The Allen Press, also referred to as L-D Allen Press, was a private press based in the San Francisco Bay area, founded in 1939 by husband and wife team Lewis and Dorothy Allen. Lewis Allen met Dorothy Caswell when they both studied at the University of California, Berkeley. The Allens were particularly fascinated by books produced by Aldus Manutius, William Morris, John Henry Nash, and the Grabhorns (to name a few). These noted presses served as an inspiration for Lewis and Dorothy’s work as full-time hand-press printers.

The Allen Press was founded shortly after their marriage and they produced their first book in 1939. This book, with on hundred copies printed, was The Trail of Beauty by Lewis’ father, Harris Sterns Allen. Lewis’ father also served as a catalyst for their printing ambitions. The Allen Press performed all facets of bookmaking: selection of text, typography, choice of materials and colors, hand-set types hand-printed on handmade paper, illumination, occasionally illustrations, binding, and marketing. In the selection of text, the Allens favored readability, depth of thought, and imaginative qualities.

The following editions are considered the most successful by Lewis and Dorothy Allen: Roughing It In California; The Noble Knight Paris and the Fair Vienne; Murders in the Rue Morgue; Youth; The Splendid Idle Forties; Four Poems of the Occult; The Mirrour of Genesis; Jealousy; Christopher Columbus; The Bacchae; All For Love; Persian Stories from the Arabian Nights.

Over the course of their careers, the Allens produced a large collection of ephemera consisting of prospectuses of their books, labels, announcements, Christmas cards, and broadsides of various types.

Information sourced from the records themselves and from The Allen Press Bibliography that can be found at the William Andrews Clark Library, UCLA.