American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609
United States
Join us as David Godine discusses the most memorable books he published during his fifty-year career. From his earliest days as a letterpress printer to the present digital era, Godine managed to thrive as the reign of hot metal type that had endured for almost 500 years was coming to an end, when retailers were mostly brick-and-mortar stores, when library purchases were primarily books, and when correspondence was carried on through letters and the telephone. For more than fifty years, the publishing house realized the founder’s mission to “publish books that matter for people who care.” Books that might, and often did, make a difference. In fiction and nonfiction, biography, photography, art and architecture, the graphic arts, children’s books, and more, the company maintained an open-door policy, attempting to discover and nurture new talent, rediscovering and reprinting older and unjustly neglected classics.
David R. Godine was born in Cambridge and educated at The Roxbury Latin School, Dartmouth College, and Harvard University. After a brief stint in the Army, he worked for year as a printing apprentice to Harold McGrath at Leonard Baskin’s Gehenna Press in Northampton. In 1970, along with co-founders Lance Hidy and Martha Rockwell, he converted an abandoned cow barn on a Brookline estate into a printing office from which the company began issuing broadsides, pamphlets, and, ultimately, books, mostly printed from hot metal. By 1975, both the barn and the ambition to make a living as letterpress printers were abandoned in favor of publishing. The company moved to offices in Boston’s Back Bay and subsequently to other locations in the area, remaining a part of the city’s publishing fabric until this day.