,,transcriber',s ,,notes3 ,italic text is denoted by underscores and bold text like this4 ,a letter preceded by the sign indicates a superindex4 ,for instance a represents superindex a4 ,there are some characters quoted in the text that cannot be reproduced in the text version of the book4 ,the sign represents the ancient long s2 the sign ct represents the ct ligature and the sign ffi represents the ffi ligature4 ,a number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants4 ,for the words with both variants present the one more used has been kept4 ,not all the font families used for the different articles included in the book were available for the ,,html version4 ,the font families that could be used for the transcription are ,times ,new ,roman1 ,gill ,sans1 ,garamond1 ,bodoni ,,mt 7instead of ,bodoni ,book71 ,baskerville1 ,centaur1 ,perpetua and ,bell4 ,most of the currently available browsers are compatible with those fonts4 ,however1 it is not certain that the currently available hand-held devices would be able to reproduce the text with those fonts4 ,punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected4 ,nevertheless1 there are some portions where the author quotes text written in ancient style in which the punctuation rules applicable nowadays were not followed4 ,those have been left unchanged4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,forum ,illustration ,,books ,this ebook was created in honour of ,distributed ,proofreaders #bjth ,anniversary4 ,,books ,,and ,,printing ,a ,,treasury ,,for ,,typophiles edited by ,paul ,a4 ,bennett ,illustration ,forum ,books ,,the ,,world ,,publishing ,,company ,,cleveland ,,and ,,new ,,york ,a ,,forum ,,book ,published by ,the ,world ,publishing ,company #bbca ,west #aajth ,street1 ,cleveland #b1 ,ohio ,revised ,edition ,first ,forum printing ,february #aifc ,copyright #aiea by ,the ,world ,publishing ,company4 ,all rights reserved4 ,no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher1 except for brief passages included in a review appearing in a newspaper or magazine4 ,library of ,congress ,catalog ,card ,number3 #eb-fab ,printed in the ,united ,states of ,america4 ,,wp#bfc ,,acknowledgments ,i am deeply grateful to many friends who have helped in the preparation of material for this book1 and have freely granted permission to reprint their brain children4 ,to the ,typophiles of ,new ,york1 and to the individual authors in their series of ,chap ,books1 ,i am indebted for including3 ,t4 ,m4 ,cleland's ,harsh ,words2 ,w4 ,a4 ,dwiggins' celebrated ,investigation ,into the ,physical ,properties of ,books1 first published for the ,society of ,calligraphers and included in ,mss4 by ,,wad2 ,evelyn ,harter's ,printers ,as ,men of the ,world2 and ,lawrence ,c4 ,wroth's ,first ,work ,with ,american ,types1 from ,typographic ,heritage4 ,to the editors of ,the ,colophon1 and the three authors1 ,i am indebted for reprinting the essays of ,earnest ,elmo ,calkins on ,the ,book and ,job ,print1 ,ruth ,s4 ,granniss on ,colophons and ,sir ,francis ,meynell's ,some ,collectors ,read4 ,to the individual authors1 the editors of ,the ,publishers' ,weekly and its publisher1 ,r4 ,r4 ,bowker ,company1 ,i am indebted for permission to include ,w4 ,a4 ,dwiggins' ,twenty ,years ,after1 the sequel to his ,investigation2 excerpts from two articles by ,robert ,josephy2 and ,will ,ransom's introduction from his ,private ,presses and ,their ,books4 ,to ,beatrice ,warde1 who has graciously permitted reprinting her classic ,printing ,should ,be ,invisible4 ,i appreciate greatly the counsel of the good friends who made possible the symposium on ,the ,anatomy of the ,book3 ,peter ,beilenson1 ,joseph ,blumenthal1 ,p4 ,j4 ,conkwright1 ,morris ,colman1 ,milton ,glick and ,evelyn ,harter1 ,william ,dana ,orcutt1 ,ernst ,reichl1 ,carl ,purington ,rollins1 ,bruce ,rogers and ,arthur ,w4 ,rushmore4 ,to ,mergenthaler ,linotype ,company ,i am indebted for reprinting the text of the ,anatomy1 now slightly revised1 from ,the ,manual of ,linotype ,typography4 ,to both authors and their publisher1 ,william ,e4 ,rudge's ,sons1 ,i am indebted for including the extracts from ,bruce ,rogers' ,paragraphs on ,printing and ,merle ,armitage's ,notes on ,modern ,printing4 ,to ,george ,macy1 and the directors of the ,limited ,editions ,club1 ,i am indebted for reprinting ,porter ,garnett's prize-winning essay1 ,the ,ideal ,book4 ,and also for the illustration of the punch-cutting machine 7from ,the ,dolphin1 ,no4 #b7 to accompany ,carl ,purington ,rollins' essay1 ,american ,type ,designers and ,their ,work1 for which permission to reprint was granted by ,r4 ,r4 ,donnelley ,sons ,company1 ,chicago4 ,to my good friend1 ,james ,shand1 publisher of ,alphabet and ,image in ,london1 ,i am indebted for including his account of ,george ,bernard ,shaw's relations with his printer 7first published in ,a ,i ,no4 #h71 and for assistance in securing electrotypes of the illustrations4 ,to ,oscar ,ogg and the editors of ,the ,american ,artist ,i owe thanks for reprinting his ,lettering and ,calligraphy1 with its illustrations4 ,to ,edwin ,grabhorn ,i am indebted for including ,the ,fine ,art of ,printing1 his address to the ,roxburghe ,club of ,san ,francisco4 ,i particularly appreciate the assistance of the late ,otto ,ege1 ,mrs4 ,anne ,lyon ,haight and ,lawrence ,c4 ,wroth in revising their essays for publication here1 and the thoughtfulness of ,robert ,josephy1 ,will ,ransom and ,arthur ,w4 ,rushmore in writing postscripts to enhance their essays4 ,i am thankful to ,mrs4 ,caroline ,anderson of ,los ,angeles2 my colleague ,jackson ,burke at ,linotype2 to ,christopher ,morley of ,roslyn1 ,l4 ,i41 and ,arthur ,w4 ,rushmore of ,madison1 ,n4 ,j41 for valuable suggestions and help in research4 ,for assistance in securing illustrative material ,i am indebted to my ,typophile friends3 ,john ,archer1 ,a4 ,burton ,carnes1 ,lester ,douglas1 ,george ,l4 ,mc,kay and ,william ,reydel4 ,to ,fred ,anthoensen of ,portland1 ,maine1 ,i am thankful for help in securing electrotypes to illustrate two articles4 ,the publisher1 and ,i as editor1 acknowledge our appreciation to the authors of the other essays included1 and to their editors and publishers1 for permission to reprint this valuable material1 for which detailed mention of copyright and publication date is printed elsewhere4 ,and ,i hope my apologies may be accepted1 should there be inadvertent omission of appreciation to the numerous other individuals who have so generously assisted me in preparing this book for the printer4 ,p4 ,a4 ,b4 ,,contents ,,by ,,way ,,of ,,introduction ,page ix ,,otto ,f4 ,,ege4 ,the ,story of the ,alphabet #c ,,lancelot ,,hogben4 ,printing1 ,paper and ,playing ,cards #ae ,,ruth ,s4 ,,granniss4 ,colophons #ca ,,edwin ,,eliott ,,willoughby4 ,printers' ,marks #de ,a4 ,f4 ,,johnson4 ,title ,pages3 ,their ,forms and ,development #eb ,,lawrence ,c4 ,,wroth4 ,the ,first ,work with ,american ,types #fe ,,ronald ,b4 ,,mckerrow4 ,typographic ,debut #gh ,,edward ,,rowe ,,mores4 ,metal-,flowers #hc ,,james ,,watson4 ,the ,history of the ,invention and ,progress of the ,mysterious ,art of ,printing c4 #he ,,evelyn ,,harter4 ,printers ,as ,men of the ,world #hh ,,anne ,,lyon ,,haight4 ,are ,women the ,natural ,enemies of ,books8 #ajc ,,beatrice ,,warde4 ,printing ,should ,be ,invisible #aji ,,porter ,,garnett4 ,the ,ideal ,book #aae ,w4 ,a4 ,,dwiggins4 ,extracts from an ,investigation into the ,physical ,properties of ,books #abi ,w4 ,a4 ,,dwiggins4 ,twenty ,years ,after #ade ,,desmond ,,flower4 ,the ,publisher and the ,typographer #aec ,,william ,,dana ,,orcutt1 ,,bruce ,,rogers1 ,,carl ,,purington ,,rollins1 ,,joseph ,,blumenthal1 ,p4 ,j4 ,,conkwright1 ,,arthur ,w4 ,,rushmore1 ,,milton ,,glick1 ,,morris ,,colman1 ,,evelyn ,,harter1 ,,peter ,,beilenson1 and ,,ernst ,,reichl4 ,the ,anatomy of the ,book3 ,a ,symposium #afj ,,robert ,,josephy4 ,trade ,bookmaking3 ,complaint in ,three ,dimensions #afi ,,will ,,ransom4 ,what ,is a ,private ,press8 #age ,,alfred ,w4 ,,pollard4 ,the ,trained ,printer and the ,amateur3 and the ,pleasure of ,small ,books #ahb ,,sir ,,francis ,,meynell4 ,some ,collectors ,read #aia ,,christopher ,,sandford4 ,printing for ,love #bab ,,arthur ,w4 ,,rushmore4 ,the ,fun and ,fury of a ,private ,press3 ,some ,voyages of ,the ,golden ,hind #bbj ,,edwin ,,grabhorn4 ,the ,fine ,art of ,printing #bbf ,,holbrook ,,jackson4 ,the ,typography of ,william ,morris #bcc ,,stanley ,,morison4 ,first ,principles of ,typography #bci ,,carl ,,purington ,,rollins4 ,american ,type ,designers and ,their ,work #beb ,,eric ,,gill4 ,typography #beg ,,frederic ,w4 ,,goudy4 ,types and ,type ,design #bfg ,,theodore ,,low ,,de ,,vinne4 ,the ,old and the ,new3 ,a ,friendly ,dispute between ,juvenis ,senex #bgd ,,bruce ,,rogers4 ,paragraphs on ,printing #bha ,,paul ,a4 ,,bennett4 ,b4,r4--,adventurer with ,type ,ornament #bij ,,daniel ,,berkeley ,,updike4 ,some ,tendencies in ,modern ,typography #cjf ,,peter ,,beilenson4 ,the ,amateur ,printer3 ,his ,pleasures and ,his ,duties #cac ,t4 ,m4 ,,cleland4 ,harsh ,words #cba ,,oscar ,,ogg4 ,a ,comparison of ,calligraphy ,lettering #ccg ,,aldous ,,huxley4 ,typography for the ,twentieth-,century ,reader #cdd ,,merle ,,armitage4 ,notes on ,modern ,printing #cej ,,john ,t4 ,,winterich4 ,benjamin ,franklin3 ,printer and ,publisher #ceb ,,earnest ,,elmo ,,calkins4 ,the ,book ,job ,print #cfh ,,james ,,shand4 ,author and ,printer3 ,g4,b4,s4 and ,r4 ,r4 ,c43 #ahih-aidh #cha ,,paul ,a4 ,,bennett4 ,on ,type ,faces for ,books #djb ,,paul ,a4 ,,bennett4 ,notes on the ,type ,faces ,used in ,this ,book #daa ,index #dba ,illustration,,by ,,way ,,of ,,introduction,illustration ,labeling these observations introductory isn't to confuse the purist4 ,he knows that the terms preface1 foreword and introduction become mixed frequently1 he doesn't like it and he much prefers retaining the proper distinctions4 ,an introduction1 he will insist1 should be solely concerned with the subject of the book1 and introduce or supplement its text4 ,and the preface or foreword should properly deal with the book's purpose1 and define its limitation and scope4 ,let's keep things that way4 ,unfortunately1 there isn't one term that covers comment which flows from one division to the other in a miscellany like this4 ,at times--and at the risk of editorial modesty--,i may seem something of a typographic barker1 singing the praises of certain essays and pointing up different attractions4 ,at others1 the text will be supplemented with an explanatory note1 or amplified to bring it up to date1 as in the ,josephy1 ,ransom and ,rushmore articles4 ,it amounts to an assist in getting back to purpose3 that of informing on matters typographic1 and on books1 their printing and some of the fascinating steps along the way4 ,in selecting material of appeal to the collector1 printer1 typographer and student1 ,i have not overlooked the professional curiosity of editors and technicians4 ,that's the thinking behind the inclusion of extracts from ,mc,kerrow and ,mores and ,watson1 among other scholarly contributions4 ,where there was a choice1 the preference was for the author with a point of view and the ability to express it interestingly4 ,four articles indicate this approach4 ,printing1 ,paper and ,playing ,cards1 the brilliant survey of ,lancelot ,hogben1 illumines the birth and spread of writing and printing as nothing else ,i know4 ,otto ,ege's brief account of the development of our alphabet1 with its memorable letter-diagrams1 has a different1 not less valuable appeal1 as does ,oscar ,ogg's comparison of ,lettering and ,calligraphy1 with its specimens of his own distinguished hand4 ,and in ,printers ,as ,men of the ,world1 ,evelyn ,harter writes of a number of great printers as men of intellect1 at home in the world of ideas4 ,her stimulating text suggests the compensation of looking at the background of printing in relation to world events4 ,there was no preconceived attitude to consider in evaluating the essays included3 no restriction by country of origin2 no fixation about the traditional or modern in typographic approach2 no desire to slant1 or plant1 ideas2 no intent other than to select much of the best writing in ,english by authors of substance4 ,that the gathering may provide riches to be added to the savings account of your memory is my hope4 ,in a quite real sense1 the experience has been something like spending many long weekends with friends in good1 solid talk--some of it controversial1 much of it illuminating and informing4 ,the re-reading has not only opened doors and windows for a welcome flood of ideas1 it has suggested new trails and made for valuable comparisons of favorites first met with years ago4 ,it has been difficult to resist the temptation to include more essays of historic and technical appeal to typographers and printers4 ,many of the present generation1 ,i presume1 may not know ,de ,vinne's authoritative account of the development of the ,american ,point ,system1 which occurred in the late eighties and is detailed at length in his ,plain ,printing ,types2 or the invaluable ,meynell and ,morison essay on ,printer's ,flowers and ,arabesques1 with its fascinating reproductions1 from ,the ,fleuron4 ,i have omitted these two with reluctance1 and have used the space they would occupy for a half-dozen shorter essays not less worthy in themselves1 but on different topics4 ,since space was limited1 ,i needed to be4 ,i would have welcomed the opportunity to include additional essays by ,d4 ,b4 ,updike1 whose incomparable ,printing ,types3 ,their ,history1 ,forms and ,use2 ,in the ,day's ,work1 and ,some ,aspects of ,printing3 ,old and ,new1 and other writings on typography should not be missed2 by ,w4 ,a4 ,dwiggins1 the distinguished ,american letter artist and designer1 who writes as well as he draws2 and by ,holbrook ,jackson1 the great ,english critic1 literary historian and essayist1 whose ,anatomy of ,bibliomania1 ,fear of ,books and ,printing of ,books are required reading4 ,there are other favorites omitted too1 for unlike ,jackson's remark about the house of books1 ,there are many mansions and room for all trades1 whims1 and even fads--this book could comfortably hold no more4 ,it has not seemed desirable1 as it would be possible1 to eliminate a degree of duplication in part among some of the essays4 ,that would have required an amount of editorial surgery and revision unfair to the authors concerned4 ,more importantly1 it would have assumed that every reader would read every essay--hardly an attainable ideal4 ,nor has any documentation been attempted to reconcile opposing viewpoints--that of ,a4 ,w4 ,pollard and ,holbrook ,jackson1 for instance1 in respect to ,william ,morris as printer and typographer4 ,happy will that reader be who finds this and other instances sufficiently provocative to embark upon further research of his own4 ,and while it is easier to come upon material in a collection such as this than to track down each item individually1 much of the fun of the search is missing1 along with the memorable thrills of discoveries in scattered places4 ,there's much gold yet to be found by even moderate digging4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the greatest area for argument is that within the opposing views of the modern and traditional approach to book design4 ,it is unrealistic to oppose the concept that contemporary typography should reflect some of the differences that mark our time from other epochs4 ,defining distinctions and relating them precisely to the arts of the book is something else again4 ,in his eloquent ,harsh ,words1 ,t4 ,m4 ,cleland decries the restless craving for something new4 ,this poison is aggravated in printing and typography1 he insists1 by the fact that of all the arts it is1 by its very nature and purpose1 the most conventional4 ,if it is an art at all1 it is an art to serve another art4 ,it is good only so far as it serves well and not on any account good for any other reason4 ,it is not the business of type and printing to show off1 and when1 as it so frequently does1 it engages in exhibitionistic antics of its own1 it is just a bad servant4444 ,typography1 ,i repeat1 is a servant--the servant of thought and language to which it gives visible existence4 ,when there are new ways of thinking and a new language1 it will be time enough for a new typography4 ,the modern designer disagrees4 ,he believes books can be freshened1 made more appealing to eye and hand1 and more inviting to read1 just as product-packaging has benefited by the imaginative conceptions of skilled industrial designers4 ,he concedes that books remain unsurpassed as a medium for transmitting thought to the reader's mind--and admits they do it best with a minimum of visual distraction4 ,but1 he asks1 is it not reasonable to remain open-minded and appraise the modern artist for what he may contribute8 ,books1 to be sure1 are much more than packages to be styled for shelf attention and sparkle4 ,yet it seems reasonable to believe they also may benefit by traveling the road of visual appeal and design attractiveness1 and that they may be assisted in typographic handling to convey the author's words with a minimum of reading effort4 ,it isn't difficult to dismiss the modern approach and call it uninformed nonsense1 but that doesn't lift the curtain and illumine the problem--or settle the continuing debate4 ,i recall discussing modern typography some years ago with the late ,d4 ,b4 ,updike1 in his library at the ,merrymount ,press in ,boston4 ,a catalog from the ,museum of ,modern ,art was at hand1 designed by ,herbert ,bayer of ,bauhaus fame4 ,it looked strange in its all-lower-case typography1 and seemed to slow reading because of that strangeness4 ,to many it was the newest of the new 444 perhaps it would institute a trend8 ,mr4 ,updike smiled1 reached to a shelf for a book4 ,it was printed more than a hundred years earlier in ,paris and set throughout in lower-case4 ,so far as this had any influence1 then or later1 he remarked1 the experiment of ,typographie ,economique is as dead as ,queen ,anne4 ,all of which points up ,bertrand ,russell's remarks1 ,on ,being ,modern ,minded1 in his recent ,unpopular ,essays#a3 ,the desire to be contemporary is new only in degree1 he declares1 it has existed to some extent in all previous periods that believed themselves to be progressive4 ,the ,renaissance had a contempt for the ,gothic centuries that had preceded it2 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries covered priceless mosaics with whitewash2 the ,romantic movement despised the age of the heroic couplet4444 ,but in none of these former times was the contempt for the past nearly as complete as it is now4 ,from the ,renaissance to the end of the eighteenth century men admired ,roman antiquity2 the ,romantic movement revived the ,middle ,ages4444 ,it is only since the #aiad-ah war that it has become fashionable to ignore the past en bloc4 ,the belief that fashion alone should dominate opinion has great advantages4 ,it makes thought unnecessary1 and puts the highest intelligence within reach of everyone4 ,really thinking through the design potential not only seems the nub of the matter1 but is basically sound typographically4 ,read ,peter ,beilenson attentively as he discusses the amateur printer and the development of a new style 7page #cac74 ,it is simple1 but dull1 to copy an old style1 he points out4 ,it is hard1 but exciting1 to work out a new one4 ,and while you are working at it1 you must expect cynical observers to give your experiments the adjective 'wacky'2 you must expect certain curious kinds of people to praise your work for the wrong reasons2 and you must expect alternating moods of conceit and confusion4 ,the proofs you gloat over at night will become commonplace by dawn4444 ,you will make misjudgments about the intelligence of ordinary readers4 ,you will make mistakes of taste4 ,you will find it too easy to get an effect by means of shock1 and you will forget that any book1 even a twenty-first-century book1 must be a coherent unit4 ,and you will often1 since there are no highway markers for the explorer1 feel lonely and discouraged and want to go back to the old familiar1 well-traveled roads again4444 ,you can be subtle or bold1 as you feel the urge 444 you can advance your own work by looking to other fields of creation1 enjoying and profiting by the experiments going on in them4 ,you can feel yourself part of the whole forward-looking culture of today 444 and if you do strike a vein with the least glitter of real gold in it1 you will become rich indeed4 ,for you will have become a creator in a new sense2 your duty done as an amateur will be compensated with a twenty-four-carat satisfaction4444 ,there's sense in that essay1 as there is in the views of ,merle ,armitage1 ,t4 ,m4 ,cleland1 ,porter ,garnett1 ,eric ,gill1 ,frederic ,w4 ,goudy1 ,edwin ,grabhorn1 ,robert ,josephy1 ,aldous ,huxley1 ,stanley ,morison1 ,bruce ,rogers1 ,carl ,purington ,rollins1 ,d4 ,b4 ,updike and ,beatrice ,warde on related topics4 ,admittedly1 some are in opposition--yet that very quality of provocativeness may help in dispelling the fog4 99 99 99 99 99 ,whether we like it or not1 the factor of competition affects the sale of books and their reading4 ,because so many elements compete for reading time1 we frequently forget that they comprise the obvious3 sports and the allure of the outdoors1 newspapers and magazines1 the theater and movies1 radio and television1 as well as social and family distractions4 ,these elements are real1 measurable to a degree1 and materially affect the reading of books and consequently their sales4 ,to the trade publisher and printer they affect the business future and may be considered opponents4 ,to them1 the question of whether the modern approach is more effective than the traditional is no academic matter4 ,we have indicated the problem at length1 though only in part1 because of its consuming interest4 ,for a comprehensive and sympathetic account of the modern view1 see ,books for ,our ,time4 ,that illustrated record of the exhibition sponsored by the ,american ,institute of ,graphic ,arts 7recently published by ,oxford ,university ,press71 was designed and edited by ,marshall ,lee1 and has essays by ,merle ,armitage1 ,herbert ,bayer1 ,john ,begg1 ,s4 ,a4 ,jacobs1 ,george ,nelson and ,ernst ,reichl4 ,it was ,henry ,watson ,kent who sagely pointed out that the collector who has affection for the book's format is not necessarily indifferent to its soul--the thought enshrined in it4 ,and so1 as the one may proudly discuss his ,kelmscott1 ,doves or ,ashendene items and their literary background1 so the other--more knowledgeable in graphic arts lore--may find equal pleasure in his discoveries3 ,john ,winterich on ,franklin as printer and publisher1 possibly1 or ,sir ,francis ,meynell on collectors who also read1 or ,james ,shand's revealing account of ,g4,b4,s41 his interest in typography and his relations with his printers4 ,instead of asking the fine press enthusiast to show his ,doves ,bible1 his ,b4 ,r4 ,pierrot1 ,nonesuch ,dickens1 or ,grabhorn ,leaves of ,grass1 the collector who reads about the making of books may get even more satisfaction in discussing his favorite essays or his most recent find4 ,that the one can be as satisfying as the other is quite definite in my mind4 ,in fact1 ,i am certain that the collector who learns to appreciate book-making details will find the greater pleasure3 his knowledge becomes a part of him as prized items on his shelves never can2 he will enjoy looking in books even more than looking at them4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a concluding typographic note3 ,excepting for strictly type specimen material1 and the degree of typographic expression attempted in ,parts six and seven of ,the ,new ,colophon for a different reason1 ,i don't recall any other book set in such a variety of distinguished body types4 ,yet that seemed so natural and sensible an idea for this that it has been stimulating to work it out4 ,much of the detail and burden has fallen to the willing hands of ,joseph ,trautwein1 the able designer responsible for this format1 and the continuing interest of ,joseph and ,miriam ,schwartz of ,westcott and ,thomson1 the superior ,philadelphia typesetters1 whose wealth of typographic resources is evidenced in these pages4 ,some of the reasons for coupling specific essays and types are detailed in the final chapter1 which includes also a brief specimen of each face with a note on its attribution4 ,and finally1 ,i want to salute ,william ,targ1 ,world's editor1 for inviting me to put this miscellany together1 and for his patience in watching the book develop4 ,that hasn't proved anything like the challenging experience ,i envisioned1 but instead became a spare-time1 weekend pleasure ,i've enjoyed for months4 ,indirectly1 of course1 this is related to the great fraternity of book-makers and typophiles1 rich in its friendships and international in scope1 that ,i have been privileged to enjoy through the years4 ,as ,i scan the contents again1 ,i see not only the names of many good friends and the rewarding associations they bring to mind1 but also some of their best writing4 ,my chief regret is that there just wasn't room for more of it in this collection4 ,but that's a different adventure--and possibly another book4 ,,paul ,a4 ,,bennett ,,footnotes3 #a ,bertrand ,russell1 ,unpopular ,essays 7,new ,york3 ,simon and ,schuster1 #aiej74 ,illustration,,books ,,and ,,printing,illustration ,illustration,,otto ,f4 ,,ege,illustration ,the ,story of the ,alphabet ,,its ,,evolution ,,and ,,development ,copyright #aiba by ,norman ,t4 ,a4 ,munder ,company4 ,reprinted by permission of the author4 ,do you know your ,a ,b ,c's8 ,each ,letter ,character ,has a ,history and a ,reason for ,its ,present ,form4 ,have you ,ever ,questioned the ,origin and ,significance of the ,alphabet8 ,our transition from barbarism to civilization can be attributed to the alphabet4 ,those great prehistoric discoveries and inventions such as the making of a fire1 the use of tools1 the wheel and the axle1 and even our modern marvelous applications of steam and electricity pale into insignificance when compared with the power of the alphabet4 ,simple as it now appears after the accustomed use of ages1 it can be accounted not only the most difficult1 but also the most fruitful of all the achievements of the human intellect4 ,man lived by bread alone and without the alphabet untold ages1 and with a practical alphabetic system not more than #c1jjj years4 ,so important and wonderful was this step deemed by those who lived nearer the time of its inception--in the time before the wonder of its extraordinary powers had been blunted by long possession and common use--that its invention1 as well as that of writing1 was invariably attributed to divine origin4 ,modern investigation always seeks sources other than mythological ones1 and thus the science of ancient hand-writing1 paleography1 came into existence4 ,in the last hundred and twenty-five years the writing of the ancient ,egyptians1 which was a sealed book for nearly twenty centuries1 has been deciphered through the efforts of ,champollion and ,young2 the mysterious cuneiform characters of ancient ,assyria and ,babylon have been interpreted by ,grotofend and ,rawlinson1 and the missing link to connect our present alphabetic system to these ancient ones is being partly completed by ,sir ,arthur ,evans1 who is compiling and analyzing ,cretan characters and pre-,phoenician writing4 ,the story1 however1 will probably never be told in its entirety4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the forms of our letters1 with the exception of ,g1 ,j1 ,u1 ,w1 reached their full development two thousand years ago4 ,the ,roman letter was the parent of all the styles notwithstanding the diversity that has appeared in ,europe since the beginning of the ,christian era4 ,with a little imagination it is not difficult to note the resemblance between similar letters of the old ,roman capitals and those following that have been designated as script1 ,italic1 ,old ,english or black-letter1 versal1 uncial and an endless list of alphabet families4 ,the desire for speed1 and the influence of the tool1 pen1 reed1 chisel1 brush1 were the determining factors in the change of form4 ,curiously enough instead of being archaic1 the ,roman alphabet1 which is now #b1jjj years old1 is still the most useful because of its legibility1 and also the most beautiful4 ,we derived twenty-three of our letters from the ,romans4 ,they had taken probably eighteen of these from the ,greeks about the fourth century ,b4,c4 and afterwards borrowed elsewhere or invented seven more4 ,instead of giving them names as the ,greeks did1 they simply called them by the sounds for which they stood3 ,a 7ah71 ,b 7bay74 ,they introduced the curve wherever possible1 whereas the early ,greek letters were all angular--what an interesting analogy is evident in the architecture of those two peoples1 the temple pediment and angularity of the ,greeks as contrasted with the dome and arch of the ,romans4 ,the ,greeks1 in their contact with those great traders and ,yankees of ancient time1 the ,phoenicians1 saw the value of their alphabetic writing and inaugurated its use about the time of the first ,olympiad1 #ggf ,b4,c4 ,three or four centuries before they gave it to the ,romans the ancient ,greeks found use for fifteen of the ,phoenician letters and then conceived enough to round out an alphabet of twenty-four characters4 ,the changes that took place in the shape of their letters can be attributed to their sense of order2 the letters are balanced better and the parts better related4 ,the ,greeks were interested in the sound value only1 not in the picture value of the symbol1 and1 therefore1 they probably did not notice that ,a1 for instance1 had ever been a picture of the head of an ox and that it was now drawn upside down2 and that the ,phoenician name ,aleph meant ox and that they mispronounced the sound in calling it ,alpha4 ,the ,romans borrowed from the ,greeks and the ,greeks had borrowed from the ,phoenicians1 but where did the ,phoenicians obtain their letters8 ,did they invent them8 ,to what extent were these letters influenced by earlier systems of writings as those employed by the ,cretan1 ,assyrian and ,egyptian civilizations8 ,these are questions that probably will never be answered satisfactorily4 ,many arguments and theories are advanced4 ,we can1 however1 trace back with certainty a number of our letters to the ,phoenician alphabet of #ajjj ,b4,c4 ,beyond this all is1 at present1 a matter of conjecture4 ,the ,phoenician alphabet consisted of twenty-two pictures of familiar objects4 ,these pictures were rudely and simply made1 for writers and readers soon recognized the fundamental characteristics and all unnecessary details were eliminated4 ,the great advance that can be credited to them is that they realized that a small number of sound-expressing characters1 if well selected1 are sufficient to express any word4 ,other races at this period had phonetic systems but they consisted of numerous symbols and cumbersome appendages of non-alphabetic characters--eye pictures side by side with ear pictures4 ,no doubt earlier ,phoenician writing passed through the stages of development traceable in so many countries3 #a4 ,the pictures or characters suggesting the thing or incident 7picture writing74 #b4 ,the pictures or characters symbolizing the thing or idea 7ideographic or symbolic writing74 #c4 ,the pictures or characters representing the sound of the thing or idea 7phonograms74 #d4 ,the sign suggesting the various sounds of the language 7alphabetic system74 ,to free this last stage from the others was the great ,phoenician contribution4 ,a ,why is ,a the first letter8 ,it represents one of the commonest vowel sounds in ancient languages4 ,naturally the ,phoenician alphabet makers selected a familiar object in the name of which this particular vowel sound was emphasized4 ,since food is of primal importance1 it is not surprising to find that he chose the ox--,alef 7ahlef71 or rather the head of the ox1 for the characteristics of animals are chiefly embodied in the head4 ,not only was the ox important as food but also as a beast of burden1 for the ox had been harnessed to the plow centuries before the horse was domesticated4 ,thus one of the earliest and most important of man's friends among the brute creatures was honored4 ,in making this letter repeatedly and rapidly they became careless and instead of crossing the letter ,v they tried to make it with one continuous scratching1 hence when the ,greeks became acquainted with it three to five centuries after its invention1 the picture had deteriorated almost beyond recognition4 ,they introduced balance and the ,v was inverted1 and the cross-bar was retained between the lines4 ,unknowingly they were drawing the ox head upside down2 and it remains so with us to this day4 ,the ,greeks called the first letter alpha1 the ,romans called it ,a 7ah7 and we call it ,a 7ay71 a sound it never possessed in ,latin4 ,b ,the second letter of the alphabet represents a crude house1 roughly outlined4 ,after food1 shelter is an important consideration and this fact was expressed by the early alphabet maker4 ,the ,greeks again were ignorant of the picture and careless or indifferent as to the exact name of the character1 and thus two triangles instead of the square supporting a triangle were made and the name changed from beth to beta 7bata74 ,combine the ,greek names for the first two letters and we have 7alphabeta7 alphabet4 ,the ,romans shortened the name beta1 calling it ,b 7bay7 and introduced the curved loops4 ,the original name is familiar to us through names found in the ,scriptures3 ,bethel 7house of ,god7 and ,bethlehem 7house of bread74 ,c-,g ,the ship of the desert1 the camel1 gave its name to the third letter4 ,our name for this animal is traceable back to the ,phoenician gimel 7ghemel7 or gamel 7gahmel74 ,the long neck and the peculiar angle of the neck in relation to the head could easily be represented4 ,the ,greeks made changes similar to those in other letters--they improved the shape and changed the name to gamma4 ,the ,romans did not forget the curve and gave it both the hard and soft sounds 7kay and gay74 ,later on1 about the third century ,a4,d4 to distinguish the g sound from the k sound they added a little bar below the opening4 ,thus we get both ,c and ,g from the picture of the camel4 ,stevenson said that when he was a child the capital ,g always impressed him as a genii swooping down to drink out of a handsome cup4 ,kipling's story of the invention of the alphabet is filled with similar delightful stories of the picture origin of letter forms4 ,d ,the next letter1 ,d1 came from a representation of a door--daleth 7dahleth74 ,it probably pictures the door of a tent4 ,a custom that prevails among the ,arabs and in a number of countries gave particular importance to the door of a tent--a stranger1 or even an enemy1 if he entered through the door of a tent must receive food1 drink and shelter4 ,daleth became delta with the ,greeks and ,d 7day7 with the ,romans1 who1 of course1 rounded the angle4 ,e ,the house picture gave us ,b1 the door1 ,d1 and the window1 ,e4 ,he 7hay7 meant to look1 to see1 or window1 and one writer asserts our familiar street cry hey1 there can be traced to these ancient times4 ,one side bar of the window was lost early4 ,the ,greeks at first used this sound for the long e 7epsilon7 but afterwards employed the character ,h or eta for the long sound4 ,the ,romans at first made no change except to call it eh4 ,this is the letter that occurs so frequently in ,english words1 and many no doubt recall the interesting use that ,poe makes of this fact in his story ,the ,gold ,bug4 ,f ,our letter order does not agree with that of the ,phoenicians or the early ,greeks4 ,our sixth letter1 ,f1 is missing in classical ,greek1 but it is found in earlier writings4 ,it comes from a ,phoenician representation of a hook or nail 787 vau4 ,the ,hebrew form resembles the latter object4 ,the nail was important in shipbuilding1 a common industry of the early traders4 ,when the ,greeks used this letter they called it digamma 7double gamma7 and its form represented one gamma 7,greek c7 superimposed over the other4 ,the ,romans called it ,f 7ef7 and during the reign of ,emperor ,claudius the consonant ,v was represented by the ,f inverted4 ,this was done because the ,latin alphabet had but one character to represent ,u and ,v and ,,octavia became ,,octa,,ia4 ,h ,two fence posts and three horizontal boards gave us our eighth letter1 ,h4 ,the fence was called cheth 7haith74 ,the ,greeks omitted the upper and lower boards thus making it like our ,h1 and called it eta 7ata74 ,the ,romans gave it a soft sound ,h 7hah7 just as we do today4 ,i-,j ,the parts of the human body also played an important part in giving form to the letters of the alphabet4 ,the early peoples recognized the value of the hand and the head and these members gave rise to the letters ,i and ,k1 and ,q and ,r respectively4 ,the hand in profile bent at the knuckles and wrist gives us the character yod 7the hand7 as used by the ,phoenicians4 ,the ,greeks1 who always liked to have their words end in vowels1 added a and called it ,iota 7e-ota74 ,when the ,romans received it1 it was simply a vertical stroke1 ,i 7ee7 which represented the same long e sound as it did with the ,greeks1 but later they used it both as a consonant and vowel1 differentiating the consonant by making the letter ,i longer1 ,j2 but they did not give a distinct letter form for the capital ,j until the sixteenth century4 ,the small j came into being nearly a century later4 ,the dot over the i was first introduced in a thirteenth century manuscript4 ,illustration3 ,genealogy of ,our ,letters from the ,phoenician ,alphabet #acjj ,b4,c4 ,until the #crd ,century ,b4,c4 the character c represented the sounds of both g and k when a slight modification of the character c was made for the g sound4 ,in a table of this sort1 dates1 forms1 and even meanings must be arbitrary4 ,for instance1 ,koph can be spelled ,goph or ,qoph2 ,he may have no meaning2 ,lamed 7,lamedh7 may mean teacher's rod2 ,samech 7,samekh7 may mean fish or fulcrum2 ,zayin may mean olive or balance4 ,k ,the silhouette of the open hand1 with its radiating lines1 discloses the origin of the letter ,k1 kaph1 which signified hollow or palm4 ,we know that palmistry was practiced by the ancients1 and probably the association of reading the hand and writing influenced the inclusion of this character4 ,the ,greeks added their favorite vowel sound1 a1 again and thus obtained their ,kappa4 ,the ,romans had no need for this letter at first1 as ,c furnished the same sound4 ,when they did accept it1 they made no change4 ,l ,the ox goad or whip lash1 lamed 7lahmed7 gave rise to the next letter4 ,herding oxen and sheep was the important occupation of the slaves of the ,phoenicians and hence the last1 an object so unfamiliar to us1 was easily recognized by them4 ,the ,greeks again added an a and called it lambda and made it in the form of an inverted ,v4 ,the ,romans1 strangely1 adhered more closely to the original form than did the ,greeks4 ,m-,n ,the ,phoenicians were lovers of the sea1 and from this source two letters were derived1 ,m and ,n4 ,they explored not only all of the ,mediterranean shore at an early date1 but they also sailed boldly through the gates of ,gibraltar1 and beyond the world where they found ,britain4 ,they were the first navigators that sailed by night and it is said they discovered the north star4 ,therefore it is not surprising that water mem 7maim7 is the source of ,m and that fish1 nun 7noon7 the source of ,n4 ,the letter ,m has changed but little in form1 it is the ,greek letter ,mu and the ,roman ,m 7em74 ,the head of the fish1 from which the letter ,n is pictured1 was simplified even more than the head of the ox1 in ,a4 ,it no doubt represents the fisherman's viewpoint--not a swimming fish but a suspended one4 ,the ,greeks reversed the stroke and called it ,nu and the ,romans did not change its form but called it ,n 7en74 ,o ,in ,phoenicia1 as in ,egypt1 ,china and ,mexico1 the eye is one of the commonest elements found in the writing4 ,it was called ,ayin 7ah-yin74 ,the ,greeks used it for two sounds now designated by ,omicron1 little o1 and omega1 great o1 the letter which1 strangely1 was placed at the end of the ,greek alphabet4 ,we find in the ,bible3 ,i am the ,alpha and the ,omega1 the beginning and the end1 the first and the last4 ,how many today would think of using the alphabet for such an important illustration8 ,it is easy to trace the ,roman ,o 7oh7 from its ,greek parent1 omicron4 ,p ,many letter pictures run in pairs--finger and hand1 water and fish--and now after eye we find mouth pi 7pe7 which represents the lower lip4 ,the ,greeks made little change in the name or shape at first1 but later they introduced the angles and made the downward strokes equal4 ,the ,romans formed the letter by continuing the curve farther than the ,phoenicians and called it pe 7pay74 ,q-,r ,now we come to ,q and ,r1 the letters which were mentioned above as those probably coming from the head4 ,whether ,q 7koph7 was derived from the picture of the back view of the head and neck1 or whether it represents a knot1 which1 no doubt1 was as important to navigators then as it is now1 is a mooted question4 ,the ,q sound is guttural and the tail of the letter is supposed to indicate the throat sound4 ,the ,greeks soon discarded koppa1 as it was called1 and the ,romans went back to the original source for their ,q 7koo74 ,the back view of the head is the unusual one1 for as we look at the drawing of the early races1 or memory pictures1 or the delineations of a child of seven or eight we find they are almost without exception profile pictures4 ,the ,phoenician resh represents the profile and shows very little resemblance to a human being1 although at first the features may have been more clearly indicated4 ,the ,greeks1 as was to be expected1 turned the letter around1 and later1 oddly enough1 introduced a curve making it exactly like the ,roman letter ,p4 ,the extra stroke which we find in the ,roman letter was no doubt due to the carelessness in copying4 ,they pronounced it ,r 7air74 ,s ,there is a common legend explaining ,s1 the letter with the hissing sound4 ,because of its curved shape and its hissing sound many people believe it to be derived from a snake4 ,its real history is easily followed from ,phoenician shin or sin 7teeth7 to the present day4 ,its form closely resembled our ,w4 ,the ,greeks made it perpendicular for their sigma and the ,romans simplified and curved it giving ,s 7ess74 ,t ,our twentieth letter1 ,t1 is particularly interesting because it is derived from tahv a mark or cross made by people who could not write1 and no doubt their signature frequently resembled it4 ,we must not forget that even ,charlemagne and other kings of the middle ages had to make their mark or trace their initials through stencil plates4 ,the only change of tahv to ,greek tau1 and to ,roman ,t 7tay7 was the raising of the cross-bar4 ,u-,v-,y ,the letters ,u1 ,v and ,y were all taken from the letter ,upsilon1 and it may have been derived from the queer ,hebrew form of ,ayin which closely resembles ,y4 ,the letters ,u and ,v were interchangeable4 ,upsilon1 known as the ,samian letter1 was used by ,pythagoras as an emblem to represent the parting of the ways--the young man making a choice in life4 ,w ,our ,anglo-,saxon forefathers contributed two letters1 ,w 7wen7 and another often confused with ,y1 called thorn4 ,these were introduced during the thirteenth century4 ,the ,french always called the former letter double vay1 and in ,english it may be said to represent double ,u1 as its name indicates4 ,the letter thorn had the value of the digraph th1 and ye in old ,english should be pronounced the like the definite article4 ,x-,z ,although we have no direct need for the letter ,x1 for ,z can be substituted for it when it is used as an initial letter1 and ks when used elsewhere1 it has remained in the alphabet since its frequent use by the ,greeks4 ,it came from the ,roman ,x 7eex7 which may have been derived from the ,greek ksi4 ,the latter resembles the ,phoenician character samech1 meaning a post or support4 ,the dagger zayin from which we obtain our ,z must have been important in the daily lives of the ,greeks1 ,hebrews and ,phoenicians for it occupies the sixth place 7,zeta7 and the seventh in the latter alphabets4 ,the ,romans did not change its name or shape1 but although there has been little change in #b1jjj years we see little resemblance to the short sword in the letter the ,romans gave to us4 99 99 99 99 99 ,many slight changes that have occurred in the formation of the letters of the alphabet may be accounted for4 ,at first the ,greeks wrote from left to right in one line and from right to left on the next line--a mode of writing which has been termed boustrophedon because it runs as an ox plow does in a field1 up one furrow and down another4 ,it is due to this fact that many letters were reversed from their original prototypes4 ,it is interesting to note that recently books for the blind have been embossed in this manner4 ,the small letters of the alphabet1 sometimes called lower case letters because printers keep them in a case below the capitals1 or minuscule letters in contrast with majuscule1 or capital letters1 illustrate further changes due to rapid writing of capitals in a cursive or running hand4 ,the few characters selected by the ,phoenicians1 the great traders1 artificers and farmers of the ancient world1 not only influenced ,greek literature and life1 ,roman and modern nations in ,europe1 but also spread eastward to the very walls of ,china4 ,the ,hebrews copied them as a whole and retained the original names with only slight variations4 ,they did change the shapes because a different writing instrument was employed4 ,according to a legend1 ,jehovah gave the letters to ,moses1 hence all the left curves in ,hebrew letter form turn upward--as symbols of a finger pointing heavenward4 ,the ,phoenician alphabet is also the parent of the ,arabic1 ,indian1 ,javanese1 ,corean1 ,tibetan1 ,coptic syllabaries and alphabets4 ,no small country ever gave such a great gift to humanity2 no large country could have given a greater gift4 ,,this ,,article ,,composed ,,in ,,janson ,,types1 ,,as ,,are ,,those ,,articles ,,following ,,for ,,which ,,no ,,other ,,type ,,face ,,is ,,indicated4 ,illustration,,lancelot ,,hogben,illustration ,printing1 ,paper and ,playing ,cards ,from ,cave ,painting to ,comic ,strip by ,lancelot ,hogben4 ,copyright #aidi by ,the ,chanticleer ,press4 ,reprinted in abridged form by permission of author and publisher4 ,twenty thousand years or more separate the way of life of the ,aurignacian hunters1 who contributed the first pictures to the modern symposium of human communications1 from the beginnings of settled community life and the beginnings of a priestly script4 ,fully three thousand years separate the way of life of the first ,semitic trading folk who had an alphabet from the vast expansion of knowledge which occurred in ,northern ,europe after the spread of printing from movable type during the half century before the voyages of ,columbus4 ,civilised mankind had to surmount many hurdles before it was possible to exploit to the fullest extent the considerable economy signalised by the introduction of alphabetic writing4 ,at first1 there were few people who had any use for the art of writing except as a convenience of commercial intercourse4 ,there was in fact no incentive to adapt the art of writing with letters to the flexible uses of daily speech4444 ,an age-long popular tradition of community singing and community dancing lies back of ,aeschylus1 ,euripides and ,aristophanes2 but it was one which could assume so novel an aspect only in the trading communities of the islands in the ,mediterranean1 where constant interchange of personnel promoted conditions less propitious to the dominance of a priestly class of avaricious landed proprietors than under the earlier dynasties of ,egypt and the near ,east4 ,thus and there1 at an early date1 a segment of tribal ritual crystallises as a secular pursuit2 and where there is a flourishing drama there is also a motive for writing1 equally aloof from association with the repetition of sacred texts or from the limited requirements of the counting-house4 ,there is1 in fact1 an incentive to write down what is more than a ceremonial password1 an epitaph or a bill of goods1 an incentive to record in writing what living people actually speak4 ,it is indeed a far cry from the ,greek drama to the free-and-easy visual speech of a modern novel or of a modern newspaper in the ,western world2 but we unduly belittle our too often overrated debt to ,greek civilisation1 if we fail to pay tribute to an innovation which entitles ,greek literature to rank as a cardinal contribution to the self-education of the human species4 ,to a far greater extent than the ,romans1 the ,greeks wrote about the life of their times with an intimacy and liveliness which foreshadows the adaptation of writing to all the familiar uses of speech4 ,for the ,latin which generations of schoolboys reluctantly construed in the grammar schools1 ,latin in the ,gladstone tradition1 was actually dead when committed to writing1 a language as remote from the common speech of the ,italian peninsula as the idiom of ,gertrude ,stein from that of the contemporary ,american household4 ,within the framework of ,greco-,latin society1 the written word became available to the more prosperous citizens on a scale unprecedented in the civilisations which had preceded them2 but there were still very few who read much or read often4 ,the spoken word was still the main instrument of instruction and of political persuasion4 ,even among those who could read1 there were still few who could also write4 ,there were in fact two formidable impediments alike to the use of the written word as a medium of instruction or of propaganda and to the availability of any considerable body of written matter for those with inclination and training in the art of reading4 ,needless to say1 one was the laborious nature of the only available means of multiplying the products of the pen1 when it was necessary to copy every script individually by hand2 and since this was a labour commonly entrusted to slaves1 deficiency in penmanship gave little affront to self-esteem among the still privileged few who could read with ease4 ,the other handicap was the writing surface itself1 often of its very nature inadaptable to free circulation and at best costly4 ,,paper is so much a part of every-day life that we too easily overlook the significance of writing material as a circumstance limiting the advancement of literacy4 ,it is on that account worthy of more than a single sentence4 ,the clay tablets of ,babylon and ,crete might serve the purpose of stocking a temple or a palace library2 but no household of modest size could have accommodated the contents of several issues of the ,new ,yorker1 if transcribed in the cuneiform tradition4 ,much the same may be said about the wax tablets in common use among the ,roman contemporaries of ,cicero4 ,indeed the advantage ,egyptian civilisation1 and thereafter the mainland ,greek1 ,alexandrian1 and late ,latin1 enjoyed from the use of papyrus is difficult to exaggerate4 ,papyrus consists of longitudinal ribbons of reed laid on a wet surface1 stuck with gum to an overlaying layer of similar strips at right angles1 dried in the sun and subsequently polished4 ,it has a double advantage over clay and wax4 ,it is not bulky1 and its smooth surface permits an easy cursive style of writing4 ,on the other hand1 its manufacture is tedious2 and it does not stand up to a moist climate4 ,long before printing began in ,europe--during the ,han dynasty in the first century ,a4,d4--the ,chinese had taken a lesson from the wasp1 which makes its nest by chewing vegetable fibre and pressing the moist suspension into a film of even thickness4 ,as a source of vegetable fibre1 the ,chinese used anything which came to hand3 old fishing nets1 worn-out rope and hemp1 macerating it in tubs before removing with a sieve the artificial detritus4 ,it is then possible to compress the latter to required thickness1 and the triturated fibres adhere when dry4 ,the ,mandarin had now material far superior to papyrus1 alike for copying or for storing the written word2 but he lacked the incentive to share the advantage of this invention with his underprivileged compatriots4 ,chinese literature received a new impetus2 but there were still few who could enjoy its benefits4444 ,the capture of ,samarkand by the ,arabs in ,a4,d4 #gej marks the date when paper starts on its trek to the as yet non-existent printing presses of ,europe4 ,the ,moslem invaders of ,spain and ,sicily brought it with them into the territories they