The Gaberbocchus Press was a London publishing house founded in 1948 by the artist couple Stefan and Franciszka Themerson. Alongside the Themersons, the other directors of the Press were the translator Barbara Wright and the artist Gwen Barnard who also illustrated a number of the company's publications.[1]
The name is the Latinized form of Jabberwocky and the earliest books were printed at their home on King's Road, Chelsea, London and in 1956 they moved to 42a Formosa Street in Maida Vale, London. In 1959 the basement of their office was turned into the Gaberbocchus Common Room, a meeting place for those interested in art and science. They showed films, plays and held poetry readings.[2]
Over its 31 years the Gaberbocchus Press published over sixty titles, including their own works and those by Oswell Blakeston, the Irish poet George Henry Perrott Buchanan, Christian Dietrich Grabbe, Hugo Manning, Heinrich Heine, Raymond Queneau, C. H. Sisson, Stevie Smith, Anatol Stern, Kenneth Tynan, Alfred Jarry, Kurt Schwitters (Themerson wrote Kurt Schwitters in England in 1958), and Bertrand Russell. Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi became one of its most celebrated titles and was published in many editions.[2] The National Art Library owns 20 of their titles.[1] Yearly greeting cards were sent to various contacts in the publishing business and a large set of these have been preserved at the National Library of Poland as Gaberbocchus: some of the old favourites.
The content of the Themersons' own books were often experiments with language and visual effects. The form was tailored for each publication to support and complement the content, using self-produced paper and other techniques.
The couple sold their publishing company in 1979 to the Dutch publishing house Uitgeverij De Harmonie, which was also making experimental visual publications throughout the 1970s.
