Abigail Rorer is a wood engraver, and the proprietor of The Lone Oak Press which publishes limited edition, fine press books using…letterpress & wood engraving.

One of Abigail’s most delightful books is Mimpish Squinnies:  Reginald Farrer’s Short Guide to Worthless Plants. “Reginald Farrer (1880–1920) was a British plantsman, plant explorer, & prolific writer who was one of the first to promote rock gardening and alpine plants. The text of Mimpish Squinnies consists of fourteen plant descriptions from Farrer’s The English Rock Garden and are of plants that he particularly disliked and described as only he could, with humor, wit, acerbity and anthropomorphism. The title of the book, Mimpish Squinnies, uses two of the many, almost nonsense, words that Farrer employs in some of his descriptions. Accompanying the text are fourteen full-color plant portraits using his descriptions as inspiration along with the structure of the actual plant plus a portrait of Farrer with a short biographical note.”

Please listen to our conversation about what Abigail does, how she does it, and why she loves it.