conquered1 and with it a recipe for deriving the fibre basis from old rags4 ,for three centuries after its introduction to ,christendom1 somewhere about ,a4,d4 #abjj1 it had to compete with parchment or vellum made from stretched1 pressed and dried animal membranes4 ,what was probably decisive in establishing its supremacy was the spread of water mills in the two centuries before ,caxton4 ,power was necessary to speed up maceration of the raw material2 and we have record of paper mills in ,germany by ,a4,d4 #accf4 ,had it not been for this new tempo and economy of production of thin1 smooth and flexible material for the impress of the written word1 the vastly increased volume of written matter put into circulation by the printing press could not have come about4 ,as we all know1 printing from movable type began in ,europe about fifty-years before ,columbus set out on his first voyage2 but few of us reflect upon the dramatic speed with which the new trade spread from one city or one country to another4 ,a single leaf of a sibylline poem called the ,fragment of ,world ,judgment is supposedly the earliest extant product of the new technique1 probably issued about the year #adde from the press of ,gutenberg1 a master printer1 then resident in ,strasbourg4 ,from law-suit records we know that ,fust1 a goldsmith of ,mainz who financed ,gutenberg's earliest trials1 was printing there during the fifties2 and ,mc,murtrie1 author of ,the ,book1 states that the first dated piece of printing preserved to us appeared in #aded1 which is thus the earliest date that can be set beyond any speculation or controversy4 ,in that year four different issues of a papal indulgence appeared in printed form4 ,the occasion was historic4 ,constantinople had fallen to the ,turks the year before4 ,at the solicitation of the king of ,cyprus1 ,pope ,nicholas ,v granted indulgences to those of the faithful who should aid with gifts of money the campaign against the ,turks4 ,paulinus ,chappe1 as representative of the king of ,cyprus1 went to ,mainz to raise money of this cause4 ,ordinarily1 these indulgences would have been written out by hand1 but in this case1 as there were a considerable number to be distributed1 the aid of the new art of printing was enlisted1 and forms were printed with blank spaces left for filling the dates1 the names of the donors to whom they were issued1 and other details4 ,the new art turned out to be a double-edged weapon in the hands of papal authority4 ,a ,latin ,bible in two columns of forty-two lines to the page came out in #adef1 most probably1 according to ,mc,murtrie1 from the press of ,fust1 now in competition with ,gutenberg4 ,as early as #adgh1 a ,cologne master printer issued a ,bible in two different ,german dialects with well over a hundred illustrations4 ,there were #acc editions of it during the next fifty years4 ,to be sure1 a century was to elapse before printed ,bibles were available in the home tongue throughout ,germany1 ,britain1 ,scandinavia and the ,low ,countries2 but it was a disastrous step to make the poorer clergy ,bible-conscious4 ,within ten years of the issue of the ,indulgence mentioned above1 printing by movable type was going on in several ,german cities other than ,mainz and ,strasbourg4 ,german printers brought the art to ,rome in #adfg1 and two years later ,john of ,spire1 like ,fust a goldsmith1 had started work in ,venice4 ,in ,switzerland1 says ,mc,murtrie1 it seems likely that the first printing office in ,basle began work about #adfg4 ,printing in ,paris starts about a year later4 ,in #adfi1 ,caxton1 a ,kentishman1 who had occupied consular status to the ,english ,merchant ,adventurers at ,bruges1 began translating into his own tongue for the press the ,recuyell of the ,histories of ,troye1 printed there in #adge4 ,a year later1 he returned to ,england1 set up business with ,colard ,mansion in the ,almonry near ,westminster ,abbey1 and from that office produced ,the ,dictes or ,sayengis of the ,philosophers4 ,this1 states ,mc,murtrie1 was the first dated book printed in ,england1 the ,epilogue being dated #adgg and in one copy ,november #ah4 ,though this was the first dated book1 it was not certainly the first issue of the press1 ,caxton's translation of ,jason and a few other publications of slight extent having probably preceded it4 ,within twenty years from the start1 on the threshold of the discovery of the ,new ,world1 printing from movable type is thus in full swing throughout ,europe4 ,the speedy and consequent intellectual ferment is an oft-told tale1 scarcely worth further comment1 if it were not too customary to dwell on the alleged impact on natural knowledge1 as on biblical criticism and political theory1 of ,greek scholarship imported into ,europe by ,byzantine immigrants in flight from the victorious ,turks4 ,the fact is that the positive outcome of ,alexandrian mathematics1 astronomy1 medicine and mechanics had long ago penetrated north-western ,europe through visits of students to the ,moorish universities in ,spain1 where positive knowledge had attained a higher level than ever before through the marriage of ,alexandrian science to ,hindu number-lore4 ,equally indisputable is the fact that the universities of ,toledo1 ,cordova and ,seville were midwives of the cartography which ,jewish pilots put at the service of ,henry the ,navigator4 ,that the new technique of printing made available for the great explorations of the fifteenth century a new scientific amenity for which there was a pre-existing and insistent demand is evident from the mounting number of nautical almanacks published between ,gutenberg's first productions and the project of ,columbus4 ,soon there were to follow manuals of military science propounding problems of ballistics created by the introduction of gunpowder into warfare--like paper1 from ,chinese sources by way of the ,moslem world4 ,why monks1 such as ,adelard of ,bath1 should disguise themselves as ,moslems to study in the ,moorish universities during the twelfth century is easy to understand4 ,the ,church had assumed the responsibilities of the ancient priesthoods as custodians of the calendar1 and hence of astronomical lore1 when ,christianity became the official religion of the ,roman ,empire4 ,as founders of hospitals in conformity with the beatitude of the sick visitor1 they were prohibited from active participation in the advancement of medicine as a science by ,papal bulls against dissection of the human body1 but on that account the more well-disposed to ,jewish missionaries of the ,moorish culture1 when the latter set up schools of medicine on the campuses of the mediaeval universities4444 ,that ,ionian scientific speculations exerted a salutary influence on ,newtonian science1 when the atomic concept invaded modern ,european thought after the seventeenth-century translations of ,gassendi and others1 is not open to dispute4 ,nor need we rob the fugitive scholars of ,constantinople of the credit for playing a minor part in this climax off-stage2 but the efflorescence of science in the seventeenth century was the immediate consequence of technological advances made in the preceding century1 and put into circulation through a commercial undertaking which had to sell science to a reading public of master pilots1 mining engineers1 artillery commanders and spectacle-makers before naturalistic science had paid its way into university cloisters under a more accommodating sobriquet as natural philosophy4 ,with this overdue obituary on the immigrants from the fall of ,constantinople in the year preceding the first dated product of the new printing technique let us leave them2 and again get into focus the astonishing speed of its spread in an age when the craft guilds jealously guarded their secrets4 ,here is a technical revolution of the first magnitude at a time when technical innovations diffused leisurely against menacing obstacles of custom thought and of legal sanctions4 ,as such1 its tempo is a challenge to curiosity2 and part of the answer to the enigma is that there was already a flourishing craft of printing to take advantage of the economy of movable type1 when ,gutenberg and ,fust began their partnership4 ,again1 we must pause to pay a debt of gratitude to ,china1 and to civilisations far older than the ,chinese4 ,we have seen that the seal is the oldest form of signature2 and that all our knowledge of one of the earliest literatures of the world comes from clay tablets on which the ,sumerian priesthoods engraved their sign-language with a punch to which it owes the characteristic style called cuneiform4 ,the same impulse to impose the signature of a sky-sign on the clay tablet had led men to impress symbols of ownership or good omen on the soft clay products of the potter's wheel before the baking began4 ,a stamp is1 after all1 a seal to carry a pigment2 and the practice of stamping pottery with coloured patterns is of great antiquity4 ,the next step is intelligible in its own territory4 ,in ,china1 whence the silkworm made its lethargic way across the great trade routes of ,asia1 stamping patterns on silk was probably a practice before the ,christian era began2 and it was ,china which produced the first paper4 ,probably about ,a4,d4 #gjj1 though it may well be earlier1 the practice of stamping charms by wood blocks on paper began there4 ,in ,a4,d4 #gfg the ,empress ,shotoku of ,japan ordered a million ,buddhist charms to be printed from wood blocks on paper for placing in miniature pagodas4 ,the ,chinese predilection for games such as ,mah ,jongg is an ancient tradition2 and an early use of block printing--long before it came into ,europe--is the production of sheet dice or1 as we should say1 playing cards4 ,as charms--pictures of saints--and as playing cards1 wood-block printing established a market in ,europe at least a century before ,gutenberg's ,bible4 ,fortunately1 we know some facts about this1 as often by a happy dispensation4 ,for the age-long obstruction of the legal mind to progress conspires with its obsessional drive to record its own ineptitudes and us to perpetuate milestones of progress by the resistance it offers to innovation4 ,thus we have the record of a prohibition issued by the ,provost of ,paris in ,a4,d4 #acig against working men playing cards on working days2 and there were many such prohibitions in ,german towns about this time4 ,we have also originals of contemporaneous wood-block prints portraying saints for sale at shrines by travelling pedlars and palmers1 encouraged to foregather by papal indulgences for the pilgrims4 ,like ,snap and other children's card games of today1 the first playing cards were wholly pictorial1 in suits exhibiting the feudal hierarchy1 starting with the king and queen4 ,the joker is a relic4 ,sometimes1 the wood block of the picture card accommodated a title or epithet1 and often the ,heiligen1 or shrine charms promoted by the clergy as an antidote to the carnal indulgence of card-playing1 would carry the name of the saint4 ,either way1 the next step was inevitable4 ,we are now in sight of printing as a medium for the rapid circulation of knowledge2 but we have to take stock of several features of the folk ways of ,europe in the ,middle ,ages before we take the next hurdle4 ,when we reach the threshold of the fifteenth century1 writing is no longer the prerogative of a priestly caste4 ,there are merchants with big balances in the wool trade1 the herring trade and the spice trade4 ,there are pilots who have to rely on their rutter books to navigate cargoes of the spice trade over long ocean routes4 ,there is a mounting volume of manorial accountancy and litigation connected with the exchange of produce between the countryside and the boroughs where master-craftsmen and merchants are now aspiring to domestic conveniences heretofore inaccessible to the landed gentry4 ,all this signifies the pre-existence of considerable semi-literate personnel to provide a market for the products of ,gutenberg's trade4 ,it is necessary to say this1 because school history too often exhibits the ,church and the ,law as the custodians of literacy4 ,what is true is that the monks1 and to a less extent the lawyers1 were the only people who had time to write at length during the century we have now reached4 ,the lawyers we may leave to their own sadistic pursuits4444 ,the ,church deserves kinder consideration1 even if the ,church had outstayed its welcome4 ,for ,catholicism kept alive the lucidity of picture-language in an age when a new technique of illustration offered the only means of grace to the few men who saw the light of science through a miasma of verbal puns4 ,in short1 we are here talking of the ,missals1 a form of sacred art with a charm to which even a hard-boiled technician such as the writer is not entirely indifferent4 ,there is a pathetic earnestness about the tender care with which the monks illuminated their copies of devotional texts1 and one which established what we may fairly call the first experiment in visual education for the people4 ,the monks who made the missals offered a helping hand to the new industry4 ,to be sure1 we read a lot of rubbish written about what we owe to them2 but they did one thing of enduring value besides starting hospitals and nursing the spectacle trade for the benefit of poor blind men4 ,they made block-books possible4 ,in the admirable book already cited1 this is what ,mc,murtrie has to say about their contribution3 ,there is 444 one exceedingly primitive block book1 the ,exercitium super ,pater ,noster1 in which the illustrations are printed from woodcuts and the text added in manuscript4444 ,the costume is that of the ,burgundian court of the second quarter of the century1 and this feature1 in conjunction with the technique of design and cutting led ,hind to date the book about #adcj and hardly later than #addj4 ,there is still argument about whether devotional block-books with both illustrations and text produced from fixed blocks antedated or synchronised with printing from movable type2 but it seems fairly certain that block-books were in circulation before the wastefulness of cutting the same letter over and over again on the same block occurred to ,gutenberg1 and likely enough to many others4 ,the issue is of academic interest only4 ,what we can say certainly is that the printers of playing cards and of ,heiligen were already involved in the book industry before it occurred to anyone to make punches and dies for letters of the alphabet in order to dispense with the necessity of repeatedly carving the same sign on a composite block4 ,metal-founders of the thirteenth century already knew the art of using stamps with single letters in relief to make an impress on fine sand for molten metal when making inscriptions1 themselves to appear in relief on the finished casting4 ,in bell foundries1 among craftsmen who made pewter vessels with inscriptions1 in the minting of coin and the casting of medals1 the use of metal single-letter punches and dies was also commonplace4 ,in short1 there is already in existence an industry of master printers when the record of ,gutenberg's law-suit bequeaths the first documentary evidence of printing as we use the term today--moreover an industry working in close contact with ancillary crafts which had already solved the technical problems on whose solution printing on a larger scale at less cost was attendant4 ,there is a market for books1 with richer profits if the printer can solve the technical problem of outsmarting the monks in the art of making the first copy1 as he can already outsmart them by reproducing the first copy without limit4 ,in one sense1 we now have a press4 ,still1 we have not explained the phenomenal rapidity with which the new technique of cutting stamps to make up a frame of continuous type spread throughout ,europe1 unless we look at our period in its social entirety2 and if we are to do so we must take stock of many things which were not happening in ,china1 the parent civilisation of the printing art4 ,one of them is sufficiently obvious to be easily overlooked in an age of central heating4 ,europe1 as post-war ,american tourists will agree1 is rather cold and rather cloudy4 ,that is why it is important to bring glass into the picture4 ,,glass is an invention of great antiquity1 being in fact an early ,egyptian amenity2 but the very qualities we admire in the iridescent glass of ,etruscan or ,roman vessels make it equally unsuitable to the uses of domestic life or to the science of gas or temperature measurement4 ,before you have leisure to read1 in the chilly north of the ,hanseatic ,league or the ,flemish wool trade1 you must have a technique of house design utterly different from what meets your requirements in the sunny south of ,greece and ,italy1 ,crete or ,egypt4 ,it is therefore relevant that there is now1 in the fifteenth century1 a prosperous burgher class with houses equipped with windows made of glass1 glass of poor quality by our standards but vastly better fitted to its principal use than the glass of antiquity4 ,nor is it irrelevant that spectacles are now coming into use for the old folk who have time on their hands4 ,the very fact that we now have windows brings into focus that we have an emergent class of semi-literate and relatively prosperous merchants and craftsmen1 a class which is beginning to send its sons to grammar schools to get a smattering of reading and of the art of cyphers4 ,this consideration prompts reflection upon the almost ubiquitous association of the goldsmith as the patron1 partner or financier of the earliest master printers of books4 ,there is now a wealthy craft of jewellers and armourers skilled in the art of using punches and dies to make patterns in relief on a metal surface1 with a secure trade among the nobles and the wealthier merchants2 and there are already the beginnings of a new trade in pictorial reproduction fostered by artists seeking patrons among them4 ,before printing by movable type begins1 the wood-block illustration is competing with a better technique4 ,instead of smearing a sticky ink on a raised surface1 it is now possible to achieve the same end by filling the crevices in a metal plate wiped clean2 and who should be more concerned with promoting the use of pictorial reproduction by engraving than goldsmith and jeweller well versed in the uses of impressing a pattern in relief or intaglio8 ,what is happening in the fifteenth century is not the outcropping of inborn genius4 ,contrariwise1 we should regard it as the confluence of a large number of new techniques1 individually of little import to human advancement1 collectively with a new momentum4 ,nor need we pride ourselves on the fact that ,european civilisation proved equal to exploiting to greater advantage what it had thanklessly received from the ,eastern world4 ,paul ,pelliot has discovered wooden types attributed to ,wang ,cheng in the beginning of the fourteenth century1 well over a hundred years before the first dated printing from movable type in ,germany2 and if this invention came to nothing1 have we far to seek the explanation8 ,with twenty-six pigeonholes for a box of letter type at his elbow1 the ,european compositor of the fifteenth century enjoys an immeasurable advantage over his fourteenth-century fellow craftsman who has to manipulate several thousand ,chinese characters4 ,korea took up movable type1 probably through ,chinese influence1 about fifty years before ,europe4 ,no intelligent ,anglo-,american needs to be told at length how printing contributed to the diffusion of knowledge previously transmitted by oral tradition1 how much more the master printers and book-makers from ,gutenberg to ,benjamin ,franklin contributed to the making of our language habits than all the professors of their time1 how much the trade in reading matter contributed to the great enlightenment of the four centuries which followed1 how it also contributed to the liberation of ,christendom from papal authority1 what it bestowed on the age of ,galileo and ,newton1 how it catalysed man's thought about human dignity and fundamental human rights4 ,what we are prone to forget is how much water had to pass under the bridges before the homeland of ,caxton or that of ,franklin could assert the ability to read and to transcribe the written word as the birthright of every citizen4 ,in ,north ,america and in ,northwestern ,europe1 literacy is today a medical diagnosis4 ,that a person cannot read or write is now a sufficient criterion of mental defect2 and this is so in a sense which would have been utterly false of ,britain or the ,united ,states alike when ,charles ,dickens wrote an uncharitable record of his transatlantic itinerary4 ,until the middle of the nineteenth century there was everywhere a large underprivileged class cut off from the possession of books and without the incentive to purchase reading matter4444 ,by attaching a cast of the hand-set type to cylinders it was possible to take advantage of the introduction of steam power with considerable economy of time entailed in running off the printed sheet2 but it was impossible to reap the harvest of this economy while it was still necessary to set type by manual extraction from a box of each die for a letter1 cypher or punctuation mark4 ,also1 the manufacturer of paper from rag was a relatively costly process by modern standards2 and the discovery of a cheaper source of raw material was a precondition of expanding trade in the printed word4 ,rag1 be it said1 is simply woven fibre of cotton or flax2 and any vegetable fibre is good enough for the work of the wasp4 ,it was therefore a great advance1 when it was possible to use the by-products of the lumber camps for paper manufacture4 ,wood pulp as a source of paper came into its own in the eighties1 though its use goes back to a ,german patent about #ahdj4 ,in #aheg ,routledge had introduced1 as an alternative source of raw material1 esparto grass from ,spain and ,north ,africa2 and there had been notable advances in the mechanics of paper production during the preceding fifty years4 ,in #ahjc the ,french printer ,didot brought into ,england a device which took advantage of steam power by running wet pulp on to a moving1 endless belt of wire mesh through which the water drained off4 ,it could run off in a day six miles of paper of uniform width4 ,in #ahba ,crompton invented the process of drying by steam-heated rollers4 ,between #ahjc and #ahae ,knig in ,germany and ,cowper in ,britain had perfected power-driven machinery for printing off a continuous roll of paper from cylinders carrying the type cast4 ,the four-cylinder machine patented by ,cowper and ,applegarth in #ahbg ran off #e1jjj sheets per hour of the ,london ,times simultaneously printed on both sides4 ,the ,walter ,rotary of #ahff appears to have been the first cylinder machine to print on both sides of an unwinding roll of paper with a power-driven mechanism to cut the sheets1 previously fed to the machine by hand4 ,by that time a cheaper source of paper was available4 ,the advent of cheap paper accommodated the purchase of reading matter to the purse of the poorer classes in the community2 but it did not bring into their lives a daily stimulus to read4 ,while type-setting remained a manual operation1 the maintenance of a daily press was beset by many difficulties and possible only because it did not as yet aspire to the topical immediacy which could coax a large semi-literate section of the population into the habit of daily reading4 ,what made possible a truly popular press was an invention thus described by ,mc,murtrie3 ,setting extensive manuscripts by hand is1 of course1 a very slow and laborious process1 and as the printing industry grew in extent and importance it was only natural that efforts should be made to devise a means of setting type mechanically at greater speed and less cost4444 ,the failures were myriad4 ,all efforts to take the foundry type used by the compositor and set it up mechanically came to naught4 ,finally1 however1 ,ottmar ,mergenthaler invented a machine which1 by the action of a keyboard somewhat resembling that of a type-writer1 assembled not type but matrices and1 when a whole line was set and spaced1 cast this line in one piece1 or slug1 of type metal4 ,this machine1 which was first put into practical use in #ahhf1 and appropriately christened a linotype1 gave a revolutionary impetus to the printing industry 444 as with all new inventions of importance it was expected that thousands of compositors would be thrown out of work4 ,but1 again as usual1 the industry grew so fast that more men were employed than before4 ,this device is not the only machine which sets type4 ,on its heels came the monotype which employs the pianola principle for power transmission and is for some purposes preferable4 ,the technical advantages of one or the other are irrelevant to our theme4 ,what makes printing by linotype an outstanding achievement of nineteenth-century technology is that it permits type-setting to keep pace with the tempo of topical affairs at a time when a railroad schedule co-ordinated by telegraphy has made man minute-conscious for the first time in history4 ,it is at once a new goad to the new social discipline of punctuality and a new means of satisfying an appetite for sensation among a section of the population not as yet attuned to habitual reading4444 ,that the ,moslem world of ,omar ,khayyam and ,alkarismi transmitted so many of the benefits of ,chinese civilisation to the ,west1 reaping themselves no advantage from the invention of printing1 illustrates a truth which ,marxist dogma ignores4 ,fruitful innovation is1 as the ,marxist rightly asserts1 the result of interplay between human needs and natural resources2 but the triple formula of means1 motive and opportunity suffices to account for the vagaries of man's history only if we recognise the inherent inertia of human motivation4 ,beliefs do not come from heaven2 but they have a remarkable tenacity in the teeth of worldly profit1 a tenacity forcefully illustrated by two facets of the ,moslem creed4 ,in the racy1 though none the less scholarly1 account of the history of printing already cited several times in this chapter1 ,mc,murtrie states3 ,the ,koran forbade games of chance4444 ,the ,koran had been given to the ,moslems in written form1 and writing1 therefore1 was the only means by which it might ever be transmitted4 ,to this day the ,koran has never been printed from type in any ,mohammedan country2 it is always reproduced by lithography4 ,one consequence of this is that ,moslem countries1 and ,african communities which have received their script from ,moslem missionaries1 suffer from the educational disability of a cursive style which is ill-suited to easy reading4 ,if we are tempted to ascribe this to defective hereditary equipment of peoples whose culture was the inspiration of ,europe in the ,middle ,ages1 we may well reflect with moral and intellectual benefit to ourselves on the complacency with which western scholars disown the constructive tasks of language-planning at a time when scientific journals embodying new discoveries are appearing in twenty or more languages4 ,statistics which convey a clear picture of the mounting volume of printed matter issued annually during the four centuries of ,european printing are hard to come by4 ,the number of editions printed in ,england increased from #ac in #aeaj to #bai in #aehj1 to about #fjj a year in the first two decades of the nineteenth century and #ab1cgi in #aiac4 ,unhappily1 an edition is a grossly misleading index of production1 even of new books4 ,what we call a modern best seller signifies a first edition of over #be1jjj copies4 ,in the fifteenth century1 the average edition was about #cjj copies4 ,till the middle of the eighteenth1 an edition rarely exceeded #fjj2 but there were notable exceptions4 ,there were #cd editions of the ,adagia of ,erasmus1 each of a thousand copies1 in the first few decades of the sixteenth century1 and #bd1jjj copies of his ,colloquia ,familiaria came out in the same author's lifetime4 ,of ,luther's tract ,to the ,christian ,nobility #d1jjj copies were sold within five days4 ,the ,bible ,society1 founded in #agaa by ,baron von ,canstein in ,halle1 printed within a short space of time #cdj1jjj copies of the ,new ,testament and #dhj1jjj copies of the ,scriptures as a whole4 ,the ,british and ,foreign ,bible ,society1 founded in #ahjd by ,thomas ,charles of ,bala as an incident in his crusade against ,welsh illiteracy1 was responsible for the issue of #bcg million copies in the three decades #aijj-aicj4444 99 99 99 99 99 ,so far1 we have taken no cognisance of the formative role of the master printer vis--vis the culture of contemporary western civilisation4 ,we shall now try to get into focus the consequences of something quite new in the history of our species1 the emergence of a social personnel with a vested interest in the enlightenment of mankind4 ,of such was the inventor of the first saleable electrical device1 the originator of the very names positive and negative in their now most common technical context1 a man who rendered signal service for his country at the court of ,france and put his signature to the ,declaration of ,independence1 the man whose last will and testament begins ,i1 ,benjamin ,franklin1 ,printer4444 ,at first1 the master printer was also a publisher1 till the trade began to expand a book-seller as well1 and sometimes1 like ,caxton1 translator or author4 ,nor is it surprising that printing and bookselling still preserve the professional outlook of the mediaeval craftsman far more than any other contemporary commercial undertaking1 with mores peculiar to themselves4 ,today1 as throughout the past four centuries1 there is still a place for the small-scale high-quality firm in printing1 publishing or bookselling alike4 ,throughout the five centuries of printing from movable type the small proprietor has ever been the ally of novel thought2 and the book trade still thrives on the free expression of views which are anathema to big business1 oil politicians and ,wall ,street tycoons4 ,to say this is not to say that every publisher1 every partner in a printing firm or every back-street book-seller is in the vanguard of liberal sentiment and fertile cerebration2 but to be blind to their contribution to our common culture is to be blind to one of the burning issues of our age4 ,even to say that the publisher1 the printer or the book-seller is always ahead of his business colleagues in joining the bandwagon of progress is to dispel a miasma of moral indignation which distorts our view of a decision contemporary man has to make wisely or incur the prospect of a dark age of superstition and authority4444 ,illustration3 ,colophons4 ,ruth ,s4 ,granniss ,copyright #aicj by ,the ,colophon4 ,reprinted by permission of the author4 ,the late printer-scholar1 ,theodore ,low ,de ,vinne1 was wont to exclaim with regret over a puzzling bookish question1 ,alas1 bibliography is not an exact science6 ,since his day1 what with the learned publications of bibliographical societies 7first and foremost--that of ,england71 with such scholarly independent productions as ,ronald ,b4 ,mc,kerrow's ,introduction to ,bibliography and some of its followers1 and with such undertakings as the ,gesamtkatalog der ,wiegendrucke--not to speak of the many masterly library catalogues and bibliographies which these late years have brought us--we are almost tempted to reverse his dictum4 ,we have all these1 added to the wealth of pioneer writings of book-lovers like ,richard de ,bury1 ,gabriel ,naude1 ,guillaume ,franois ,de ,bure1 ,gabriel ,peignot1 ,thomas ,frognall ,dibdin1 and the more scientific but no more 7nor less7 book-loving ,panzer1 ,hain1 ,brunet1 ,renouard1 ,bradshaw1 ,haebler1 ,proctor1 ,claudin1 and our own ,wilberforce ,eames4 ,we pause for breath1 but have only picked a few random names from the long roll of those who have loved and worked for the arts that go into the making1 and the science that goes into the understanding of a printed book--the vehicle which must continue to preserve and to carry down through the ages the results of men's thoughts and the records of their deeds4 ,all this is as it should be1 but of late1 and especially in connection with the present vogue for collecting the works of living authors1 a certain quality 7shall we call it self-consciousness7 has crept in1 an undue stressing of small technicalities1 and we blush to confess a confused feeling of sympathy for the modern book-hunter1 who is having so much of his fun taken away from him by neat little textbooks and articles1 bristling with allusions to points1 right copies1 firsts and the like 7with the inevitable quotation marks7 and filled with weighty questions of dollars and pounds--the seemingly all-important matter of the investment value of our treasures4 ,this surely is not the fine frenzy which possessed ,charles ,lamb when he wrote3 ,do you remember the brown suit which you made to hang upon you1 till all your friends cried ',shame upon you6' ,it grew so threadbare--and all because of that folio ',beaumont and ,fletcher1' which you dragged home late at night from ,barker's in ,covent ,garden4 ,do you remember how we eyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase1 and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock of the ,saturday night1 when you set off from ,islington1 fearing you should be too late4 ,and when the old book-seller with some grumbling opened his shop1 and by the twinkling taper 7for he was setting bedwards71 lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures1 and when you lugged it home1 wishing it were twice as cumbersome1 and when you presented it to me1 and when we were exploring the perfectness of it 7collating you called it71 and while ,i was repairing some of the loose leaves with paste1 which your impatience would not suffer to be left till daybreak--was there no pleasure in being a poor man6 ,where there is much smoke1 however1 there is fire1 and it is assuredly good that this interest in bibliographical things should have swept the country1 and incidentally that the joys of the bibliomaniac and the bibliophile are being experienced today by many more than the elect few of the past1 on whom we love to dwell4 ,but if we moderns are doomed to buy our first editions ready labelled and to have our equations worked out in advance1 if a fine copy must be termed immaculate and the back of a book must be its spine1 etc41 etc41 ad infinitum1 let us start with the right premises1 and hold on to the terms which were proverbial before we were born4 ,which brings us to our point--,what is a ,colophon8 ,the question would seem a reflection upon the intelligence of the average book-lover1 at this late day1 were it not that there seems to be a growing tendency1 shared 7even instigated7 by lexicographers1 to mis-define the word1 or to use it out of its truly bibliographical and philological meaning4 ,to book-lovers and collectors of even the preceding generation1 acquainted as they were with the niceties of their vocation1 or avocation1 the suggestion of more than one signification would have seemed well-nigh an insult4 ,perhaps it is even because we are living in this late day that heresies have crept in4 ,after all1 it is nearly a quarter of a century since the ,caxton ,club of ,chicago brought out ,an ,essay on ,colophons1 by ,dr4 ,alfred ,w4 ,pollard1 later ,keeper of ,printed ,books at the ,british ,museum1 whose word on all bibliographical matters carries the highest authority--the ,club thereby performing one of those great services to students of bibliography for which it and similar institutions are acclaimed by an appreciative1 if limited1 circle4 ,perhaps the very limits of the circle are accountable for lack of knowledge1 and it may be that a book1 printed nearly twenty-five years ago in an edition of some two hundred and fifty copies1 may never have come within the ken of a writer on bookish things today--even of an earnest one4 ,but that is just where our quarrel begins--ought anyone to write on colophons1 or on anything else1 without some knowledge of at least the chief literature of the subject1 and should the next man1 and the next1 be allowed to hand on an error1 or perhaps a misconception1 without a thought of the original sources of information8 ,for that is just what has been happening in ,america in this matter1 and what it seems must also be occurring in greater ones4 ,there is plenty of thorough scholarship here1 scholarship that shrinks from no drudgery--then why is it that so much hasty1 slipshod work is allowed to pass8 ,but we were speaking of colophons--a word which1 to many people who trouble with it at all1 seems to mean almost anything1--for instance the mark or device of a printer or publishing firm1 placed anywhere at random in a book1 possibly bearing a motto or a name4 ,indeed1 this is the signification which has frequently been given to it of late in print and in common speech by people who should have known better1 and whom a little thought or a little more research would have taught better4 ,for instance1 a publisher's assistant suggested that a given place upon the title page is the proper location for the colophon2 a librarian wrote to request a copy of the colophon of the ,grolier ,club to add to a collection2 a book-trade magazine issued an article on devices or trade-marks of publishers of today1 appearing on the title pages of their publications1 and dubbed them all colophons2 a college professor used the term in like manner2 and all this occurred within a period of a few months4 ,the only protest to be raised in print seems to be that of ,leonard ,l4 ,mackall1 in his dependable ,notes for ,bibliophiles1 a department of the ,herald ,tribune's ,sunday magazine1 ,books4 ,in the issue of ,march #ag1 #aibi1 he wrote3 ,right here we must call special attention to the fact that1 some modern ignorant or careless misuse to the contrary1 notwithstanding1 a colophon is not really a colophon at all unless it appears at the end of the book4 ,most certainly the word does not properly mean merely a publisher's device wherever used1 as stated in a recent anonymous illustrated article4 ,no one has heeded him1 however1 and my own like-minded objections were met with the advice to look in the dictionary1 and then the blow fell6 ,it is true that some dictionaries1 but by no means all1 countenance this usage of colophon as a device upon a title page4 ,before quoting their definitions1 let us look at the ,oxford ,english ,dictionary1 where we find3 #a4 ,finishing stroke2 crowning touch1 obs4 #b4 ,the inscription or device1 sometimes pictorial or emblematic1 formerly placed at the end of a book or manuscript1 and containing the title1 the scribe's or printer's name1 date and place of printing1 etc4 ,hence1 from title page to colophon4 ,it may be noted that1 of the various examples 7#aggd-ahgd7 quoted by the ,oxford ,english ,dictionary1 not one refers to the colophon as placed elsewhere than at the end of the book4 ,our ,century ,dictionary is sound on the subject1 but we have in ,funk ,wagnalls' ,standard ,dictionary3 #a4 ,an inscription or other device formerly placed at the end of books and writings1 often showing the title1 writer's or printer's name and date and place of printing4 #b4 ,an emblematic device adopted by a publisher and impressed on his books1 usually on the title page of each volume 7accompanied by an illustration of the printer's mark of ,nicolas ,jenson1 inscribed3 ,colophon of ,nicolas ,jenson #adha74 ,the phrase usually on the title page 7not in the ,oxford ,english ,dictionary7 seems to us absolutely wrong1 and not to be countenanced for a moment by bookmen who have proper regard for the correct usage of words4 ,the corresponding definition in late editions of ,webster's ,dictionary is3 ,an emblem1 usually a device assumed by the publishing-house1 placed either on the title page1 or at the end of a book4 ,in what subtle way this secondary and inadequate definition has crept into ,american usage we do not know1 and we plead earnestly for its abandonment4 ,in the encyclopedias consulted1 there is nothing disturbing1 the definition of the ,encyclopaedia ,britannica1 written by ,dr4 ,pollard1 being especially clear and concise4 ,it runs in part as follows3 444 a final paragraph in some manuscripts and many early printed books1 giving particulars as to authorship1 date and place of production1 and sometimes expressing the thankfulness of the author1 scribe or printer on the completion of his task 444 the importance of these final paragraphs slowly diminished1 and the information they gave was gradually transferred to the title page4 ,complete title pages bearing the date and name of the publishers are found in most books printed after #aebj1 and the final paragraph1 if retained at all1 was gradually reduced to information as to the printer and date4 ,from the use of the word in the sense of a finishing stroke 7from the story that the final charge of the cavalry of ,colophon was always decisive7 such a final paragraph as has been described is called by bibliographers a colophon1 but this name for it is quite possibly not earlier than the eighteenth century4 ,let us turn from general works to those specifically bibliographical4 ,in his ,introduction to ,bibliography1#b ,dr4 ,mc,kerrow writes3 ,in the early days of printing1 the end of the book was the normal place for the printer's name and the place and date of printing to appear4 ,the history of the colophon is merely that of the gradual transference of this information to the title page4 ,when this was complete the colophon was as a rule of no use and it was abandoned4 ,later1 among his cataloguing instructions we find3 ,a colophon should always be noticed1 if there is one4 ,it is also1 ,i think1 desirable to record the occurrence of a printer's device 7even without a verbal imprint7 at the end of a book1 as this often appears to take the place of a colophon4 ,iolo ,williams' ,elements of ,book-,collecting#c contains this paragraph3 ,in the earliest printed books the title page's functions were performed by the colophon1 a word which is a transliteration of the ,greek1 a summit or finishing stroke4 ,the colophon is put1 not near the beginning of the book1 like the title page1 but at the end1 and it usually takes the form of a statement that here ends such-and-such a book1 written by so-and-so1 printed by so-and-so at such-and-such a place and date4 ,the use of the colophon has been revived in certain finely-printed modern books1 but such modern volumes usually contain both a title page and a colophon4 ,though not quite as satisfying1 the following allusion in ,van ,hoesen and ,walter's ,bibliography#d should be quoted1 as occurring in a modern ,american treatise on the subject3 ,the early printers used the colophon at the end of the book instead of a title page1 and the colophon is still used to indicate the printing firm in cases where it is not part of the publishing firm given on the title page4 ,these are the latest printed words that we have noticed4 ,suffice it to say that we have nowhere found in earlier important manuals anything but the 7to us7 proper explanation of the term4 ,in other words1 we gather from important sources that1 while a colophon may include or even take the form of a printer's mark or device1 such a mark1 placed upon a title page1 is not a colophon4 ,aroused by the dictionary findings1 and discovering those ,american students of bibliography whom ,i consulted to be in agreement with me1 ,i wrote to ,dr4 ,pollard1 as to a court of final appeal1 to inquire if he considered it meticulous to object to the intrusion of this illogical trade definition which some dictionaries and many people are giving us4 ,his answer1 which ,i am allowed to quote1 seems definite and wise enough to carry conviction1 coming as it does from the admitted authority on the subject3 ,if a sufficient number of people misuse a word1 ,dictionaries have to record the wrong use as well as the right1 as in the case of hectic and crowds of other words4 ,but the misuse of the word colophon as a synonym for the printer's mark or device1 without regard to position1 has not yet gone as far as this and should be strenuously resisted4 ,by standard use as well as by etymology1 the word means the crowning stroke1 or finishing touch1 to a book or part of a book1 and it must come at the end of the book1 or part of a book1 rightly to be given this title4 ,in cataloguing early books it would not in my judgment be incorrect to enter the printer's device at the end of a book1 under the heading colophon4 ,and now1 the unpleasantly controversial side of the matter having been disposed of 7if so large an adjective as controversial may be applied to so small a paper71 let us devote our little remaining space to the colophons themselves1 first turning our attention to ,dr4 ,pollard's book1#e with his own rendering into ,english of the unwieldy fifteenth-century ,latin4 ,in the introduction1 ,dr4 ,richard ,garnett gives a brief sketch of the derivation and earliest uses of the term4 ,he quotes the ,greek word colophon1 the head or summit of anything1 usually used in a figurative sense1 the position on a crest of the ,city of ,colophon 7whence its name71 the first appearance of the word in the seventeenth century1 with its secondary classical sense of a finishing stroke or a crowning touch1 and goes on to say3 ,of the use of the word colophon in the particular significance elucidated in this essay--the end or ultimate paragraph of a book or manuscript--the earliest example quoted in the ,new ,english ,dictionary is from ,warton's ,history of ,english ,poetry published in #aggd4 ,a quarter of a century before this it is found as a term needing no explanation in the first edition of the ,typographical ,antiquities of ,joseph ,ames1 published in #agdi4 ,how much older it is than this cannot lightly be determined4 ,the bibliographical use appears to be unknown to the ,greek and ,latin lexicographers1 medieval as well as classical4 ,pending further investigation1 it seems not unlikely that it may have been developed out of the secondary classical sense already mentioned sometime during the seventeenth century1 when the interest in bibliography which was then beginning to be felt would naturally call into existence new terms of art4 ,while acknowledging the great interest that many authors have found in individual colophons1 ,dr4 ,pollard states that his task is the more ambitious1 if less entertaining one of making a special study of this feature in fifteenth century books with the object of ascertaining what light it throws on the history of printing1 and on the habits of the early printers and publishers4 ,his first conclusion being that colophons are the sign and evidence of the printer's pride in his work1 he draws attention to the utter lack of such information as they give in the very earliest books of all1 as contrasted with the self-glorification of ,fust and ,schffer when1 printing independently1 they affixed the first known printed colophon to their ,psalter of #adeg 7in at least one copy accompanied by their device73 ,the present copy of the ,psalms1 adorned with beauty of capital letters1 and sufficiently marked out with rubrics1 has been thus fashioned by an ingenious invention of printing1 and stamping without any driving of the pen4 ,and to the worship of ,god has been diligently brought to completion by ,johann ,fust1 a citizen of ,mainz1 and ,peter ,schffer of ,gernsheim1 in the year of the ,lord #adeg1 on the vigil of the ,feast of the ,assumption4 ,of ,peter ,schffer's later allusion to the shields of his device ,dr4 ,pollard writes3 ,needless discussions have been raised as to what was the use and import of printers' devices1 and it has even been attempted to connect them with literary copyright1 with which they had nothing whatever to do1 literary copyright in this decade depending solely on the precarious courtesy of rival firms1 or possibly on the rules of their trade-guilds4 ,but here1 on the authority of the printer who first used one1 we have a clear indication of the reason which made him put his mark on a book--the simple reason that he was proud of his craftsmanship and wished it to be recognized as his4 ',by signing it with his shields ,peter ,schffer has brought the book to a happy completion4' ,illustration3 ,psalter4 ,mainz1 ,fust and ,schffer1 #adeg4 ,,the ,,first ,,printed ,,colophon4 ,again he calls attention to the boast of ,john of ,speier at ,venice1 primus in ,adriaca formis impressit aenis1 by which he asserts his individual priority over any other firm in that city4 ,and here is the rhyming colophon used by the same ,john1 in which he boasts with some ambiguity of the number of copies of ,cicero which he has printed in his two editions3 ,from ,italy once each ,german brought a book4 ,a ,german now will give more than they took4 ,for ,john1 a man whom few in skill surpass1 ,has shown that books may best be writ with brass4 ,speier befriends ,venice2 twice in four months has he ,printed this ,cicero1 in hundreds three4#f ,in wording their colophons1 the early printers were only following the constant practice of medieval scribes1 of whose many colophons a selection of examples is given in ,bradley's ,dictionary of ,miniaturists4 ,the moving of printers from one town to another1 transference of their stocks1 their quarrels1 their boastings and pleas for favor with those in high places1 all are followed1 and much information gathered in the ,essay4 ,there is simple pathos in the colophon of the ,chronicles of the londe of ,england printed at ,antwerp in #adic1 which records the death of its famous printer1 ,gerard ,leeu1 a man of grete wysedom in all manner of kunnyng2 whych nowe is come from lyfe unto the deth1 which is grete harme for many of poure man4 ,on whos sowle ,god almyghty for hys hygh grace haue mercy4 ,amen4 ,a man whose death is great harm for many a poor man must needs have been a good master1 and a king need want no finer epitaph1 writes ,dr4 ,pollard4 ,the days when we find the book trade highly organized and the functions of printers and publishers clearly separated1 are pictured in the following colophon3 ,here you have1 most honest reader1 six works1 etc4 ,it remains1 therefore1 for you to make grateful acknowledgement to those who have produced them3 in the first place to that eminent man ,master ,simon ,radin1 who saw to their being brought to light from the obscurity in which they were buried2 next to ,f4 ,cyprian ,beneti for his editorial care2 then to ,jean ,petit1 best of book-sellers1 who caused them to be printed at his expense2 nor less than these to ,andrieu ,bocard1 the skilful chalcographer1 who printed them so elegantly and with scrupulous correctness1 ,june #bh1 #aejj4 ,praise and glory to ,god4#g ,here are men making aspersions on the editions of rival publishers1 with warnings against them3 ,here end the ,decretals1 most correctly printed in the bounteous city of ,rome1 queen of the whole world1 by those excellent men ,master ,ulrich ,han1 a ,german1 and ,simon di ,niccolo of ,lucca3 with the ordinary glosses of ,bernard of ,parma and his additions1 which are found in few copies2 both printed and corrected with the greatest diligence4 ,purchase these1 book-buyer1 with a light heart1 for you will find such excellence in this volume that you will be right in easily reckoning other editions as worth no more than a straw4#h ,we find that the ,nuremberg ,chronicle is the only book which ,dr4 ,pollard can call to mind that gives explicit information as to its illustrators1 ,michael ,wolgemut and ,wilhelm ,pleydenworff2 and finally we come to books where the author takes a hand1 and we sometimes have a double colophon1 as in the case of the ,morte d',arthur4 ,here we have ,sir ,thomas ,malory's colophon1 requesting the reader's prayer for his deliverance1 and for the repose of his soul1 and ,william ,caxton's business-like statement as editor1 printer and publisher4 ,the author's struggle with the printer1 to obtain his own way1 is no new thing1 as proved by this late colophon of the musician1 ,johann von ,cleve1 affixed to his ,cantiones1 #aehj3 ,as ,i come to the end of my task it seems worth while to inform students and amateurs of music that this collection of ,motets was in the first place entrusted to ,philip ,ulhard1 citizen and printer of ,augsburg1 to be printed1 and that he 7as often happens71 being made unreasonably capricious by bodily ill-health1 often did not carry out our intention1 and compelled me1 by leaving out some motets 7which however1 if life bears me company and ,god helps1 will shortly be published71 to abridge the work1 and more especially as the same printer1 when the work was not yet finished1 came to an end of his days1 and there upon the work was entrusted to ,andreas ,reinheckel to be completed1 if anything1 therefore1 is found which might disturb a connoisseur1 ,i pray musicians to bear with it with equanimity4 ,farewell4 ,in the year of the ,lord #aehj1 in the month of ,january4 ,we have noted one