A journalist and the founder of his own wire service, the Consolidated Press, William Bird is best remembered for one of his hobbies--printing. Although his Three Mountains Press published books by Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, William Carlos Williams, Ernest Hemingway, and Robert McAlmon, Bird always emphasized that he printed books for fun, in his spare time. In a 1956 letter to Robert Knoll he says, "I started the Three Mountains Press simply to have a hobby. Most of my friends were golfers, but sports never interested me greatly, whereas ever since my childhood I had had an interest in printing." Unlike his friend and associate Robert McAlmon, Bird had no literary aspirations. He published one book of his own, a small volume on his other hobby, French wines.

Nor did Bird ever have a wealthy backer for the Three Mountains Press. He wrote to Knoll in 1956, "I financed...