considered to be the first of his published works, and the rarest. In 1922 Gibbings produced a wood engraving for the dust jacket of The Oppidan by Shane Leslie and in 1923 he illustrated Erewhon by Samuel Butler. He was very much at the centre of developments in wood engraving. He was a founder member and leading light of the Society of Wood Engravers, which he set up with Noel Rooke in 1920. In 1922 he contributed two wood engravings to Contemporary English Woodcuts, an anthology of wood engravings produced by Thomas Balston, a director at Duckworth and an enthusiast for the new style of wood engravings. Campbell Dodgson, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, wrote about him in his introduction to the book: "The 'Cubist' or 'Post-Impressionist' element is represented by Mr. Gibbings". The two engravings by Gibbings were 'Clear Waters', a strikingly modern nude, and 'Hamrun', both examples of his 'vanishing line' technique. In 1923 Gibbings received a commission for a set of wood engravings for The Lives of Gallant Ladies for the Golden Cockerel Press, his most important commission to date at 100 guineas. Gibbings and the Golden Cockerel Press Gibbings was working on the wood engravings The Lives of Gallant Ladies when Hal Taylor, the owner of the press, became very ill with tuberculosis and had to put it up for sale. He sought a loan from a friend, Hubert Pike, a director of Bentley Motors, to buy the press. He took over in February 1924, paying £850 for the huts housing the business, the plant and goodwill. For the partially completed Gallant Ladies a further sum of £200 was paid. He also leased the house and land for £40 per annum. Gallant Ladies sold well with receipts of over £1,800, and saw the start of a golden period for the press and Gibbings and his family. The printing staff – Frank Young, Albert Cooper and Harry Gibbs – were skilled and capable of very fine work. Moira Gibbings helped her husband in the business, and Gibbings kept close links with A.E. Coppard, who had helped Taylor with the business side of the press and who was to become a close friend. Gibbings knew all the leading wood engravers of the day and a number of authors, which enabled him to publish modern texts as well as classic ones. The first book for