rhyming colophon1 a mannerism much affected by ,italian printers4 ,another fanciful custom by which the early printers called attention to their colophons was the use of eccentric arrangements of types1 by which these final paragraphs appeared in the shape of wedges1 funnels1 diamonds1 drinking glasses and the like4 ,the earliest known title page is in a ,bull of ,pius ,,ix1 printed in ,mainz by ,fust and ,schffer in #adfc1 but it was some twenty years before the custom became common4 ,at first the title only1 taking the form of a single sentence1 appeared at the top of a title page1 but it was not long before1 either in the interests of decoration or of advertising1 a simple woodcut or the device of the printer appeared below the title4 ,in his ,a ,treatise on ,title-pages1 #aijb1 ,mr4 ,de ,vinne proposes the following ingenious explanation of the evolution of the printer's mark3 ,it was hoped that the distinctiveness of a peculiar device would be remembered by the book-buyer who had forgotten the name of his preferred printer4 ,in the beginning the device was put at the end of the book1 above or below the colophon4 ,it was at first a small and simple design 444 but the eagerness to have a device that should be striking led to its enlargement and afterward to an entire change of position4 ,when the greater part of the last page was preoccupied by the last paragraph of the text1 the device required a separate page4 ,this led to making full-page devices and afterward to the putting of the device on the first page4 ,as time went on it was only natural that the remaining space at the foot of the title pages should be utilized for brief details of printing and publishing1 but the transition was gradual and unsystematic4 ,indeed1 some printers continued to use colophons alone well into the sixteenth century1 and there are frequent instances during that century of books containing both title pages and colophons1 the latter being a repetition1 at the end of the book1 of the imprint1 as the few business-like lines at the foot of the title page had come to be named4 ,by the time that title pages were firmly established1 publishing had become a separate business1 and the publisher was not long in assuming the ascendency1 often pushing the printer altogether into the background and appearing alone in the imprint4 ,for a long time the printer modestly tucked in his name wherever he could1 sometimes on the verso of the title page1 and sometimes at the bottom of the last page1 but in a formal manner1 without the naive and often delightful and useful details which make the early colophons so interesting4 ,with the nineteenth-century revival of interest in typography1 the printer came to the fore again and we see his name appearing in a new place1 the certificate1 preceding the title page--an entire leaf1 moreover1 on which are set forth the details in which he is interested1 the paper1 number of copies1 and so on4 ,this use seems to have been introduced by the finely printed volumes of the ,french book clubs1 with their ,justification du tirage1 and it was followed through the later decades of the nineteenth century1 in the publications of book clubs and many other privately and finely printed volumes4 ,simultaneously with these came the publications of the ,kelmscott and other private presses1 which revived the use of colophons in the early manner4 ,the separate page1 placed at the end of the finely printed book of today1 giving details of the making of the volume1 is the result of this modern impetus in book-making#i--the interest in fine production of the person for whom the book is made1 added to the desire of the modern printer for recognition of himself as the producer4 ,illustration3 ,st4 ,bernard4 ,sermones4 ,rostock1 ,fratres ,domus ,horti ,viridis1 #adha4 ,,colophon ,,with ,,printer',s ,,mark4 ,this is but the very logical expression in the books themselves of the modern trend1 so assiduously cultivated1 toward the making of good books1 and the return to prominence of the printer after the long period of his subservience to the publisher4 ,in the present-day notice of its makers1 on the final page of a book1 the colophon is revived1 and once more the printer has the last word6 ,,composed ,,in ,,garamond ,,types ,,footnotes3 #b ,ronald ,b4 ,mc,kerrow1 ,an ,introduction to ,bibliography for ,literary ,students 7,oxford3 ,the ,clarendon ,press1 #aibg74 #c ,iolo ,williams1 ,the ,elements of ,book-,collecting 7,london3 ,elkin ,mathews1 #aibg74 #d ,h4 ,b4 van ,hoesen and ,f4 ,k4 ,walter1 ,bibliography1 ,practical1 ,enumerative1 ,historical 7,new ,york3 ,charles ,scribner's ,sons1 #aibh74 #e ,alfred ,w4 ,pollard1 ,an ,essay on ,colophons1 with ,specimens and ,translations2 with an ,introduction by ,richard ,garnett 7,chicago3 ,the ,caxton ,club1 #aije74 #f ,cicero1 ,epistolae ad ,familiares1 ,second edition 7,venice1 #adfi74 #g ,diui ,athanasii1 contra ,arium1 etc4 7,paris1 #aejj74 #h ,decretals of ,gregory ,,ix 7,rome1 #adgd74 #i ,we may note that the ,french technical term for the modern colophon1 achev d'imprimer1 emphasizes this importance of the printer4 ,illustration,,edwin ,,eliott ,,willoughby,illustration ,printers' ,marks ,from ,fifty ,printers' ,marks by ,edwin ,e4 ,willoughby4 ,copyright #aidg by the author and reprinted by his permission4 ,published by the ,university of ,california ,press4 ,a printer's mark is a trade-mark4 ,printers used them in the fifteenth1 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the same purpose that printers employ them today--to ornament their books and to make each volume readily recognizable as the product of the printing establishment which produced it4 ,the printer's mark was but one of the many types of marks which1 largely because of the widespread illiteracy of the people1 were used throughout all phases of medieval life4 ,the ownership of objects1 for example1 was often shown by means of a regularly used mark4 ,two examples of this type of mark1 the seal and the cattle brand1 go back to the dawn of history and have continued in use to the present time4 ,merchants in the ,middle ,ages often identified their property by placing on it their merchants' marks4 ,the mark of a merchant was legally recognized as his by his guild or by the town government4 ,often it was a representation of the tools of the man's trade or a replica of his house sign4 ,sometimes it was an animal or object which formed a pun on the merchant's name4 ,frequently1 simple geometric designs were used4 ,toward the latter part of the ,middle ,ages1 as merchants grew richer and more powerful1 they aped the upper class by making their marks resemble1 as closely as they dared1 the heraldic devices of the knights and nobles4 ,these marks enabled employees or hired porters to recognize at a glance a merchant's property4 ,places1 as well as objects1 were identified by means of marks4 ,inns1 shops and similar public places in those days before houses were numbered were designated by house signs4 ,the ,tabard1 the inn from which ,chaucer's pilgrims started for ,canterbury under the leadership of its host1 ,harry ,baillie1 took its name from its sign--a representation of a short outer jacket4 ,an equally famous tavern1 patronized by ,shakespeare1 ,ben ,jonson and other sirenical gentlemen1 bore the ,sign of the ,mermaid4 ,and over the door of the ,globe1 ,shakespeare's theater1 hung a picture of ,atlas bearing the world on his shoulders4 ,printing houses1 like other business establishments1 were known by house signs4 ,the printer's mark of ,adrien van ,berghen supplies an illustration4 ,page #dh4 ,not only were objects and places designated by marks in the ,middle ,ages1 but under certain conditions people were recognized by them also4 ,a knight1 his face obscured by his helmet1 made his identity known by wearing on his helmet1 shield and tabard simple pictures or symbols by which he could be recognized4 ,as it was usual for members of the same family to wear the same emblems1 these simple pictures1 many of which became conventionalized1 descended from father to son1 indicated relationships1 and finally developed under the control of officers of the king into the elaborate system of heraldry4 ,marks1 then1 were widely used in the ,middle ,ages4 ,it was inevitable that they should be used to identify the makers of manufactured goods4 ,craftsmen with pride in their work naturally desired others to recognize their products4 ,as a result1 the use of trade-marks became common4 ,craftsmen of every trade were frequently compelled either by law or by guild regulations1 to affix a mark to their products as a guarantee of their honesty and good workmanship4 ,such marks were required especially of goldsmiths1 silversmiths and other artisans who were under unusual temptation to misrepresent the quality of their goods4 ,in ,england1 to take another example1 arrowheads1 the quality of which might determine the issue of a battle1 were ordered1 by a statute of ,henry ,,iv1 to be marked with the mark of him who made the same4 ,these trade-marks performed much the same function as the house mark or the merchant's mark2 indeed1 the three were often the same4 ,they enabled a purchaser1 literate or illiterate1 to identify the maker of a product and to buy thereafter according as he had been satisfied or displeased with the first article purchased4 ,illustration3 ,,guy ,,marchant printed his first book at ,paris in #adhc4 ,his motto1 ,sola fides sufficit 7,faith alone suffices7 appears above the clasped hands1 with the first word represented by the musical notation1 sol and la4 ,illustration3 ,,jacques ,,maillet began publishing at ,lyons in #adhb1 and probably began printing at the same time4 ,his mark represents a shield1 supported by two dogs1 which bears his initials and a mallet 7maillet in ,french71 hanging from a tree4 ,the printer1 to be sure1 was under few of the compulsions to use a trade-mark that beset his fellow craftsmen4 ,his patrons were literate2 they could read his name and address--when he chose to set them down--either in the colophon at the end of the book or on the title page4 ,but the example of other craftsmen was not to be resisted4 ,besides1 a well-made printer's mark1 or a publisher's device1 could be both useful and ornamental4 ,put at the end of the book1 it could give it a fitting close4 ,used in the middle of a book1 it could set off chapters and parts4 ,above all1 especially when it was printed in red1 it could give life and balance to a title page4 ,illustration3 ,,adrien ,,van ,,berghen in his mark pictures his printing house at the ,sign of the ,great ,golden ,mortar in the market place at ,antwerp1 where he started in #aejj4 ,by the printer's mark1 also1 a prospective purchaser could recognize at a glance the product of a press4 ,it could prevent a careful purchaser from being deceived by a false imprint4 ,look at my sign1 warns ,benedictus ,hector of ,bologna1 which is represented on the title page and you can never be mistaken4 ,it was harder to counterfeit a printer's mark than to filch his name4 ,even a mark1 however1 was not infallible protection4 ,the prince of printers1 ,aldus ,manutius1 complains that his ,florentine competitors have affixed our well known sign of the dolphin wound around an anchor4 ,but1 he adds1 they have so managed that any person who is in the least acquainted with the books of our production cannot fail to observe that this is an impudent fraud2 for the head of the dolphin is turned to the left1 whereas that of ours is well known to be turned toward the right4 ,illustration3 ,,william ,,caxton1 the first ,english printer1 printed his own translation of a ,french romance1 ,recuyell of the ,histories of ,troy1 in #adgd4 ,at his press at ,westminster he completed nearly eighty books between #adgg and #adia1 many of which he also translated from the ,french4 ,in one country only1 and there for but a brief period1 was the use of a mark made compulsory4 ,in #aeci1 ,franois ,i1 in an act intended to suppress both the piracy of copyrighted works and the printing of heretical books1 ordered every printer and book-seller in ,france to have his own device so that purchasers might easily ascertain where books were printed and sold4 ,although 7with this exception7 the use of marks was voluntary with printers1 they were early adopted4 ,in #adeg ,fust and ,schffer1 the successors of ,gutenberg1 first employed one in the ,mainz ,psalter1 the first book to contain the name of the printer and the place and date of printing4 ,page #ci4 ,the device consisted of two shields resembling coats of arms4 ,other printers quickly followed their example4 ,as the fifteenth century saw the rise of the mercantile class1 it is not surprising that printers used in their marks heraldic devices1 if they had the right to bear arms1 or shields displaying their merchant's marks in a manner often resembling armorial bearings4 ,frequently1 printers used as the central part of their marks the signs which served to designate their places of business4 ,pierre ,le,rouge1 for example1 used a red rosebush for his sign and in his device4 ,the ,london printer1 ,berthelet1 used in like manner the figure of ,lucrece4 ,illustration3 ,,william ,,faques began printing in ,london about #aejc4 ,his mark represents a hexagram of interlocking triangles bearing biblical quotations1 which enclose his monogram pierced by an arrow4 ,the initials ,,gf are those of the ,french form of his name4 ,if the printer's name could be punned on1 it was common to use for a mark an object the name of which sounded like the printer's own4 ,jacques ,maillet's surname means mallet4 ,he made it easy to remember by displaying a mallet in his device4 ,page #dg4 ,a few printers1 among them ,aldus ,manutius1 ,john ,day1 ,john ,wight and ,willem ,vorsterman1 even used their own portraits in their marks4 ,many other signs and emblems were employed4 ,in an age fond of symbolism it is not surprising to find that many marks had symbolic and mystical meanings--not only in the earlier period1 when ecclesiastical symbols were often used1 but in the later period also1 when devices were frequently copied from emblem books4 ,sometimes a printer would use a woodcut to illustrate a book and then1 because it struck his fancy1 adopt it as his mark4 ,thomas ,gardiner and ,thomas ,dawson1 partners1 on the other hand1 had a block which contained1 around a central open square1 figures forming a rebus of their names3 a gardener1 a daw and the sun4 ,with their initials in the open square1 it served as a mark2 with the appropriate display letter1 it was a factotum bearing the initial letter of the first word of a chapter4 ,printers' marks1 in fact1 took a multitude of forms during the fifteenth1 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries4 ,in the late seventeenth1 eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries1 they became conventionalized and were used infrequently2 but they did not die out altogether4 ,the ,oxford and ,cambridge ,university presses1 for example1 continued to put them on the title pages of their books4 ,the revival of printing late in the nineteenth century saw an increased use of the printer's mark4 ,this was almost inevitable1 for when the craftsmen strove to do fine printing1 they desired1 just as did the craftsmen of the fifteenth century1 to have their work easily recognized4 ,today1 private presses which specialize in fine printing1 some university presses1 and many publishing firms1 frequently use marks which both ornament their title pages and identify for the reader the creator of the volume4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,grolier ,,club4 ,a rendering of the ,club's familiar mark by ,rudolph ,ruzicka4 ,a4 ,f4 ,,johnson ,title ,pages3 ,,their ,,forms ,,and ,,development ,from ,one ,hundred ,title ,pages3 #aejj-ahjj1 selected and arranged with an ,introduction and ,notes by ,a4 ,f4 ,johnson4 ,copyright #aibh by ,john ,lane1 ,the ,bodley ,head1 ,ltd4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,it is a curious fact that the title page was evolved at a comparatively late date in the history of the book1 and is indeed almost unknown before the printed book4 ,there are a few examples among early surviving manuscripts of a separate leaf being used for the title1 but they are quite exceptional1 and even these give the title on the back of this leaf4 ,the usual practice of the calligrapher was to give any information considered desirable as to the author and the date and place of the making of the manuscript in the colophon4 ,this practice was taken over by the printers1 although in the first years of the new art they frequently said nothing as to place of printing1 probably with the deliberate intention of concealing the fact that the book was produced by mechanical means4 ,the title page as we know it1 giving the title1 author's name and an imprint1 being1 in fact1 a kind of advertisement of the book1 was not well established until some years after #aejj4444 ,the title page owes its origin1 according to one theory1 to the fact that printers found it necessary to protect the first leaf of the text4 ,whereas a manuscript would be bound as soon as the calligrapher had finished the text1 most of the copies of a printed edition were delivered to a book-seller in sheets1 and many might remain unbound for years4 ,hence arose the practice of beginning the book on the second leaf or on the back of the first leaf4 ,the first page could then be used for the purpose of advertising the book1 for the fully-developed title page arose out of a commercial need4 ,a few early examples of the addition of a brief title on the first page are known1 the first being that of a ,bull of ,pope ,pius ,,ii1 printed by ,fust and ,schffer at ,mainz in #adfc4 ,but the blank title leaf is found for many years after that date1 and to the end of the fifteenth century a title leaf containing a brief description in a few words is common4 ,as late as #aedh we find the brothers ,dorici at ,rome printing several volumes of the works of ,cardinal ,bembo with the title on the back of the first leaf4 ,an edition of the ,vulgate printed at ,venice in #adhg by ,georgius ,arrivabene offers an example of the most rudimentary form of a title page1 with the single word ,biblia on the first leaf4 ,the example of ,ratdolt at ,venice1 who in #adgf printed a ,calendar of ,regiomontanus with woodcut borders and an imprint on the first leaf1 was not followed by contemporary printers4 ,even this solitary case hardly presents a title page in the form in which we know it1 since the leaf1 in place of a title1 has a poem in praise of the book4 ,of the fully developed title page1 giving title1 author and full imprint1 ,dr4 ,haebler1 the ,german authority on incunabula1 knows of only one instance in the fifteenth century1 a book by ,johannes ,glogoviensis printed by ,wolfgang ,stckel at ,leipzig in #aejj2 the title itself1 however1 is cut on wood4 ,the lettering of the simple fifteenth-century title page was often that of the text of the book1 or sometimes a larger1 heading type was used4 ,very frequently the words were cut on wood1 and since for the printer it was as easy to print from a block containing a design in addition to a brief title1 the woodcut illustration on the first leaf soon followed4 ,the examples of the ,john ,lydgate1 printed by ,pynson1 c4 #aeae1 and of the ,deceyte of ,women1 printed by ,abraham ,vele about #aeej1 are typical title pages of popular books of the earlier printers4 ,in ,spain especially this combination of title and illustration1 in that country often an heraldic cut1 both cut on wood1 became the fashion and persisted for many years in the next century4 ,scenes from school life often illustrated educational texts1 while a school of woodcutters at ,florence designed a famous series of illustrations which decorated the title pages of devotional tracts by ,savonarola and other works4 ,the first printers' devices1 the two shields of ,fust and ,schffer and the double cross rising out of a circle at ,venice1 were added to the colophons1 and it was only when the ,french printers began to use large devices surrounded by borders1 for which there was no room on the last leaf1 that the printer's name1 or at least mark1 began to appear on the title page4 ,thus one further step was taken towards the title page as we know it4 ,illustration3 ,,machiavelli1 ,,sopra ,,la ,,prima ,,deca ,,di ,,tito ,,livio1 ,,antonio ,,blado1 ,,rome1 #aeca4 ,the formal ,italic below the device1 designed by ,lodovico ,vincentino1 the calligrapher1 was used in many of ,blado's books4 ,it has been revived and is known as ,blado ,italic4 7,size1 #e-a_/bx#h-a_/d inches47 ,the sixteenth century is especially the age of the woodcut title-border 7or metal-cut1 for the material used for blocks was frequently metal74 ,the practice of decorating the first leaf of the text with a woodcut border had been started by ,ratdolt at ,venice1 and after #adij was common among the printers of that city4 ,in fact1 several of the borders originally used for an opening were actually converted into title-borders after #aejj4 ,during the following century the variety of borders used in all the countries where printing was practised is remarkable4 ,in ,germany especially1 during the years of the ,reformation1 when the printing press was unusually active1 a very large number of decorative borders were cut1 many of them by artists of the first rank1 including even ,drer and ,holbein4 ,the work of the ,holbeins and ,urs ,graf at ,basle is well known to ,english book collectors4 ,perhaps less familiar is the work of ,hans ,baldung ,grien1 ,hans ,weiditz and ,daniel ,hopfer at ,strasbourg and ,augsburg1 and that extraordinary series of designs which appear on the ,luther tracts printed at ,wittenberg and on similar works produced in ,saxony4 ,many of these borders are highly successful as decorative pieces4 ,the fact that they are less familiar to us may be accounted for by two circumstances4 ,in the first place the earlier book collectors were almost all collectors of the classics1 and the first writers on the history of printing1 except in the matter of the invention of printing1 approached the subject from the point of view of the student of the ,greek and ,roman classical writers4 ,in the second place the ,german printers cut themselves off from ,western ,europe by clinging to the gothic letter after ,italy1 ,france and finally ,england had adopted ,roman and ,italic1 even for books in the vernacular4444 ,there is one point about the early woodcut borders which must seem strange to the printer of today1 and that is the suitability of the decoration to the subject matter of the book4 ,the sixteenth-century printer naturally found it economical to ignore the fact that a border originally intended for a ,bible was not suitable for a medical work4 ,he did not regard it as incongruous to use a border depicting scenes from ,greek mythology on a ,french medieval romance4 ,even a printer of the class of ,jean de ,tournes uses the same piece on the title page of a ,xenophon and of a book of ,french verse4 ,nor was the average printer very particular about the state of a block4 ,especially in ,england1 where the general standard was lower than on the ,continent1 a damaged block would be used as long as it held together4 ,illustration3 ,o4 ,,fine1 ,,quadrans ,,astrolabicus1 ,s4 ,,de ,,colines1 ,,paris1 #aecd4 ,the border was probably designed by the author4 ,his mathematical diagrams are generally decorated with leaf forms like the petits fers of this title4 7,size1 #g-e_/hx#aa-e_/h inches47 ,in the second half of the century two rival fashions of decoration were developed which finally banished the woodcut border1 first the method of decoration by type ornaments or printers' flowers1 and secondly the engraved title page4 ,there is one example of type ornament known even in the fifteenth century1 in an ,aesop printed at ,parma in #adhc4 ,after #aejj1 examples of borders made up of separate cast pieces are fairly frequent and are especially common in ,england in the books of ,wynkyn de ,worde and his contemporaries4 ,but it is not until about #aefj that we find borders built up of type ornaments worked into arabesque patterns4 ,it seems to have been ,robert ,granjon1 the engraver of types at ,paris and ,lyons1 who cut arabesque fleurons1 divided them up and built up fresh patterns out of their component parts4 ,the use of printers' flowers in borders is found at most centers of printing towards the end of the century and obtained its greatest popularity in the ,netherlands and in ,england4 ,many fine examples are found in ,english books from about #aegj for the next fifty years4 ,joseph ,moxon1 who wrote on ,english letter-founding in #afhc1 tells us that they were considered old-fashioned in his day4 ,they were revived again in the eighteenth century by ,p4 ,s4 ,fournier at ,paris1 who cut many new designs which were copied all over ,europe4 ,fournier's flowers could be built up to form all manner of ornaments and were more adaptable than the arabesques of the sixteenth century1 when the original unit always resulted in the same pattern4 ,just as ,granjon had devised a method of decorating without the use of the woodcut block1 so ,fournier designed his new flowers in order that printers might dispense with engraved vignettes4 ,however1 the vogue of the ,fournier designs had a shorter life1 and may be said to have been killed by the classical school of printing of the end of the century4 ,illustration3 ,j4 ,,longlond1 ,a ,,sermon1 ,,london1 #aecf4 ,wynkyn de ,worde and his contemporaries used cast pieces as ornaments1 at least from #aejd4 ,although their use was frequent1 the arrangement of this title page is uncommon4 7,size #e-a_/dx#g-a_/d inches47 ,engraving on copper was practised in the fifteenth century1 but the engraved title page originates about #aeej4 ,curiously enough1 the earliest known engraved border occurs in an ,english book1 the ,anatomy of ,thomas ,geminus1 printed in ,london in #aede4 ,in the following year we find a second example1 cut by ,corneille de ,la ,haye for ,balthazar ,arnoullet at ,lyons1 where there was a remarkable group of engravers at work about this time4 ,from #aedh the books of ,enea ,vico printed at ,venice begin the fashion in ,italy1 where1 after #aeej1 examples are fairly numerous4 ,in the ,netherlands also1 beginning with the work of ,hubert ,goltzius at ,bruges1 they are met with almost as frequently as in ,italy4 ,it was1 perhaps1 ,christopher ,plantin at ,antwerp who1 more than any other printer1 made the engraved title-border the fashion for all larger and more important publications4 ,but it is with the seventeenth century especially that engraved borders are associated4 ,the ,elzevirs used them even on their pocket editions1 while at the other extreme the massive volumes issued at ,amsterdam and at ,paris in the reign of ,louis ,,xiv are almost invariably introduced by an elaborate engraved frontispiece4444 ,illustration3 ,,dugu1 ,,ariette1 ,,fournier1 ,,paris1 #agfe4 ,this rather ornate border shows what could be done with ,fournier's new type ornaments4 7,size1 #g-a_/dx#aj-a_/d inches74 ,perhaps the worst examples of these overloaded frontispieces are to be found in ,german books of the period4 ,often1 also1 the engraved border is only a bastard title1 the proper title page being set up in type4 ,the earlier examples1 dating from the sixteenth century1 are in general the best1 being simpler and not yet overburdened with a mass of detail4 ,the good taste of the eighteenth century brought about a reform4 ,but at ,paris most books of this period had a typographic title page and the work of the famous school of ,french engravers was lavished on the illustrations4 ,however1 the engraved vignettes of that age were often very effectively used4 ,even ,baskerville did not always disdain the vignette1 and it was the last form of decoration abandoned by ,bodoni4 ,one other form of decoration may be mentioned1 that of metal rules4 ,rules have been used occasionally at almost all periods1 by ,geofroy ,tory1 for example1 among others4 ,but as far as title pages are concerned they are found most often in the seventeenth century4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,deceyte ,,of ,,women1 ,a4 ,,vele1 ,,london1 ,c4 #aeej4 ,the combination of black-letter and a woodcut is a usual title page in an early ,english book4 ,this undated example is probably mid-century1 as the printer1 ,vele1 is not heard of before #aedh4 ,the cut seems to date much earlier4 7,size1 #e-a_/dx#g-a_/b inches47 ,the purely typographic title page is naturally of greater interest to the modern producer of books4 ,at all periods the title page which was effective mainly by the arrangement of type has been common1 and at most periods there have been printers who preferred to dispense with ornament of any kind4 ,in the sixteenth century the books of the ,paris printer1 ,michel de ,vascosan1 illustrate this severer manner1 and the classical style of the great printers at the close of the eighteenth century was likewise independent of decoration4 ,some sort of arrangement of the letters displayed on the title page suggested itself from the first1 and very soon various shapes were tried4 ,perhaps the commonest arrangement was the conical one1 or the so-called hour-glass shape1 in which the lines of type begin by being long1 to become short at the center1 lengthening again in the imprint at the foot4 ,others have preferred a natural arrangement1 printing the matter exactly as if on a page of the text4 ,geofroy ,tory1 a book producer whose work was of great importance in the history of the book1 seems to have been against the fashion of his day in his choice of the natural layout4 ,it has certainly been the usual custom to aim at some sort of pattern in the division of the lines of type4 ,in this respect the earlier printers had one advantage which was not enjoyed by their successors4 ,they felt no difficulty about dividing a word in a title1 even when the second part of the word was to be set in a different size or even a different kind of type4 ,frequently we find examples of such breaks in words as custom has made impossible for the modern printer4 ,the simplification of the task for whoever was responsible for the layout is obvious4 ,one rule which seems to have been almost universally observed is that the mass of the type must be in the top half of the page and not evenly distributed4 ,page #fi4 ,equally important with the distribution of the matter is the question of the kind of type to be used1 the sizes of type1 upper- or lower-case1 and the number of different fonts4 ,the simplest manner of using the letter employed in the text met with little favour and was soon displaced by the use of larger types and especially by the use of capitals4 ,the heavy1 square ,roman capitals1 like those of ,froben at ,basle1 for the first line1 with smaller capitals for succeeding lines1 were more or less customary in ,northern ,europe in the first quarter of the sixteenth century4 ,in some countries a mixture of a lettre de forme and ,roman capitals was not unusual at the same period4 ,with the introduction of the new ,garamond romans at ,paris about #aecj began the fashion of using the ,canon and ,double ,canon sizes of the lower-case letters for titles4 ,in the seventeenth century we find large and heavy ,roman capitals again in favour1 often balanced by a woodcut ornament or a basket of flowers4 ,this century1 undoubtedly the worst in the history of typography1 notwithstanding the ,elzevirs1 is especially remarkable for its crowded title pages4 ,it had become the custom to give as much information as possible about the contents of the book and the qualifications of author1 editor1 etc41 and the printer took the opportunity of displaying as large a variety of his types as possible4 ,no doubt the use of title pages as posters for advertising is partly responsible for the custom4 ,it has been established by documentary evidence that such methods of advertising books were usual in ,england and in ,germany1 and probably this was so in other countries also4 ,incidentally it may be pointed out that the posting up of title pages accounts for some of the early collections1 such as that of ,bagford1 now in the ,british ,museum4 ,bagford has been attacked for his vandalism in mutilating books for the sake of his hobby1 but it now appears that he may have been quite innocent of the charge4 ,in any case the result on the title page as a specimen of typographical arrangement was deplorable4444 ,illustration3 ,,isaiah ,,thomas1 ,a ,,specimen ,,of ,,printing ,,types1 ,,worcester1 #aghe4 ,as with most type specimens1 this early ,american title page displays many different types and flowers4 7,size1 #e-c_/hx#g-e_/h inches47 ,with the eighteenth century title pages became simpler and letters became lighter1 and the result is again work as good in its different style as that of the sixteenth century4 ,the eighteenth century is certainly a great period in the history of book production1 with its center in ,paris4 ,in ,england the influence of ,caslon and ,baskerville at length raised our typography to a level with ,continental work4 ,for one innovation ,p4 ,s4 ,fournier is mainly responsible1 the introduction of outline and other decorative capitals which were so successfully used at ,paris4 ,at the end of the century we have the work of the ,didots and ,bodoni1 the classical school1 whose technical achievement has hardly been surpassed at any period4 ,one may cavil at their conception of the ideal shape of letters1 one may dislike their excessive use of hair lines and their flat serifs1 but it must be admitted that as practical printers and type-cutters their work was of first rate quality4 ,these classical printers were proud of their types and wished them to stand alone4 ,bodoni1 who at the beginning of his career used ornaments copied from ,fournier and engraved vignettes1 in his later years more and more abandoned decoration and outline letters4 ,the classical title page is composed in ,roman capitals of varying size1 but without the admixture of lower-case letters or italics and without the aid of decoration4 ,like ,baskerville1 these printers considered that type is itself sufficiently interesting to stand alone4 ,lawrence ,c4 ,wroth ,,the ,,first ,,work ,,with ,,american ,,types ,from ,typographic ,heritage4 ,copyright #aidi by ,the ,typophiles4 ,reprinted by permission of the author4 ,on #g ,april #agge there appeared in ,philadelphia the initial issue of ,story ,humphrey's ,pennsylvania ,mercury4 ,this newspaper was referred to by a contemporary diarist as ,the first ,work with ,amer4 ,types and with certain qualifications1 later to be made1 it seems to be entitled to the distinction of priority implied in this descriptive phrase4 ,type founding in the colonies went through those phases of tentative effort1 complete failure1 and partial achievement which are normal to the beginnings of great industries1 and before going on with the story of the font of type from which the ,pennsylvania ,mercury was printed1 it is proposed to give briefly an account of earlier attempts at the establishment of letter founding in ,english ,america4 ,by doing this it will be possible to secure correctness of sequence and of relationship among the several elements of this study in origins4 ,the first font of types cast in ,english ,america was that which resulted from the painful efforts of ,abel ,buell1 a silversmith and lapidary of ,killingworth1 ,connecticut4 ,shortly before #a ,april #agfi ,buell cast a small font of letters1 crude in design and in execution1 from which proofs were taken for the examination and the criticism of his friends4 ,in ,october of the same year1 using a different and much better type of his own making1 he presented to the ,connecticut ,assembly a printed petition in which he asked that body for financial assistance in his proposed establishment of a letter foundry4 ,in reply to this memorial he received a loan from the colony for the purposes of his venture1 and soon afterwards he removed to ,new ,haven and prepared to manufacture type for the printers of a continent4 ,the story of his failure at this time1 and of his success on a much smaller scale twelve years later1 is a part of the present study only in the sense which has been indicated in the introductory sentences4 ,illustration3 ,abel ,buell's ,first ,font4 ,from a proof of ,may #agfi4 ,courtesy of the ,yale ,university ,library4 ,buell was not without a rival in his ambitious plans4 ,david ,mitchelson of ,boston1 possibly acting under the direction of ,john ,mein1 a printer of that city1 is reported by a contemporary newspaper writer to have attained as great a degree of success as the ,connecticut silversmith in the difficult art of letter casting4 ,in the ,massachusetts ,gazette and ,boston ,weekly ,news-,letter for #g ,september #agfi there appeared among the local news items a report on recent developments in ,american manufacturing activities in which are certain sentences of interest in the story of colonial type founding4 ,we are assured by a ,gentleman from the ,westward1 said the writer1 that ,mr4 ,abel ,buell1 of ,killingworth in ,connecticut1 ,jeweller and ,lapidary1 has lately1 his own ,genius1 made himself ,master of the ,art of ,founding ,types for ,printing4 ,printing ,types are also made by ,mr4 ,mitchelson of this ,town ,boston equal to any imported from ,great-,britain2 and might1 by proper ,encouragement soon be able to furnish all the ,printers in ,america at the same price they are sold in ,england4 ,the absence of a known specimen of ,mitchelson's letters or of any specific information as to his operations is enough1 however1 to require a verdict of not proven on any claim to priority in ,american type casting that has yet been made on his behalf4 ,because of the unfruitful nature of the enterprises which have been spoken of1 the year #aggj found the ,american printer still dependent upon ,european importation for his printing type1 and at the moment there existed little prospect of relief from a situation which in the years of the ,revolution was to become a hardship rather than the simple inconvenience of the earlier period4 ,the policy of non-importation1 however1 was stirring the colonies to the establishment of local manufactures1 and under the whip of necessity1 type founding1 among other essential industries1 was to take its rise in the ,united ,states4 ,the carrying to success of this manufacture in ,pennsylvania in the year #agge was undoubtedly assured by the political and economic situation of the country1 but its beginning1 which must first be described1 had its cause in a set of circumstances of a more general character4 ,the secular history of the ,holy ,scriptures1 wrote ,henry ,stevens1 is the sacred history of printing4 ,in these words the ,vermonter gave sententious expression to the truth that the printing of the ,bible has been in all ages an appreciable factor in the development of typography4 ,the successful beginnings of type founding in ,english ,america1 it is believed1 may be traced to the desire of ,christopher ,sower ,jr4 of ,germantown1 ,pennsylvania1 to issue a third edition of that ,german ,bible which first had made its appearance at the pains and expense of his father in the year #agdc4 ,it is said that the younger ,sower's dissatisfaction with the conditions of type importation from ,germany led him to conceive the idea of importing thence matrices and moulds instead of finished type1 and with these placed in the cunning hands of ,justus ,fox1 his journeyman1 of casting his own letters for use in the proposed edition of ,die ,heilige ,schrift4 ,an enterprising man1 a religious zealot1 and the proprietor of one of the most extensive printing offices in ,america1 he was able1 partly at least1 to carry out his intention4 ,illustration3 ,abel ,buell's ,second ,font1 ,october #agfi4 ,courtesy of the ,connecticut ,state ,archives4 ,the exact date of the first use by ,sower of locally cast ,german letters evades determination4 ,sometime in the year #aggj1 he began the publication of the second part of a periodical known as ,ein ,geistliches ,magazien4 ,the title page of ,no4 ,i1 ,part ,,ii1 of this early religious magazine tells us that it was printed by ,christopher ,sower at ,germantown in the year #aggj1 and the undated colophon of ,no4 ,,xii of the series contains information of singular interest in the words1 ,gedruckt mit der ersten ,schrift die jemals in ,america gegossen worden4 ,the probability is that this issue of ,ein ,geistliches ,magazien was published late in #agga or early in the ensuing year4 ,upon the basis of this quoted statement and in view of the knowledge that when his estate was sold in #aggh there were disposed of to ,jacob ,bay and others certain lots of letter moulds1 crucibles and a large quantity of antimony#aj it becomes clear that ,sower's interest in type making developed well beyond the stage of thinking it would be a nice thing to do4 ,the initiatory efforts of ,sower have a particular significance in the story of ,american type founding2 for the tradition is that while engaged in the casting process of type making in the ,germantown foundry1 ,justus ,fox and ,jacob ,bay learned the more difficult mysteries of an art in which later they attained proficiency4 ,because of the link of continuous effort thus formed between ,sower's initiation of the business in #aggj and the later cutting and casting of ,roman letter by these artisans1 there must be conceded to him the distinction of having begun in ,english ,america the industry of type manufacturing1 regardless of whether or not his casting of ,german letter from imported matrices was as extensive as has been supposed4 ,our knowledge of ,fox and of ,bay is derived largely from the ,additions to ,thomas's ,history of ,printing1 a body of tradition of uneven reliability transmitted to ,isaiah ,thomas by ,william ,mc,culloch1 a ,philadelphia printer active in the early years of the century4 ,selections from the six communications of the period #ahab-ahad in which this information was transmitted were incorporated by ,thomas in the revision of his book upon which was based the second edition brought out by the ,american ,antiquarian ,society in #ahgd4 ,long afterward the series of letters was published as a whole in the ,proceedings of the ,society for ,april #aiba under the title1 ,william ,mc,culloch's ,additions to ,thomas's ,history of ,printing4 ,in these letters to ,isaiah ,thomas1 ,mc,culloch was recording his own memories and the accepted ,philadelphia tradition4 ,because he was well advanced in years at the time of writing1 one is not surprised to find that now and then he trips over the barrier that separates documented fact from hearsay and personal recollection4 ,it is much to our comfort in the present instance1 however1 to learn that he possessed and made use of unusual opportunities to obtain correct information as to the craftsmen who are the subject of our interest4 ,these facts which he records of ,justus ,fox1 for example1 he obtained from ,emmanuel1 the son and partner in type founding of that artisan1 and in ,justus ,fox1 a ,german ,printer of the ,eighteenth ,century1 ,dr4 ,charles ,l4 ,nichols accepts his testimony as of general reliability4 ,he was indebted to various relatives of ,bay1 among them a sister1 a plump lady of #fh1 for the account of him which is found in the pages of the ,additions4 ,it is possible to compare various items in ,mc,culloch's sketches of these men with records unknown to him1 but available to us1 with results so little at variance that one is inclined to accord a high degree of credence to all that he wrote concerning their activities4 ,at the time of ,sower's importation of ,german equipment1 ,mc,culloch informed ,isaiah ,thomas1 he had among his journeymen an ingenious general mechanic1 ,justus ,fox1 whom he charged with the responsibility for casting the letters to be used in the great ,bible4 ,in ,april #aggb he employed a newly arrived ,swiss silk weaver1 ,jacob ,bay1#aa to assist ,fox4 ,two years later ,bay left ,sower's service and set up a foundry on his own account in a near-by house in ,germantown4 ,fox remained in ,sower's establishment1 presumably engaged in casting the large quantity of type required to keep standing an edition of the ,bible4 ,in addition to this routine work he is said to have cut and cast an unspecified amount of ,roman letter before #aggd1 the year of ,bay's separation from the ,sower establishment4 ,working in his separate foundry1 it is recorded by our volunteer historian1 ,bay cast a number of fonts1 cutting all the punches1 and making all the apparatus pertaining thereto1 himself1 for ,roman ,bourgeois1 ,long ,primer1 etc4 ,that this reported activity in type casting in ,germantown about the year #aggd was not a play of the imagination on the part of its historian is made certain by the definite statement that occurs in one of the non-importation resolutions of the ,pennsylvania ,convention4 ,on #bc ,january #agge the ,convention ,resolved unanimously1 ,that as printing types are now made to a considerable degree of perfection by an ingenious artist in ,germantown2 it is recommended to the printers to use such types in preference to any which may be hereafter imported4#ab ,referring somewhat vaguely to this resolution1 both as to content and as to origin1 ,mc,culloch tells us that even at the time of its passage ,fox and ,bay each claimed the honor implied in its terms4 ,to this day the identity of the ingenious artist remains uncertain4 ,it is not clear by what evidence it was known to the ,convention that a considerable degree of perfection had been attained in the making of type in ,germantown4 ,the only known specimen of printing type cast at that place before the meeting of the ,convention in ,january #agge is the ,german letter employed in ,sower's periodical1 ,ein ,geistliches ,magazien1 and it is not likely that this or any other specimen of ,german type would have led the ,convention to a recommendation as sweeping as that which has been quoted from its journal4 ,it could only have been a ,roman letter that the delegates had in mind for a usage so general as was indicated in their resolution1 and we must remain in doubt as to what specimen or specimens they had seen of locally cast type in this character4 ,it is certain1 however1 that at the time of their action a font of ,roman letter had been completed1 or at any rate1 that it was then in the process of casting4 ,it is quite possible that a trial specimen of this font had been submitted to the ,convention for its examination and approval4 ,it is a satisfaction to be able to introduce the new font through the medium of a contemporary reference to its use4 ,we are indebted to the correspondence and to the diary of the ,rev4 ,ezra ,stiles of ,newport1 later ,president of ,yale ,college1 for some important information on early ,american type founding4 ,excited by ,buell's efforts to make type in the year #agfi1 his interest in the manufacture seems to have remained in being1 for on #i ,may #agge he appended the following comment to an entry in his ,diary3 ,extracted from the ,pennsylva ,mercury1 whose first ,no was pub4 the #gth of ,april last3 printed with types of ,american ,manufacture4 ,the first ,work with ,amer4 ,types3 tho' ,types were made at ,n4 ,haven years ago4#ac ,the fact that ,ezra ,stiles was one of the earliest patrons of ,abel ,buell's venture in letter casting1 supported as this fact is by his interest in ,american manufactures generally1 lends a certain amount of weight to any observation that he might make on the subject of ,american type founding1 although it is probable that he was ignorant of ,sower's partial achievement of the art1 just as ,sower some years earlier in his claim to priority had seemed to be unaware of ,buell's technically successful effort4 ,if we may interpret ,dr4 ,stiles's words as meaning that ,story ,humphreys's ,pennsylvania ,mercury#ad of #g ,april #agge1 ,vol4 ,i1 ,no4 ,i1 was the first published work printed in ,roman letter which had been cut and cast in ,english ,america1 we may unhesitatingly repeat his description of it as ,the first ,work with ,amer4 ,types4 ,the ,philadelphia newspaper which has been referred to is one of the rarest of ,american journals of the period4 ,complete files1 comprising issues from #g ,april to #bg ,december #agge1 are found only in the ,library of ,congress and in the ,harvard ,college ,library4 ,from the first page of its first issue1 the publisher's announcement is here reproduced4 ,a glance at the pages of the newspaper in which the new ,roman letter was first used makes us feel that in his commendable willingness to admit imperfection the publisher paid small tribute to the skill of his ingenious artist4 ,the letters of rustic manufacture were far from perfect1 it is true1 and in later issues of the newspaper it is observable that they had not worn especially well1 but nonetheless they composed agreeably and they were sufficiently well executed to entitle them to something more than the half apology with which they were offered to the public4 ,their interest1 however1 as the first ,american-made ,roman type to be used in a publication intended for circulation transcends considerations of worth and appearance4 ,illustration3 ,extract from ,the ,pennsylvania ,mercury of #g ,april #agge4 ,courtesy of the ,harvard ,college ,library4 ,rejoicing in their encouragement of native manufactures1 the practical support they were giving to the ,pennsylvania non-importation resolutions of six months earlier1 the publishers of the ,mercury advertised on #bc ,june #agge ,the ,impenetrable ,secret as a work ,just ,published and ,printed with ,types1 ,paper and ,ink1 ,manufactured in this ,province4 ,if they had added1 as possibly they might have done with truth1 on a press of ,philadelphia make1 we could regard this statement as the declaration of independence of the ,american printer from the ,english manufacturer4#ae ,isaiah ,thomas says that the ,pennsylvania ,mercury was established with the backing of ,joseph ,galloway as a substitute for the ,pennsylvania ,chronicle1 that disastrous earlier venture in journalism in which the ,quaker politician had engaged with ,william ,goddard4 ,if this was the case1 certain features of the new publication must have been displeasing to the silent partner1 for ,galloway the ,tory could hardly have rejoiced with the publishers in their virtuous encouragement of native type founding1 with all its patriotic implications4 ,furthermore1 from an advertisement of ,john ,willis and ,henry ,vogt in the first issue of the paper one learns that the publishers were making use of other articles of printing equipment made by these general craftsmen1 who here announced their ability to make presses and any and all of the mechanical appurtenances required in a printing shop4 ,this well-advertised ,americanism of the publishers1 however1 seems not to have availed them in the attainment of success1 and after their establishment had been destroyed by fire in the closing days of the year the business was never resumed4 ,it is not certainly known who was the maker of the significant ,mercury types4 ,assuming that ,sower's foundry was in full operation in the early months of #agge1 we must assume also1 in the absence of knowledge to the contrary1 that its principal activity was in the manufacture of ,german letters for the great ,bible1 first published in #aggf1 and that ,sower would not have been likely to engage in the making of ,roman type on a large scale until this work had been completed4 ,because of our ignorance of other possibilities there remain to be considered only the two craftsmen1 ,fox and ,bay1 as the probable makers of this first successful ,american letter4 ,according to ,mc,culloch1 ,fox had cut and cast ,roman letter at some period before the year #aggd while still working for ,sower4 ,this statement contains all that is known of his efforts at making ,roman type during the years that he remained with ,sower1 but there is the chance to be taken into account that the ,mercury font was the result of his experimentation during this period in an art which later he pursued with no small degree of local success4 ,on the same authority it is said1 it will be remembered1 that ,jacob ,bay had left ,sower in #aggd1 and in a near-by house in ,germantown had set up a type foundry on his own account4 ,in this separate establishment1 it is likely that he was able to devote to the business such time and energy as would be required in making a font of sufficient size to accommodate the needs of such a newspaper as the ,pennsylvania ,mercury4 ,the fact of his separate foundry having been established sometime in #aggd1 the reference in the ,convention resolution of ,january #agge to the ingenious artist at ,germantown and the appearance in ,april #agge of the new font of type acclaimed by the publishers as an attempt to introduce so valuable an art into these colonies are considerations which1 taken in their order1 