two interests which come together at Larkspur.

Speed is not important to Zeitz; otherwise he would be using the latest technology. But with letterpress printing, he can monitor the quality of the printing, use fonts not available on a computer, create a book letter by letter, and run his hands over the crisp printing, knowing that his time is well spent creating beauty.

Larkspur Press creates three or less books per year, including collections of poems, short fiction, and broadsides (unbound works by the sheet), all highly collectible for their scarcity and beauty. Gutenberg's first printed work was the Bible. Zeitz, too, produces only works that he likes, and most of his authors are Kentuckians. Wendell Berry is a frequent customer, living right across the river.

Other authors included in Larkspur's printing history include Bobbie Ann Mason, Thomas Merton, Guy Davenport, Robert Aitken, James Baker Hall, and the poet Gray Zeitz. If the work doesn't strike a chord with Zeitz, he will not print it. Each work is planned, usually with the author, long before the printing process. Each book takes about two years, although the printing itself lasts only one to two months. Zeitz does not work on each book every day; instead the creation is a process. The two years includes choosing illustrations and setting the type. Paper and font are chosen for each book; if desired, the paper may be handmade, which causes the printing process to run ten times as long. Papers or cloths for the cover are selected, and the cover is usually printed by hand. If there is color or illustrations, those sheets go through the press up to six times. He usually stays two years behind: it is often a year before he can start a book he has accepted.

Each work is planned, usually with the author, long before the printing process. Each book takes about two years, although the printing itself lasts only one to two months. Zeitz does not work on each book every day; instead the creation is a process. The two years includes choosing illustrations and setting the type. Paper and font are chosen for each book; if desired, the paper may be handmade, which causes the printing process to run ten times as long. Papers or cloths for the cover are selected, and the cover is usually printed by hand. If there is color or illustrations, those sheets go through the press up to six times. He usually stays two years behind: it is often a year before he can start a book he has accepted.

Length is also a consideration in Zeitz's decision-making process. He has done some longer books, but those can take years. He averages eight-hourworkdays, and setting type and proofreading can be time-consuming. Each letter, punctuation mark, and space must be set individually. He can set three or four pages of prose a day, and 15 to 25 pages of poetry. There are two presses for small books and one for larger ones.

The first book Zeitz printed was Bluegrass, by Richard Taylor, published in 1975. His most recent was another Richard Taylor work: In the Country of Morning Calm, a sixty-page book.

In between, his press has developed an international clientele and a reputation for quality and beauty. Larkspur books usually come in two editions: regular editions which are released in runs of five hundred to one thousand copies on acid-free machine made paper, or hand-bound, hand-sewn special editions on handmade or mold-made paper and limited to between twenty-five and sixty copies and retail from about $65 to $130 per copy. Price depends on the number of pages in the book and the materials used: The Dragon Who Never Sleeps, an 82-page book by Robert Aitken, sold for $130, while the 12-page Medusa by Guy Davenport sold for five dollars. Zeitz estimates that materials for a Larkspur Press book cost two to three times more than for a commercially-printed book, and labor costs are indefinable. Marketing is word-of-mouth, including a mailing list and announcements. Many books are purchased by visitors to the shop.

A Kentuckian now, Zeitz was born in Alabama and moved to Elizabethtown as a young child. His passion for printing began in his days at the University of Kentucky, where he apprenticed at the King Library Press, worked at a printing job, and published his own magazine. He began printing books in 1974. Zeitz has been an Owen County resident for more than twenty years, an integral part of this community of writers and craftspeople and furthermore a volunteer firefighter and Monterey town clerk.