The Essex House Press was founded in 1898 by Charles Robert Ashbee, a designer closely associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. The Press's founding immediately followed the closing of William Morris's Kelmscott Press, and many of Morris's former employees subsequently worked with Ashbee. The Press was at first housed, along with Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft, in Essex House in the Mile End Road, London, but later moved to Chipping Campden, in Gloucestershire. Many of the eighty or so books produced at the Press feature two typefaces, Endeavour and Prayer Book, designed by Ashbee himself.

Special Collections has the following items printed at or published by the Essex House Press:

• Ashbee, C. R. A Bibliography of the Essex House Press, with Notes on the Designs, Blocks, Cuts, Bindings, etc., from the Year 1898 to 1904. Campden: 1904. Z232.E78 A8 1904
• Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress, from this World to That Which Is to Come, Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream, Wherein Is Discovered the Manner of His Setting out, His Dangerous Journey, and Safe Arrival at the Desired Country. London: 1899. PR3330 .A1 1899
• Coomaraswamy, Ananda. Mediæval Sinhalese Art, Being a Monograph on Mediæval Sinhalese Arts and Crafts, Mainly As Surviving in the Eighteenth Century, with an Account of the Structure of Society and the Status of the Craftsmen. Broad Campden: 1908. N7305 .C6
• Fisher, John. A Mornynge Remembraunce, Had at the Moneth Minde of the Noble Prynces Margarete Countesse of Richmonde & Darbye, Moder unto Kynge Henry the Seventh, & Grandame to our Soveraign Lorde That Now Is, upon Whose Soul Almightye God Have Mercy, Compyled by Johan Fysher, Bishop of Rochester. London: 1906. DA330.8.R5 F5 1906
• Housman, Laurence. Mendicant Rhymes. London: 1906. PR4809.H18 M465 1906
• Strang, William. The Doing of Death. London: 1901. N7720 .S8

Special Collections has the following secondary resources relating to the Essex House Press:

• Ashbee, C. R. A Bibliography of the Essex House Press, with Notes on the Designs, Blocks, Cuts, Bindings, etc., from the Year 1898 to 1904. Campden: Essex House Press, 1904. Z232.E78 A8 1904