seem to give ground for an assumption that it was ,jacob ,bay who cut and cast the letters for ,the first ,work with ,amer4 ,types4 ,until proof is forthcoming1 however1 this must remain an assumption and nothing more4 ,it is certain that both ,fox and ,bay maintained their interest in letter casting for many years4 ,at the sale of ,sower's confiscated property in the year #aggh both of these artisans were present as purchasers of type-making tools and material4#af ,bay especially seems to have taken advantage of the opportunity to secure equipment at this dispersal of his old master's goods4 ,among other purchases which he made at the sale of what was probably at the time the largest typographical establishment in the country were a lot of letter moles at three pounds1 a ,box with #i ,crusibles at #e #aes41 a quantity of worn type at #h;d4 a pound and antimony worth #h #ahs4 #c;d4 ,he was living at the time in a house rented from ,sower1#ag and at the sale of the printer's real property in ,september #aggi he purchased another house belonging to the estate for #dbjj1 a sum which he paid in two installments before #bh ,october #aggi4ah ,in recording from tradition the fact that ,bay secured at this time one of the ,sower houses1 ,mc,culloch asserts that he purchased it from ,john ,dunlap1 the printer1 whom he paid in type of his own making4 ,it is possible that he borrowed the purchase price from ,dunlap on this or a similar basis of repayment1 a transaction that would explain ,mc,culloch's version of the story4 ,it is said that he conducted his foundry until the year #aghi1 and that between this year and #agib he sold the business to ,francis ,bailey4 ,fox continued the making of type until his death in the year #ahje1 when his son and partner ,emmanuel ,fox sold the equipment to ,samuel ,sower of ,baltimore1 the son of ,christopher ,sower1 the ,second1 of ,germantown1 whose enterprise had been the determining cause of its existence4 ,mc,culloch was emphatic in his praise of the sturdiness of ,fox's types1 but when he remarked to ,archibald ,binny upon the excellent wearing quality of a set of figures and capitals cast by the ,germantown founder1 which he and his father before him had been using for many years1 that gentleman replied with scorn that they were at first so devilish ugly 444 the longest using cannot mar their deformity4 ,the type-founding operations of ,fox and of ,bay have greater importance in the history of the art in ,america than is usually conceded them4 ,when they are referred to at all by general writers1 their activities are mentioned briefly or in such a manner as to give one the impression that their efforts were sporadic or tentative4 ,it is with the work of the ,scotch founder ,baine1 using imported equipment1 that the story of ,american type founding is usually begun1 but with the ,mercury font before us1 cut and cast thirteen years before ,baine's first operations1 and with assurances by ,mc,culloch that ,fox cut and cast the letters used in the ,mc,kean edition of the ,acts of the ,pennsylvania ,assembly1 printed by ,francis ,bailey in #aghb1ai and with references by ,mc,culloch to fonts produced by ,bay1 it seems certain that there exists material which will require a revision of the story of ,american type-founding origins4 ,beginning with the incontestable fact of the successful ,mercury font of #agge and accepting ,mc,culloch's relation of later events as a working hypothesis1 there is seen to exist a field for research which should prove productive of discoveries1 inasmuch as the fact and the tradition indicate a continuous activity on the part of one or the other of these early ,pennsylvania founders1 ,fox and ,bay1 from #agge to #ahje4 ,in the course of these years other founders1 better known to us1 began their work1 and between the years #agif and #ahja1 more than one hundred ,american printers1 from ,massachusetts to ,georgia1 purchased type from the foundry of ,binny ,ronaldson of ,philadelphia4#bj ,the identification of the various fonts of locally made type used in ,pennsylvania in the quarter century following ,the first ,work with ,amer4 ,types would form an interesting chapter in the story of early ,american type founding4 ,,composed ,,in ,,monticello ,,types ,,footnotes3 #aj ,editor's ,note3 ,pennsylvania ,archives1 #fth ,series1 #ab3hhg-iai4 ,in ,typographic ,heritage1 the second printing of this essay1 ,sower's type founding venture is more extensively treated1 and the rare existing issues of ,part ,,ii of ,ein ,geistliches ,magazien are located 7pp4 #adc-add74 #aa ,mc,culloch1 p4 #aha1 gives the middle of ,december #agga as the date of ,bay's arrival in ,philadelphia4 ,in ,rupp's ,collection of ,thirty ,thousand ,names of ,german1 ,swiss1 ,dutch1 ,french1 and other ,immigrants in ,pennsylvania from #agbg to #aggf1 p4 #cih1 ,jacob ,bay is among the arrivals on the ,brig ,betsey on #a ,december #agga4 ,the name is spelled ,bey by ,mc,culloch1 ,by by ,rupp1 ,bay in various lists and documents in the ,pennsylvania ,archives4 ,the last-named spelling is used in the present study on this authority4 #ab ,journal of the ,house of ,representatives of the ,commonwealth of ,pennsylvania 444 7#aggf-agha71 ,volume the ,first 7,philadelphia1 #aghb71 p4 #cc4 #ac ,ezra ,stiles1 ,literary ,diary4 ,ed4 by ,f4 ,b4 ,dexter4 #c vols4 7,new ,york1 #aija71 ,i3#edi4 #ad ,story ,humphreys's ,pennsylvania ,mercury1 and ,universal ,advertiser4 ,evans #addgg4 ,no copy seen by ,hildeburn4 #ae ,it well may be that this production was not a book or pamphlet but a popular card game of the educational sort4 ,see ,a4 ,t4 ,hazen1 ,a ,bibliography of ,horace ,walpole1 p4 #agc1 and the same author's bibliography of the ,strawberry ,hill ,press1 pp4 #ade-adh4 #af ,pennsylvania ,archives1 #fth ,series1 #ab3hhg-iai4 #ag ,mc,culloch's statement is borne out by the inventory of ,sower's real estate in ,pennsylvania ,archives1 #fth ,series1 #ab3hgb-hgc4 #ah ,pennsylvania ,archives1 #fth ,series1 #ab3iah-iai4 #ai ,mc,culloch gives the date indefinitely as about the year #aghd4 ,his father1 ,john ,mc,culloch1 from whom he received much information embodied in the ,additions1 was at one time foreman in ,bailey's shop4 #bj ,one ,hundred ,years1 ,mac,kellar1 ,smiths and ,jordan ,foundry1 ,philadelphia1 ,pennsylvania 7#ahif71 p4 #ab1 where is given a list of printers found in ,binny ,ronaldson's ledgers from #agif to #ahja4 ,the original books are in the ,typographic ,library and ,museum of the ,american ,type ,founders ,company1 now a part of the ,columbia ,university ,library4 ,,ronald ,b4 ,mc,k,e,r,r,o,w ,typographic ,debut ,notes on the ,long and other ,characters in ,early ,english ,printing4 ,from ,an ,introduction to ,bibliography by ,ronald ,b4 ,mc,kerrow4 ,copyright #aibg by the ,clarendon ,press4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,the letters and s ,from the beginning of printing until towards the end of the eighteenth century was used initially and medially and s finally1 following of course the practice of the ,,mss4 ,there were certain exceptions3 ,sweynheim and ,pannartz1 setting up the first press in ,italy at ,subiaco in #adfe1 used a type transitional in character though with marked gothic features1 which used the long in all positions1 a practice which may have been imitated from ,neapolitan ,,mss4 of the period4 ,other printers sometimes followed the same usage in ,roman type4 ,the first book to discard is said to have been ,joseph ,ames's ,typographical ,antiquities of #agdi1 but this was regarded as an eccentricity1 and the normal is used in ,herkert's edition of #aghe-ij4 ,the effective introduction of the reform has been credited to ,john ,bell who in his ,british ,theatre of #agia used s throughout1 the same practice being followed in the ,boydell ,shakespeare1 of which vol4 ,i appeared in #agib4ba ,it is worth noting that ,capell in his ,prolusions1 #agfj1 had attempted a modification of the usual practice4 ,he there uses s medially for a z-sound1 retaining for an s-sound1 thus3 easily1 visible1 rais'd1 c41 but veres1 puruit1 atify4 ,in ,london printing the reform was adopted very rapidly and1 save in work of an intentionally antiquarian character1 we do not find much use of in the better kind of printing after #ahjj4 ,the provincial presses seem1 however1 to have retained it somewhat longer and it is said to have been used at ,oxford until #ahbd4 ,the letters i1 j1 u and v ,as a general rule1 until early in the seventeenth century there was only one capital letter1 ,i 7in ,roman7 or ,illustration3 ,j in black-letter71 for the letters now represented by ,i and ,j2 and only one capital letter ,v 7in ,roman7 or ,illustration3 ,u1 ,v 7in black-letter7 for the letters ,u and ,v4 ,as was pointed out by ,f4 ,w4 ,bourdillon1 this has in early ,french books the odd result that a libraire jur is liable to appear in capitals as ,i ,v ,r ,e4 ,when reprinting a black-letter text in ,roman it seems logical to represent these by ,i and ,v in all cases1 though some editors have preferred to use ,j and ,u1 perhaps because the black-letter forms approximate more closely to these letters in shape4 ,in lower-case most founts had i1 j1 u and v1 but j was only used in the combination ij 7often a ligature7 or in numerals1 as xiij1 while v and u were differentiated according to position1 not according to pronunciation2 v being always used at the beginning of a word and u always medially4 ,thus the following are the normal spellings3 iudge1 inijcere or iniicere 7 lat4 injicere71 vse1 euent1 vua 7 lat4 uva74 ,certain printers varied the practice in a few books1 but the rule followed by most was absolutely rigid4 ,it is quite incorrect to say that the letters were used indifferently1 or that the sixteenth-century usage was the converse of the modern4444 ,rimes and puns show that the ,elizabethans called ,v by the name we now give to ,u 7hence ,w is called double-u74 ,i have failed to discover the originator of the modern name ve4444 ,in ,england no example of the distinction between i and j1 u and v seems to have been found earlier than ,j4 ,banister's ,history of ,man1 printed by ,john ,day in #aegh4 ,the new method is followed in a few other books of ,day1 and in #aegi-hj we find it followed by ,henry ,middleton in reprinting a ,latin ,bible from a ,frankfurt edition in which the distinction had been made4 ,from that time onwards to the end of the century we find a certain number of books following the new system either completely or with certain modifications1 and thereafter the number gradually increased until between #afbj and #afcj it became the general rule4 ,the majuscule ,u at first employed was of the general design of the lower-case u with a small tail or serif at the foot 7which has been revived in some modern fonts74 ,the modern ,u begins to come into use in ,english printing about the middle of the seventeenth century4 ,the letter w ,in early fonts this is often represented by vv4 ,in later times the same is often found in fonts of extra large size 7presumably of foreign origin71 and in ordinary fonts when there happened to be a run on the w and the compositor had not enough4 ,ligatures ,two or more letters joined together1 or differing in design from the separate letters1 and cast on one type-body1 such as ct or ffi1 are called a ligature4 ,there were two reasons for their being so cast1 custom and convenience4 ,in the early fonts the great majority of the ligatures were due to custom alone and represented a following of scribal practice which commonly joined together certain pairs of letters4 ,thus in the fount used by ,caxton in the ,dictes and ,sayings of the ,philosophers we find such ligatures as ad1 be1 ce1 ch1 co1 de1 en1 in1 ll1 pa1 pe1 po1 pp1 re1 ro1 te1 c41 all of which owe their existence solely to imitation of ,,mss4 of the time4 ,many of these customary ligatures persisted throughout the sixteenth century1 and even later in black-letter founts 444 while a few have combinations with certain capitals such as ,ch1 ,sh1 ,th1 ,wh4444 ,even in ,roman founts we find ct1 oo1 c41 of which ct has persisted until modern times4 ,in ,italic fonts we also find es1 us1 st1 and others4 7,the original ,aldine ,italic had many more47 ,when a letter part of which overhangs the body of the type1 such as f or 1 happens to be followed by such an upright letter as l or h1 or by an i1 the overhanging part or kern of the first letter comes in contact with the top of the second1 and either the two types do not fit together properly or the kern of the first letter gets broken off4 ,to avoid this1 most fonts even at present have ligatures of f with l1 i and another f 7the end of the curve of the first letter or the dot of the i being suppressed71 and of ff with l and i4 ,in early times these ligatures for convenience included also a set with 4 ,the f and ligatures are also presumably copied from the ,,mss41 where they frequently occur1 though not in all hands4444 ,punctuation marks _/ ,in quite early fonts this sign is used for the comma1 or perhaps we should rather say to indicate any short pause in reading4444 ,the modern comma seems to have been introduced into ,england about #aeba 7in ,roman type7 and #aece 7in black-letter74 ,it occurs in ,venetian printing before #aejj4 8 ,the query mark seems to have been used in ,england from about #aeba4 2 ,the semicolon seems to have been first used in ,england about #aefi1 but was not common until #aehj or thereabouts4 4 ,the full stop was commonly used before as well as after ,roman1 and sometimes also arabic1 numerals until about #aehj4 ,thus 4xii4 ,it was also used before and after i 74i4 id est7 and 744 scilicet71 and ,i have found it once with q cue3 as though his 4q4 was then to speake4 #8 and ' were used indifferently in such abbreviations as th' or th#8 for #8the4' ,it may be noted that #8t'is' or #8t#8is' 7instead of #8 'tis'7 was so common in the ,elizabethan period that it should perhaps be regarded as normal4 ,inverted commas were1 until late in the seventeenth century1 frequently used at the beginnings of lines to call attention to sententious remarks4 ,modern editors have occasionally regarded such passages as quotations and completed the quotes1 which is generally wrong4 ,so far as ,i have observed they were not especially associated with quotations until the eighteenth century1 although1 owing to their use for calling especial attention to a passage1 they often appear in passages which are actually quoted4 ,even after they become clearly used to mark quotations they generally appear at the beginning of the passage and at the beginning of every line1 but not always at the end4 ,the practice of closing the quotation with two apostrophes seems to be comparatively modern4 7,i have found it in the middle of the eighteenth century1 but it does not seem to have been regularly observed until much later47 ,inverted commas1 as well as many other signs1 ,greek letters 7sometimes inverted7 c41 were used in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century printing as reference marks directing to side- or footnotes4 7 7 were often used in the sixteenth century where we now use quotation marks1 and were indeed the general way of indicating a short quotation1 e4g43 she was neuer heard to giue any the lie1 nor so much as to 7thou7 any in anger4--,,stubbes1 ,christal ,glasse1 #aeia4 ,they also seem sometimes to be used merely for emphasis1 e4g43 ,what yesterday was 7,greene7 now's seare and dry--,,cooke1 ,greene's ,tu ,quoque1 #afad4 ,square brackets are common in some ,elizabethan fonts1 being used as we now use round ones4 ,they were also sometimes used instead of round ones for the purposes mentioned above2 e4g43 which is as much as of olde or in times past4--,,plutarch1 ,morals1 #afjc4 ,,composed ,,in ,,caslon #ccg ,,types ,,footnotes3 #ba ,,note3 ,in the ,birrell ,garnett catalog1 ,typefounders' ,specimens1 ,london #aibh1 pp4 #ci-dj1 it is pointed out that the short s was effectively introduced by the ,martins who worked the ,apollo ,press at ,edinburgh1 and their ,london publisher1 ,john ,bell4 ,the first book of theirs that ,i have seen is the series of ,poets1 for example the ,dryden of #aggg4444 ,graham ,pollard relates there the instructive and amusing history of the error1 for which ,hansard was responsible3 ,j4 ,johnson in ,typographia1 ,london #ahbd1 wrote 444 for which we are indebted to the ingenious ,mr4 ,john ,bell1 who introduced them in his edition of the ,british ,classics4 ,in copying this1 ,hansard 7#ahbe7 made the error in transcribing ,british ,theatre4 ,he was followed by ,c4 ,h4 ,timperley in #ahdb1 who added the qualifying phrase about #agie1 by ,j4 ,b4 ,nichols in his ,illustrations of ,literature1 #aheh1 and by ,r4 ,b4 ,mc,kerrow in #aibg1 where it has been given a new lease of life by correcting the obvious mistake in date to #agia4 ,,edward ,,rowe ,,mores ,illustration3 ,metal-,flowers ,from a ,dissertation upon ,english ,typographical ,founders and ,foundries by ,edward ,rowe ,mores4 ,london #aggh4 ,reprinted by ,the ,grolier ,club1 #aibd4 ,metal-flowers were the firt ornaments ued in printed books1 to be et at the head of the firt page and the tail of the lat page1 as well as at the head and tail of any eparate part of the whole work1 and they were ometimes ued as an edging to the matter according to the tate of the author or the printer1 they were ued paringly and with mall variety1 but in time they became more numerou1 and were cut in everal hapes1 forms and devices1 and continued in reputation till ,cutters in ,wood upplanted them1 when ,mr4 ,moxon wrote they were accounted old-fashioned4 but the ue of them was revived by the ,french and ,germans and the variety of them coniderably encreased by the ,two ,mr4 ,james's in ,england4 ,the flower-matrices in their foundery have been divided into old and new1 which to be ure is a diviion1 but uch as conveys nothing or a fale idea to the undertanding4 ,we are to oberve then that the latter1 though motly now in vogue1 are mere figures of fancy1 made up of circular oval and angular turns1 contrived to look light1 airy and unmeaning1 and to try the genius or patience of a compoitor4 ,but the former expreed ome meaning and were adapted to other purpoes than barely to dress and decorate a page4 they were formed from real objects natural and artificial1 civil and military1 as from weeds and flowers of the field and garden1 leaves1 branches1 fruits1 flower-bakets1 flower-pots1 urns1 croes1 banners1 launces1 words1 and tilting pears1 and other amples culled from the fields of nature and of heraldry2 yet germane to the ubject matter of the work4 ,they were frequently emblematical and monitory2 as cherubs' faces for the hymns of charity girls1 hour-glaes for lugubrious orators1 and mort-heads for the parih-clerks4 they were ymbolical of nations2 as the crown and roe1 the crown and lyz1 the crown and harp2--of dignities and orders2 as diadems1 crowns1 mitres and coronets2 the red hat called at ,camb4 the ,cardinal's cap1 where too the mitre is called the golden night-cap2 the courtelass2 the arms of ,ulter1 and the anchor of hope2 the ,scotch-thitle and prigs of rue2 both ub-ymbolical2 the former rendered more o by the cry de guerre ,noli me ,tangere2--of tates and conditions2 as the myrtle1 the weeping willow1 and the bugle-horn4 with many others which to enumerate would be tedious here4 ,illustration ,,composed ,,in ,,caslon #ccg ,,types ,,james ,,watson ,the ,,history of the ,invention and ,progress of the ,mysterious ,art of ,,printing c4 ,from ,the ,history of the ,art of ,printing 444 printed by ,james ,watson1 ,edinburgh1 #agac4 ,if the ,ignorant look upon ,,printing without admiring ,it2 it is1 because they do not understand the same3 ,the ,learned have always judged far otherways2 and have1 with ,reason1 thought1 ,that1 for almost the ,three ,ages wherein this ,wonder hath been seen in ,europe1 the ,wit of ,man did never invent any ,thing that was either more lucky1 or more useful for ,instruction4 ,this ,truth is so universally acknowledged1 that it needs no ,proof3 ,every one knows1 that1 without this marvellous ,art1 the ,studies1 ,labours1 and ,works of great ,men1 would have been of no ,use to ,posterity4 ,we are then obliged to this ,art1 for the ,knowledge of the ,works of the old ,philosophers1 ,physicians1 ,astronomers1 ,historians1 ,orators1 ,poets1 ,lawyers1 ,theologues2 and1 in a ,word1 of all that hath been writ upon any ,art1 and ,science whatsoever4 ,it is by the ,means of ,,printing that ,theologues do attain to the sacred ,mysteries of our ,religion2 ,that the ,doctors of ,law1 do teach those admirable ,laws1 which do regulate the ,society of ,men2 ,that ,historiographers do furnish us with ,examples1 which we are either to follow or shun2 ,that ,astronomers do make every ,day such fine ,discoveries in the ,heavens4 ,it is this very ,art which furnisheth ,physicians with ,means to preserve and recover the ,health of ,man's ,body2 ,which discovereth to ,philosophers the more hid ,secrets of ,nature2 ,which furnisheth ,geometricians with ,ability to measure the ,earth2 ,and to ,arithmeticians1 to give every ,man his ,due4 ,in fine1 what would the ,moderns know in any one ,science1 and ,art1 if ,,printing did not furnish them with ,all that the ,ancients found out8 ,all the ,elogiums which we make of ,,printing1 and the ,honours which we pay to ,it1 come far short of ,it's ,merit3 ,and we cannot but easily consent to this1 if we consider the vast ,expences which the ,ancients were obliged to be at1 in procuring ,manuscripts4444 ,,the ,,publisher',s ,,preface ,,to ,,the ,,printers ,,in ,,scotland ,gentlemen1 ,that ,men are not born for themselves1 but for the ,republick1 is an ancient and universally applauded ,maxim4 ,and it is so agreeable to right ,reason1 that the wisest and best ,part of ,mankind1 in every ,age since the ,creation1 have endeavour'd to lay the ,foundation of a lasting good ,name1 by every ,action of their ,life2 whereby they might improve the ,body or ,society of which they were ,members4 ,to this ,principle it is1 that we owe the ,invention or ,improvement of all the ,arts and ,sciences that are instructive or beneficial to ,man4 ',mongst which the ,invention1 and vast ,improvement1 of the no less honourable1 than useful and admirable ,art of ,,printing1 which we profess1 deserves a very eminent ,place3 ,since by ,it1 all ,sorts of ,learning1 ,sacred or ,profane1 and every ,kind of profitable ,instruction and ,invention are both publish'd and preserv'd2 as my ,author1 ,i here give you the ,translation of1 shews clearly and copiously enough4 ,this ,book1 being the ,history of the ,beginning and ,advancement of our ,art1 shews the ,character of the ,men who first profess'd ,it1 the ,marks of ,honour paid them1 wilst alive2 nay1 and the ,monuments rais'd to preserve their ,memories after ,death4 ,by all which 'tis plain1 ,that those illustrious ,persons were honour'd1 and ranked among the best of their fellow ,citizens1 in those ,times3 ,whereas now we are scarcely class'd or esteem'd above the lower ,forms of ,mechanicks4 ,how we came to lose that ,honour and ,respect due to our ,profession1 7since the present ,age is much more learned1 and ,i believe1 as just too1 and discerning of ,merit as their ,ancestors7 shall be a little inquir'd into4 ,but first let me give some general ,account of this ,work4 ,it bears the ,title of1 ,the ,history1 c4 of our ,mysterious ,art2 and the ,author1 with great ,exactness and ,candor1 fairly shews the ,claims1 ,reasons and ,authority supporting them1 on both ,sides1 in the lasting ,contest betwixt the ,towns of ,mentz and ,harlem2 for the ,glory of the ,invention4 ,a clear ,mark1 what a solid ,honour 'tis esteem'd for a ,town to have been the noble ,theatre1 where so wonderful an ,art was first brought to ,light4 ,he next gives the ,names of the first learned ,printers1 together with a ,catalogue of the ,works printed by them1 and the ,marks of ,honour paid to them by their ,fellow-,citizens and ,country-,men2 which will more than enough justify what ,i have affirm'd above4 ,the ,author wrote in ,french1 and ,i have caus'd translate it for my own1 and the common ,benefit of these practising the ,art in this ,part of ,britain2 without proposing any other ,advantage or ,gain by it1 but the ,improvement of the ,art1 or at least raising ,it to the ,pitch of ,perfection ,it was at here in former ,times4 ,and since we are1 ,i trust1 all of us honest ,men1 and of better ,spirits than to propose the ,earning our ,bread as the chief and only ,end of our ,labour2 ,i entertain a settled well grounded ,hope1 that the ,perusal of this1 will inspire us all with a noble and generous ,emulation of equalling1 nay1 exceeding1 if we can1 the best ,performances of our laudable ,ancestors in the ,employment4 ,that since our ,native ,country has at present as many good ,spirits1 and ,abundance of more ,authors than in any former ,age2 we may make it our ,ambition1 as well as it is our ,interest and ,honour1 to furnish them with ,printers that can serve them so well1 that they need not1 as many of our former ,authors have been forc'd to do1 go to other ,countries to publish their ,writings1 lest a learn'd ,book should be spoil'd by an ignorant or careless ,printer4 ,thus1 ,gentlemen1 we shall have this ,honour1 which is truly more valuable than immense ,sums of ,money or opulent ,estates1 that1 for the ,glory of our ,country1 we have retrieved the ,art of ,,printing1 and brought ,it to as great ,perfection as ever ,it was here in former ,times4444 ,,edinburgh1 ,,may #bi,,th1 #agac ,printers as ,men of the ,world ,illustration3 ,,evelyn ,,harter ,copyright #aidg by ,the ,typophiles4 ,reprinted by permission of the author4 ,printers are usually judged as printers1 and there are those who hold that this is as it should be1 that the printer should stick to his pica rule and follow copy out the window4 ,but in their spare time printers also eat1 vote1 marry and go to war4 ,it would therefore be possible to look at them from various points of view1 as1 for instance1 how many were vegetarians1 anarchists1 bigamists and top sergeants4 ,this could be so of any group of craftsmen4 ,if we look at printers from another viewpoint1 as to whether they were men of the world1 it is because of the nature of the stuff with which they work4 ,i should like to begin obliquely by speaking first of an approach to the history of printing4 ,probably the history of printing is more limited1 definite and easy to encompass than that of almost any subject4 ,that is not to say that anyone can ever learn all of it1 or that we cannot go on learning something new about it all our lives4 ,but printing started fairly recently in time2 it is its own record4 ,excluding the science of bibliography1 the literature is not large compared1 for example1 with that of art or philosophy or geology4 ,yet few people know as much of it as they might know with pleasure1 and perhaps the reason for that might be a faulty approach4 ,it is customary to send beginners to study ,updike1 but it is easy for beginners to get bogged down in ,printing ,types1 particularly if they start to read it from the beginning4 ,updike's magnificent work is1 in its writing and its outline1 gratifying to the student whose basic knowledge has been fixed and matured4 ,beginners move more freely in the pages of ,george ,parker ,winship1 possibly because he related printing events to world events to a greater extent than does ,updike4 ,usually the person who wishes to learn more about printing has already at hand a lot of names and dates and places vaguely relating to world events of the past4 ,to such a person printing history lends itself readily to the method of study by association4 ,it can be a good game to find out what was happening in printing when ,napoleon was looking at the ,pyramids1 or when ,charles ,i was beheaded4 ,if one is interested in art1 he can correlate artists and printers1 and find that ,leonardo was born about the same time that printing was born in ,europe1 or he can correlate printing with advances in the knowledge of medicine or agriculture4 ,there are small but interesting links between the history of printing and that of music4 ,for instance ,william ,caslon the elder loved music1 and it is possible that the composer ,handel sometimes played his new pieces at the concerts held in ,caslon's organ room1 since the two men had mutual friends in the musical world of ,london4 ,there have been printers who were interested in other worlds4 ,the ,dutch printer ,blaeu studied astronomy under ,tycho ,brahe1 and himself produced in #afjj a celestial globe4 ,the ,scottish type-founder ,alexander ,wilson1 although educated as a doctor1 became interested in type and left a considerable foundry to his sons before he himself moved on to become professor of astronomy at the ,university of ,glasgow4 ,if you wish to make the most of this method1 you must do it yourself4 ,then it is you who will have the fun1 and then what you learn will stick4 ,what follows illustrates the method briefly by looking at a number of printers in the past five hundred years from one angle1 judging them not simply as printers but as men of the world4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it would be nice if we could start with a definition of man of the world and a definition of printer but actually this small investigation is an attempt at definition4 ,we cannot mean man of the world in the ,chesterfieldian sense1 although there have been many printers who knew how to dress and carry themselves in court and salon1 notably ,aldus1 ,caxton and members of the ,didot family4 ,chesterfield would be obliged to allow some of our printers in his company1 but ,i doubt if we could allow him in ours1 for in one of his letters to his son he says1 ,due attention to the inside of books and due contempt for the outside is the proper relation between a man of sense and his books4 ,perhaps he was thinking of the vanity of fancy bindings1 though it is more likely that he was beguiling himself into one of those untruths common to aphorizers4 ,however that may be1 our man of the world does not mean gentleman of the world as ,chesterfield thought of gentleman1 although there are printers who are both--not all dead4 ,if we were to speak of the printer as a citizen of the world1 we would be coming a little closer to it1 but citizen implies being at home in the geographical world1 whereas we are thinking of him being at home in the world of ideas4 ,when we say of the world1 we mean that he knows that he belongs to his contemporary world1 that the people and events are of interest to him1 the politics1 art1 science and poetry--not only some particular dexterity1 professional specialization or money-making device of his own4 ,it might be argued that the bulk of printing has not now1 and never has had1 much relation to ideas1 that in the early days its chief business was dubious theological disputes and that its chief business now is advertising soap flakes and the like4 ,but printing1 in its entirety1 is a description of the world1 and if a great deal of print is devoted to murder cases1 toothpaste ads and income tax blanks--well1 that must be the kind of world we have4 ,however1 when new ideas have been advanced1 they have been advanced in print1 so that the printer has never been safe from them4 ,even now1 in the event that they be promulgated by radio1 they must be fixed in print in order to stick and sink in4 ,let us only say then that with regard to gaining knowledge of the world in which we live1 the printer is in an exposed position--nothing more4 ,although we do not know much about ,gutenberg1#bb the first printer1 we doubt that he was a man of the world in our sense4 ,how could he have been8 ,for the preceding four or five hundred years to be a man of the world was to be unworldly2 people had been concerned with building cathedrals1 making religious paintings1 going on crusades4 ,printing was the chief factor in making the man of the world in our modern sense4 ,printing enabled him to know what was going on so that he might take part in it1 although printers did not realize this during the cradle days of printing4 ,great events were occurring then2 the ,turks captured ,constantinople2 the ,hundred ,years' ,war came to an end with the ,english driven off the continent of ,europe2 the ,portuguese sailed to the ,canaries and the ,azores2 but these events found little mention in early printing4 ,the ,nuremberg ,chronicle1 as ,helen ,gentry and ,david ,greenhood point out in their ,chronology1 made no mention of ,columbus' discovery of ,america in the previous year4 ,first came religious books1 then school books1 law books and classics4 ,it is true that ,fust and ,schffer printed proclamations and information for the archbishop1 but it was not until ,von ,olpe at ,basle printed ,the ,ship of ,fools in #adid that we have a book dealing with contemporary people and their exploits instead of with historical accounts of the past4 ,although ,gutenberg had been involved in the politics of ,mainz in his youth1 probably he thought of nothing but printing after he began work on his invention4 ,we have an old book of stories for children which describes ,gutenberg in a dream3 ,he thought of the great harm which might be done through the printing of bad books--how they would corrupt the minds of the innocent1 how they would stir up the passions of the wicked4 ,suddenly he seized a heavy hammer and began to break his press in pieces4 ,but then a voice seemed to come from the press itself saying1 ',hold your hand1 ,john ,gutenberg4 ,the art of printing will enlighten the world4' ,i have no idea where the author could have found source material for this little fantasy1 for we can feel quite sure that ,gutenberg had little conception of the influence of his invention4 ,he was all craftsman and inventor and carried his world in his head4 ,his financial reverses alone would indicate that4 ,the word printer has been an elastic word from the very beginning1 including scholars and artists1 businessmen and craftsmen4 ,if we were to consider the term printer narrowly in the sense of a typesetter or a pressman or a man who supervises these operations1 we should still have to make room in our history for men like ,jean ,grolier1 the patron1 and ,geoffroy ,tory1 the artist4 ,we know of many printers who were first and last businessmen4 ,johann ,fust was a banker until he put money in ,gutenberg's project4 ,the first ,english printer1 ,caxton1 was a retired wool merchant who liked to translate ,french romances for his friends and became tired of writing them out in longhand4 ,anton ,koberger1 who was ,drer's godfather1 the publisher of ,the ,nuremberg ,chronicle and a great entrepreneur in his day1 began as a printer2 he printed books in various languages1 did sub-contracting and printed advertising circulars4 ,probably if the plain motives of most printers could be discovered1 making a living would loom large4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there have been many printers who were also scholars1 beginning with ,aldus and including the ,estiennes and the ,didots4 ,and there are the typecutter-printers who combined letter-founding and printing--,nicolas ,jenson1 ,giambattista ,bodoni1 ,john ,baskerville1 as well as the names equally brilliant in printing history of those who devoted themselves to founding--,claude ,garamond1 ,william ,caslon and the ,fourniers4 ,a general haze surrounds the subject of the contribution of less well-known type-cutters to printing4 ,although the use of a distinguished type may be one of the chief reasons for the printer's success1 compare the fame of the printer ,aldus with that of his type designer1 ,francesco da ,bologna1 of ,john ,bell with that of ,richard ,austin1 of ,thomas ,bensley with that of ,vincent ,figgins1 of ,bulmer with ,william ,martin1 of ,elzevir with ,christoffel van ,dyck1 of ,franois ,ambroise ,didot with that of ,waflard4 ,on the subject of the share which these printers had in suggesting the nature of the type to the men who cut it1 typographical writers are almost consistently inexplicit1 although we do know that ,william ,martin brought his types with him when he started work for ,bulmer4 ,even ,updike1 who gives credit to the type designer and cutter wherever he is known1 says1 ,at first the best printers were often type-founders too1 although ,garamond merely 7sic67 cut and cast type for the use of others4 ,binders and papermen1 ink-makers and machinery manufacturers have always had an affectionate and proprietary air about printing4 ,rather than try to define printer strictly1 it may be truer to say that printers are an adjectival lot1 and that printing can honorably be a very inclusive term1 but that we might have a new printing terminology which would better define the various contributions4 99 99 99 99 99 ,what was happening in the world about the year #aejj when ,aldus ,manutius#bc had his great printing shop in ,venice working at its peak8 ,columbus had made several voyages1 and the ,portuguese had been around the tip of ,africa although ,magellan had not yet sailed around the world4 ,leonardo da ,vinci had left ,milan for political reasons1 and was working in ,venice1 as was ,giovanni ,bellini and his pupils ,titian and ,giorgione4 ,northern ,italy was the scene of much brawling between rival princes1 with ,emperor ,maximilian ,i stepping in now and then to make things worse4 ,the battles were nuisances to ,aldus1 for they interfered with the production and distribution of his books4 ,i do not know how much he knew about the geographical discoveries of his time1 but we can be sure that a man of his cultivation knew about the great painting and sculpture being done4 ,ralph ,roeder says of this time that its triumphs are preserved in art1 its reverses in its spiritual story1 and both are the result of the same cause--its supreme vitality4 ,it is one more indication of that vitality that ,aldus at the age of forty embarked on a project which was to bring about a tremendous enlargement of the conception of the purpose of books4 ,many printers in history have drifted into printing or its allied trades by chance1 but there seems to be no doubt that ,aldus knew exactly what he was doing all the time4 ,he was a man who knew what he wanted4 ,he had been a scholar and tutor to ,alberto and ,lionello ,pio1 princes of ,carpi1 when he first saw printed books and realized what could be done to make classical manuscripts generally available4 ,with the aid of the ,pio family he went to ,venice1 which1 since the fall of ,constantinople1 had been the richest repository of manuscripts and a residence of ,greek scholars4 ,in order to have reference books available for his proof-readers and editors1 he first printed a ,greek dictionary and a ,greek grammar and himself prepared a ,greek-,latin dictionary4 ,he gave ,venice a university when he started the ,new ,academy of ,venice4 ,for his press he hired the finest scholars of the day--,bembo and ,reuchlin1 ,musurus and ,erasmus4 ,we1 in the twentieth century1 have a tendency to think of scholars as removed from the affairs of life4 ,aldus was a scholar who was also in the midst of life1 because scholarship was an important affair in the world of ,renaissance man4 ,he must have been a true cosmopolitan as well1 commanding1 as he did1 the friendship of men as different as ,erasmus of ,rotterdam and ,jean ,grolier of ,france1 from whom he had a commission to print special copies of his books on vellum4 ,the #aejj's were a time of religious bickerings and of religious wars1 of ,henry the ,,viii's break with ,rome1 of the ,german wars following the death of ,martin ,luther1 and the ,inquisition in ,spain4 ,in the early part of the century there was working at ,lyons1 which was then second only to ,paris as a printing center in ,france1 a young scholar and printer named ,etienne ,dolet4#bd ,there is a story that he was the illegitimate son of ,francis ,i1 but at any rate he came of a wealthy family1 having been to ,venice as secretary to the ,french ,ambassador and to ,toulouse to study law4 ,by the time he was twenty-seven he had published a ,latin ,dictionary which was one of the most important contributions to classical scholarship in the century and was given a license by ,francis ,i providing that ,dolet might print for ten years any books written or supervised by him4 ,his great range of taste and interests may be judged by the fact that he printed the ,new ,testament in ,latin and ,rabelais in ,french4 ,he had met ,rabelais when he first went to ,lyons to work under ,sebastian ,gryphius as proof-reader1 and there gained his practical knowledge of printing under the foreman1 ,jean de ,tournes4 ,e4 ,d4 ,christie1 ,dolet's biographer1 says that ,dolet1 arriving in ,lyons with a fever1 may have been taken directly to ,rabelais1 who was at that time practising medicine1 with the position of ,physician to the ,great ,hospital4 ,christie also thinks it possible that ,dolet may have seen ,rabelais perform a dissection on a man's body ten years before ,vesalius4 ,everything ,dolet did shows him to have been a man with lively fearless intellect and no talent for playing safe and keeping out of trouble4 ,he spent several terms in jail for lack of orthodoxy on religious questions1 was pardoned by ,francis ,i for killing a man1 and was denounced by ,rabelais for printing an unexpurgated edition of ,pantagruel after ,rabelais had fixed it up to suit the ,sorbonne4 ,at ,lyons in the months of ,april and ,may1 #aeci1 there occurred the first large organized printers' strike4 ,it was no wonder1 for ,updike says that it was not unusual for the printers' day to begin at two in the morning and last until eight or nine at night4 ,the workmen said that the masters did not supply sufficient food1 that wages had been reduced1 that there were too many compulsory holidays4 ,the ,seneschal of ,lyons was empowered to meet a committee of journeymen and one of masters2 at this conference rules were drawn up4 ,but the trouble spread to ,paris1 and as a result of arbitration there1 the working day was set from five in the morning till eight at night4 ,then there was a flare-up at ,lyons again because the master printers threatened to move away2 this was some years in settlement4 ,of all the master printers of ,lyons1 the only one who sided with the strikers was ,dolet4 ,this was held against him later when he was imprisoned on a charge of atheism1 tortured1 hanged and finally burned on his thirty-seventh birthday4 7,see ,chronology of ,books and ,printing47 ,on his way to his death he made a ,latin pun on his name4 ,if we speak of him as a man of the world1 the accent is on man4 ,it is said that it was this event--the burning of ,dolet--which decided ,christopher ,plantin#be to leave ,france in #aedh for ,antwerp1 though ,plantin never exhibited the uncompromising attitude of ,dolet2 rather he showed a business toughness and adaptability which enabled him to survive and stay in this world1 which was no small feat for a printer in the sixteenth century4 ,it was a time when empires and ideologies were in tremendous conflict2 the period of the ,german religious wars following the death of ,martin ,luther2 of ,spain and ,england in unrelenting struggle for control of the sea1 culminating in the destruction of the ,spanish ,armada in #aehh4 ,antwerp itself was a focal point of disorder after ,philip ,,ii sent the ,duke of ,alba to subdue the ,netherlanders4 ,plantin had built up a good printing and publishing business when1 in #aefb1 it was liquidated because of his alleged unorthodoxy4 ,within a few years he had recovered to the extent that he was made ,printer to the ,king of ,spain1 from whom he received assurances of help on his ,polyglot ,bible4 ,again1 in the sack of ,antwerp by ,spanish soldiers in #aegf his business was all but ruined2 he went to ,leyden for a few years1 but returned to finish his days at ,antwerp4 ,to a man living in those times1 the issues must have seemed even more confused and difficult than ours do now4 ,recent investigations indicate that ,plantin belonged to a sect of heretics for which he printed books secretly1 while also doing books for the church4 ,another sixteenth-century printer who could hardly be oblivious to the events of his time--he was so knocked about by them--was ,robert ,estienne4#bf ,even though he was at one time ,royal ,printer1 liked and respected by ,francis ,i1 he sometimes had to seek the sanctuary of the ,king's court to escape the ,king's censors4 ,robert must have been a man of stature1 for he published his ,new ,testament in defiance of the ,sorbonne1 and only after ,francis ,i died did he leave ,paris for ,geneva4 ,he was a believer in one of the springs of ,renaissance thought--that through scholarship it is possible to come to the truth1 and through printing all men may recognize and know the truth4 ,it would be possible for a man of the world to be so without ever stirring from the town of his birth1 yet oftener than not the man with breadth of interest is a cosmopolitan and a traveller4 ,such cosmopolitans were fourteen members of the ,elzevir#bg family1 who1 over a period of one hundred and thirty years1 engaged in printing and selling small books chiefly intended for poor scholars4 ,this ,dutch family of practical internationalists established their bookshops and printing offices in nearly every large city on the continent1 from ,denmark to ,italy1 printing their books in ,latin and ,greek1 ,french and ,arabic1 on subjects ranging from medicine to political science4 ,all this in spite of the ,thirty ,years' ,war1 which was to bring about the decline of the artificial internationalism of the ,hapsburgs and the ,holy ,roman ,empire1 and in spite of similar disturbances before and after4 99 99 99 99 99 ,during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries1 the geographical boundaries of printing were extended vastly outside of ,europe4 ,the colonization of ,north and ,south ,america was going forward4 ,the first press in ,america had been established at ,mexico ,city in #aeci by agents of ,kromberger of ,seville4 ,european printing was carried to ,india in #aefa1 to ,china in #aehi1 and to ,japan in #aeia4 ,the first printing was done in ,russia in #aefc4 ,credit for doing the first printing in the ,american colonies1 ,the ,freeman's ,oath1 was once given to ,stephen ,daye1 is sometimes latterly given to his young son1 ,matthew ,daye4 ,were they more than mechanic1 compositor and pressman8 ,who chose the copy1 proofread it1 set policies1 pushed the work along8 ,possibly some of the founders of the new ,harvard ,college1 or possibly ,mrs4 ,glover1 the widow of the man who originated the idea of the press4 ,she was probably a woman of education1 since she settled in ,cambridge to be near the new college and later married the ,president1 ,henry ,dunster4 ,she undoubtedly shared her first husband's independent views--he had been suspended from his parsonage in ,surrey because of his nonconformity2 she might have picked ,the ,freeman's ,oath for the first copy4 ,she may have been more of a printer and more of a woman of the world than the fragments of knowledge which we have about her disclose4444 ,whoever guided the destiny of the first press1 it was a person not completely confined by dogma1 for the books included almanacs1 law books and college thesis lists1 as is pointed out by ,carl ,purington ,rollins1 himself perhaps our best example of a modern fine printer conscious of what is going on around him4 99 99 99 99 99 ,during the late #agjj's the ,industrial ,revolution began1 but its implications were not guessed by artisan or statesman1 and the best printers were still in the age of elegance4 ,baskerville was businessman1 eccentric1 free-thinker1 but his printing1 as much as that of ,bodoni who was employed by the ,duke of ,parma1 was regal4 ,probably ,horace ,walpole1#bh more than any other printer1 felt that the world was his house1 in which he could move about freely from room to room1 always at ease4 ,he had the wit and manners to be an ornament to ,french salons1 the originality to introduce a new brand of literature in his ,castle of ,otranto--the forerunner of our mystery novel of today1 the personal force to influence the trend of ,english architecture with his little ,gothic castle at ,strawberry ,hill in ,twickenham4 ,in one of his letters to the artist ,richard ,bentley he says that he can't resist going to fires1 and there is something of this spirit in his activities4 ,the collector ,w4 ,s4 ,lewis says1 ,he was not only1 in his own word1 a 'gazetteer' but the historian of ,english painting and gardening1 an essayist1 poet1 novelist1 pamphleteer1 dramatist1 printer1 antiquarian1 and arbiter elegantiarum and in the modern sense and phrase a 'debunker' of historical figures4444 ,it was his main purpose in life to be the official historian of his time4 ,although he had a seat in ,parliament1 he paid little attention to the nation's business4 ,he represented those parts of life in the eighteenth century which had natured and were drawing to a close1 as ,fielding and ,goldsmith1 the ,american ,revolution and the ,french ,revolution represented things to come4 ,printing being one of his minor activities1 he is of more interest as a human being than as a craftsman4 ,if ,walpole was a man of the world and man of letters1 ,john ,bell#bi was man of the world and man of business4 ,during a lifetime of eighty-six years he was1 as ,stanley ,morison pictures him1 book-seller1 printer1 publisher1 type-founder and journalist4 ,like a lesser ,franklin--he had not ,franklin's scientific interest1 integrity1 or vision--he was endowed with the ability to grasp the salient facts of a trade or profession1 and a wealth of exuberant interest in life around him4 ,at the beginning of his career as a book-seller1 he published a sort of early version of ,wilson's ,cumulative ,book ,index1 a list of current books for the use of the trade4 ,as type-founder 7and introducer of the short s7 he employed the talent of the punch cutter ,richard ,austin to produce the first ,english modern type4 ,in addition to a successful fashion magazine1 he published at different times four newspapers4 ,at one time he even made himself a war correspondent1 when he visited the ,british ,army then fighting the ,french ,revolutionaries in ,flanders4 ,he reported the action at ,ypres1 made a march with the troops from ,courtrai to ,tournai and pursued his object of finding active and well-informed persons in different parts of the continent who would act as regular correspondents for his paper1 ,the ,oracle4 ,the books he published included law books1 ,shakespeare1 a series of the poets of ,great ,britain2 he engaged members of the ,royal ,academy to illustrate the plays of a series called ,the ,british ,theatre and hired the best engravers of the day to copy the paintings4 ,he knew the literary men of the day--,sheridan wrote for his ,world--and even had a balloonist for a friend--,lunardi1 who made the first ascent in ,london4 ,compared to his contemporary ,bulmer1 who could be called a printer's printer1 ,bell was a promoter whose medium was printing4 ,of all the ,didots1 and they seem to have been able men1 ,firmin ,didot#cj is of most interest to us4 ,he taught many of the printers of ,greece out of sympathy for the cause of ,greek independence1 the same for which ,byron died4 ,he wrote plays1 translated classics1 and after he retired from business he entered the ,chamber of ,deputies2 he learned ,spanish at the age of sixty-three4 ,desmond ,flower says1 in writing of him1 ,printing is a curious and perhaps unsatisfactory hybrid between a profession and an art2 the men who have caught the sense of it most successfully have been intelligent people who could see it whole--scholar-printer-publishers--for whom some other rivers flowed beyond the simple floods of printing ink4 ,perhaps when ,mr4 ,flower wrote this he had forgotten how tacky printing ink is1 but his meaning is a large part of what ,i am trying to say4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the question of what world one chooses to recognize--that of courts and salons or of slums--arises in connection with the great printer of the nineteenth century1 ,william ,morris4#ca ,he saw what was happening as a result of machinery and large industry1 and he did not like it4 ,he must have seen it very plainly in order to revolt against it so strongly4 ,his printing period was the last in his life1 following the chintzes1 stained glass windows1 tapestries1 rugs and furniture4 ,he felt that people would be better people if they made and owned beautiful things1 and he also saw1 like his contemporary1 ,karl ,marx1 that the economic structure would have to be changed before the best qualities in people could operate1 though he was not willing to follow ,marx in his methods4 ,when we think of the ,william ,morris who printed the ,kelmscott ,chaucer1 we do not always remember the ,william ,morris who stood in ,hyde ,park near the ,marble ,arch talking to the street crowds about socialism1 wondering if the police were coming2 who for years travelled about speaking in a thousand stuffy halls in ,england1 ,ireland and ,scotland4 ,when he was old1 tears would come to his eyes when the misery of the poor was mentioned4 ,it is easy to say that his socialism was vague and his desire to return to the methods of the thirteenth century unrealistic1 but considering the sincerity of his motives and the breadth of his interests1 ,i think that we must say that he was not so much a man of this world as a man of a better world4 99 99 99 99 99 ,perhaps we must return to ,america to find the printer who has made the greatest contribution to political history4 ,we can hardly detail here the cosmopolitan accomplishments of ,benjamin ,franklin4 ,we might rather examine what right we have to call him a printer1 in view of the magnitude of his other accomplishments4 ,he liked to think of himself as a printer1 and started his will with the words1 ,i1 ,benjamin ,franklin1 printer4 ,once when he visited the establishment of the ,didots in ,france he stopped at a hand press and pulled a few proofs4 ,when the workman exclaimed at his dexterity he said1 ,do not be surprised4 ,printing is my real trade4 ,wherever he went in ,england or ,france he corresponded with printers and visited their establishments4 ,we know about his private press at ,passy and about his wholesome influence on ,american printing4 ,carl ,van ,doren1 in his biography of ,franklin1 says that when he died the printers of ,philadelphia walked in his funeral procession and that the printers of ,paris gathered to honor him1 listened to a eulogy by one of them while others set it in type as fast as it was delivered and distributed printed copies as souvenirs4 ,if then we can claim him as a printer1 we can feel sure that the man who helped draft the ,declaration of ,independence1 who was sent to negotiate the peace and was a delegate to the ,constitutional ,convention was1 more than any other printer1 a man of the world4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it could hardly be maintained that being connected with printing makes one a man of the world4 ,it might even be argued and proved by examples past and present that preoccupation with the problems of the craft is a narrowing influence4 ,since most of the circumstances of our lives are arranged for us when we are born1 it is possible to travel through life as on a conveyor belt1 having things done to us along the way1 and this can be as true of a fine printer as of a bank president4 ,each can go through life utterly ignorant of the economic and mental processes that bring food to his table and send his son to the wars4 ,it was always a question1 now more than ever critical1 what part of a man's life must be given to being a citizen against the claims of livelihood1 philosophy1 family and amusement4 ,the events of the past few years have dramatized the dilemma4 ,printing has helped bring us to this place in history4 ,and so1 although we cannot condemn a good craftsman because he is interested in nothing except shop talk1 we might say that printers who are also men of the world realize that they are working in a bigger shop4 ,illustration3 ,,wood ,,engraving ,,by ,,reynolds ,,stone1 #aicg4 ,,composed ,,in ,,granjon ,,types ,,footnotes3 #bb ,johann ,gutenberg 7c4 #acig-adfh74 ,gutenberg is considered the effective inventor of printing1 but his biography is written darkly only in the records of the law courts to which he was constantly summoned on money matters4 ,his was a complex of inventions3 he not only cast type in single pieces1 but devised a chase to hold it1 mixed suitable ink and perfected a technique for register and good impression1 with the result that the first printing remains among the best4 #bc ,aldus ,manutius 7#adej-aeae74 ,aldus' contributions to printing--small capitals1 the first ,italic1 the popularization of the small type page--centered about his wish to help scholars4 ,he wrote to a friend3 ,we send these ,satires to you1 my dear ,scipio1 that they may through their brevity become once more your intimate friends1 as they were formerly during your stay at ,rome as a young man1 when you possessed them as thoroughly in your memory as your own fingers and fingernails4 #bd ,etienne ,dolet 7#aeji-aedf74 ,dolet belongs with the great scholar-printers ,aldus ,manutius and ,robert ,estienne1 although he did not live long enough to compare with them in volume of work4 ,his career of collision with the authority of the church1 the state and other printers terminated when he was tortured1 hanged and burned on his thirty-seventh birthday4 #be ,christopher ,plantin 7#aead-aehi74 ,plantin1 a ,frenchman who migrated to ,belgium1 printed in many languages1 using fonts by the best contemporary type-cutters2 he undertook work for the ,king of ,spain and the ,city of ,antwerp1 which honored him in death by burying him in its cathedral1 with the inscription 444 king of typography4 #bf ,robert ,estienne 7c4 #aejc-aeei74 ,in ,robert ,estienne1 as in ,aldus and ,dolet1 the scholar and printer combined to produce tools for humanism3 dictionaries1 lexicons1 grammars1 editions of the classics4 ,on his death his son ,henri ,estienne1 grandson of the first ,henri1 augmented the family tradition of scholarly publishing1 though he never surpassed the books of his father and grandfather in typographical brilliance4 #bg ,louis ,elzevir 7#aedj-afag74 ,about one hundred and thirty years after the invention of printing1 ,louis ,elzevir became the first publisher in the modern sense2 not primarily a scholar or craftsman1 but a businessman who undertook the risk of production and distribution of quantities of books for a variety of readers throughout ,europe4 #bh ,horace ,walpole 7#agag-agig74 ,walpole is the great example of the gentleman-amateur in printing4 ,his fame as a printer has been bolstered by his renown in other fields1 especially in literature and architecture4 #bi ,john ,bell 7#agdi-ahca74 ,bell was a journalist and impresario in printing whose enterprises ranged from publishing fashion magazines to sets of ,shakespeare4 ,if he did not entirely realize the ambition announced when he started his foundry--444 ,i am not without hopes of raising my fame in this pursuit beyond the reach of competition in any country whatever--the type which bears his name remains today his best memorial4 #cj ,firmin ,didot 7#agfd-ahcf74 ,the ,didot family illustrates again that printing ink seems to linger in the blood longer in ,france than in other countries2 of the ,didots1 ,firmin stands out as a man who loved his profession and constantly looked beyond it4 #ca ,william ,morris 7#ahcd-ahif74 ,william ,morris was a man who looked backward in the crafts and forward in human relations1 yet had a full life in the world of his own time4 ,as a printer he had great influence1 not all good4 ,illustration,,anne ,,lyon ,,haight,illustration ,are ,women the ,natural ,enemies of ,books8 ,from ,bookmaking on the ,distaff ,side by ,anne ,lyon ,haight4 ,copyright #aicg by the author and reprinted by her permission4 ,in my search for knowledge about lady bibliophiles ,i climbed the library ladder and among the books on collecting saw ,the ,library1 by ,andrew ,lang1 ,london1 #ahha4 ,confident that ,i would find some charming and sympathetic essay on the subject1 ,i took it down and turned to the index1 but evidently ,i had forgotten ,lang's prejudice1 for to my horror the startling lines ,women the natural foes of books met my eye4 ,they were classed with the other enemies of books3 damp1 dust1 dirt1 book-worms1 careless readers1 borrowers1 book stealers1 book-ghouls1 etc41 so ,i hastily turned to the page and read3 ,almost all women are the inveterate foes1 not of novels1 of course1 nor peerages and popular volumes of history1 but of books worthy of the name4 ,it is true that ,isabelle d',este and ,madame de ,pompadour and ,madame de ,maintenon were collectors2 and1 doubtless1 there are many other brilliant exceptions to a general rule4 ,but broadly speaking1 women detest the books which the collector desires and admires4 ,first1 they don't understand them2 second1 they are jealous of their mysterious charms2 third1 books cost money1 and it really is a hard thing for a lady to see money expended on what seems a dingy old binding1 or yellow paper scored with crabbed characters4 ,thus ladies wage a skirmishing war against book-sellers' catalogues1 and history speaks of husbands who have had to practise the guile of smugglers when they conveyed a new purchase across their own frontier4 ,thus many married men are reduced to collecting ,elzivers1 which go readily into the pocket1 for you cannot smuggle a folio volume easily4 ,poor man1 his experience with the fair sex must have been a very unfortunate one4 ,perhaps he had been disillusioned by reading of the sixteenth-century abbess of the convent of ,rumsey in ,hampshire1 whom ,dibdin tells about4 ,she was bibulously rather than bibliographically inclined and bartered the books of the abbey for strong liquors and consequently was accused of immoderate drinking1 especially in the nighttime when she invited the nuns to her chamber to participate in these excesses4 ,but fortunately the women whom ,lang describes in his diatribe are really the rare exception to the rule and only lack of space prevents my writing a folio volume about the many famous women collectors who have been friends not foes to books throughout the ages4 ,it is true though that the female of our species has never been as susceptible to the malady of book madness as the male1 possibly because she has not had the same opportunity4 ,unless a woman is economically independent there are many demands upon her allowance and consequently she must really want a book very much to buy it instead of a new hat or something else that is dear to her heart4 ,she is not as apt to buy for speculation or because a book is one of the conventional collector's items1 but is more independent and adventurous in following her personal taste1 although the spirit of a true collector of books is the same whether it be possessed by man or woman4 ,strange to say1 the first bibliophile on record is a woman4 ,she was a ,benedictine abbess named ,hroswitha4 ,she lived in the ,nunnery of ,gandersheim in ,saxony in the tenth century4 ,she not only read all the parchment rolls and great codices which came into her hands1 but caused books to be written for her ,convent1 wrote plays in ,latin and translated ,terence4 ,hroswitha probably knew but little ,greek1 as certain monks of the period considered the language an invention of the devil4 ,her example was followed in the next century by the lovely and intelligent ,countess ,judith of ,flanders1 who1 wherever she followed her warring ,english husband1 caused the most exquisite illuminated manuscripts to be made4 ,she continued her interests on the continent when she later married the ,duke of ,bavaria4 ,four of her manuscripts1 magnificently bound1 are now safely housed in the ,pierpont ,morgan ,library where though they are books worthy of the name their beauty may be appreciated by women who are not even the brilliant exception to the general rule of collectors4 ,the ,golden ,age of women bibliophiles in ,france from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries must have been a glorious time to have lived4 ,the ,queens1 the ,princesses1 the ,mistresses of the ,kings and all the great ladies had their libraries4 ,they were composed of beautifully illuminated breviaries1 missals and manuscripts1 and from the presses of the great printers of the day came romances1 histories1 plays and religious books1 veritable works of art4 ,these books and manuscripts were bound in gold and silver and jewels1 embroidered velvet1 and in some of the most beautiful leather bindings the world has ever seen4 ,briefly3 ,marguerite of ,navarre was one of the famous scholars of her day and the author of a collection of love stories1 ,the ,heptameron4 ,it is said of her ,l'amour du livre1 chez la fille de ,catherine fut une vritable passion4 ,her books were bound by the famous ,clovis and ,nicolas ,eve and were decorated with daisies4 ,madame de ,pompadour was for many years an inspiring influence in art and letters1 although she owned more plays1 novels and other productions lgres than serious works4 ,she had a printing press at ,versailles and also etched plates for illustrations and as gifts for her friends4 ,la ,countesse de ,verrue was a discriminating collector1 a patroness of all the arts and a fascinating woman4 ,the ,du ,barry acquired #a1jfh volumes4 ,when she began to form her library she could scarcely read or write4 ,however1 with practise1 she soon learned to read well1 but like many of us never to spell4 ,anne of ,austria was fortunate in having her friend ,mazarin1 a kindred spirit in bibliomania1 to advise her4 ,marie ,antoinette had two libraries4 ,she kept her particular books in her boudoir in the ,trianon and the titles in the catalogue are very entertaining4 ,mary ,stuart had a catholic taste in literature and her books were exceptionally well chosen4 ,in deference to the loss of her first husband some were bound in black with black edges4 ,it is comforting to know that when she left ,france as a young widow to return to her native ,scotland where so much tragedy awaited her qu'elle avait pour les livres un got profond1 et ils etaient pour ainsi dire sa seule consolation loin de ce beau ,pays de ,france4 ,in ,england1 one of the most fortunate of the many ladies who appreciated literature was ,queen ,elizabeth1 for she lived in an age when masterpieces were being written1 many of them dedicated to her and many inspired by her4 ,when she was young she embroidered velvets in gold and silver threads to bind her treasures4 ,among the manuscripts in the ,bodleian ,library are the ,epistles of ,st4 ,paul1 etc41 which was ,elizabeth's own book4 ,she has written at the beginning ,i walke many times into the pleasant fields of the ,holy ,scriptures1 where ,i plucke up the goodlie-some herbes of sentences by pruning3 chaw them by musing3 and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together3 that so having tasted their sweetness ,i may the less perceave the bitterness of this miserable life4 ,one of the most touching and beautiful tributes ever written to a woman is ,sir ,philip ,sidney's dedication of his ,arcadia to his deare ladie and sister1 the ,countess of ,pembroke1 to whom he wrote in part3 you desired me to do it1 and your desire1 to my hart is an absolute commandment4 ,now it is done onely for you1 onely to you4 ,she was his great inspiration and helped him in the editing of the book4 ,where there's a will there's a way and women seem able to smuggle folios as well as duodecimos into the library4 ,catherine de ,mdici1 for instance1 had such a passion for books that she got them by fair means or foul4 ,she longed for the library of her cousin ,marshal ,strozzi and as soon as he died appropriated it for her own4 ,catherine neglected to pay for it and owed the book-sellers as well1 so after her death when her books were about to be seized by her creditors1 ,de ,thou raised the money to pay for them and they were saved for the state4 ,the fascinating and glamorous ,diane de ,poitiers was a practical business executive as well as a bibliophile1 for it was she who supposedly advised ,henry ,,ii to pass an ordinance requiring publishers to present a copy of each book they published to the royal libraries at ,blois and ,fontainebleau1 thereby increasing these collections by more than seven hundred volumes4 ,thus the present-day copyright law was initiated by a woman4 ,catherine of ,russia was also courageous in her methods of gratifying her literary tastes4 ,she partitioned ,poland in #aggb and seized enough books to form the foundation of the ,imperial ,library at the ,hermitage4 ,she used to ask the ,ambassadors1 particularly the ,ambassador from ,england1 to get foreign books for her and if she did not have the money to pay for them at the time she conveniently forgot about it4 ,in later days there were women in the young colony in ,america who enjoyed their books in the midst of their primitive surroundings4 ,in #afdc in ,emans1 ,new ,york1 the inventory of the ,widow ,bronck included ,danish books4 ,mrs4 ,willoughby of ,virginia left over one hundred volumes at her death in #afgc1 and in #agjj ,elizabeth ,tatham of ,new ,jersey left five hundred and fifty-two volumes1 while their ,new ,england contemporary1 ,hannah ,sutton1 acquired a library of about seventeen hundred volumes4 ,in the early nineteenth century ,miss ,richardson ,currer of ,eshton ,hall1 ,craven1 ,yorkshire1 amassed a large and scholarly collection of books on many subjects4 ,it was housed in a great room with a gallery which must have been the envy of all book-lovers4 ,she was the fond possessor of the rare ,book of ,st4 ,albans1 written and compiled by ,juliana ,berners1 prioress of the nunnery of ,sopwith in ,hertfordshire4 ,it is said that the ardent book collector ,richard ,heber1 being unable to secure the book in any other way1 ardently proposed marriage to ,miss ,currer4 ,she was firm in her refusal however1 preferring to keep this first book about sport to be written by a woman to herself4 ,one of the most learned lady bibliophiles of this century in ,america was ,miss ,amy ,lowell of ,cambridge1 ,massachusetts4 ,her books and manuscripts1 including her collection of ,keats1 are being preserved for posterity in the ,harry ,elkins ,widener ,memorial at ,harvard4 ,she always enjoyed smoking a good cigar while writing or carrying on her sparkling conversations1 as she thought it made her thoughts flow more easily4 ,one could not write of women in connection with books without speaking of two distinguished custodians of famous libraries1 scholars1 who are as well known abroad as in ,america3 the late ,miss ,belle ,da ,costa ,greene1 the brilliant ,director of the ,pierpont ,morgan ,library1 and ,miss ,ruth ,sheppard ,granniss1 former ,librarian of the ,grolier ,club and sympathetic friend of all bibliophiles1 male or female4 ,they1 of course1 come under ,lang's category of exceptional examples4 ,but what of the many other exceptions8 ,would ,lang have thought that ,miss ,lowell could not understand books8 ,or that ,diane de ,poitiers could be jealous of their mysterious charms8 ,or that ,catherine of ,russia would hesitate to spend what money she could procure to satisfy her passion for them8 ,what could his lady friends have been like to be classed with the enemies of books--and such enemies at that8 ,it would appear that book collecting is a truly feminine pastime1 containing many elements which appeal to their sex2 romance1 intellectual curiosity1 love of the beautiful and the quest of something difficult to obtain4 ,but feminine collectors should beware of pitfalls1 for sometimes this mania arouses the baser instincts such as envy1 extravagance and self-indulgence4 ,wives have even been known to spend their marketing money on books instead of daily bread1 and to waste hours reading book catalogues instead of attending to their housewifely duties4 ,book collecting1 however1 is a common denominator of all ages and a medium through which the minds of both sexes may meet with pleasure1 and therefore greatly to be recommended as a delightful occupation4 ,illustration,,beatrice ,,warde,illustration ,,printing ,,should ,,be ,,invisible ,copyright #aicb by ,the ,marchbanks ,press4 ,reprinted by permission of the author4 ,imagine that you have before you a flagon of wine4 ,you may choose your own favorite vintage for this imaginary demonstration1 so that it be a deep shimmering crimson in color4 ,you have two goblets before you4 ,one is of solid gold1 wrought in the most exquisite patterns4 ,the other is of crystal-clear glass1 thin as a bubble1 and as transparent4 ,pour and drink2 and according to your choice of goblet1 ,i shall know whether or not you are a connoisseur of wine4 ,for if you have no feelings about wine one way or the other1 you will want the sensation of drinking the stuff out of a vessel that may have cost ten thousand dollars2 but if you are a member of that vanishing tribe1 the amateurs of fine vintages1 you will choose the crystal1 because everything about it is calculated to reveal rather than to hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain4 ,bear with me in this long-winded and fragrant metaphor2 for you will find that almost all the virtues of the perfect wineglass are parallel in typography4 ,there is the long1 thin stem that obviates finger-prints on the bowl4 ,why8 ,because no cloud must come between your eyes and the fiery heart of the liquid4 ,are not the margins on book pages similarly meant to obviate the necessity of fingering the type-page8 ,again3 the glass is colorless or at the most only faintly tinged in the bowl1 because the connoisseur judges wine partly by its color and is impatient of anything that alters it4 ,there are a thousand mannerisms in typography that are as impudent and arbitrary as putting port in tumblers of red or green glass6 ,when a goblet has a base that looks too small for security1 it does not matter how cleverly it is weighted2 you feel nervous lest it should tip over4 ,there are ways of setting lines of type which may work well enough1 and yet keep the reader subconsciously worried by the fear of doubling lines1 reading three words as one1 and so forth4 ,now the man who first chose glass instead of clay or metal to hold his wine was a modernist in the sense in which ,i am going to use that term4 ,that is1 the first thing he asked of this particular object was not ,how should it look8 but ,what must it do8 and to that extent all good typography is modernist4 ,wine is so strange and potent a thing that it has been used in the central ritual of religion in one place and time1 and attacked by a virago with a hatchet in another4 ,there is only one other thing in the world that is capable of stirring and altering men's minds to the same extent1 and that is the coherent expression of thought4 ,that is man's chief miracle1 unique to man4 ,there is no explanation whatever of the fact that ,i can make arbitrary sounds which will lead a total stranger to think my own thought4 ,it is sheer magic that ,i should be able to hold a one-sided conversation by means of black marks on paper with an unknown person half-way across the world4 ,talking1 broadcasting1 writing and printing are all quite literally forms of thought transference1 and it is this ability and eagerness to transfer and receive the contents of the mind that is almost alone responsible for human civilization4 ,if you agree with this1 you will agree with my one main idea1 i4e41 that the most important thing about printing is that it conveys thought1 ideas1 images1 from one mind to other minds4 ,this statement is what you might call the front door of the science of typography4 ,within lie hundreds of rooms2 but unless you start by assuming that printing is meant to convey specific and coherent ideas1 it is very easy to find yourself in the wrong house altogether4 ,before asking what this statement leads to1 let us see what it does not necessarily lead to4 ,if books are printed in order to be read1 we must distinguish readability from what the optician would call legibility4 ,a page set in #ad-point ,bold ,sans is1 according to the laboratory tests1 more legible than one set in #aa-point ,baskerville4 ,a public speaker is more audible in that sense when he bellows4 ,but a good speaking voice is one which is inaudible as a voice4 ,it is the transparent goblet again6 ,i need not warn you that if you begin listening to the inflections and speaking rhythms of a voice from a platform1 you are falling asleep4 ,when you listen to a song in a language you do not understand1 part of your mind actually does fall asleep1 leaving your quite separate aesthetic sensibilities to enjoy themselves unimpeded by your reasoning faculties4 ,the fine arts do that2 but that is not the purpose of printing4 ,type well used is invisible as type1 just as the perfect talking voice is the unnoticed vehicle for the transmission of words1 ideas4 ,we may say1 therefore1 that printing may be delightful for many reasons1 but that it is important1 first and foremost1 as a means of doing something4 ,that is why it is mischievous to call any printed piece a work of art1 especially fine art3 because that would imply that its first purpose was to exist as an expression of beauty for its own sake and for the delectation of the senses4 ,calligraphy can almost be considered a fine art nowadays1 because its primary economic and educational purpose has been taken away2 but printing in ,english will not qualify as an art until the present ,english language no longer conveys ideas to future generations1 and until printing itself hands its usefulness to some yet unimagined successor4 ,there is no end to the maze of practices in typography1 and this idea of printing as a conveyor is1 at least in the minds of all the great typographers with whom ,i have had the privilege of talking1 the one clue that can guide you through the maze4 ,without this essential humility of mind1 ,i have seen ardent designers go more hopelessly wrong1 make more ludicrous mistakes out of an excessive enthusiasm1 than ,i could have thought possible4 ,and with this clue1 this purposiveness in the back of your mind1 it is possible to do the most unheard-of things1 and find that they justify you triumphantly4 ,it is not a waste of time to go to the simple fundamentals and reason from them4 ,in the flurry of your individual problems1 ,i think you will not mind spending half an hour on one broad and simple set of ideas involving abstract principles4 ,i once was talking to a man who designed a very pleasing advertising type which undoubtedly all of you have used4 ,i said something about what artists think about a certain problem1 and he replied with a beautiful gesture3 ,ah1 madame1 we artists do not think--we feel6 ,that same day ,i quoted that remark to another designer of my acquaintance1 and he1 being less poetically inclined1 murmured3 ,i'm not feeling very well today1 ,i think6 ,he was right1 he did think2 he was the thinking sort2 and that is why he is not so good a painter1 and to my mind ten times better as a typographer and type designer than the man who instinctively avoided anything as coherent as a reason4 ,i always suspect the typographic enthusiast who takes a printed page from a book and frames it to hang on the wall1 for ,i believe that in order to gratify a sensory delight1 he has mutilated something infinitely more important4 ,i remember that ,t4 ,m4 ,cleland1 the famous ,american typographer1 once showed me a very beautiful layout for a ,cadillac booklet involving decorations in color4 ,he did not have the actual text to work with in drawing up his specimen pages1 so he had set the lines in ,latin4 ,this was not only for the reason that you will all think of1 if you have seen the old typefoundries' famous ,quousque ,tandem copy i4 e41 that ,latin has few descenders and thus gives a remarkably even line4 ,no1 he told me that originally he had set up the dullest wording that he could find ,i dare say it was from the ,congressional ,record1 and yet he discovered that the man to whom he submitted it would start reading and making comments on the text4 ,i made some remark on the mentality of ,boards of ,directors1 but ,mr4 ,cleland said ,no3 you're wrong2 if the reader had not been practically forced to read--if he had not seen those words suddenly imbued with glamor and significance--then the layout would have been a failure4 ,setting it in ,italian or ,latin is only an easy way of saying ',this is not the text as it will appear4' ,let me start my specific conclusions with book typography1 because that contains all the fundamentals1 and then go on to a few points about advertising4 ,the book typographer has the job of erecting a window between the reader inside the room and that landscape which is the author's words4 ,he may put up a stained glass window of marvellous beauty1 but a failure as a window2 that is1 he may use some rich superb type like text gothic that is something to be looked at1 not through4 ,or he may work in what ,i call transparent or invisible typography4 ,i have a book at home1 of which ,i have no visual recollection whatever as far as its typography goes2 when ,i think of it1 all ,i see is the ,three ,musketeers and their comrades swaggering up and down the streets of ,paris4 ,the third type of window is one in which the glass is broken into relatively small leaded panes2 and this corresponds to what is called fine printing today1 in that you are at least conscious that there is a window there1 and that someone has enjoyed building it4 ,that is not objectionable1 because of a very important fact which has to do with the psychology of the subconscious mind4 ,this is the fact that the mental eye focusses through type and not upon it4 ,the type which1 through any arbitrary warping of design or excess of color1 gets in the way of the mental picture to be conveyed1 is a bad type4 ,our subconsciousness is always afraid of blunders which illogical setting1 tight spacing and too-wide unleaded lines can trick us into1 of boredom1 and of officiousness4 ,the running headline that keeps shouting at us1 the line that looks like one long word1 the capitals jammed together without hairspaces--these mean subconscious squinting and loss of mental focus4 ,and if what ,i have said is true of book printing1 even of the most exquisite limited editions1 it is fifty times more obvious in advertising1 where the one and only justification for the purchase of space is that you are conveying a message--that you are implanting a desire1 straight into the mind of the reader4 ,it is tragically easy to throw away half the reader-interest of an advertisement by setting the simple and compelling argument in a face which is uncomfortably alien to the classic reasonableness of the book-face4 ,get attention as you will by your headline1 and make any pretty type pictures you like if you are sure that the copy is useless as a means of selling goods2 but if you are happy enough to have really good copy to work with1 ,i beg you to remember that thousands of people pay down hard-earned money for the privilege of reading quietly-set book-pages1 and that only your wildest ingenuity can stop people from reading a really interesting text4 ,of course every one of you realizes that whatever interesting effects you can produce with displayed advertising1 ,direct ,mail is your paradise4 ,it is here that you approach the august precincts of the designer of books2 here you can deal in the fascinating questions of paper1 ink1 presswork1 and all those minute and thrilling technicalities by which the craftsman proves his worth4 ,you also have the satisfaction of knowing that the better and more mannerly ,direct ,mail advertising looks1 the more solid returns it will bring in4 ,to sum up3 printing demands a humility of mind1 for the lack of which many of the fine arts are even now floundering in self-conscious and maudlin experiments4 ,there is nothing simple or dull in achieving the transparent page4 ,vulgar ostentation is twice as easy as discipline4 ,when you realize that ugly typography never effaces itself1 you will be able to capture beauty as the wise men capture happiness by aiming at something else4 ,the stunt typographer learns the fickleness of rich men who hate to read4 ,not for them are long breaths held over serif and kern1 they will not appreciate your splitting of hair spaces4 ,nobody save the other craftsmen will appreciate half your skill4 ,but you may spend endless years of happy experiment in devising that crystalline goblet which is worthy to hold the vintage of the human mind4 ,,composed ,,in ,,bembo ,,types ,illustration,,porter ,,garnett,illustration ,the ,ideal ,book ,copyright #aica by ,the ,limited ,editions ,club4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,in adopting a prescribed title for this paper1 ,i must begin by registering my dissent to its validity4 ,there is no such thing nor can there be such a thing as the ideal book4 ,no single book1 no particular style of book can be said to represent in itself an ideal below which all other books and other styles which differ from it fall4 ,a certain book may be ideal for its purpose1 but books can no more conform to a fixed ideal than can churches1 cocktail-shakers1 or hats4 ,the best that one can do is to attempt to enumerate and codify those elements of good book-making that enter into what may be called the fine book4 ,it is difficult to declare oneself an advocate or exponent of fine printing or fine book-design without being misunderstood4 ,such a declaration1 however1 is not to arrogate superiority4 ,it merely means that one believes in certain principles of craftsmanship and in upholding certain standards based upon a scrupulous and uncompromising observance of refinements and minuti4 ,it is a mistake to assume that the word fine1 as applied to printing and to books1 is a comparative term meaning a grade or measure of merit4 ,consider for a moment its true meaning3 delicate1 studied1 subtly calculated4 ,it represents not a grade of excellence1 but a quality1 a quality distinguishing those books and pieces of printing which the term properly describes from other books or pieces of printing4 ,it may be allowed1 however1 that fineness is itself a comparable term2 that there are1 in other words1 degrees of fineness4 ,thus a book may be fine without being of the first order of fineness4 ,but if we are to seek for a standard of excellence equivalent to what is implied by the word ideal1 it should be obvious that only fineness of the first order can be considered4 ,a fine book of the first order is the end-result of a sedulous effort on the part of designer1 printer1 and binder to bring to their artifact every care for physical and technical details1 every revision in the interest of betterment1 of which they are capable1 to the end that the finished product shall represent the capacity of each for the fulfilment of his artistic wish1 his desire for perfection4 ,to slacken this effort1 to compromise wittingly 7or wilfully71 to surrender to expediency1 is to repudiate fineness of the first order4 ,it is this concern for perfection that ,mr4 ,stanley ,morison means when he says ,the fine printer begins where the careful printer has left off4 ,it is this concern with perfection that ,conrad celebrated when he wrote3 ,now the moral side of an industry1 productive or unproductive1 the redeeming and ideal aspect of this bread-winning1 is the attainment of the highest possible skill on the part of the craftsman4 ,such skill1 the skill of technique1 is more than honesty2 it is something wider1 embracing honesty and grace and rule in an elevated and clear sentiment1 not altogether utilitarian1 which may be called the honor of labor4 ,it is made up of accumulated tradition1 kept alive by individual pride1 rendered exact by professional opinion1 and1 like the higher arts1 it is spurred on and sustained by discriminating praise4 ,this is why the attainment of proficiency1 the pushing of your skill with attention to the most delicate shades of excellence1 is a matter of vital concern4 ,efficiency of a practically flawless kind may be reached naturally in the struggle for bread4 ,but there is something beyond--a higher point1 a subtle and unmistakable touch of love and pride beyond mere skill2 almost an inspiration which gives to all work that finish which is almost art1 which is art4 ,in dealing with the constituents of the fine book ,i intend no disparagement of seemly1 modest1 and honestly-made books to which the term fine is not strictly applicable4 ,even the humblest volume1 ad pauperum commoditatum1 may be1 by virtue of its suitability to purpose and its seemliness1 wholly admirable4 ,as for the better class of trade books1 the productions of university and great commercial presses1 they often display qualities of design and workmanship of a high order4 ,though not of the first order of fineness1 they represent1 with gratifying frequency1 what ,conrad called efficiency of a practically flawless kind4 ,that the best of them belong1 however1 to a lower stratum than the truly fine book may be1 ,i think1 quite easily demonstrated4 ,one does not have to consider the work of the ,doves ,press or the ,bremer ,presse or the finer examples of ,french printing of the sixteenth or eighteenth century the ne plus ultra of book-making in order to recognize in them a quality 7mark the word7 which the trade edition1 however charming1 never does and never can attain4 ,by reason of this quality--the quality of fineness--they are different from trade books1 whether or not they are superior must remain for each of us a question of personal values4 ,since that is true1 let us now--having cleared the ground and removed perhaps the possibility of a misapprehension with regard to the title of this paper--consider the values and the physical constituents of the fine book4 ,these constituents fall into three divisions3 first1 ,dimensional 7size and proportions72 second1 ,tectonic 7plan and construction72 and third1 ,visual 7appearance74 ,it would be absurd to contend that1 ideally1 a book should be of a certain size4 ,very large books are1 of course1 awkward to handle and are unsuitable1 let us say1 for reading in bed or in a railway train4 ,but it does not follow that1 because our habits of life differ so radically from those of the more leisurely and contemplative past1 the tall volume is no longer justified4 ,the large book is not an impediment to meditative reading and1 although the handy volume will1 in most circumstances1 serve every purpose1 there are those who1 undeluded by pragmatism and undebased by false ideas of efficiency1 may still1 in the seclusion of study or library1 find pleasure in the leisurely perusal of1 let us say1 ,the ,golden ,legend1 in folio1 nobly enthroned upon its lectern4 ,again1 there is nothing incongruous or unpractical about the scholar 7perhaps ,i should say1 research-worker7 making use of a huge volume1 spread before him on a library table4 ,large volumes are1 moreover1 frequently justified by the fact that illustrative plates of a large size are often desirable or essential4 ,who will deny that reproductions of ,egyptian papyri1 of eighteenth century engraved portraits1 of ,oriental carpets1 in fact1 of almost all works of art other than such small objects as miniatures or jewelry1 would be better in folio than in octavo or duodecimo8 ,it can be said1 ,i think1 that the very large book should be unconditionally condemned only when its size defeats the purpose to which1 by reason of its content1 it would normally be put4 ,stateliness of form imparts dignity4 ,it may be argued1 therefore1 that a great work on engraved gems1 imposing in size1 with plates1 each showing many specimens1 comports better with the character of its subject matter quite aside from any advantage it offers for comparative study1 than would the same work printed as a book one might slip in one's pocket4 ,stateliness of form implies stateliness of content1 and vice versa4 ,let a book be1 for a generation1 of such good report that it may be said to have become a classic1 and a large-paper edition is justified4 ,let those who must cavil do so4 ,if they cannot rise above the utilitarian ideal1 they can easily obtain the work in a small format and be happy4 ,it may not be out of order to say at this point that1 while a considerable range in the size of books is not only permissible but desirable1 there are limits at both ends of the scale where practicability ceases to exist and we pass into the realm of curiosities and tours de force4 ,thus the miniature book1 for all its charm1 lies outside the confines of normal book-design4 ,as to the maximum size that may be legitimately allowed for a book1 it should never1 ,i think1 exceed the normal folio height 7defined approximately by the larger moulds employed for manufacturing hand-made paper7 while its bulk and weight should not preclude the possibility of holding it by the spine with one hand while turning the leaves with the other1 when such a method of referring to its contents may be necessary4 ,and now a final word as to dimensions4 ,large or small1 the most perfect book will always be one of which the thickness bears a just and agreeable relation to its height and width4 ,small and slender books are delightful objects which no one could wish to abolish 7one cannot say as much for the lamelliform folio1 a veritable atrocity71 but their inferiority to books of a meet thickness becomes apparent when1 with 7or1 worse yet1 without7 their vertical1 neck-twisting titles they are placed on a shelf4 ,we must next turn our attention to those aspects of a book which have to do with its plan and construction and which we have called tectonic4 ,in its physical character a book addresses itself to two of our senses1 the sense of sight and the sense of touch4 ,because the tactile qualities of a book are relatively of less importance than its visual aspects1 let us first deal with those elements which are1 in part at least1 evaluated through the sense of touch4 ,our first impression of a book is received from its exterior1 its binding4 ,now the qualities to be looked for in the binding of a book are3 7#a7 the character and quality of the material1 7#b7 suitability1 7#c7 soundness and charm of design1 7#d7 agreeable color 7a relative term71 7#e7 workmanship1 7#f7 pleasantness to the touch4 ,granting adequacy in all of these 7and no book can pretend to fineness without such adequacy71 there is still another desideratum less easy to specify4 ,it might be called 7#g7 the evidence of durability4 ,a book when taken in the hand should have a feeling of compactness1 almost of solidity4 ,i do not mean by this that it should feel like a block of wood1 but it should1 when picked up1 when opened1 or when its hinges are tested1 give the impression that leaves and cover are so firmly 7and honestly7 knit together that they constitute a unit1 having in its feel the evidence 7or the assurance7 of durability4 ,the next characteristic of a book to be noted through the sense of touch is the texture of the paper4 ,by texture several things are meant3 a surface agreeable to the hand1 the degree of crispness1 an impression of toughness 7again the evidence of durability71 and the degree of flexibility4 ,ideally1 the paper in a book should satisfy all these requirements and should possess as well certain qualities of character1 style1 and color1 pleasing to the informed eye4 ,these will be dealt with in their proper place4 ,the paper should be flexible1 without the flimsiness characteristic of papers weak in substance4 ,it should bend readily when the leaves are turned and should flow smoothly through the hand when all the leaves are bent at once4 ,stiffness in the leaves of a book 7an all too common defect7 is not1 it should be observed1 always the fault of the paper4 ,it is often due to the choice of a paper too heavy for the size of the leaf4 ,the same paper in a larger leaf might have the desired flexibility4 ,the final tactile test of a fine book 7applicable1 alas1 to very few books indeed7 resides in the character of the impression of the type on the paper4 ,in the best printing1 the surface of the page1 if rubbed with the palm of the hand1 shows a slight and pleasant roughness due to the sinking of the type into the paper4 ,such printing is rare in modern books because it is difficult of attainment with machines designed for quantity production4 ,to attain the effect described the paper should be dampened before printing1 and an ink employed that is adaptable only to the hand press4 ,dry paper1 particularly when heavily sized1 resists a deep impression4 ,it can be heavily impressed1 but there is not the same difference between the impressed and unimpressed portions1 due to the impaction of the substance caused by the pressure of the type1 which results when dampened paper is used4 ,in the latter instance1 the depth of impression is within the sheet1 not an embossment on the reverse side4 ,this incisiveness1 without a corresponding relief on the back of the sheet1 is shown when an impression without ink is made on a hand press with dampened paper and a hard packing4 ,in printing on dry paper it is necessary1 if adequate color is to be obtained1 to use such a quantity of ink1 of a consistency suitable to machine-press printing1 that a really deep 7not merely heavy7 impression cannot be imparted to paper without spreading1 which slightly modifies the sharpness of the type4 ,the machine printer must choose therefore between a surfacy quality with sharpness and a heavy 7not necessarily deep7 impression with a loss of sharpness1 neither of which is ideal4 ,there are some that will question the truth of this statement1 calling attention to specimens of machine printing on dry paper in which the ink has been driven into the sheet and perfect sharpness maintained4 ,it may be said1 however1 in support of our contention1 that1 under the test of hand and eye1 this perfectly printed dry sheet will be found1 in the last analysis1 to lack1 in comparison with a sheet perfectly printed by hand on dampened paper1 a certain almost-indefinable something that can perhaps be best described as a living quality4 ,this ultimate grace arises1 ,i think1 from the fact that in competent hand-press printing the third dimension is not merely suggested but actual2 we have1 in other words1 not merely sharpness but crispness2 the effect attained is sculptural4 ,no printing that is lifeless1 or to which such terms as slick and dry may be appropriately applied can be called fine printing4 ,turning now from the tactile to the visual elements of the fine book1 we shall consider1 first of all1 that fundamental factor of all books1 the text-page1 upon the form or layout of which all other typographic elements must1 to a large extent1 depend4 ,the text-page is of primary importance because by its rightness or wrongness a book must stand or fall4 ,the elements of the text-page that call for consideration may be grouped under three heads3 first1 ,form 7the proportions--width to height--of the type-page and the balance of the rectangle of type with the rectangle of paper72 second1 ,space 7the ratio between the areas of the type-page and the paper-page72 third1 ,tone 7the tonal value of the type mass and the relation between its tone and the white area of the margins74 ,in the perfect text-page all these elements may be observed in nice adjustment1 severally and mutually4 ,there are those who contend that a proper relation of margins to type-page may be arrived at by employing ratios identical with those to be found in the well-proportioned pages of the early printers4 ,others declare that correct margins can be created by the application of an arithmetical or a geometrical formula4 ,it can be admitted that such procedures are1 at least1 safe2 that is to say1 the danger of malproportioned margins will be avoided4 ,but neither the method nor the result can be ideal for the simple reason that1 while providing for the factors of form and space1 they fail to provide for the factor of tone4 ,it should be obvious that a rectangle of black type1 with no space 7leading7 between lines1 and a rectangle of the same shape and size printed from light-face type and generously leaded call for different margining4 ,all of this may seem to be supervacaneous1 but the stubborn fact remains that no one of the factors set forth above can be ignored4 ,it is perfectly true that the accomplished book designer will compass the desired end through a sagacious application of his knowledge and taste1 but we are concerned here with presenting the elements of the ideal book and it is therefore essential that all the elements1 no matter how much the initiated may take some of them for granted1 should be1 for the benefit of the layman1 categorically enumerated4 ,it is necessary at this point to allude to the dictum--voiced in high places as well as in low--that a book is primarily something to be read2 that every factor which does not contribute to that end is an impertinence4 ,the worthy champions of this faith would be on firmer ground if they heaped their condemnation upon such adjuncts of a book as actually lessen its readability4 ,m4 ,paul ,valry has disposed of the matter so effectively from the aesthetic point of view in his essay1 ,les deux vertus d'un livre1 that nothing remains to be said on that side of the question4 ,but there are other objections to be raised to this ipse dixit of the mechanists4 ,their contention that what we all grant is at once the basic and paramount function of a book1 its readability1 is its only function would1 if carried to its logical conclusion1 lead to a doctrine in book design equivalent to what is known in present-day architecture as functionalism4 ,since functionalism or1 as it is sometimes called1 the machine and function principle1 demands that the design of a building must grow out of and be restricted by its predetermined use or purpose1 it should follow that1 if the sole purpose of a book is that it be something to read1 there is no reason1 based upon utility1 for not using the whole area of the paper-page1 with margins of no more1 let us say1 than a quarter of an inch or so4 ,the uncomely1 marginless illustrations of certain recent books represent an application of this principle4 ,if the protagonists of the utilitarian ideal admit that margins are other than a waste of usable space1 they make a concession to the aesthetic conception of a book1 for the determination of margins1 the mise en page1 is primarily an element of design4 ,it will be argued no doubt1 in contravention of this statement1 that margins make for ease of reading 7utility71 but that this is an untenable defensive assumption should be proved by the perfect readability of newspaper columns separated only by a light rule1 or by the two-column book or magazine page with only a pica of white between the columns4 ,since it cannot be denied that the margins of a book1 if well proportioned1 promote pleasure1 an aesthetic function1 the true functionalist should1 to be consistent1 insist upon doing away with them4 ,we may turn now from that major fundamental of the fine book--a text-page of perfect seemliness--to a consideration of other elements4 ,but before doing so1 it may be proper to explain what some of my readers may deem an omission4 ,i have said nothing about the choice of type4 ,it is axiomatic that good letter is a prime essential of the good book4 ,there are only two kinds of type1 good and bad4 ,good types1 whether based upon classical models or the quasi-original forms of contemporary type-designers1 are sufficiently numerous to make a suitable selection1 provided the printer knows anything whatever about the subject1 quite simple4 ,it should be pointed out1 however1 that1 other things being equal1 type cast from matrices struck from hand-cut punches is superior to machine-cut type4 ,this superiority is a matter of real importance1 chiefly in printing by means of the hand press4 ,only in such printing is the difference between the hand-cut and machine-cut letter fully apparent4 ,no type is good if some of the characters are marked by eccentricity4 ,unorthodox peculiarities in the forms of certain letters sometimes lend charm to a type-face1 but there is a difference between a peculiarity of shape thoughtfully and discreetly arrived at and freakish variations which do not justify themselves and bespeak only a stupid desire for novelty at any cost4 ,given the seemly text-page as the prime requisite of the fine book1 our next consideration should be what may be called integration of the parts4 ,here we must again think in terms of architecture1 with which art book-design has so much in common4 ,let the parts of a book be few or many1 simple or complex1 it is of the first importance that they be1 one to the other and each to all1 harmoniously correlated4 ,in the simple undecorated and unillustrated book it is not only desirable that sunken pages1 if any 7the first pages of chapters or sections1 for example71 should show an equal sinkage4 ,but all isolated typographic elements1 such as half-titles1 elements of the title page1 copyright notice1 dedication1 headings of preliminary and supplementary matter1 etc41 should fall on levels which1 though not necessarily identical1 bear a mensural1 not an arbitrary1 relation one to the other and to the structure of the book as a whole4 ,this requires1 perhaps1 some elucidation4 ,suppose we give the first pages of our chapters a uniform sinkage4 ,these pages1 let us say1 establish three levels for us--7#a7 the chapter heading1 7#b7 chapter title1 and 7#c7 the first line of text4 ,if we adopt the same sinkage for ,contents1 ,illustrations1 ,appendices1 and ,index1 putting the headings of this group on the same level as the chapter headings 7,,level #a71 the first text lines of this group should be on the same level as the chapter titles 7,,level #b71 or on the level of the first text lines of the chapters 7,,level #c74 ,if1 on the other hand1 we adopt a different sinkage 7smaller7 for the second group1 we may still relate it mensurally to the first group by placing the first text lines of ,group #b on the same level as the chapter headings of ,group #a4 ,suppose further that we place our half-titles on one of the three or four levels that have been established4 ,we still have to deal with a copyright notice1 perhaps a limit notice1 a bibliographical note1 and a dedication4 ,it is not essential that all of these should fall on the same level1 but it is essential that each be related to some one of the established levels4 ,finally1 it is desirable that such major elements of the title page as a subtitle or the author's name should be placed on one of the established levels4 ,an observance of this principle makes for homogeneity of design4 ,in reading a book so put together we are spared 7without knowing that we are spared7 the disturbance of our sense of balance which results1 almost without our knowing it1 when our eyes fall upon a page some part of which is not tied in architecturally with the rest of the book4 ,the effect is similar to that of a many-paneled room with an impost cornice at a certain height in all the panels except two or three where it is either higher or lower4 ,we have1 in one case1 faulty architecture2 in the other1 faulty book-making4 ,in judging a book or a building1 it should be borne in mind that1 however charming its parts1 it must be regarded as a whole4 ,if our contemplation of it is to be attended with pleasure and comfort1 its parts must be so disposed1 so correlated1 that they will not produce a jumpy effect4 ,it is not contended that every book in which this refinement of perfectly integrated parts has been ignored should be considered a failure because it is less than perfect4 ,if that were true1 few books would pass the test4 ,it would indeed be hypercritical to insist that a failure to observe this principle actually spoils an otherwise well-made book4 ,it is desirable1 however1 that the principle should be observed as far as the material will permit4 ,it must be recognized1 also1 that sometimes the elements are so diverse--chapter headings or the internal titles of essays1 short stories or poems--that a strict adherence to the principle becomes impossible4 ,in such instances1 the designer's task is still to strive for order and integration4 ,perfect order1 symmetry1 and balance may be unattainable1 but this does not justify him in being haphazard4 ,when order is observed we may not be conscious of it2 when it is not observed we are aware of its absence4 ,movement is of the highest importance as a factor of design--such movement1 for example1 as is imparted to a book by this very diversity of its elements--but good design demands movement that is ordered1 not arbitrary4 ,if liberties are taken 7and it is desirable1 in the interest of vitality and charm1 that they should be taken7 they must justify themselves aesthetically2 they should not only please us in themselves but as evidence of the designer's intelligence1 his insight1 subtlety1 sensitiveness1 discrimination1 and tact4 ,however diverse the elements or parts of a book may be1 however they may1 by reason of such diversity1 render perfect order and balance impossible1 their arrangement should at least possess a rationale4 ,this need of a fundamental balance has its basis in its pleasure-giving value4 ,i have adverted to the analogy between book-design and architecture1 let me point now to an equally pertinent analogy with the structure of poetry4 ,verse1 says ,poe1 originates in the human enjoyment of equality1 fitness4 ,to this enjoyment1 also1 all the moods of verse--rhythm1 meter1 stanza1 rhyme1 alliteration1 the refrain1 and other analogous effects--are to be referred4 ,specifically1 the parts of a book--half-titles1 headings1 etc41 etc4--should be1 severally and collectively1 related as are such structural elements in verse as recurrent rhythms1 rhymes1 and refrains4 ,we must now consider the decorated or illustrated book4 ,in the first place1 it should be understood that no form of decoration or illustration is legitimate in the strictly fine book except such as are printed from wood or metal engraved by hand1 preferably in relief which comports with type both in physical character and in the means by which the image is imparted to the paper4 ,process-engravings are disqualified not only because of the preponderant mechanical factor1 but because mechanical engraving in relief cannot produce a line of the delicacy and purity obtained with the engraving tool4 ,as a corollary to the principle of integration set forth above let us take first the type of decorated book to which most obviously it applies4 ,a book carrying on various pages head-bands of varying depth and varying tone--deep1 shallow1 black and heavy1 light and delicate--will produce a disturbing effect4 ,less obvious but hardly less disturbing is a succession of initial letters differing in size1 in tone1 or in position on the page4 ,the book with initial letters strewn through the text1 sometimes several on a single page1 is a challenge to the designer4 ,when thus arbitrarily employed it is important1 in order that the initials shall not be obtrusive1 that they be so selected as to size 7in proportion to the page7 and so integrated with the book as a whole that their accidental character is either disguised or lost and their recurrence actually contributes to the unity of the volume by virtue of their consistent accentual value4 ,an arbitrary arrangement of tailpieces is likely to produce a jumpy effect4 ,since the spaces 7at the ends of chapters or sections7 within which tailpieces may be placed differ in area1 such decorative elements cannot always fall on the same level4 ,this irregularity can be compensated for in a measure by adjusting the size of the decoration to the area of the space it occupies4 ,by what may seem to be a negation of the law of balance here insisted upon1 such a variation is more productive of architectural harmony than tailpieces of uniform size would be if disposed in spaces of varying area4 ,returning for a moment to the undecorated book1 it may be remarked in passing that verse1 particularly a collection of short lyrics1 does not lend itself to good book-design4 ,it should be enough to point out that the disproportion between type mass and white paper caused by short measure and the frequently meager letter-press deprive books of verse of the book's basic structural factor1 the rectangle of type4 ,how decoration can be employed to overcome this deficiency is perfectly exemplified in the original edition of ,dorat's ,les ,baisers4 ,with the principles of balance and unity still in mind1 it will hardly1 ,i think1 admit of contradiction that the scattering of odd-sized illustrations through the text is incompatible with both of these principles4 ,such illustrations1 particularly those of irregular shape bounded on two or three sides by type1 are as destructive of balance and unity as is poor fenestration in a building4 ,it is not enough that something like a balance is effected on facing pages 7an elementary principle in layout72 the lack of a complete integration of the pictures with the book and the disturbance created by distorting the letter-press into odd shapes preclude the possibility of such a book being regarded as well-planned1 much less ideal1 however charming it may be in detail4 ,we have seen1 while considering the major aspects of book-design1 in what wise paper must be judged with regard to those first or immediate impressions gained from seeing and feeling it4 ,i must now carry the consideration of paper a little farther4 ,since style and character are essential qualities of the fine book1 we must insist upon these qualities in every element of its substance4 ,now style and character at their utmost are peculiar 7for reasons that have to do with the methods of manufacture7 to hand-made paper only1 laid or wove1 and1 it may be further insisted1 to only the best hand-made paper4 ,desirable as wove paper is for certain purposes1 it cannot be denied that it has less character than the laid sheet4 ,it is also true that no feature of fine laid paper gives more character to a sheet than the so-called antique factor1 a slight thickening of the pulp and greater opacity along the chain-lines4 ,by an improved method of mould-making1 introduced by ,baskerville1 this thickening was eliminated1 but1 whatever mechanical superiority its absence may represent1 there can be no question but that it represents a loss of character4 ,all book papers produced by machinery 7particularly the laids in which the effect of laid lines is mechanically faked7 are as much imitations of and substitutes for hand-made paper as machine-made lace is a substitute for hand-made lace1 and the disparity in quality is as great4 ,we speak of imitation lace and real lace1 meaning machine-made and hand-made2 we might1 with equal propriety1 speak of imitation paper and real paper4 ,ideally1 then1 the fine book1 in the fullest and strictest sense of the term1 can be printed on no other than paper that is hand-made and of the best quality4 ,as to the color of paper for fine books1 the whole question may be considerably clarified at once by the statement that everything suggestive of artificiality should be avoided4 ,a paper that is chalky white or bluish white tells us at once that the rags which went into its manufacture were chemically 7that is to say1 artificially7 bleached4 ,a great many toned papers1 described as cream or india1 are artificially colored and show it4 ,the most desirable tone for fine book paper is the natural tone of unbleached 7and sorted as such7 linen rags4 ,its slight creamish color is at once pleasant to the eye and holds the promise of that agreeable mellowness which comes1 very slowly1 with age4 ,a number of very pleasant books have been printed in recent years on gray1 blue1 green1 and brownish papers 7the last usually a deliberate simulation of ancient paper71 but1 despite their charm1 they are1 ,i think1 open to the charge of affectation1 against which1 if true1 there is of course no defense4 ,if not actually arty1 they come perilously near to it4 ,it has not been my purpose in this paper to lay down the rules for making a fine book1 for1 after all1 rules are of no use whatever 7in an art or in a craft7 except to be broken--wisely4 ,neither has any attempt been made1 since this is not a technical treatise1 to outline the methods by which the results described may be produced4 ,i have tried merely to set forth the various criteria by which fine books should be judged and the principles 7quite different from rules7 that underlie them4 ,if the specifications seem over-exacting1 if they are to be dismissed as trop raffins1 ,i must ask the caviler if that which purports to be fine can be too refined8 ,let those who wish to compromise 7with popular taste1 with outlay and returns1 with honesty1 with self-respect1 or with machinery7 do so1 but unless the thing they produce represents1 with eloquence and beauty1 the full and unconditional employment of every realizable aid to betterment1 physical and technical1 it is something other than a fine book of the first order4 ,we must discourage ourselves in order that we may be strong4 ,illustration,w4 ,a4 ,,dwiggins,illustration ,,extracts ,,from ,,an ,,investigation ,,into ,,the ,,physical ,,properties ,,of ,,books ,,as ,,they ,,are ,,at ,,present ,,published ,,undertaken ,,by ,,the ,,society ,,of ,,calligraphers1 #aiai ,copyright #aiai by ,l4 ,b4 ,siegfried4 ,reprinted by permission of the author4 ,,note3 ,the accompanying extracts from the ,transactions of the ,society of ,calligraphers are published with the approval of the ,society4 ,they form a part of the exhaustive and unbiased ,report returned by the ,committee in charge of the ,investigation1 which ,report will be presented in its entirety in the ,annual ,bulletin4 ,the report is of so surprising a nature that it was deemed unwise to withhold all notice of the findings until the annual publication4 ,the ,society1 therefore1 has the honour to present certain portions of the ,inquiry together with an abstract of the ,committee's recommendations4 ,w4 ,a4 ,,dwiggins1 ,secretary #chd;,a ,boylston ,street1 ,boston ,december #a1 #aiai ,editor's ,note3 ,in commenting on the reception of the now famous ,investigation1 ,watson ,gordon pointed out 7in ,mss4 by ,,wad1 a collection of the writings of ,dwiggins on various subjects1 published by ,the ,typophiles1 ,new ,york1 #aidg7 that it received wide attention in publishing circles where some exceptions were taken to the findings4 ,certain publishers felt sure that some of those replying to the pertinent and impertinent questions of the investigator were members of their organizations who preferred to remain anonymous4 ,the complete report1 with its original note and illustration1 as well as the sequel of twenty years later1 follow4 ,it may be said in introduction that the ,society's ,investigation into the ,physical ,properties of ,books was undertaken by a special committee whose personnel insured that its consideration would be thorough and unbiased4 ,the ,committee began its labour by an examination of all books published in ,america since the year #aiaj4 ,this examination forced upon the investigators the conclusion that ,all ,books of the present day are ,badly ,made4 ,the conclusion was unanimous4 ,working out from this basic fact in an effort to arrive at the reasons underlying the evil1 the ,committee held numerous sittings in consultation with men concerned with various branches of printing and publishing4 ,from these sittings there developed a mass of information of an unusual and stimulating character4 ,the publishers have chosen from the ,record of the examination a few examples1 not because they are extraordinary but because they present typical points of view4 ,they are transcribed verbatim4 ,it will be obvious that in certain cases it has been no more than courteous to suppress the names of the persons assisting the investigation4 ,for the sake of uniformity it has been deemed wise to follow this practice throughout4 ,i4 ,,mr4 ,b4 ,q3 ,mr4 ,b----1 will you please tell the committee why you printed this book on card-board8 ,a3 ,to make it the right thickness4 ,it had to be one inch thick4 --,why that thick1 particularly8 --,because otherwise it would not sell4 ,if a book isn't one inch thick it won't sell4 --,do you mean to say that people who buy books select them with the help of a foot rule8 --,they have to have some standard of selection4 --,so that it is your practice to stretch out the text if it is too short by printing it on egg-box stock8 --,not my practice1 particularly4 ,all publishers do it4 ,we are obliged to use this and other means to bring the book up to a proper thickness4 ,you must remember that our prices are not based on the contents of a book but on its size4 ,illustration3 ,a chart showing the percentage of excellence in the physical properties of books published since #aiaj4 --,you mention other methods4 ,would you mind telling us what other method you use8 --,we can expand the letter-press judiciously4 ,we limit the matter to seven words on a page1 say1 and so get a greater number of pages4 ,we can use large type and can lead considerably4 --,but does not that practice hurt the appearance of the page8 ,make a poor-looking page8 --,i am afraid ,i do not get your meaning4 --,i mean to say1 is not the page ugly and illegible when you expand the matter to that extent8 --,you don't consider the look of a page in making a book4 ,that is a thing that doesn't enter into the production of a book4 ,if ,i understand you correctly1 do you mean to say that it matters how a book looks8 --,that was the thought in my mind4 --,that's a new idea in book publishing6 99 99 99 99 99 --,you were speaking of the pressure of industrial conditions since the war4 ,under these conditions what percentage of the traditions of the craft can you preserve1 would you say8 --,the traditions of what craft8 --,the craft of printing1 obviously4 ,what ,i am trying to get at is this3--,there are certain precise and matured standards of workmanship in the printing craft2 these standards are the results of experiment through nearly five hundred years4 ,how far are these standards effective under your present-day conditions8 --,those standards1 so far as ,i know anything about them1 are what you would call academic4 ,in the first place1 book-manufacturing is not a craft1 it is a business4 ,as for standards of workmanship--,i can understand the term in connection with cabinet-making1 for example1 or tailoring1 but ,i should not apply the expression to books4 ,you do not talk about the standards of workmanship in making soap1 do you8 --,then in your mind there does not linger any atmosphere of an art about the making of books8 --,when you talk about atmosphere you have me out of my depth4 ,there isn't any atmosphere of art lingering about making soap1 is there8 --,you would class soap-making with book-making8 --,i can see no reason why not4 --,may ,i ask you why you were selected by ---- ,company to manage their manufacturing department8 --,really1 ,i must say that you overstep the borders-- --,please do not misinterpret my question4 ,it is really pertinent to the inquiry4 --,it should certainly be obvious why a man is chosen for a given position4 ,i am employed to earn a satisfactory return on the shareholders' investment4 ,is that the information you want8 --,i think that is what we want4 ,would you then consider yourself as happily employed in making soap as in making books8 --,quite as well employed1 if making soap paid the dividend4 99 99 99 99 99 --,while we are on this subject1 may ,i ask you how you choose the artists who make your illustrations8 --,my practice is to select an illustrator whose name is well known4 --,is that the only point you consider8 --,i should say1 yes4 ,i am not aware of any other reason for spending money on this feature4 ,it is always an uncertain detail and this way of making a choice puts the matter on a safe basis4 --,it is sometimes assumed that the illustrations should have a sympathetic bearing on the story4 ,does not that consideration have some weight with you in choosing your artist8 --,none1 ,i should say4 ,you see1 the pictures are not really a necessary part of the book4 ,they are a kind of frill that the public has got in the way of expecting1 and we have to put them in4 ,illustrations as a rule stand us as a dead loss unless they are made by a well-known artist4 ,then1 of course1 they help sell the book4 ,,ii4 ,,mr4 ,mc,g4 ,a3 ,the gentlemen of the committee must remember that the book-publishing business is a gamble4 ,each new issue1 particularly in the department of fiction1 is a highly adventurous risk4 ,our percentage of blanks would astonish you if we dared to state it4 ,but any book may turn out a best-seller4 ,this hope keeps us going4 ,it is absolutely a gamble1 as ,i say4 ,you can see that under these conditions we cannot spend very much money on non-essentials4 ,we have to strip the books down to the barest necessities4 ,personally ,i should like to see the firm put out nothing that is not well designed and well printed4 ,but as an agent of the firm ,i have to set aside my personal preferences4 ,the directors are very much down on what they call art4 --,has the firm ever looked into the question of good workmanship as a possible aid to sales8 --,not under the present management4 ,the founder looked at good work as more or less a marketing advantage4 --,what do you think caused the present management to change from that opinion8 --,they haven't changed4 ,they never had it4 ,they get at the matter from another angle altogether4 ,their policy is to reduce the production cost to the minimum4 ,the minimum in theory would be reached when the public complained4 ,the public hasn't complained1 so you can't tell when to stop cheapening4 ,you see the directors don't look at a book as a fabricated thing at all4 ,books are merely something to sell--merchandise4 ,our management--and all the rest of them1 for that matter--come from the selling side of the business and do not have any pride in the product4 ,old ,mr4 ---- was a publisher because he liked books4 ,that made an entirely different policy in the old firm1 of course4 --,to get back to the question of good workmanship helping sales3--,here are two books published abroad to be sold at #ej cents and #hj cents4 ,they can very well be called works of art4 ,do you not think that these well designed paper covers would stand out among other books and invite customers to themselves8 --,undoubtedly they would4 --,have you ever tried the experiment of putting out editions in paper covers of attractive design8 --,never4 ,it couldn't be done4 ,people wouldn't buy them4 --,but you said a moment ago-- --,moreover the difference of cost between cheap cloth sides and paper covers of the kind you have there is so slight that it wouldn't pay to try the experiment4 ,people want stiff board covers4 ,it doesn't much matter what is inside1 but they insist on board covers4 --,how do you arrive at that fact8 --,through our salesmen4 --,and you say that paper covers have never been tried8 --,never4 ,none of our travellers would go out on the road with a sample in paper covers4 99 99 99 99 99 --,a little while ago you said something about your salesmen helping you to an understanding of the public taste4 ,i infer that you get considerable help from this source8 --,most valuable help indeed4 ,we depend entirely on the reports the sales force turns in in these matters4 ,the salesmen are in direct contact with the retailers and are naturally in a position to feel the public pulse1 so to speak4 ,their help is invaluable4 ,they can anticipate the demand very often4 ,i had reference more particularly to the way books are made4 --,oh1 on that point too4 ,we never make a final decision on a cover design1 for instance1 without showing it to the salesmen4 ,they very often make valuable suggestions as to changes of colour1 etc4 ,they run largely to red4 --,it would seem1 then1 that the designing of the books is very much in the hands of the salesmen8 --,quite in their hands4 --,are the office-boys often called into consultation8 --,mr4 ---- finds his stenographer a very great help in passing upon certain points--illustrations1 etc4 --,does it appear to you that the sales department would be the one best qualified to pass on points of design8 --,well1 there1 you see--the books have to be sold--that is what we make them for--and the sales department is the one in closest touch with the people that buy the books--that knows just what they want4 --,the standards of quality1 then1 are set by the people who buy the books8 --,oh1 absolutely so4 ,how else would you move the books8 ,it is a merchandising proposition1 you must remember4 --,but do you not think that people would buy decently made books as willingly as poorly made books8 ,at the same price1 yes4 ,no question about it4 ,the book-buying public doesn't worry its head about the way books are made4 ,it doesn't know anything about it4 ,and well made books cost more4 ,the trade is committed to a dollar-and-a-half article and can't risk going above it4 --,your opinion is that the price of a well made book would be so high as to prevent its sale8 --,in the case of fiction1 yes4 ,the price has become almost a fixture4 --,we shall have to go outside of fiction1 then1 to look for well made books8 --,it amounts to that4 --,you have said that certain unproductive factors prevent you from spending what you otherwise might on good workmanship4 ,what specific factors would you mention8 --,plates--electros4 ,we plate everything on the chance of its running into several printings4 #hj per cent of the books are not reprinted4 ,you can see that the money tied up in plates is a very considerable sum1 and1 as ,i say1 #hj per cent of it is dead loss4 ,we are obliged to take the chance1 however4 --,has any remedy occurred to you8 --,if stereotyping could be revived as an accurate process it might help us out4 ,it would cost much less to make and to store paper matrices than to make electrotypes4 ,the difficulty here is that no one knows how to make good stereotypes1 and the stereotype plates at their best are more trouble to make ready4 ,trouble with the press-room1 you see4 --,is it possible under good conditions to get satisfactory results from stereotype plates8 --,unquestionably4 ,the books printed from this kind of plates in the first days of the invention are entirely satisfactory4 ,,iii4 ,,mr4 ,l4 ,q4 ,can a trade-edition book be well made and sell for #a4ej8 --,that depends on how high you set your standard4 --,well1 let us not be too rigorous4 ,can it be made better1 say1 than this book8 --,beyond question4 ,it will all depend upon whether or not the printer has a few lingering memories of the standards of printing4 --,but should not the setting of standards come from the publisher8 --,oh yes1 under ideal conditions4 ,both printer and publisher should have a hand in it4 --,how would you make a book of fiction to be sold for #a4ej8 --,well1 such a book could have a good title-page as cheaply as a bad one--and the whole typographic scheme would cost no more if it were logically done instead of crudely strung together4 ,by logically done ,i mean with well proportioned1 practicable margins and legible headings1 etc4 ,the press-work on books is reasonably good but the layout or design is entirely neglected4 ,it calls for a little planning1 of course1 but no more than should be available in any reputable plant4 ,it isn't so much that these books are badly planned as it is that they are not planned at all4 --,but most printing firms have a planning department1 do they not8 --,the planning in most presses is concerned with the handling of material1 not with the designing of material4 ,this is no doubt due to the fact that the ,taylor ,system has not yet got around to ,aesthetic ,efficiency4 --,are not the typographical unions concerned to train their men on these points of design that you mention8 --,the unions have only one idea--and it is not concerned with the improvement of printing4 --,are there any trade schools that teach these things8 ,are not the employers' associations promoting schools to train men in the craft8 --,the employers' associations have one idea--a little different from the idea of the unions1 perhaps1 but not concerned with the improvement of printing4 ,there are trade schools but they teach only the mechanics of the craft4 --,apparently1 then1 there is no place in this country where one can learn how to design printing8 --,you can safely say that there is no such place4 ,,iv4 ,,mr4 ,a4 ,q3 ,what is your own opinion on the subject of illustrations in books8 --,in what particular do you mean8 --,i mean1 do you think that illustrations help or hinder the quality of a book8 --,the question is too general to be answered easily4 ,may ,i ask you to be more specific8 --,for example1 here is a best-seller with several--five or six--half-tone illustrations4 ,do you consider that these pictures make the book a more complete thing as a specimen of book-making8 --,most certainly not4 --,then would you say that illustrations in such books were a detraction8 --,illustrations such as these1 yes4 ,though it would be hard to detract from this particular book4 --,it is a standard book--a standard type of book4 --,i fear that it is4 --,what kind of illustrations would you favour8 --,for many books1 none at all4 ,in these books of current fiction the pictures are either futile or else detrimental to the development of the plot4 ,they give the game away1 so to speak1 when the author may wish to hold the story in suspense4 ,the effort to avoid this disaster accounts for the multitude of undramatic pictures you see in books4 --,your theory of no pictures should appeal to the publishers but ,i doubt if the illustrators will stand with you4 --,illustration is a trade as well as an art4 --,true4 ,but we are trying to limit the inquiry to the artistic side at present4 ,when1 then1 according to your deductions1 would illustrations be called for8 --,when they can make a stage-setting for the story4 ,when they ornament it or suggest it1 perhaps1 instead of reveal it4 ,impressions and atmosphere instead of literal diagrams with a cross marking the spot where1 etc4 --,but perhaps people like the cross marking the spot where4 --,we are limiting the discussion to the artistic side1 are we not8 --,what about the half-tone process of engraving8 --,the process is a way of doing a thing that cannot be done cheaply by any other means4 --,do you consider it a process that adds to the artistic possibilities of book printing8 --,you mean according to the standards that prevailed in the earlier days of the craft8 --,i do4 ,yes4 --,according to those standards it seems to me that half-tones will always have to be considered as necessities forced upon the book-printer4 ,they demand a kind of paper that is never a satisfactory book-paper4 ,in the case of the kind of books we are talking about the relief line methods have always given the most artistic results1 because they are so closely related to the character of type4 ,one regrets1 however1 to give up the chances for tonal designs that the half-tone process provides4 ,probably the designers and printers will work out a satisfactory relation between half-tones and type when the craze for photographic detail passes a little4 ,as things stand1 ,i should say that the best results are to be had with uncoated book-papers and with line plates4 ,it is true books are rarely illustrated this way--current fiction1 ,i mean--but the method might be used to produce a very attractive and unusual result4 --,then you would condemn the use of half-tones in this kind of book8 --,if you mean the usual kind of half-tones printed separately and inserted1 ,i do4 ,but if you are making a book of travel1 for example1 the half-tones from photographs explain and justify themselves4 ,but on this whole subject of book illustration it strikes me that if you are to make the design from the start you might as well make it in harmony with the kind of paper and printing you are planning to use1 and get all the artistic advantage of fitting your means to your limitations4 99 99 99 99 99 ,are you familiar with the ,christy-,holbein ,test8 --,yes4 ,that is to say1 ,i have heard of your applying it1 and remember that the percentages were very much against ,holbein4 --,ninety-three to seven1 on an average4 ,how do you explain such a crudity of taste in these groups of people otherwise well educated8 --,by the deduction that they are not educated4 ,that is to say that these people1 cultivated in other ways1 react precisely like savages when confronted with pictures or drawings4 ,they go for the tinsel and glitter and are opaque to the higher and more civilized values4 ,they get the most pleasure from drawings that they think they could make themselves4 ,this is the basis of the ,eight-year-old ,formula widely applied in the department of newspaper comics3 ,make your drawing so that it can be understood by a child eight years old4 ,all of this is clearly lack of training1 because their taste is good in other matters--music1 for example1 and house furnishings4 --,you would deduce1 then1 that the periodical and book-publishing industry has failed to train the taste of its public in such matters8 --,it has done worse3 it has depraved that taste4 ,because there was1 not very long ago1 a fine tradition in this country in the line of illustration4 --,why should the publishers find any advantage in depraving the taste of the public--as you say they have done8 --,because they turned their backs on the standards of the publishing business and became merchandisers solely4 ,they had to sell the goods and they had to sell a big new public4 ,the quickest way to this public--through flash-and-crash tactics--they adopted4 ,and naturally ran themselves and the public down hill4 --,may there not be other sides to it1 too8 ,may it not be that the art schools are not now producing draughtsmen of a calibre to support the fine tradition you mention8 --,that may have something to do with it4 ,but even that is mixed up with the other4 ,i think that the chief difficulty is with the publishers4 --,and the public8 --,the public will follow if the publishers lead4 ,v4 ,,mr4 ,s4 ,a4 ,are you not making the mistake of keeping too close to the publishers8 ,it seems to me that you will not get at all the facts behind the situation until you get in touch with the people we sell the books to4 ,they are the factors that bring about the conditions you object to4 ,the publisher is merely a machine for selling the public what it wants4 --,then the publisher has no selective function8 --,absolutely none4 --,how does the public bring about the condition we object to8 --,obviously by buying the books4 --,i mean to say1 how does the public prevail upon you to sell it trashy books instead of well made books8 --,the public is entirely uneducated on the subject of books1 in your sense4 ,people know nothing at all about paper or printing or pictures or things of that sort4 ,one book is as good as another to any educated man so long as he can read it4 ,he doesn't know that there is any such thing as good printing or bad printing or good or bad taste in making books4 ,under these conditions we should be fools to spend money on features that do not have any bearing on sales4 ,it's a simple business proposition4 --,would the public that you are discussing buy well made books as willingly as trashy books8 --,oh1 absolutely4 ,it's the books they are interested in--what they contain1 not how they are made4 ,they wouldn't know the difference4 ,,vi4 ,,mr4 ,g4 ,a3 ,what's the use of talking about standards in connection with things like these8 ,these are not books4 ,they aren't fit to wad a gun with4 ,i wouldn't have them in the house4 ,nobody pays any attention to stuff like that4 ,there isn't what you would call a book on the table1 except this one1 perhaps4 ,that's printed in ,england and sent over in sheets and bound on this side4 ,but that one is set in a bastard ,caslon4 ,it isn't the original ,caslon but a revision with the descenders cut off4 ,see how he's got his ,o upside down6 ,those others--what's the use of talking about them at all8 ,it reminds me of the story about the ,chinaman-- --,but1 ,mr4 ----1 do you not think it possible to get up this class of books in a manner that would suit you better8 --,you can't hope to get anything like a decent book until you do away with the damnable cheap paper and the vile types4 ,and then you will have to start in and teach the printer how to print4 ,there aren't more than a half a dozen presses in the country that know how to print4 ,most printing looks like it had been done with apple-butter on a hay-press-- --,what you say is unhappily true4 ,what we are trying to find out are the causes of this state of things4 --,the causes are everywhere--all through the rattletrap1 cheap-jack1 shoddy work that is being done in every kind of trade4 ,nobody cares for making decent things any more4 ,the only cure is to get back to decent standards of workmanship in everything again4 ,but the case seems to me to be hopeless4 ,i try to do printing up to a decent standard--and that is about all any of us can do4 ,i don't believe you can hope to do much good through your societies and investigations4 ,i believe in each one doing his own job in the best way he knows how4 ,that's the only way you can raise the standard4 ,it's the work you turn out that counts4 ,,an ,,abstract ,,of ,,the ,,committee',s ,,recommendations ,two main questions resulting from the ,inquiry present themselves to the ,committee4 ,the first question is3 ,is it within the power of the ,society of ,calligraphers1 of any society1 or of ,society itself1 to restore to the printing of books a standard of good work8 ,the second and major question3 ,are books necessary to the present social state8 ,i4 ,when the ,committee began its work it assumed as a matter of course that the established standards of printing would serve it as guide-posts and criteria4 ,it expected to traverse a country where the highways were in need of repair1 perhaps1 and the marks of direction dim1 but on the whole a negotiable country4 ,it found a very different state of things4 ,instead of roads to be followed with some excusable discomfort it found not even trails4 ,such highways as had once been charted were obliterated4 ,not only hair-lines but the most elementary blazemarks were overgrown and lost beyond any hope of recovery4 ,instead of following the planned course of visit and consultation the ,committee was forced to reorganize itself into an expedition of discovery4 ,it has been fortunate to return at all4 ,the collected data of the exploration can lead to but one conclusion3 ,that the whole fabric of ,standards of ,workmanship will have to be rebuilt from the beginning4 ,whether this can be done under the present state of society is a matter to be discussed in connection with the second question4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,ii4 ,are books necessary to the present social state8 ,the ,committee's finding is1 unanimously and conclusively1 ,no4 ,during the past twenty years many influences have been at work to wean mankind from the use of books4 ,automobiles1 the motion-picture drama1 professional athletics1 the ,saturday ,evening ,post--these operated even before the ,great ,war to discourage the habit of reading4 ,since the war the progress of society--culminating1 in ,america1 in the dictatorship of the proletariat--has effectually completed the process4 ,books as an element vital to the welfare of the race have been eliminated4 ,the ,society of ,calligraphers is thus freed at one stroke from the obligations implied in the first question4 ,but there are still books in existence1 and for these the ,committee feels a professional concern4 ,for the ,investigation1 if it has done nothing else1 has disclosed the most cogent and ineluctable fact3 that wherever there is contact between books and the public1 the effect upon the books is deleterious4 ,so far as the immediate situation is concerned1 the public1 by discontinuing the contact1 has obviated the danger4 ,but in a period of revolution no condition can be taken for granted as fixed4 ,it is quite within the range of possibility that the public1 under compulsion1 may turn again to books and reading2 and this1 the ,committee believes1 is a contingency the ,society should be prepared to meet4 ,publishers as a group promise1 for the immediate future1 to be a harassed and unimpressionable body4 ,influence upon them can be brought to bear only through public demand4 ,should a public demand for books revive1 it will be imperative for the ,society either to quench it altogether--a project which the ,committee has discarded as visionary--or to take it in hand at its inception and give it constructive shape by forcing upon public attention such knowledge of the more elementary points of good taste as shall make impossible the further prostitution of standards4 ,as the most direct means to this end it is urgently recommended by the ,committee that the ,society take up at once the study of advertising4 ,illustration ,illustration,w4 ,a4 ,,dwiggins,illustration ,,twenty ,,years ,,after3 ,,mr4 ,mc,g41 ,,mr4 ,a41 ,,mr4 ,l4 and ,,the ,,society ,,of ,,calligraphers ,from ,publishers' ,weekly1 ,sept4 #b1 #aici4 ,copyright #aici by ,r4 ,r4 ,bowker ,co4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,,note3 ,in #aiai the ,society of ,calligraphers published a pamphlet3 ,extracts ,from ,an ,investigation ,into the ,physical ,properties of ,books4 ,in the summer of #aici1 three of the people who reported in the investigation were visited again and their opinions solicited as to what had happened in the interval of twenty years to change the physical characteristics of books4 ,transcriptions of parts of the three interviews follow4 ,,mr4 ,mc,g4 ,q3 ,twenty years ago you were kind enough to discuss book-manufacturing with us4 --,twenty years4 ,remarkable memory6 --,it meant a great deal to us--your help4 ,it was in #aiai4 ,we were conducting an inquiry--perhaps you remember--into the physical qualities of books4 --,oh1 yes6 ,how you could improve them1 and so on4 ,yes4 --,now we are back again--to see what you think now4 --,good4 ,interesting idea4 ,ask me questions4 --,for instance 444 ,does it strike you that trade books have improved in the twenty years8--as physical objects1--packages8 --,packages4 ,very neat4 ,sums up the situation4 --,we mean1 both as implements1 tools1 for getting a job done2 and as pleasant things to look at1 handle1 use 444 or the contrary4 --,well4 ,let's see4 ,yes4 ,i think trade books have improved decidedly in twenty years4 ,decided improvement4 --,what points of improvement1 would you say8 --,well4 ,more care taken with the get-up1 margins1 format as you call it1 title pages4 ,real design coming into it4 ,and much more careful about the type--legibility and all that--paper1 suitability for reading1 good surface for the eye1 etc41 etc4 --,you said1 twenty years ago1 that your directors' lack of interest in the product hampered you4 ,since you have been in charge here have you been able to bring your books up to a level that suits you better8 --,yes 444 and no4444 ,costs have climbed in twenty years1 materials1 labor4 ,we've pushed up retail prices1 but the manufacturing costs eat up all we gain4 ,more than eat it up4 ,less margin now for design or style or whatever than twenty years ago1 ,i'd say4 --,that looks like faulty adjustment somewhere1 doesn't it8 --,situation needs adjusting1 certainly6 --,i mean1 maybe you are paying out money for quite unnecessary features4 --,possibly4 --,not a strictly factual meeting of the conditions1 perhaps8--not realistic1 as the dictators say4 ,have you ever thought how you might study the market-product relations from an entirely new and fresh angle8 --,now there6 444 that's interesting 444 ,i have4 ,i've thought a lot about it4 ,when ,i get off into the ,maine woods and look back at it there's one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb4 ,we've got into a rut4 ,the whole trade has4 ,not a shadow of a doubt about it4 ,we let ourselves be ruled by a whole catalog of standards and values and musts that are as dead as the dodo4 ,standards inherited from an entirely different state of society4 ,a thousand years different1 you might say4 ,it is amazing how conservative a tribe we are1 we book people4444 ,take the cover of a book1 for example4 ,take this cover here1 for instance4 ,we spent a lot of trouble and money dickering it up--worry about the colors and the design--cost of dies1 cost of stamping1 cost of foil 444 and not a soul will ever see it6 ,it's all hidden away under the jacket1 and it'll stay hidden under the jacket6 ,all this book-cover stuff is 444 what's the word8 444 vestigial--like your appendix--something no longer used--something useless left over from an earlier stage of evolution4 ,did you ever see anybody in a book store turn the jacket back and look at the cover8 ,did you ever hear of a cover that helped sell a book8--to the slightest extent8 ,no4 ,and when they get 'em home and read 'em and lend them to their friends the jacket stays on4 ,never comes off4 ,book-covers are just expense--useless expense--the decoration and things1 ,i mean4 --,you would do away with covers1 then8 --,no4 ,it's got to be in boards--people want them that way--it's one of your realistic details4 --,in your new angle volume would you have the insides as you do them now8 --,no4 ,there again ,i'd let the demand shape the product4 ,your market doesn't give a hang about the type and printing so long as they can read it4 --,that sounds like twenty years ago6 --,i know4 ,very likely it does4 --,haven't things changed8 --,not much4 ,it's as true now as it was then4 --,but all this talking and writing and lecturing4444 --,two or three thousand persons1 perhaps--two or three thousand have become book conscious as they say--the limited edition crowd4 ,i'm dealing with the ten million4444 ,there's a lot of whoosh in all that book beautiful stuff1 you know4 --,mr4 ---- thinks it helps to tell them about type and paper1 etc4 --,i know4 ,it doesn't4 ,they don't understand his little notices--it's all shop talk4 ,he likes 'em4 ,he thinks they give the books tone1 ,i daresay4 ,i think it doesn't matter a damn one way or the other4 ,all that shop detail is zero4 ,they don't care to know and they don't need to know4 ,just make your book so it will read handily and let it go at that4 --,have you got this new angle idea to a point where you could describe a book made that way8 --,well4 ,i might4 ,take the cover--,i'd have board covers and cloth4 ,but ,i wouldn't stamp them4 ,bright color4 ,gay4 ,patterned cloth sometimes4 ,i'd have the simplest kind of paper label on the backbone4 ,printed from type--standard affair--library label that you could read4 ,no embroidery1 just plain function4 ,on the least expensive terms possible4 ,make it a kind of house-trademark feature4444 ,inside ,i'd forget all ,i knew about fine printing--the art--it's a great art--forget all ,i knew--start fresh with the use4 --,you like fine printing4 --,that's right4 ,i do4 ,in its place4 ,the place isn't trade books4 ,you can't have fine printing in trade books4 ,all you can have along that line is cheap imitation--celluloid collar and no shirt4 ,if you go out with your imitation fine printing as a mark to shoot at you come back with what we turn out now1 all of us--shabby genteel1 to the limit4 ,my book won't try to get by with a paper collar4 ,my book won't have any collar4 ,it will get down to the basis of realism--a handy1 efficient1 cheap tool for temporary use4 ,read it--throw it away4 ,who saves a book now8 ,if you save it1 where are you going to put it8 ,in the car8 --,that suggests question of size--what do you think about size8 --,oh1 small1 by all means4 ,for the usual job not larger than the #e-a_/bx#g-c_/d range4 ,smaller than that when you can4 --,you think people do not want a big package for their money8 --,not when they want a book to read4 ,if we can get the price down they'll flock to small size1 ,i'm sure4 ,when they pay two-fifty1 three1 perhaps they want their poundage4 ,books for gifts too1 possibly--want 'em impressive4 ,but on my basis of a good workable tool they'll like them small and handy4 --,your point in general1 then1 is that modern books should be looked at as temporary affairs4 --,absolutely4 ,temporary affairs4 ,like magazines4 ,and they ought to be produced as temporary affairs4 ,paper a little better than newsprint1 but not much better--better color1 on the warmish side instead of blue-grey4 ,guaranteed by the ,bureau of ,standards to last three hundred years4 ,bosh4 ,presswork3 set your standard at the level of legibility4 ,that's low--look at the newspapers4 ,get it so you can read it easily and let the fine points ride4 ,give up points of paper and make-ready to get a cheaper package4 ,you are making a tool1 remember1 not a bijou--you're making a sound1 efficient1 easy-working tool--tools don't need paper lace and fake-leather upholstery to make them sound--when a tool is efficient it has a style of its own1 inevitably4 --,your dictum is1 books as tools4 --,books as tools4 ,right4 ,but here's a point4 ,all this is on the technical side4 ,treat a book as a temporary affair4 ,but while it lasts ,i'd take considerable pains to have it be a lively affair4 ,not freakish--you can't play tricks with the reading process--but lively1 like a good1 interesting talker4 ,little fresh twists1 but hardly noticeable in detail4 ,a lot of ways to do it in an inconspicuous way4 ,mustn't be conspicuous--mustn't interfere with the reading job4 ,little touches of ornament in the right places4 ,pictorial bits--pictures are coming back into trade books again1 in a new form--easy1 swift1 simple illustrations that fit in with the temporary affair style4 ,some of the money saved by a strategic retreat from impossible printing standards ,i'd put into things like that--to keep the pages gay and interesting4 --,in this connection1 do you think that modern books ought to be modernistic in design8 --,absolutely not4 ,as ,i said a minute ago1 you can't play tricks with the process of reading4444 ,one of the necessities of the modernistic stuff is the necessity to shock you--to make people jump4 ,you can't set off firecrackers on a book page every few paragraphs without taking the reader's mind off the text4 ,you simply can't read in the neighborhood of modernistic design4 ,it isn't because you are not used to it4 ,it's in the very nature of the style4444 ,i'm talking about books1 of course4 ,for advertising1 it's prime4 ,have all the modernistic design you want on your jacket4 ,the more the better4 --,and that brings us4444 --,yes4 ,i've been waiting for it4 ,that brings us to book-jackets6 --,yes4 ,what do you think4444 --,now there you are in another country entirely4 ,now's the time to beat the drums and run up the flags and drape the bunting4444 ,all the money you can't afford to spend on covers you can afford to spend on jackets4 ,because1 first1 the jacket is the cover2 and second1 the jacket helps directly in selling the book4 ,jackets are advertising--posters--billboards--so make 'em shout4 --,attractive8 --,if you mean pretty1 not so important4 ,if you mean oomph1 by all means4 ,feminine charm1 in the prevailing mode4444 ,but sock-'em-in-the-eye4 ,make them strong4 ,make them so people can't miss seeing them4 --,what is your own formula8 --,formula8 ,i haven't any formula4444 ,if ,i had ,i think it would be contrast4 ,contrast with all the other books on the table4 ,don't follow anybody's style4 ,get away from the prevalent successful style of the moment4 ,take a look at the tables--what would stick out now more than plain white paper with plain black type8 ,i'd probably varnish it4 ,contrast4 --,do jackets sell books8 --,oh 444 no4 ,jackets don't sell books4 ,they help4 ,what sells a book is the stuff inside--story--text4 ,but books need to be seen4 ,jackets help make them visible4 99 99 99 99 99 --,you save on covers and spend on jackets4 ,you save on paper and printing1 and put some of the saving into pictorial and design features4 ,would you come out with enough saving to get the retail price down from two fifty8 --,i think so4 ,i think if the thing were studied out on our new angle basis you'd find that you not only liked my books a lot better--as packages--but that you'd be able to buy more of them4 ,,mr4 ,a4 ,q3 ,one thing ,i wanted to ask 444 you have had a considerable part in shaping your juvenile department4 --,yes4 ,i have4 --,my question may seem a little 444 cool4444 ,do you prepare your juvenile titles with the children themselves in view--the ultimate consumers8 --,the question's quite proper4 ,i am glad you asked it--it goes straight to the heart of a big trouble about children's books4444 ,the children themselves in view1 eh8 ,the ultimate consumers4444 ,no4 ,i am sorry to say1 we do not4 ,we can't4 ,because children do not buy books4444 ,you see1 a juvenile1 like any other book on our list1 has to please the person that's likely to buy it4 ,and that means1 a book to please adults--a book that a grown-up will mark down as something a child ought to like4 ,ought to1 you see--the adult's judgment1 not the child's4 ,we can't get past it4 ,we can't find out what the child really does like4 ,when children rally to an author1 or a style of book1 then we get a glimpse of the children's state of mind4 ,but that is our only contact4444 ,all our new ventures have to be baited and primed to catch the fancy of the mothers and the cousins and the aunts--against the interests of the ultimate consumer1 you might say1 when that is necessary4 ,sometimes a juvenile runs to large sales purely on the strength of adult appreciation alone1 like ,ferdinand1 for instance4444 ,if it were possible1 there is nothing ,i should like better than to deal with the children direct4 ,i have children of my own4 ,i think ,i understand them 444 to a certain extent4 ,i think ,i could please them4 ,once or twice--this is a confession--,i did take a direct hand--made a couple the way ,i thought they ought to be4 ,my judgment against the child's1 eh8444 ,complete failures--drugs4444 ,i couldn't move them--couldn't get past the censor--couldn't sell the grown-ups4 --,have you ever thought of ways for getting into direct touch with the children8 --,i can see no practicable way4 ,as the case stands you can't penetrate the ,adult ,front ,line4 ,,mr4 ,l4 ,q3 ,this scheme of ,mr4 ,mc,g4's for a different kind of book--what do you think of it8 --,if he can control his decline from a high estate ,i am with him1 emphatically4 ,books need to be cheaper4 ,books vis--vis market certainly need to be studied all over again--from a new base line4 ,i agree with his findings about shabby-genteel4 ,and ,i'm sure that ,i'd like his cheap books much better than the kind ,i buy now1 if he can liven them up as he suggests4 ,the question is1 can he stop his strategic retreat at the right point8 ,it's like inflation3 easy to start1 but4446 ,he drops the standard of material and process--will his proofreading go down hill too8444 ,many ,french books in paper wrappers--made at the lowest cost-level1 badly printed on cheap paper--have an air and a style that our own more expensive affairs can't quite achieve4 ,somebody laid a finger on them4 ,who1 in ,mr4 ,mc,g4's scheme1 is to be this somebody whose touch creates liveliness and interest8 ,a highly important factor in the product6444 ,if we can get the liveliness and interest1 we will be glad to trade more expensive paper and printing to get it4 ,our books are pretty dull4444 ,but1 just inferior printing on cheap paper1 without the lively touch and style1 is going to bore us worse yet6 --,you mean dull in content8 --,i mean dull optically1 visually4444 ,like--to put it into terms of sound--like a long1 droning recital of a tedious story--no inflection--no climax--no motion4 444 ,i like ,mr4 ,mc,g4's figure of a good1 interesting talker4 --,you'd spice it up with modernist feeling8 --,no4 ,he's right1 there4 ,no fireworks4 ,keep the explosions outside the book4 --,you have used contemporary design4 --,yes1 but you'll notice1 not in places where reading is going on4444 ,another point3 letting the market set the tone is not good merchandising4 ,the market needs to be led1 by a tone a little higher than its average taste4444 ,and ,mr4 ,mc,g4's good tool isn't made by majority vote in ,congressional committee--it's made by somebody who knows1 expertly and practically1 just what the tool is intended to do and how it works4 --,you are for books as tools4 --,i am for books as tools--and that means cheaper books4444 ,i think1 too1 that a lot of the things that make books expensive are false value--brummagem4444 ,but the trade is so firmly established in the tradition of false-front and bustle-rear that ,i'm afraid it's going to take an awful tussle to get it back to real values again--to the tool basis--to the simplicity and directness and general fitness-for-its-job1 for example1 that makes a carpenter's plane a masterpiece of appropriate design4 ,,composed ,,in ,,electra ,,types ,illustration,,desmond ,,flower,illustration ,the ,publisher and the ,typographer ,from ,the ,penrose ,annual1 ,vol4 #dd4 ,copyright #aiej by ,lund ,humphries ,ltd41 ,london1 and ,pitman ,publishing ,corp41 ,new ,york4 ,reprinted by permission of the publishers4 ,we live in an unhappy age4 ,i suppose that it must be the most wretched known in history since the hordes of ,genghis ,khan swept across the face of the eastern world4 ,yet it is not the physical losses--though these are bad enough--which are responsible for the malaise1 but a spiritual shortcoming3 a lack of direction and a lack of faith4 ,ours is an age in which there is no single thing1 not great or small1 which can escape our petty probing1 our questioning and our doubts4 ,nothing is because it is3 a shadowy reason must be sought behind4 ,in the course of man's desire to examine and explain away everything1 one of the multitudinous minuti which have come in for worried attention is the position of printers1 particularly in relation to the publishers they serve4 ,the first four centuries of printing produced ninety-nine per cent of all the books which are worth looking at3 yet1 at what time during that period did anyone worry about the division of responsibility in a book's production8 ,then1 it was a matter which somehow got done2 now1 unfortunately1 it is a subject for discussion4 ,when ,sweynheim and ,pannertz started work at ,subiaco in #adfe they were at the same time both printers and publishers1 and this represents a dual personality4 ,but when ,fichet1 the ,rector of the ,sorbonne1 decided to set up the first ,french press five years later within the precincts of the ,university1 he imported three printers from ,germany1 and possibly the first printer-publisher relationship was born4 ,that this relationship was a living thing is shown by the fact that ,fichet had the books which the press produced printed in ,roman type4 ,soon after the great ,rector had gone into voluntary exile for his political opinions1 the press moved out of the ,university precincts to become a normal commercial printing shop1 and ,gering and ,krantz reverted to the use of gothic type6 ,since the use of ,roman lay within the high road of ,french classical development--,france being the only country in ,europe which did not begin its printing history in gothic--this stands as the first instance of the views of a publisher1 as a man ordering the print1 being in advance of the more timorous craftsmen1 who were glad to revert to their old1 safe and conventional ways as soon as the refining influence was removed4 ,french printing as a whole in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is full of printer-publisher problems for our questing minds4 ,simon le ,vostre1 the great ecclesiastical publisher of his age1 used ,pigouchet mostly for his printing2 the ,hardouyn brothers commissioned several lovely books from ,anabat3 why1 and who dictated the terms8 ,the balance of power may then well have lain with the printer1 since in the ,hardouyn's #aejj ,book of ,hours the first page is filled with ,anabat's superb device4 ,but what shall we say of the ,hours printed in #aebg by ,simon du ,bois1 but which bears on every page the unmistakable stamp and signature of its publisher1 ,geoffroy ,tory8 ,now1 they say1 too1 that ,tory was not a binder3 yet from him we have two gilt panels done to his order and to his design1 matching exactly the work which he hired his printers to do for him4 ,i feel we are too certain in our minds that in the past printers were ipso facto publishers1 or that those for whom they printed were merely agents4 ,like a fatal crack hidden for many years in the foundations of an outwardly sound edifice1 the split between printer and publisher had occurred at the ,sorbonne in #adgj1 but was patched1 mended and ignored from time to time for long thereafter4 ,yet like that neglected flaw which1 having widened until it defies repair1 will in the end bring the whole building down1 the printer-publisher relationship has now some time ago irrevocably divided4 ,today the publisher and the printer are two separate men3 there are few exceptions to this rule4 ,mr4 ,oliver ,simon recently began one of his all too rare essays with the words ,printing is a way of life2 and later he remarked that if he 7the printer7 is not something of an artist1 he cannot hope to evolve and maintain a typographic style4 ,but these words must be read in conjunction with one of ,holbrook ,jackson's many wise remarks3 whether it 7printing7 is an art or not is a secondary affair1 so long as it is good printing4 ',art happens' says ,whistler1 and the printer who sets out to be an artist is liable to make a mess of both art and print4 ,one further quotation will show how readily ,holbrook ,jackson's wisdom can be thrown out of the window2 in these pages last year ,mr4 ,herbert ,read criticised the ,english and ,american editions of his own book1 ,the ,grass ,roots of ,art4 ,he wrote ,on balance1 ,i do not find much to choose between these two designs from a functional point of view1 but discounting a poverty due to material restrictions imposed on the ,english publisher1 there is a certain liveliness in the ,american production1 which1 were ,i a purchaser faced with a choice1 would induce me to buy the ,american edition1 even if it cost me rather more4 ,but if the ,english edition had been printed on better paper1 it would have been the easier of the two editions to read4444 ,with the exception of the last sentence1 the whole of this passage seems misleading and irrelevant4 ,the use of the word functional is one of the crosses which we in the twentieth century have to bear1 but1 since it has occurred1 we must presume the function of printing to be that of presenting the written word to the reader in its most easily assimilated form2 if the ,english edition in question is1 apart from its paper1 more easily readable1 how can both editions be equally functional8 ,the implication that a piece of printing--particularly when the text is a work of serious criticism--is to be purchased 7even at a higher price7 for its liveliness at the expense of its readability is particularly unfortunate4 ,if for liveliness we read speciousness or pretention we have found a ready definition of the one quality which should be excluded from book printing at almost any cost4 ,for this reason ,i am frightened of ,mr4 ,simon's statement that printing is a way of life2 good printing implies a philosophy1 it is true1 but ,i fear that printers who are far from good may assume airs above their station and1 when they produce a perfect horror1 state that is my way of life--take it or leave it4 ,if they do1 they may be astonished at how fast any decent publisher will embrace the latter course4 ,i disagree with a great deal more which ,mr4 ,read wrote in his article1 but there is room here for comment only upon his remarks about ,baskerville type4 ,baskerville is not an easy type1 nor a safe one 7though printers may find that it satisfies their customers74 ,the gentlemanly sort of type which passes unnoticed1 unquestioned is undoubtedly ,caslon and all its derivatives4 ,baskerville with its broad face and flourishing ,italic is hard to handle1 and in consequence is employed in a higher percentage of bad printing than any other type face4 ,it is generally agreed that when an irresistible force meets an immovable body1 the result is a stalemate2 equally obviously1 whichever power wanes first will suffer an immediate eclipse4 ,from this we may proceed by a process of elimination4 ,a publisher who knows what he wants employs a printer who is an artist1 and the result should be a masterpiece of give and take4 ,a publisher who does not know what he wants employs a printer who is an artist1 and the result should be a piece of fine printing4 ,a publisher who knows what he wants employs a printer who is not an artist1 and the result will depend on the degree of taste of the publisher4 ,a publisher who either does not know what he wants or does not care1 and employs a printer who is not an artist1 will both get and deserve a shambles4 ,from these simple equations one constant factor emerges--the publisher2 and this fact is not at all at variance with the traditional saw that he who pays the piper calls the tune4 ,there have been a number of eminent publisher-printer relationships in the past4 ,i have mentioned the ,french of #aejj-aeej1 where there seems already to be evidence of a publisher's taste exerting an influence4 ,the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries offer no examples which are worthy of study3 the works undertaken by one printer on behalf of a syndicate of publishers produce no evidence of the book's appearance being dictated by any taste other than that of the printer himself4 ,the nineteenth century saw the publisher come into his own4 ,one of the greatest publisher-printer partnerships in the history of ,british book-production is that of ,pickering and ,whittingham4 ,it would be reasonable to suppose that ,pickering was the moving force in this partnership1 since the ideas are publishing ideas mainly exemplified by the ,aldine poets and the ,diamond classics1 and their starting point is ,pickering's choice of the anchor and dolphin with the motto grouped about it3 ,aldi ,discip4 ,anglus4 ,to the same taste of ,pickering and his delight in the printing of ,aldus and his contemporaries may be attributed the gracious and restrained use of sixteenth-century fleurons which in the eighteen-thirties are not readily to be found elsewhere1 and the curiously appropriate renaissance borders occasionally introduced4 ,another partnership in which ,i suspect that the publisher had a considerable say was that of ,edward ,moxon and ,bradbury ,evans4 ,in #ahej ,moxon issued the first edition of two most important works1 ,wordsworth's ,prelude and ,tennyson's ,in ,memoriam2 both were printed by the same printer4 ,but eight years later we may point to ,john ,murray's edition of ,coleridge's ,table ,talk2 this1 too1 was printed by ,bradbury ,evans with more than a glance over the shoulder at ,pickering's publications1 but without the guiding hand of ,moxon4 ,it is an interesting book1 for it just fails before every problem which the text sets4 ,pickering would have set the solid prose at least a point smaller and increased the margins2 in the same way he would have managed to get more space between each specimen of ,table ,talk4 ,instead of a page of grace and readability1 there is in consequence a slightly crowded air and the eye skips disconcertingly from line to line4 ,little more than thirty years later ,british book production was influenced by the most powerful small group of publishers which had ever turned printing upside down3 it was indeed a small group--it consisted of three men3 ,john ,lane1 ,elkin ,mathews and ,leonard ,smithers4 ,the splendid series of publications for which each of these extraordinary individuals was responsible need no enumeration here 444 but it is worth pointing out that they were the pioneers of the asymmetry which ,mr4 ,read praises as an unusual and notable feature in the ,american edition of his book already mentioned4 ,holbrook ,jackson said the last word on the publisher-printer relationship3 it was publishers like ,pickering1 ,moxon1 ,field and ,tuer1 ,elkin ,mathews1 ,john ,lane and ,j4 ,m4 ,dent who by their example in the nineteenth century helped to defend my italics printing from printers who were content to do as they were told1 and1 if no one told them1 to follow rule-of-thumb methods which tended always to become worse rather than better4#cb ,to quote again from ,holbrook ,jackson3 ,it was long before the average printer took advantage of the awakening of typographical taste which began in the eighteen-nineties4 ,the men who extended and consolidated that taste came from anywhere but the printing offices4 ,the majority of modern typographers are intellectuals or scholars who have forced themselves on the trade1 often through the publishing houses4 ,in almost every age there have been a few commercial printers of first-class standing1 but perhaps it is no coincidence that it would be difficult to name one who was at work in the eighteen-nineties--the most lively age of the publisher's influence4 ,the situation has not materially changed by the middle of the twentieth century1 except that in our own age we are fortunate in having among us a few printers who bow to no man1 and have left their mark upon this country's production4 ,first among them stands ,mr4 ,oliver ,simon1 whose steady output of fine printing must command unqualified admiration4 ,both the ,cambridge and the ,oxford ,university ,presses have evolved styles of their own1 and there are a few others who are fine printers in their own right4 ,but on the other side of the ledger there is ,sir ,francis ,meynell1 who1 despite the criticism that much of his work is pastiche1 showed with exquisite taste in the first hundred ,nonesuch ,press books what could be made of the types and ornaments which ,mr4 ,stanley ,morison had made available through the ,monotype ,corporation1 and all this with a multitude of printers who were set to work and produced but one result--pure ,meynell4 ,there is also the more recent example of ,mr4 ,jan ,tschichold at work in the ,penguin pool4 ,this lamentable lack of taste among the generality of printers led publishers to give instructions as to their wishes1 and this in turn has created a new position in publishing offices3 the typographer4 ,once this person made his appearance on the payroll1 the initiative passed from the printer for ever4 ,in the first place1 if the publisher employs a typographer he is going to be sure he gets his money's worth2 in the second1 human nature being what it is1 most printers will willingly accept a publisher's design because it is the line of least resistance1 and because1 according to the best principles of business1 the customer is always right4 ,i cannot see why the initiative in design should ever pass back to the printer4 ,the problem was admirably expressed by ,d4 ,b4 ,updike in his little book of essays on the craft1 ,in the ,day's ,work3 ,if printers had more of a standard and a stiffer one1 both about the types they employ and the way in which they use them1 printing would be better4 ,the printer1 if he has no standard1 must allow the customer to dictate his own wishes about types4 ,i hope that there will always be the handful of printers who are great enough to say you will do it my way--or else1 but the rest will do as they are told by publishers' typographers1 which amounts to the substitution of house styles for printers' styles4 ,printing1 like so many arts1 has fallen into the hands of the middleman--for such indeed the publisher is4 ,there ,i am sure it will remain1 and it is now for the middleman to justify himself4 ,if he will take his responsibilities seriously he can do nothing but good4 ,the good printer's compositor who is something of an artist will go on setting the target2 but the publisher's typographer can1 if he will1 go far towards dragging the mediocre printers up towards the same high standard4 ,if this is done1 design in ,british printing will show a welcome overall improvement4 ,,footnotes3 #cb ,the ,printing of ,books4 ,illustration,,william ,,dana ,,orcutt,illustration ,the ,anatomy of the ,book ,from the ,manual of ,linotype ,typography1 ,copyright #aibc by ,mergenthaler ,linotype ,company1 ,brooklyn1 ,n4 ,y4 ,reprinted by permission of the publishers4 ,corrected and amended by the ,editor4 ,the experienced designer is familiar with the successive parts of a complete book4 ,all less formal embodiments of the book idea have some of these parts1 and their position in the whole scheme should be governed by the traditions of the book proper4 ,in order to leave complete freedom as to number of pages1 the favorite custom is to number the text pages in arabic folio numbers1 beginning with #a4 ,the front pages are then numbered with ,roman folios1 and thus it makes no difference with the body how many or few front pages are finally found necessary4 ,the typographical treatment of front matter and chapter pages throughout the book should be in perfect harmony1 whether the treatment is simple typography or calls for elaborate embellishment4 ,the character of the book is largely decided by what is done in this respect1 and the intelligent designer fully realizes its importance and the chance thus given him for distinguished work4 ,the following summary gives these parts in proper sequence1 and the nature of each4 ,,bastard ,,title 7always a right-hand page7 ,nowadays this page 7often miscalled ,half ,title7 is used merely because custom demands the familiar resting place for the eye in advance of the ,title ,page4 ,it should never be omitted in work of any pretension to style and quality1 and it should never be made unduly prominent by decoration or other treatment4 ,conventional dignity is the safe note for this page in the book4 ,,advertising ,,card 7always a left-hand page7 ,if an ,advertising ,card or other similar announcement is required1 it should be typographically a part of the book1 no matter what the client's style in his advertising typography may be4 ,if a customer has a special or unique form of advertising1 and insists on its use1 the printer should inform him that it conflicts with the harmony of the book to do so4 ,,the ,,title ,,page 7always a right-hand page7 ,the ,title ,page gives the reader his sense of the whole book's quality4 ,it should1 therefore1 be as nearly perfect as may be4 ,its first essential is that the eye shall read instantly the three important facts that it has to tell3 the title of the book1 the name of the author1 and the imprint4 ,in the case of a business volume this means the merchandise or business subject1 the name of the business house1 and the address or addresses4 ,the typography should make these three divisions clear at a glance4 ,there should be as little else on the title page as possible4 ,everything that can be left out is an aid to quality4 ,the principle of the page is that it is an announcement of the book's contents and that it should not go beyond a very few display lines4 ,it is the door to the house4 ,white space is of the greatest value in this part of the book4 ,if decoration is used1 it should never be made more important than the type lines4 ,the use of different faces of type is almost always bad1 and success is obtained only occasionally by a genius4 ,so important is harmony that it is not safe even to combine lines of capitals and lower case letters1 except after careful planning and with assured understanding and talent4 ,,copyright 7always a left-hand page7 ,the ,copyright of the volume should be placed a little above the center of the page4 ,the best taste calls for caps and small caps1 or small caps alone4 ,it is customary to use the bottom of this page for the printer's imprint or the international requirement1 ,printed in the ,united ,states of ,america1 or both1 but the size of page should be considered4 ,,dedication 7always a right-hand page7 ,the character and purpose of the ,dedication dictate that its treatment should always be formal4 ,the monumental style is appropriate and correct4 ,small caps are the best4 ,the ,dedication should always be a right-hand page4 ,its reverse must be left blank4 ,,preface ,,or ,,foreword 7always a right-hand page7 ,a ,preface that has simply the ordinary character usual to most prefaces should be set in the same size of type as the body of the book1 and in the same face4 ,for any preface of unusual importance1 the page may be double-leaded1 or set in a type one size larger than the body4 ,if the book has both ,preface and ,introduction1 the ,preface may be set in italics to mark the distinction4 ,italics may also be employed if the ,preface has been written by a person other than the author4 ,in this case1 however1 the ,preface is preferably placed after the ,contents and the ,list of ,illustrations4 ,,contents 7always a right-hand page7 ,the ,contents or ,table of ,contents1 filling as many pages as necessary1 follows the ,preface4 ,the quality of this part of the book-job depends on the little niceties of spacing1 margin1 and proportion of white space to type which are too often ignored1 even in otherwise pretentious books4 ,the ,contents pages are almost as important as the ,title ,page in establishing a sense of quality4 ,,the ,,list ,,of ,,illustrations 7always a right-hand page7 ,the ,list of ,illustrations follows the ,contents pages1 but no matter where the ,contents finishes1 the ,list of ,illustrations should begin on a right-hand page4 ,obviously its typographical style should be the same as the ,contents4 ,,introduction 7always a right-hand page7 ,the ,introduction follows the ,list of ,illustrations1 and its composition should be in the same size and face as the body of the book4 ,any typographical distinction between ,preface and ,introduction should be limited to the former1 as stated under ,preface4 ,authors are not always clear in their understanding of the difference between a ,preface and an ,introduction4 ,their ,introduction often is really a ,preface1 and should be so entitled and placed in the book accordingly4 ,the ,preface is the author's personal remarks to the reader1 and these may be of any character1 treating of any subject4 ,the ,introduction1 on the other hand1 should treat specifically of the subject of the book1 and should contain only statements of direct bearing and importance4 ,,half ,,title 7always a right-hand page7 ,as the ,bastard ,title always precedes the ,title ,page1 so the ,half ,title always precedes the first page of the text--the page which carries the title of the book at its top4 ,the ,half ,title must always be on the right-hand page immediately preceding this page1 and it should consist of not more than the title of the volume4 ,half ,titles may run through a book before various divisions4 ,those sections of a book which follow the text must be treated with the same typographic care as the pages which precede the text4 ,these sections are usually as follows3 ,,appendix 7always a right-hand page7 ,this should be set in the same face as the text1 but in one size smaller type4 ,if the text ends on the left-hand page1 a ,half ,title may be thrown between the text and the ,appendix4 ,,glossary 7preferably a right-hand page7 ,the size of type used for the ,glossary depends wholly upon its nature1 but it usually is two full sizes smaller than that used in the text of the volume4 ,a ,half ,title may be thrown in before the ,glossary1 if the text ends on the left-hand page4 ,,bibliography 7preferably a right-hand page7 ,the comments made under ,glossary apply equally to the ,bibliography4 ,the combination of titles of books and the names of authors offers an attractive opportunity for artistic treatment4 ,,index 7always a right-hand page7 ,if the text ends on the left-hand page1 a ,half ,title may be thrown in before the ,index4 ,the type used for the ,index is usually #h point size set in double column4 ,there is so much difference in the way the index entries read that great care should be exercised to select a model which will fit the particular case in hand4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a ,,symposium3 ,by ,bruce ,rogers1 ,carl ,purington ,rollins1 ,joseph ,blumenthal1 ,p4 ,j4 ,conkwright1 ,arthur ,w4 ,rushmore1 ,milton ,glick1 ,morris ,colman1 ,evelyn ,harter1 ,peter ,beilenson and ,ernst ,reichl4 ,have there been any material changes in the anatomy of the book in the past quarter century8 ,should there be1 to have the contemporary book reflect the times in which it is designed1 set and printed8 ,as these and other questions occurred1 we re-appraised the ,anatomy of the ,book summation in ,the ,manual of ,linotype ,typography1 reprinted in the foregoing pages4 ,that text seemed to stand up pretty well4 ,it was written originally by ,william ,dana ,orcutt for the ,manual1 whose typographical plan and critical comment was prepared with the co-operation of the late ,edward ,e4 ,bartlett1 then ,director of ,linotype ,typography4 99 99 99 99 99 ,what revisions or additions would ,mr4 ,orcutt suggest for a reprinting8 ,what would other prominent designers and book-makers suggest8 ,the idea of a symposium appealed4 ,the counsel of ,bruce ,rogers1 ,carl ,purington ,rollins and ,joseph ,blumenthal1 in the field of fine and privately printed books1 was invited1 with that of ,p4 ,j4 ,conkwright in the university press field4 ,trade book-makers would also have opinions and suggestions1 in all probability4 ,counsel was sought from ,milton ,glick1 who heads the ,viking ,press design and production activity2 ,morris ,colman1 former chairman of the ,a4,i4,g4,a4 ,trade ,book ,clinic and one of ,viking's top designers2 ,arthur ,w4 ,rushmore1 former ,harper vice-president in charge of design and production1 now retired to the delights of his ,golden ,hind ,press1 at ,madison1 ,n4 ,j42 and ,ernst ,reichl1 one of our ranking modern designers1 whose long association in book manufacturing with ,h4 ,wolff and as a free-lance brought an unmatched experience in working with many publishers4 ,mr4 ,reichl also has been prominent in ,a4,i4,g4,a4 ,book and ,magazine ,clinic activities4 ,the comment of an author and a publisher also seemed in order1 and happily one in each field with a considerable appreciation of the graphic arts was obtained3 ,evelyn ,harter1 whose novel1 ,dr4 ,katherine ,bell1 was recently published by ,doubleday1 and who formerly headed design and production activity for ,random ,house1 ,smith and ,haas and other firms before retiring to private life as ,mrs4 ,milton ,glick4 ,as publisher-designer-printer all in one1 ,peter ,beilenson was invited to comment4 ,he1 with ,mrs4 ,edna ,beilenson1 directs the ,peter ,pauper ,press in ,mt4 ,vernon1 and is consistently represented in the ,a4,i4,g4,a4 ,fifty ,books of the ,year selections4 99 99 99 99 99 ,so far as ,i know1 ,mr4 ,orcutt wrote1 the ,anatomy remains the same today and ,i can think of no changes ,i would want to make4 ,i may be wrong1 but ,i am still hoping that it is one thing that doesn't change4 ,to ,joseph ,blumenthal1 who directs the ,spiral ,press in ,new ,york1 and whose books are famed for their simplicity of design and excellence of typography and presswork1 the statements of the ,anatomy are sane and safe4 ,in the hands of a sufficiently experienced and versatile designer1 he added1 no rule is absolute to the point where it cannot be broken1 at least in part1 where occasion requires4 ,to ,bruce ,rogers1 most distinguished of designers of books1 the ,anatomy is an excellent short treatise that covers all the points of a well-designed volume4444 ,i recommend it for the perusal of anyone engaged in book-making4 ,following it literally would result in a decided advance in that art4 ,several minor suggestions that ,b4,r4 made have been incorporated in the text of the ,anatomy as here reprinted4 ,these concerned the substitution of should for must in several instances1 in order not to be too dogmatic4 ,his other points were3 #a1 that it is frequently preferable to place the preface before the contents2 and #b1 that there seem to be too many half-titles recommended for anything else than a de luxe book--especially at the end1 for the index and vocabulary4 ,to ,carl ,purington ,rollins1 ,printer ,emeritus to ,yale ,university1 lecturer and writer on the graphic arts and one of the foremost ,american masters of the book1 the ,anatomy is a very sound and sensible guide for young book makers--and1 to judge from the queer books coming out of ,new ,york1 older ones could profit from it4 ,i have no disagreement with it in any particular1 he continued1 and if it will not make a genius1 it will at least prevent a diligent reader from going astray4 ,p4 ,j4 ,conkwright found the text clear and concise4 ,any extensive elaboration would defeat its usefulness1 ,i think1 to those approaching the subject for the first time4 ,my only quarrel1 he added1 is with the paragraph concerning ,copyright4 ,if there is no ,dedication ,i like the ,copyright statement and printer's imprint grouped together a little above the center of the page4 ,if there is a ,dedication1 ,i like the ,copyright statement at the top of the page lining with the top line of the title page1 and the printer's imprint at the bottom of the page1 lining with the bottom line of the title page4 ,this is a good example1 however1 of how an elaboration of the text can get too involved for a beginner4 99 99 99 99 99 ,to several experienced trade-book designers with considerable production and manufacturing experience1 the ,anatomy text was less satisfactory4 ,both ,evelyn ,harter and ,milton ,glick found the text too dogmatic in its dicta4 ,they were bothered most by the first two sentences under ,copyright1 the last sentence under title page and references to 'genius4' ,they both liked best the remarks regarding ,contents1 ,preface and ,introduction4 ,ought not the topics of chapter openings be included1 ,mr4 ,glick inquired1 also illustrations1 captions1 running page heads1 folios and such8 ,as an ex-designer turned author1 ,miss ,harter has come to appreciate more than ever the values of legibility and simplicity1 with no extraneous tricks4 ,morris ,colman concurred in feeling the ,anatomy text is pretty arbitrary for today1 and that chapter openings1 running page heads and all other normal elements of a book should be included4 ,in particular1 he added1 ,i would like to see the various arguments presented both in terms of tradition and also in terms of the particular function which each element of a book performs4 ,for example1 the title page is not only the 'main entrance' but it also is the source of the bibliographic information which appears in hundreds of library cards1 catalogs1 etc41 and its contents and arrangement determines whether it will be listed in all these places in such form that you or ,i could find it if we wanted it4 ,there are certain legal requirements which influence the form and content of copyright pages4 ,dedications1 while formal in a technical sense1 may need to be treated quite informally to express the spirit of the particular dedicator4 ,and with many kinds of contemporary books1 he continued1 the contents page is made to precede any other preliminary matter1 despite tradition1 for the greater convenience of the reader4 ,i am sure that this is always why the ,index is invariably the last element in back matter4 99 99 99 99 99 ,to ,arthur ,rushmore1 the ,anatomy is darn good copy1 clearly stated4 ,there are a couple of amplifications that might help give more clarity3 ,advertising ,card seems a little vague4 ,this is more likely to be a ',list of ,author's ,books' or ',series ,title and ,titles of ,books already issued' if the book is in a historical or other series4 ,copyright3 ,relatively few books carry the ,printer's name on copyright and the line ',printed in the ,united ,states of ,america' looks better and obviates a printing problem if run as a line directly under the copyright notice4 ,a single line at the foot of the page1 after the first #ejj impressions of #aiea printing1 is either bold face or completely unreadable4 ,dedication3 ,to me1 'small caps are the best' is doubtful4 ,small caps are the worst printing of all characters in a font1 and unless small caps of a larger size than text will look too weak and small4 ,i'd say 'should be planned with the utmost care for balance and position on page4' ,half ,title3 ,first paragraph too dogmatic4 ,if book is a novel1 or book without ',parts' then half title should be 'book title' backed blank and folioed in ,roman front matter4 ,if book has ',parts1' the half title should not bear book title1 but should carry the ,part or ,section ,title and folio arabic #a1 backed blank #b and first page of text folio #c4 ,similar half title for all other ,parts or ,sections folioed in4 ,peter ,beilenson1 whose comment on the pleasures and duties of the amateur printer is well worth reading 7page #cac71 thinks the ,anatomy perfectly all right1 so far as it goes4 ,if it wavers from the perfect1 it is in being too strict--vide the remarks about the title page1 the it should never of the bastard title1 etc4 ,but1 he asks in suggesting the text be extended1 what about additions to the coverage8 ,footnotes1 running heads1 chapter titles1 initials1 etc41 are not the limbs of the anatomy1 but they are organs4 ,what about the binding8 ,the jacket8 ,the direction of the stamping of the title on the spine8 ,to ,ernst ,reichl1 the ,anatomy comprises what might be called the basic minimum4 ,any designer worth his salt should not only start with this standard but also allow his imagination to roam far beyond it4 ,an 'anatomy1' however precise and objective1 necessarily breaks down a living entity into component parts4 ,these parts in reality show much more cohesion than is apparent in their piece-by-piece description4 ,in the modern book1 in particular1 we tend to treat the volume as a whole and to submerge the importance of the single page in it4 ,the bastard title1 for instance1 might be left entirely blank2 the title page may be spread over two pages and the advertising card incorporated into it2 the copyright page and the dedication page might be treated as a double-page spread1 etc4 ,the tendency today1 he summarized1 is altogether to handle the double-page spread as the unit of the layout1 rather than the single page4 ,this may help to break down in some degree the rigidity and formality which awes ordinary human beings1 and makes them as reluctant to touch a book as to put on a dress suit4 ,it may also help to make our books a little more ordinary and lively4 ,illustration,,robert ,,josephy,illustration ,trade ,bookmaking3 ,,complaint ,,in ,,three ,,dimensions ,from ,publishers' ,weekly1 ,oct4 #e1 #aice4 ,copyright #aice by ,r4 ,r4 ,bowker ,co4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,the development of trade book-making since #aibj has been an extraordinary phenomenon in the conservative business of publishing4 ,at that time most publishers looked upon manufacturing as a necessary but routine activity1 ranking with accounting1 shipping and such1 and on a far lower intellectual plane than the cultivation of authors and reviewers1 or the writing of good blurbs4 ,the production of books was usually entrusted to an uninspired saint who was expected to be hard on his printer's back and soft under his boss's feet4 ,the idea of the publisher himself taking any interest in the aesthetics of book-making was thought to be a trifle queer4 ,there was1 to be sure1 a small traffic in books printed for collectors1 and the term fine printing had already come to mean not printed to be read4 ,typography1 as usual1 was less than twenty years behind current architecture1 and ,american type founders had already cleaned up the ,renaissance and were well on their way into the eighteenth century1 while ,american typographers1 like interior decorators1 were learning to hop nimbly from period to period4 ,everyone was learning to blame the machine for the things we were too greedy or too lazy to do properly2 fortunately small power presses could be made to imitate hand-press printing1 so it was not really necessary to do business at hand-press rates4 ,in the field of general publishing1 however1 the hand-press page was out of the question1 period styles were incongruous1 and the real problem of designing the trade book had never been attempted1 because it had never been seen with any clarity4 ,there were many experiments with new binding materials and designs1 and with printers' flowers and other typographic embellishment1 but these were all attempts to dress up the old formats1 and arose from no real understanding of the problem4 ,today #aice1 thanks to the leadership of a very few publishers1 the educational work of the ,american ,institute of ,graphic ,arts1 and perhaps to the enthusiasm of the designers themselves1 there is a steadily widening appreciation of good trade book-making1 and a better perception of the problem among book-makers4 ,we are learning to plan books in three dimensions1 considering proportion and weight and the texture of materials--designing for the hand as well as for the eyes4 ,we are getting free of period styles and period motifs1 and developing a new idiom to suit new methods of production4 ,we are finally trying to make the physical aspect of our books bear some relation to the culture of our own time4 ,everyone has come to recognize certain aesthetic values in cheap machine-made glass and metal-ware1 if it be designed for the machine and does not attempt to imitate the hand-made1 and we find in it a quality different from1 but not necessarily inferior to1 that of the more elegant article4 ,thus in printing we are coming to realize that electrotyped plates1 made from machine-set type and printed on wood-pulp paper on a perfecting cylinder press can produce a page quite as satisfactory1 aesthetically1 as the product of the hand-press4 ,it is this new sense of values1 born of respect for the machine and for what it can do if used with character1 that must be the basis of the designer's attitude4 ,if he is working with his fingers crossed1 his work will show it4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the problem of suiting type to subject is the cause of much confusion4 ,we give too little study to the characteristics of type-faces1 and the announcements of the foundries and composing-machine people frequently attribute the most fantastic qualities to their new types4 ,furthermore1 most of the faces available on the composing machines have been cut to reproduce some earlier design1 and few to meet the contemporary technical or literary requirements1 so that we have several great gaps in the line of type resources that need to be filled4 ,recent books examined1 and a great part of all current book-making1 show that we have largely thrown off the reactionary hand-press ideal1 and that we are learning to construct instead of decorate4 ,we have finally obtained a supply of modern book cloth2 ,europe has given us a supply of modern display types2 and we are anxiously awaiting the composing-machine companies' arrival in the ,twentieth ,century4 ,two years later3 ,from ,publishers' ,weekly1 ,april #c1 #aicg4 ,copyright #aicg by ,r4 ,r4 ,bowker ,co4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,the end of a three-hour period spent examining a month's output of ,american trade books leaves one thinking much more about the book making situation in general than about the four books one has chosen4 ,what impresses one is not that four books1 or forty1 are decently made1 but that all the rest are so badly made4 ,after my last experience in inspecting a collection of this kind1 ,i wrote1 with some satisfaction and much optimism3 ,we are learning to plan books in three dimensions 444 designing for the hand as well as for the eye4444 ,we are finally trying to make the physical aspect of our books bear some relation to the culture of our own time4 ,well1 ,i still think we are only trying4 ,designing a book is a problem in three dimensions4 ,the first essential is good and suitable materials1 the second good proportions1 the third a good type1 and the last good typographic arrangement4 ,good decoration 7or any decoration7 is not essential at all4 ,if the materials are poor in quality and unsuitable to the idea of a book2 if the proportions detract from the aesthetic effect1 or from the book's practical usefulness1 typography can do very little to save it4 ,in the last two years the publishers have been increasing trim sizes without increasing list prices1 and at the same time increasing bulks1 instead of reducing them to compensate4 ,what that means in simple arithmetic is that when a novel is increased from a #g-a_/b inch #abmo to an #h-a_/h inch large #abmo1 and the bulk from #a inch to #a-a_/h inches1 it requires a third more cubic inches of paper1 a seventh more square inches of cloth1 a sixth more board1 etc4--all for the same money4 ,it means even softer1 less printable1 less bindable paper2 cheaper binding materials throughout2 sewing in #cb's and other skimping in workmanship4 ,and it means clumsier1 uglier1 more perishable books4 ,while other industries are seeking to make the implements of living more convenient and more durable and more beautiful1 we are deliberately making books less convenient and less durable and less beautiful4 ,while other industries are helping to develop popular taste and anticipating changes in it1 we are waiting for our customers to get mad at us4 ,while we see the masses getting wise to other frauds of branding and packaging1 we still hand our intelligent minority the old fraud of inflated books4 ,the digest magazines can get millions of readers1 though magazines have always had large pages1 but that's not the book business4 ,a few of the publishers can sell small books1 but that's all right for their lists4 ,booksellers can tell us the public is on to us1 but their customers aren't typical book buyers4 ,our friends can tell us they like to carry books in their pockets1 and that they have no more room on their shelves1 or under their beds1 but they're only our crazy friends4 ,our salesman can tell us he got a bad order because the book was too thin--and ah6 there we have the real and only truth4 ,publishers of new books blame this practice on the reprints1 but they themselves control much of the offending reprint output4 ,we allow the cheapest and shoddiest goods to set our styles2 as if ,fourteenth ,street were to lead our dress industry1 and jerry-built ,queens our builders4 ,publishing is indeed1 as we are so often told1 a different kind of business6 ,most of the books ,i examined suffered from this inflation4 ,in most cases the money spent on them would have produced a sound1 handsome1 and durable book in a smaller size1 and without small type or crowding4 ,books printed on proper paper were so rare that ,i found myself reluctant to discard the few ,i found1 however undistinguished in other respects some of them were4 7,i felt the same way about the few books with trimmed edges--but that is a delicate subject better discussed face to face1 and with weapons1 than in a family journal47 ,most of the books suffered also from too much typography4 ,i think we are all trying desperately to overcome typographically the handicap of paper and materials4 ,some of us find that if we don't do stunts the publisher will think we're not trying4 ,some of us are still suffering a little from ,rogers-complaint4 ,and some of us are perhaps just too anxious to express ourselves4 ,whatever the reason1 we seldom have the courage to let a simple book stay simple4 ,we are very particular about the type we select1 and then we are afraid to use it boldly1 and to depend on the design of the letter for our effects4 ,books with illustrations1 diagrams1 complicated heads1 or other special matter1 we are apt to handle well2 but when the copy is simple we do insist on using rules and_/or ornament4 ,when we use ornament we are inclined to have meaningless little units repeated endlessly throughout the book1 instead of a few positive1 significant elements1 used with proper restraint4 ,in many of the books ,i saw1 the design bore no relation to the subject matter1 either in materials1 format1 or typography1 and these were by no means all from the hands of inexperienced designers4 ,many suffered1 of course1 because good types are not available for certain problems4 ,none of the composing machines has a really suitable type for books on contemporary subjects3 the natural and social sciences1 architecture and technology1 etc4 ,there should be several such types1 comparable to the old numbered moderns and old styles but better in design1 traditional in general form but impersonal and mechanized in drawing2 and cut in several weights for different papers4 ,if ,i may conclude by quoting again from my last effort in this medium1 we are still anxiously awaiting the composing-machine companies' arrival in the ,twentieth ,century4 ,postscript1 #aiea3 ,re-reading the above complaints1 ,i am saddened to find how many of them ,i would repeat today4 ,many of them1 but not all4 ,the inflated book is becoming rare1 but it took a world war to finish it off4 ,with it we are losing the sloppy rough-cut fore-edge4 ,period typography is quite dead1 but its belated and tortured passing is no credit to any of us4 ,we still have too much typography1 however2 too many self-conscious tricks1 too much un-discipline4 ,and we still lack many of the types we need4 ,the war may fairly be blamed for disrupting the programs of the machine people1 for a book face takes years of labor and trial to produce4 ,but where are the new hand-types8 ,a healthy printing industry needs a prolific type design program4 ,creative type-founding stimulates the typographer1 and paves the way for the machine cutting4 ,we need ignore competition in the foundry field1 and all we have is one tired monopoly4 ,perhaps most of us are too polite to point1 but let us not think that we can ignore the foundry situation1 and supply the lack of types with calligraphy4 ,every creative period in printing history has produced its own new types4 ,the present period can make no important contribution without doing the same4 ,,will ,,ransom ,,what ,,is ,a ,,private ,,press8 ,from ,private ,presses and ,their ,books1 by ,will ,ransom4 ,copyright #aibi by ,r4 ,r4 ,bowker ,co4 ,reprinted by permission of author and publisher4 ,corrected and amended by the author4 ,whenever private presses are mentioned1 one of two questions is certain to be heard4 ,the layman asks1 ,what do you mean1 a private press8 while a collector smiles quizzically and inquires1 with gentle malice1 ,how do you define a private press8 ,there have been many answers and much discussion1 but common agreement has not yet fixed upon a single definite phrase4 ,perhaps one fascinating element of the subject is this very uncertainty4 ,there is really little question about the meaning of private in any connection1 with its connotation of complete personal freedom in thought and expression and exemption from exterior influence or compulsion4 ,so it is a simple matter to define a private press in those terms4 ,the usual argument1 however1 is less concerned with a fundamental definition than with its interpretation4 ,the uncertainty is about which of the many presses of past and present shall be considered1 from the collector's viewpoint1 private enterprises as distinguished from commercial ventures4 ,actually the line of demarcation is so broad and nebulous that decision must always remain a matter of personal opinion4 ,for a working basis1 the following statements provide the best available material4 ,john ,martin1 in his ,bibliographical ,catalogue of ,books ,privately ,printed 7#ahcd71 included certain presses whose productions were not intended by the writers for sale1 and the circulation of which has been confined entirely to their friends and connexions or to those who took an interest in the matter contained in them4 ,the intent is apparent1 but it applies equally to privately printed and private press printing1 which are different matters4 ,the restriction to writers is unfortunate1 and ,martin contradicts himself by including at least one press1 ,strawberry ,hill1 many of whose books were offered for public sale4 ,on the other hand1 he omitted many which were clearly within his own terms4 ,m4 ,claudin1 the ,french bibliographer1 explains at greater length that a private press is one set up in a monastery1 a palace1 a residence1 or a private house1 not the office of a printer4 ,in fact it is a press reserved for personal and not for public use1 patronized1 held1 owned1 or hired for the occasion by a private person at his own house1 or by a congregation in1 or close to1 their buildings4 ,whether the copies issued were merely intended for the use of an ecclesiastical order or to be presented to high personages1 whether they were exposed for sale or reserved for exchange 444 makes no essential difference4 ,that seems to cover the ground pretty thoroughly4 ,alfred ,w4 ,pollard1 one of the foremost ,english authorities1 says3 ,for a press to be private a double qualification seems to be necessary3 the books it prints must not be obtainable by any chance purchaser who offers a price for them and the owner must print for his own pleasure and not work for hire for other people4 ,and ,falconer ,madan1 another noted ,english bibliographer1 condenses his decision into a press carried on unofficially by a person or group of persons for his or their private purposes4 ,the following paragraph1 as originally written1 erroneously ascribed the quotation to ,john ,t4 ,winterich4 ,it should have read3 ,still another neatly phrased version occurs in ,english ,books #adge-aijj1 by ,sawyer and ,darton3 ,perhaps1 in the end1 the best definition of a private press is that it is an enterprise conceived1 and masterfully and thoroughly carried out1 by a creative artist who 7whether or not he likes to cover some of his expenses by sales7 does his work from a sincere conviction that he is so expressing his own personality4 ,except that any book offered for sale may easily come into the hands of any chance purchaser who learns of it1 and that creative artist is a severe limitation1 the common factor of independent expression is apparent in all these4 ,granting the connotation of privacy as an imperative factor1 a survey of impulses and characteristics provides a better understanding of the matter4 ,actually1 the principal differences of opinion and the major argument derive from the question of whether or not the productions of a press are sold or given away4 ,but what difference does that make if the fundamental impulse and continued purpose prove monetary return to be a minor consideration1 a casual effect rather than a desired result8 ,it is true that many private presses1 even some of the greater ones1 continued for longer and more prolifically than they would have without patronage1 but that was because their subscribers liked the result of what was done in free personal expression4 ,even the ,kelmscott ,press produced an edition for ,way and ,williams with a ,chicago imprint1 but it should be noted that the publishers bought the book and the book-making of ,morris' choice instead of engaging him to carry out their wishes4 ,so there seems to be sufficient justification for disregarding the financial element1 so long as it is clearly secondary1 except to note that a private press must be free from the necessity of considering that phase of the matter4 ,as individual expression chooses many avenues1 each with its particular attraction1 the reasons for establishing private presses are numerous and varied4 ,they have sprung from the dreams and desires of craftsmen1 authors and artists1 prophets and dilettantes4 ,broadly1 they divide into two general classes1 one being concerned with literary content and the other with typographic form1 with perhaps a third division concerned only with enjoying something to play with4 ,the typographic viewpoint seems to attract popular interest to the greatest extent4 ,the simplest and perhaps the truest type of private press is that maintained by one who is1 at least by desire1 a craftsman and finds a peculiar joy in handling type1 ink1 and paper1 with sufficient means and leisure to warrant such an avocation4 ,his literary selection may leave something to be desired and art may be disregarded or amazingly interpreted1 but he has a good time4 ,as a correspondent recently wrote3 ,this small effort shows the difficulties of an amateur both with ink and with type4 ,but as it is a matter of the mere fun of the thing1 rather than business1 ,i am in that singularly fortunate position of being able to tell anyone who doesn't like it to go jump in the lake4 ,another version of the same spirit was happily expressed by ,edwin ,roffe 7,rochester ,press7 in #ahfa3 ,i must confess1 ,i love my ,press2 ,for when ,i print1 ,i know no stint1 ,of joy4 ,at the other extreme is the author who is entirely or largely concerned with producing his own writings4 ,he may turn printer by choice or for economy1 or may hire a workman1 but he must1 to qualify as a private press1 maintain the equipment in his own ownership or control4 ,in this group the personal element is usually the one point of interest1 as the typography is generally a mere means to an end4 ,somewhere in this rating may be included the secret presses devoted to political and religious propaganda in the days when free speech was a hazardous adventure2 also those which1 like ,middle ,hill1 were established to preserve and distribute rare or unique items of information and record4 ,then there is the dilettante who dabbles a little in both phases but performs few of the functions in his own person4 ,his viewpoint is more nearly that of a publisher1 yet insofar as he maintains a press and follows an individual program he is a member of this goodly company4 ,horace ,walpole was an excellent example4 ,present amusement is all my object1 he said at the start1 and no doubt he accomplished that purpose not only for himself but for many of his friends4 ,another distinct approach to private press activity1 most familiar because its results have been more significant and have affected typography as a whole more emphatically1 is from the standpoint of aesthetic or artistic vision4 ,men with a fine feeling for beauty have done marvels with available materials1 but the impulse usually includes type design4 ,let's make a new fount of type voiced the conception of the ,kelmscott ,press and the next ten or twelve years saw almost as many types designed1 not all successful but certainly bearing the impress of individual expression4 ,even ,dr4 ,daniel1 with no assumption of creative ability1 served the cause well by searching out and reviving the ,fell types4 ,finally1 there is a kind of press which may or may not be considered private but is certainly not commercial1 a press maintained by a school for educational purposes of one form or another4 ,rarely do these reach a collector's attention1 since their products are distinctly localized1 but there are instances of significant accomplishment4 ,the notable example is the ,laboratory ,press where1 under the direction of ,porter ,garnett1 students of printing learn something of typography in terms of the ideal1 not to mention other cultural by-products4 ,mr4 ,garnett's statement may well be added to the definitions already quoted4 ,issuing publications 7for such1 in spite of their slenderness1 our students' specimens are71 and having no commercial function1 the ,laboratory ,press is1 in the purest sense of the term1 a private press2 and its purpose being solely educational1 it may be said to be the first private press to be dedicated exclusively to educational ends4 ,on the sole point of priority the ,whitnash and ,school ,presses might be offered in evidence1 but no comparison of purpose can fairly be suggested4 ,somewhat in the same spirit is the use of a private press for experimental work1 as proposed by ,james ,guthrie1 who has said3 ,the artist at the press is1 before everything1 an explorer4 ,his true mission is to suggest and demonstrate1 not ideas thirty years old1 but new ideas1 which may take our friend the fine printer 7by easy methods7 another thirty years to see the drift of6 ,that approach1 as well as another stated intention towards a gesture of protest and criticism1 is of a part with the purpose animated by vision of new and finer achievement4 ,that there was feeling of experiment in the first ,kelmscott type and book is a matter of record1 as is the fact that subsequent experience and development have changed the result in some important details4 ,while these groups serve to distinguish the main differences between various kinds of private presses1 very few individual instances lie within one classification4 ,craftsmen have turned to writing1 authors to printing1 and dilettantes to both4 ,some have achieved simultaneous distinction in type design1 writing1 and book-making4 ,such versatility is rare1 yet it is illuminating to note that the outstanding figures1 those who have contributed most of permanent worth to subsequent culture1 of which ,william ,morris is the chief example1 are the ones who have combined the greatest number of elements in their activities4 ,out of all these has come something more than individual purpose and personal endeavor4 ,though the poorest of them have earned nothing more than pity or at best a genial tolerance1 the significant presses have contributed richly to the program of typography and to aesthetic progress in general4 ,although the story of private presses is no more than a tiny chapter in the annals of graphic art1 although all of them are but an infinitesimal part of the deluge of printers and printing since the middle of the fifteenth century1 their influence1 particularly upon book design1 is strikingly impressive out of all proportion to their size and number4 ,verily1 they are the little leaven that leaveneth the whole lump4 ,after all is said1 the distinguishing quality of a private press is no less than a matter of spirit1 indefinable except by inference4 ,whatever decision is made concerning the status of a press1 with regard to its being private or not1 must be based upon a recognition of the ideal apparent in its works1 with due consideration for the human elements of its activities4 ,freed from the confining strictures of details1 a private press may be defined as the typographic expression of a personal ideal1 conceived in freedom and maintained in independence4 ,illustration3 ,the ,village ,press4 ,,press ,,mark1 ,,its ,,second1 ,,by ,,frederic ,w4 ,,goudy4 ,mr4 ,ransom was associated with the ,village ,press during its beginning months at ,park ,ridge1 ,ill41 in the ,summer of #aijc4 ,,postscript1 #aiea3 ,twenty-four years later the question is still academic4 ,instead of a few distinguished private presses there is now a spate of press books1 some of which are produced in home privacy1 others designed or printed or published by an outstanding personality1 and a few1 regrettably1 on the border line of the commercial limited editions racket4 ,but the meaning of privacy remains unchanged and a private press is what it has always been1 a personal activity4 ,i cannot improve on my original statement4 ,to fill out the record with some definitions that were unknown or omitted in the earlier chapter1 and to get all of the statements into one place1 we may begin with ,william ,morris's ,note on ,his ,aims in ,founding the ,kelmscott ,press 7#ahih73 ,i began printing books with the hope of producing some which would have a definite claim to beauty1 while at the same time they should be easy to read and should not dazzle the eye1 or trouble the intellect of the reader by eccentricity of form in the letters4 ,c4 ,r4 ,ashbee1 of the ,essex ,house ,press1 stated in ,the ,private ,press3 ,a ,study in ,idealism 7#aiji73 ,a private press as we understand it at the present day in ,england and ,america is a ,press whose objective is first of all an aesthetic one1 a press that if it is to have real worth challenges support on a basis of ,standard1 caters for a limited market and is not concerned with the question of the ,commercial development of printing by machinery4 ,in #aicc 7also twenty-four years later7 he repeated that definition in ,the ,book-,collector's ,quarterly 7,no4 ,,xi1 p4 #gb7 and added3 ,that1 ,i think1 is as near as we shall get4 ,for the ,doves ,press1 ,t4 ,j4 ,cobden-,sanderson explained his purpose in the three ,catalogues ,raisonn of #aijh1 #aiaa1 and #aiaf1 shortened in the last3 444 to attack the problem of ,typography as presented by ordinary books in the various forms of ,verse1 ,prose1 and ,dialogue and1 keeping always in mind the principles laid down in the ,book ,beautiful1 to attempt its solution by the simple arrangement of the whole ,book1 as a whole1 with due regard to its parts and to the emphasis of its capital divisions rather than by the addition splendour of applied ornament4 ,among the commentators and bibliographers1 ,robert ,steele1 in ,the ,revival of ,printing 7#aiab7 makes no attempt at definition1 and ,g4 ,s4 ,tomkinson1 in his ,select ,bibliography of ,modern ,presses 7#aibh7 still seeks the right answers4 ,in the latter book1 ,bernard ,h4 ,newdigate's introduction contains two statements which indicate the spirit that informs private presses and in recent years has expanded into more public book-making3 444 a zeal in the pursuit of their art which has been inspired by something more than mere money-making1 and in many cases by the attainment of a degree of excellence which invests their work with a peculiar interest for all those who study printing444 and specifically about operators of private presses who have printed their books because they have judged the books worth printing for their own sakes1 or worth printing in some particular way2 and it is the particular way in which each of these printers has sought to give expression to his conception of how his books should be printed and the way in which he has overcome the limitations of his type and plant and solved the several problems which beset the studious printer in every detail of his work1 that give them so much individual interest4444 ,in later years1 we have had noble bibliographies of the ,nonesuch1 ,grabhorn1 and ,ashendene ,presses1 ,bruce ,rogers' ,paragraphs on ,printing1 and ,daniel ,berkeley ,updike's ,notes on the ,merrymount ,press and ,some ,aspects of ,printing1 ,old and ,new4 ,all of these are required reading for collectors of press books1 and each represents a personal viewpoint1 but only one defines a private press4 ,that is the ,ashendene ,bibliography1 but one who seeks for a formal declaration will not find it4 ,the few phrases that can be isolated--444 the absorbing interest of an otherwise busy life4444--,the ,press was started solely for the sake of the interest and amusement ,i expected to derive from it4444--444 the striving after an ideal4444--these casual comments are slender evidence4 ,if1 however1 the entire ,foreword is read1 one discovers just why and how a private press is operated--the letter killeth1 but the spirit maketh alive4 ,,composed ,,in ,,eldorado ,,types ,illustration,,alfred ,w4 ,,pollard,illustration ,the ,trained ,printer and the ,amateur3 and ,the ,pleasure of ,small ,books ,from the ,centaur announcement booklet1 ,lanston ,monotype ,corporation1 ,ltd41 ,london1 #aibi4 ,printers1 as a class1 like all other craftsmen1 can only thrive by supplying their customers with what they want at prices which they are willing to pay4 ,here and there an exceptionally gifted and courageous craftsman may rely on being able to obtain a better price for better work1 and be rewarded for his confidence1 but success will always depend not only on himself but also on two external factors over which he has very little control2 the existence of enough customers1 or potential customers1 able to recognise better work than that which they have been getting1 and the ability and willingness of these customers to pay a higher price for it as long as a higher price is necessary for its production4 ,but occasionally the discriminating customer 7or potential customer7 may not find a master-craftsman able and willing to do for him what he wants1 and if so1 if he cares enough about it to be an enterprising amateur1 he starts a press of his own to print the books he wants as he thinks they ought to be printed4 ,very often he fails2 almost always he finds that he must engage at least one skilled journeyman to help him through4 ,but occasionally he succeeds1 and when he succeeds he brings new life into the craft of printing4 ,definitions of what constitutes an amateur have always proved difficult4 ,the two characteristics of the class of which ,i am thinking are that they have been readers and lovers of books before they have become printers and that they will not knowingly print any book badly for the sake of making a profit off it4 ,as a rule they will only print the books they like1 and they will print them according to their own standards4 ,that some of them have made a good living by their work1 does not alter their status4 ,in the early days of printing amateurs abounded1 but not at the very first4 ,when printing was invented it was applied first of all to multiplying a few much-used ,latin grammars and calendars for which there was a large and steady sale1 because the production of manuscript copies had been too slow and too expensive4 ,these early efforts1 which have come down to us mainly in fragments found in binding1 are rude and ugly enough4 ,there is no evidence of any effort to make them beautiful for the sake of making them beautiful1 and there was no need to do so4 ,fifteenth-century schoolmasters did not cosset their pupils with pretty school-books2 they beat them4 ,their standard in printing was strictly utilitarian4 ,but when the adventure was once undertaken1 whether it was by ,gutenberg1 or by ,fust and ,schffer1 of printing large ,bibles for use in church1 there was at once admitted a standard of dignity1 and this the ,church for centuries did more than any other body to maintain4 ,furthermore when the goldsmith ,fust and the scribe ,peter ,schffer1 greatly daring1 set themselves to produce psalters for use in choir which1 by red printing and by large and small capitals in red and blue1 should rival the beauty of the hand-written and hand-painted psalters then in use1 to the dignity of the first ,bibles there was added beauty and charm1 and in a few years bookmen all over ,europe were eager to apply the new craft to multiplying the books in which they were specially interested4 ,a few secular highbrows stood aloof4 ,as some old ladies still drive out in their carriage and pair 7a very pleasant and dignified way of getting about7 and abjure motor-cars1 so there were a few great bookmen who clung to manuscripts and would not have a printed book in their libraries4 ,in the same way for some twenty years bishops looked askance at presses and types1 and it was not until #adgd that a printed missal was placed upon an altar1 and not until #adgi that more than two editions were printed in any year1 or anywhere outside ,italy4 ,but when ,milan and ,rome had continued to set the example1 ,german bishops were content to follow it1 and when they decided to print they found a vigorous way of maintaining a high standard4 ,they commissioned the best printer they could get to do the work2 they allowed him to charge an agreed price for it1 and they obliged every ,church in their province or diocese to provide itself with a copy before a specified date4#cc ,in ,france in several instances a ,bishop1 or the ,canons of a ,cathedral1 arranged with a printer to come to the ,cathedral town and print a missal or breviary under their supervision4 ,these good men were perhaps rather amateur publishers than amateur printers working private presses with a hired man to do the heavy work4 ,but if we choose to think of them only as customers1 they were customers who knew what they wanted and brought the printer under their roof as the best means of seeing that they got it4 ,as regards the printing of secular books in the fifteenth century1 since the craft was a new one1 it was necessarily run in the first instance by men who had been brought up in other occupations4 ,in this sense nearly every native printer outside ,germany was an amateur4 ,at the outset the newcomers were largely clerks in minor orders and professional scribes2 but merchants1 professors and men of letters generally were attracted to the new craft1 many of them doubtless only to make money1 others to print books in which they were specially interested4 ,even more than in the case of the bishops or canons who commissioned missals and breviaries1 we must think of this motley crowd of recruits rather as amateur publishers than amateur printers4 ,it may be doubted whether even ,caxton 7who was by trade a mercer7 in all his fifteen years in the business1 set up the equivalent of one of his small folios with his own hands4 ,he started his press because he wanted to get his books into print as the easiest way of circulating them2 but there are no signs that he took any special interest in fine printing for its own sake1 or took any joy in producing a handsome book4 ,his standards were those of a competent but unenterprising scribe1 who only wanted to set his words down accurately on the page so that they could be easily read4 ,the master printers all over the ,continent of ,europe1 when they had the courage to stand out against the pressure to cut prices or increase profits by using cheaper and cheaper paper1 and crowding more on to it1 were doing much better work than ,caxton1 and when they found customers who encouraged them to do their best1 their work altogether outclassed his4 ,when we turn to the scholar-printers of the sixteenth century ,i think it would be hard to deny the claim of ,aldus and the ,estiennes to a disinterested love of good printing1 as well as a desire to get the books in which they were interested into print4 ,it is true that the rich scholars of ,italy and ,france were used to a high standard of excellence in the books1 manuscript or printed1 which they put on their shelves1 but it is to the credit of ,aldus and the ,estiennes and ,simon ,colines and ,geoffroy ,tory that they catered also for the needs of less wealthy scholars1 not by cheapening paper or crowding more old types on a page1 but by designing1 or causing to be designed1 new fonts1 with which they could print more economically without loss of beauty4 ,moreover1 more especially at ,lyons1 the new ideals of compact printing1 of the small book beautiful1 were applied to printing not only in ,greek and ,latin1 but in the vernacular1 and these sixteenth century models can still be imitated without archaism or ostentation1 which1 when fifteenth century masterpieces are followed1 are often difficult to avoid4 ,a penny1 ,i trow1 is enough for books1 said one of ,robert ,copland's customers to him1 somewhere about #aecj1 and the spirit of that remark haunted the vernacular ,english book trade for nearly a century and a half4 ,amid all the outpouring of the wonderful ,elizabethan and ,jacobean literature1 though no printing was allowed in the provinces except at ,oxford and ,cambridge1 there was not a sufficient demand for books in all ,england to provide work for more than about five and twenty master printers many of whom had only a single press1 with a couple of journeymen and an apprentice4 ,the ,privy ,council was always trying to keep down the number1 both of printers and presses1 and its action in so doing is usually represented as solely dictated by the fear of their being employed in producing seditious or schismatic pamphlets4 ,no doubt this fear was the main cause of the ,council's action4 ,but if there had been enough lawful work for twice as many printers and presses1 the number might have been doubled with no increase of risk4 ,the risk lay solely in the fact that a man who owned and could use a press1 if he could not get enough lawful work to give him a living1 might be tempted to take secret work4 ,unless they were desperate1 men would not risk hanging to earn a few shillings1 or a few pounds1 but there is ample evidence that in ,shakespeare's day some of the small master printers really were desperate1 and it was only natural that they should do bad work--as indeed they did4 ,all over ,europe printing at the beginning of the seventeenth century was bad2 in ,england it was very bad indeed4 ,during the second half of the seventeenth century and the whole of the eighteenth1 the wealth of ,england steadily increased1 and with its wealth the standard of education4 ,there was a much greater demand for books1 and though printing was permitted after #afic in the provinces without restrictions1 there was clearly more work to do in ,london4 ,printing became neat1 and on occasion elaborate1 and throughout the eighteenth century1 both in ,england and ,scotland1 there were constant experiments and efforts to improve it1 to which full justice has not yet been done4 ,among these efforts to improve it there is no reason to include ,horace ,walpole's private press at ,strawberry ,hill1 or any of the other private presses which1 possibly in imitation of his example1 subsequently sprang up1 except perhaps that at ,lee ,priory4 ,the ,strawberry ,hill books were handsomely printed according to the taste of the day1 but they showed no originality1 such as was displayed by ,baskerville or even the ,foulises1 and they certainly started no style4 ,the other private presses of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were purely literary in their aims1 and many of the books produced at them are below the average good commercial work of the day4 ,in the middle of the nineteenth century the great spread of education caused a demand for very cheap books1 both for amusement and instruction1 which led to some lowering of standard4 ,more dangerous still were the very gaudy ideals of decorative work which found favour during the era inaugurated by the ,great ,exhibition of #ahea4 ,there was an epidemic of bad taste among book buyers and publishers1 and therefore printers responded to it1 as they always will1 whether gladly or reluctantly1 respond to any popular demand which brings grist to their mill4 ,meanwhile much quite good work was being done by the ,chiswick ,press and other firms1 but the influence of the amateur on the professional printing of that period is not much in evidence1 either for good or for evil4 ,the ,daniel ,press1 worked as an amusement by the ,rev4 ,c4 ,h4 ,o4 ,daniel1 ,provost of ,worcester ,college1 ,oxford1 for a good many years1 beginning about #ahgd1 seems to me one of the best examples of a really amateur press that can be adduced4 ,the interest of its books is mainly literary1 but it is also typographical1 and though the performance is usually slight1 and even thin1 ,dr4 ,daniel showed real flair in his revival of the old ,fell types1 his uses of italics1 and the happy knack with which the work was put on the page4 ,i think that ,dr4 ,daniel's influence may possibly be traced1 though only quite slightly1 in some of the pretty books 7often a little spoilt by the weakness of the ink7 published by ,kegan ,paul1 ,trench ,co41 in the eighties1 most of them printed by ,messrs4 ,ballantyne4 ,if this is true1 it is so much more to ,dr4 ,daniel's credit4 ,we come now to the movement of which ,william ,morris was the leader1 which placed to the credit of ,english typography some of the finest books the world has ever seen4 ,morris must be classed as an amateur1 and his press as a private press1 because he printed to please himself1 and no offer of money1 however great1 would have induced him to print anything he really disliked4 ,we must not1 however1 allow the private income which enabled ,morris to carry out his ideas without worrying over cash-returns1 or the fact that he sold most of his books by means of circulars from a private house instead of over a counter1 or any other consideration1 to blind us to the fact that he was one of the world's greatest craftsmen1 and certainly1 if we consider his versatility1 his sureness of touch and his imagination1 the finest that the ,british ,isles have ever produced4 ,if he had had the largest printing house in ,london1 and had printed the ,kelmscott books in a special department of it to advertise the rest1 it could not have made him more of a craftsman than he was4 ,he stands in a very real sense alone by virtue of his unique and splendid personality4 ,illustration ,admiration for ,morris led to the setting up of several private or amateur presses1 which did excellent work in his spirit3 notably the ,doves ,press1 conducted at first by ,mr4 ,cobden-,sanderson1 an ex-barrister1 who had produced some real masterpieces as a bookbinder1 and ,mr4 ,emery ,walker1 the photo-engraver1 who had ever been ready to help anyone trying to promote good printing2 afterwards by ,mr4 ,cobden-,sanderson alone4 ,there was also the ,ashendene ,press of ,mr4 ,st4 ,john ,hornby1 one of the partners in ,messrs4 ,w4 ,h4 ,smith ,son1 who1 ,i fancy1 has done rather more of the work with his own hands than most other private printers4 ,robert ,proctor's ,greek type1 again1 was brought into existence by love of ,morris1 but ,proctor1 like ,messrs4 ,ricketts and ,shannon1 who were responsible for the ,vale ,press books1 had no press of his own4 ,the beauty of all these books reinforced the influence of the ,kelmscott ,press ones1 by proving that what ,morris had done on his own lines could be done by lesser men with the variations suggested by their individual tastes4 ,they reinforced also the proof which ,morris had given1 that so long as it is regarded as a hobby 7or in a commercial house as an advertisement7 the production of really fine specimens of printing is not an impossibly expensive one4 ,morris made no profit from the ,kelmscott books as a publisher2 could allot himself no payment for all the magnificent decorative work which he put into them with his own hands4 ,he got nothing from his venture save the joy of achievement and pleasure of giving copies to his friends4 ,but he proved the existence of a public willing to pay for the cost of print and paper1 even when both print and paper were the best which money could buy2 and ,i believe that most venturers in the same field have been supported to about the same extent4 ,from our present point of view1 this is one of the most important results which ,morris achieved4 ,the direct influence of his work on men like ,mr4 ,updike and ,mr4 ,bruce ,rogers can only be reckoned very slight4 ,but if the ,kelmscott books had not made the success they did1 neither ,mr4 ,updike nor ,mr4 ,bruce ,rogers would have been given his chance1 and to make it possible for younger men to get their chance is one of the finest things a master craftsman can do4 ,private presses have multiplied greatly in the last thirty years1 and some of them have done fine work4 ,but the influence which they are exercising on the commercial printing of the present day is not in any way comparable to that which the ,kelmscott and ,doves books exercised a generation ago4 ,there is no virtue in a book being printed in a small edition or in a private house1 and no virtue in producing endless specimens of printing rather than books4 ,mr4 ,meynell and the ,nonesuch ,press 7whose achievements ,i should admire much more joyously if it had not been called a press7 have shown what a diversity of interesting work can be obtained from commercial printers by a man who has good taste and knows how to get what he wants4 ,when fine work can be obtained in this way private presses seem of little use save as an amusement to their owners4 ,but no one is as yet making full use of the revolution 7a much greater revolution than that inaugurated by the ,aldine italics7 which the ,monotype machine has effected in modern printing just at the moment when 7owing to the economic conditions1 compositors having at last secured a fair wage7 it was most needed4 ,thanks to the wonderful facility with which small types can now be cut and the greater quickness of machine-setting there is now only one obstacle to a new triumph of the ,small ,book ,beautiful2 and that is the obsession of the paymaster1 the ,customer1 that it is unreasonable to expect him to pay anything approaching the same price for compact books in small clear type with no needless expanse of blank paper around the type page1 as for the same number of words printed in larger type and with much more blank paper4 ,the obsession is fostered by the fact that the reprints of popular books which have passed out of copyright and which often are produced in very pretty forms1 are sold in large quantities at small prices1 because no author has to make a livelihood out of them4 ,but if a book does not appeal to a large public and yet has to earn money for its author it cannot be sold at a low price1 and it is childish for the customer to insist that this fact should be concealed from him by books being made needlessly large in order that he may persuade himself that he is still getting plenty for his money4 ,publishers and ,printers and ,authors should unite to educate their paymaster the ,customer on this point1 and it is much to their interest to do so1 for the book space which is now occupied by a couple of hundred volumes might easily hold two or three times as many if all books were printed with pleasant compactness4 ,if an ,amateur would arise who would help to train ,customers to pay high prices for beautiful compact books he would be doing good service4 ,at present most of the finely printed books are needlessly and inconveniently large4 ,,footnotes3 #cc ,the story of ,bible-printing in ,england runs on very much the same lines4 ,as soon as it was decided that ,english ,bibles were to be placed in all churches1 the printers were chosen1 the price was fixed and every ,parish was ordered to supply itself with a copy4 ,from that day to this1 with only a very partial exception for a few years under ,queen ,elizabeth1 the printing of the plain text of the ,bible has been a monopoly in ,england4 ,since the seventeenth century it has been kept absolutely in the hands of the ,king's ,printers and the ,universities of ,oxford and ,cambridge4 ,from about #aggj onwards various provincial printers tried to circumvent this monopoly by printing ,bibles with only a nominal amount of commentary1 but hardly any of them found it worth while to issue a second edition4 ,the monopolists knew that to maintain their rights in the nineteenth century1 which made unrestricted competition into a fetish1 they must give good value to buyers1 ensure good workmanship1 and give their workmen no ground for complaint4 ,they have fulfilled all three conditions1 and as a result we still have a ,bible ,trust in ,england1 which is a ,trust in the true meaning of the word1 because it is worked in the interest of everyone concerned4 ,illustration,,francis ,,meynell,illustration ,,some ,,collectors ,,read ,this essay appeared originally in ,the ,colophon1 ,part ,,iv1 #aicj4 ,it was revised and retitled ,the ,personal ,element for inclusion in ,the ,nonesuch ,century1 #aicf1 from which it is here reprinted4 ,it wouldn't be easy to imagine an idea1 a policy and a business more personal than our ,nonesuch has been4 ,this is my excuse for the personal 7worse1 the first-personal7 character of these ensuing notes4 ,nonesuch was started by three of us in the close quarters of a basement room 7two of the three became husband and wife72 at our busiest and most successful we have never had an office staff of more than three1 usually our friends as well as our associates2 we later lived above and in our office2 we have been responsible ourselves not only for every decision of policy of what to publish and not to publish but also for every piece of printing1 of make-up1 of advertising2 for jackets1 catalogues1 specimen pages and a vast deal of miscellaneous editing4 ,and1 more than anything else1 it is our own taste which has determined our choice of books and choice of styles4 ,in short everything 7except typing and account-adding in later days7 has been done by ,vera ,meynell or ,david ,garnett or me4 ,when ,i set myself to the making of these notes ,i thought ,i should only have to remember1 not to reconstruct4 ,i had by heart all that was worth knowing about the beginnings of the ,nonesuch in itself4 ,but for its remoter beginnings in myself ,i found that ,i had in fact to go back to my childhood4 ,what induced this revision of my opinion was a phrase 7quoted in my brother ,everard's ,life of ,francis ,thompson7 from a letter of my mother's4 ,please return she had written to ,thompson1 the revise proofs sixteen pages at a time4 ,first of all 7said ,i to myself7 ,i am the son of a mother who was not only a poet but who knew also that page proofs have to be dealt with in units of sixteen4 ,yes1 and that was only a trifle of the family's knowledge4 ,i have often seen my mother unflinchingly cut a treasurable phrase in one of her essays so that it should end to the line or paragraph of the printer's prescription2 and correct a proof so that a word deleted here would be promptly balanced by an added word there to save the over-running of the corrected lines4 ,where did she learn this tenderness towards my craft8 ,but from my father1 of course4 ,and then ,i realised that1 if he likes it or not1 the ,nonesuch ,press is really my father's grand-son4 ,in establishing it ,i was doing no more than reverting to type4 ,there was of course the literary background1 the great names and exciting personalities of the writers who were my parents' friends4 ,there was ,george ,meredith whose limping descent of the staircase ,i can just1 and whose yearly tip of a pound at ,christmas ,i can very easily1 remember4 ,there was the silver teapot which ,i never carried to be replenished without remembering my father's solemn sanctification of it3 ,robert ,browning has taken his tea from this4 ,there was ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats standing owl-like at the door blinking to discover my mother through the smoke emitted from the ,egyptian cigarettes which ,i had lately been sent at top speed to buy1 my father sometimes going twice through his pockets before he assembled the necessary tenpence halfpenny4 7,tenpence halfpenny was also the price of a box of soldiers1 and once ,i thought of buying soldiers instead of cigarettes and running away from home47 ,there was ,francis ,thompson1 ,the ,poet as we children always called him1 fragile1 mannered1 and complaining of the weather or of the quality of our food4 ,much later ,i remember ,jack ,squire discussing the plans for the first ,london ,mercury2 and ,hilaire ,belloc brought by ,wilfrid ,blunt because of my father's discovery of his first writing in the ,morning ,post4 ,i don't remember ,stevenson or ,patmore2 but framed holographs of ,in the ,highlands and ,the ,toys were set between the gold ,japanese embroideries which surrounded the sitting room4 ,this literary atmosphere was more continuously and intensively itself than anything ,i know today--even in psycho-analytic or ,communist circles4 ,does he write8 ,then do bring him4 ,is he a ,thompsonian8 ,of course he must come4 ,every ,sunday afternoon and evening my parents were at home4 ,there was endless poetry-reading1 endless literary talk by my mother's devoted admirers4 ,no1 not endless4 ,there were two signals for their departure4 ,the first gong1 so to speak1 was the arrival of the hot blackcurrant jam drink4 ,the second was my father unbuttoning1 almost unostentatiously1 the top button of his boots4 ,but all this was literature1 not letters1 and letters was after all the chief occupation of the house4 ,a literary hot-house should have produced in me1 very nearly did produce1 an over-sensitive literary plant4 ,and sure enough ,i wrote poetry1 with three of my sisters and one of my brothers4 7,george ,moore in one of the ,hail and ,farewell volumes has a disconcerting fancy of the young ,meynells assembling for their verse-writing hour once a week47 ,but letters made me into a printer4 ,in a play about ,francis ,thompson which was lately produced my father had necessarily to be represented4 ,he objected to his portrayal under his own name1 and he was therefore made to appear as ,john ,oldcastle1 his writing-name before ,i was born4 ,in one scene he was shown sitting in the office of the paper which he edited1 ,merry ,england4 ,he struck the bell twice for his sub-editor1 once for his office boy1 three times for his secretary4 ,there was indeed such a magazine4 ,but there was never an office1 never a secretary1 never a sub-editor1 never an office boy4 ,the whole work was done by my mother and father and amateur helpers on and about the library table4 ,if ,i was allowed in the room on press-days the bargain was that ,i was to sit under the table4 ,mostly this was fun4 ,i learned a lot about the leg-fidgets of writers4 ,and under the table became my own kingdom1 from which ,i could at the age of seven declaim without embarrassment ,gray's ,elegy to the ,sunday night supper guests4 ,but one memory survives which still carries horror with it--the memory of my mother suddenly going down on her knees1 down to my level1 and burying her face in her hands4 ,she had just been told1 in the midst of proof-correcting1 of the death of ,coventry ,patmore4 ,the ,poet was one of the helpers--a feared helper4 ,he would wish to engage all the rest in argument as to the desirability of this or that paragraph4 ,on one occasion1 ,j4 ,l4 ,garvin1 who could disturb by his brilliant relevance almost as much as ,thompson by his dull irrelevance1 made an unexpected call4 ,proofs were already overdue4 ,by a masterly manoeuvre the poet was sent to entertain him4 ,garvin1 the liveliest talker of our day1 was overwhelmed by ,thompson's discussion of the relative merits of ,lyons and ,a4,b4,c4 tea shops4 ,he sat mumchance an afternoon through4 ,thompson reported3 ,never have ,i known ,garvin so brilliant4 ,merry ,england was a monthly1 but its crises were not less acute for that4 ,you can put off so easily until too late what has to be done only once a month4 ,but ,the ,weekly ,register1 which was also my father's property1 and which was written almost wholly by himself and my mother1 was a weekly4 ,the correction of proofs was a diurnal occupation with ,thursdays as the grand climax4 ,it was printed by the ,westminster ,press2 and here1 too1 my father was the begetter of my trade4 ,for he was part-owner of the ,westminster ,press and helped to establish with it a style of typography and a care for detail in printing which were far ahead of the run of commercial presses4 ,when he was over fifty my father added the last segment to the circle4 ,magazine proprietor1 editor1 writer1 printer1 he now became book publisher1 as managing director of ,burn ,oates4 ,he transferred from ,john ,lane ,francis ,thompson's books and my mother's1 and he gave me my first job4 ,he gave me also my first lesson in detail4 ,the ,collected ,works of ,francis ,thompson were issued by ,burns ,oates a few months after ,i had joined the firm1 and ,i was allowed to have a hand in designing the edition4 ,when it was printed my father discovered that several commas had broken away from the ends of lines and that a number of the kerns or top loops of the letter f had been broken4 ,day after day piles of the imperfect volumes were massed in his flat1 which was immediately above the office4 ,we had a sort of fire-bucket drill4 ,one of my sisters would find the page1 my father would dab in the comma1 ,i would do the blotting and another sister would restack the books4 ,some scores of thousands of pen corrections were thus made4 ,i don't think my father would have trusted any one of us to do the actual pen work4 ,he leant back1 he quizzed1 he admired after every stroke4 ,illustration3 ,the title page of ,bunyan's classic1 composed in ,caslon and ,deutsche ,zeitschrift1 printed by the ,kynoch ,press1 edition1 #afjj copies4 ,in #aiac1 pursuing a common typographical errand1 ,i chanced to meet ,stanley ,morison1 who had just emerged from a bank and was anxious to concern himself with book-production1 and he joined forces with me at ,burns ,oates4 ,a year later as a personal venture ,i purchased a hand press1 which ,i kept in my dining room2 and my next step was to persuade the delegates of the ,oxford ,university ,press to let me use some of their seventeenth century ,fell types4 ,they were very obliging1 and they let me have what ,i wanted1 charged me for it as if it were sold1 but very properly kept the legal title to it1 so that if ,i were to misuse this cherished type they could at any time call upon me to surrender it4 ,i still have these ,fell types in my possession4 ,the ,romney ,street ,press1 since ,i lived in that street1 was my new style1 and ,i issued a prospectus1 which ,i regard now with mixed feelings of shame and admiration at my audacity2 for if ever there was a gold-brick prospectus this was one6 ,here it is3 ,the ,romney ,street ,press at #fg ,romney ,street1 ,westminster1 has been set up for the better and unaffected production of ,books1 ,pamphlets1 single sheets of poetry4 ,the type of the ,press 7used for this prospectus7 is the finest of the series imported from ,holland in about #affj by ,bishop ,fell for the ,oxford ,university ,press1 by whose courtesy it is now used4 ,the editions of the ,romney ,street ,press will be limited to a maximum of fifty copies4 ,the preliminary costs of equipment amount to #dj1 ,francis ,meynell1 the ,director of the ,press1 invites subscriptions to cover this amount4 ,subscribers will have first call upon the publications of the ,press at cost price1 upon the amount of their subscription4 ,the first publications will be ,seven ,poems by ,alice ,meynell1 written since the issue of the ,collected ,poems4 ,there will follow ,mary ,cary1 the meditations1 occasional poems and spiritual diary of the wife of a ,cromwellian captain1 now first published1 from her ,,ms4 note-book2 ,love in ,dian's ,lap1 by ,francis ,thompson4 ,but the process of production will be slow4 ,suggestions for other books1 particularly of #agth century reference1 will be welcome4 ,,april #aiae4 ,i may say at once that the only two books which ,i issued 7,ten ,poems by ,alice ,meynell1 and ,the ,diary of ,mary ,cary7 were1 with a good deal of difficulty1 disposed of--yes1 the whole of the fifty copies2 but there were no general subscriptions to the ,press1 not one1 and the cost of equipment1 forty pounds1 bore heavily upon me4 ,perhaps because of this1 perhaps because my dining room was my workshop1 and printer's ink was apt to get into the soup1 ,i discontinued the venture--which in any case 7since ,i had no technical assistance and very little competence myself7 was decidedly irksome4 ,meantime decisive things had happened to me4 ,i had met ,george ,lansbury1 inspiration of my politics1 and ,i had met ,bruce ,rogers1 inspiration of all eager typographers4 ,for the next five years ,i worked in close association with ,george ,lansbury4 7,i suppose that he has lately become one of the most generally loved men in ,england4 ,to anyone who has known him in times of deep stress as intimately as ,i have that cannot be surprising4 ,there is no qualification in my admiration and affection4#cd7 ,in him ,i found a most ready support for my propaganda view of good printing and good craftsmanship of any kind4 ,lansbury secured the financial support which made it possible for me to start the ,pelican ,press4 ,i think the ,pelican was a pioneer in the policy of having very few types but all of them of good design4 ,we set advertisements for commerce1 which was in those days something of an innovation2 and we printed political pamphlets in the ,minority ,labour interest4 ,these pamphlets are odd to look at now4 ,the slogan of fitness for purpose had not yet informed us4 ,a report of the great meetings which we held at the ,albert ,hall after the first ,russian revolution was designed with the mannered elegance which would have suited better an essay by ,walter ,pater4 ,and ,i remember myself writing a double-page political manifesto for the ,weekly ,herald1 calling upon the proletariat to rise and end the war1 which was set in ,cloister ,old ,face with a seventeenth century flower border and sixteenth century initials4444 ,i set up with elegance what must be the rarest of ,siegfried ,sassoon first editions4 ,i myself have no copy4 ,bertrand ,russell brought him to see me when ,sassoon had decided to refuse to go back to the war1 and ,i made into a leaflet his letter of explanation to his ,commanding ,officer4 ,i am now astonished at what we published without prosecution4 ,now it would be seditious propaganda4 ,i can only put it down to the innocent elegance of typography6 ,soon after the war ,i began making proposals from the ,pelican ,press to various publishers4 ,would they allow me to print for them this that and the other book in a really nice edition8 ,i pointed out that if they were in fact wrecked upon the conventional desert island and wished to take with them the conventional choice of two books1 ,shakespeare and the ,bible1 they would not find a current edition of either fit for a tasteful shipwreck4 ,but my arguments were fruitless--except of a plan for myself4 ,why shouldn't ,i do what ,i wanted them to do8 ,why wait on them8 ,so ,i began to hanker after the as yet unnamed1 unmanned and unfinanced ,nonesuch ,press4 ,the next step was to bind ,david ,garnett and ,vera ,mendel to the adventure4 ,david ,garnett's family history1 like my own1 is full of literature4 ,he is the son of two writers and the grandson of a third4 ,he too1 after a brief excursion into the ,natural ,sciences1 reverted to type1 opened a book-shop 7with ,francis ,birrell71 wrote his first novel and1 in the same year1 lent both the cellar of his book-shop and the assistance of his critical and book-learned mind to our new venture4 ,he too liked books4 ,he could1 ,i mean1 enjoy the feel of a book1 its weight1 shape1 edges1 the synthesis of sensitive things which is represented by that most insensitive word format4 ,vera ,mendel was the useful necessary incubator for our schemes4 ,she provided our small capital and she did the routine work4 ,she was also our fearless critic-in-chief4 ,the things she stopped us doing6 ,she1 too1 developed in me the sense which ,david ,garnett already shared with her--the sense of responsibility about texts4 ,and she put sobriety whenever she could into my lush blurbs4 ,her flexibility of mind made our work1 too1 flexible4 ,she translated ,toller's first play1 which was among our earliest books2 and shared with me the editing of ,the ,week-,end ,book4 ,for the first eighteen months1 while ,i was working full time at the ,pelican ,press and ,david ,garnett at his book-shop1 and before we felt justified in employing as much as an office girl1 she did everything1 from editing to stamp-licking1 that ,i could not steal time to do4 ,this about ourselves4 ,whence our corporate name8 ,we began by looking not for a name1 but for a device2 and we found in a tapestry surviving from ,nonesuch ,palace the elements which ,stephen ,gooden made into our first mark4 ,in adapting the device1 we took also the name2 and ,i silenced an early objection that it was too boastful by pointing out that ,nonesuch means nonpareil and so had an esoteric meaning4 ,for nonpareil is the name of a very small and very humble size of type4 ,nonesuch was chosen1 then1 in a spirit of mixed hope and humility4 ,ralph ,hodgson1 the poet1 who was interested in my enterprise1 was most anxious that ,i should call it the ,pound ,press4 7,he had lately seen and admired my father's seventeenth-century farmhouse1 which has in front of it a delightful yard or pound47 ,every book1 he urged1 warming to his subject1 should weigh a pound and cost a pound6 ,after some intensive correspondence his enthusiasm was routed1 and the ,nonesuch ,press came into being4 ,illustration3 ,page from ,montaigne's ,essays1 composed in ,poliphilus and ,koch ,antiqua1 printed by ,r4 ,r4 ,clark4 ,published #aica2 edition1 #acge sets of two volumes4 ,so there we were1 in #aibc1 in our cellar under ,birrell ,garnett's book-shop1 book-enthusiasts1 amateurs in the literal1 though not1 ,i hope1 the derogatory sense of the word1 tackling the donkey work of book production and the mule work of book distribution4 ,for nearly two years we continued in the half light of our limited premises1 producing illuminating works in limited editions1 and varying the daily task with such occasional diversions as invoice bees--parties to which our friends were bidden in order to help us between drinks with the task of writing our invoices1 statements1 et caetera4 ,it is scarcely worth recording the vicissitudes of those underground activities4 ,only when we tried to stop an ever-rising tide of ,congreves--which1 as with breaking back ,i eagerly unloaded the volumes from the lorries1 narrowly escaping immuring ,v4 ,m4 in that unhistoric cellar for good--only then did we wonder whether1 for purposes of self-preservation1 the ,press might not have to expand4 7,indeed1 one wall did bulge alarmingly47 ,happily1 part of the edition of ,congreve got lost in ,devonshire4444 ,the lorries which were carrying the bound books from the printers at ,plymouth broke down before we did4 ,i myself travelled the first books1 being received with varying degrees of courtesy by the book-sellers4 ,of those who were civil some were encouraging1 some politely discouraging4 ,when1 very soon1 we were obliged to ration orders1 these were rewarded and persuaded1 and the discourteous received no more than their small deserts4 ,we meant to have fun with our business and fun we have had4 ,even when it had outgrown its puppyhood we continued to button-hole our customers and sell them not only our goods but our tastes and our views4 ,let me anticipate for a moment and quote a sample from the opening paragraph of our #aibi catalogue4 ,in these days of literary censorship exercised by ,sir ,archibald ,bodkin 7of ,savidge case fame71 ,sir ,william ,joynson-,hicks and a ,detective-,inspector of ,scotland ,yard1 no publisher can be positive in his announcement that he will issue such and such a book4 ,chaucer8 ,fie1 his language is coarse4 ,plato8 ,the less said about ,socrates and his young friends1 if you please1 the better4 ,shakespeare8 ,he will perhaps pass unchallenged1 for ,lamb's ,tales doubtless exhausted the censors' interest in this prurient author4 ,farquhar1 ,don ,quixote even--these too may corrupt the corrupt1 which is the current legal test of obscenity4 ,with a propitiatory bow to ,sir ,archibald and to the potent and anonymous ,detective-,inspector 7the unlamented ,home ,secretary gets no more than a distant nod71 we therefore give to this list of announcements the precautionary title1 ',bodkin ,permitting4' ,but this jape1 and others1 were part of a serious and deliberate policy4 ,from the beginning we had a plan and hoped to have a public4 ,in the words of our first 7#aibc7 catalogue1 we intended to make books for those among collectors who also use books for reading4 ,we intended to choose our books to suit our tastes1 not the imputed taste of a hypothetical public4 ,not that we felt ego-centric and exclusive about it1 like the ,californian millionaire who1 ,i am told1 caused a ,shakespeare to be printed to suit his own taste and his own library--an edition of one copy4 ,we have made now over a hundred editions to suit our own personal requirements--the author we wanted1 the text we wanted1 the format we wanted1 the decorations we wanted4 ,and if there had been no other profit from the ,press1 this shelf of my library would have seemed in itself a sufficient recompense for my share of the work4 ,but fortunately1 many other people also wanted these books4 ,for our taste proved to be a normal contemporary taste4 ,we did not create the vogue for ,donne1 for instance--we were ourselves part of that general tendency which has in these days found him afresh4 ,my previous experience in printing had shown me quite clearly that1 in order to avoid monotony and to produce desirable editions at a reasonable cost1 one must intelligently exploit the best mechanical equipment and the highest technical skill available4 ,today there is more fine typographical material to be had than even the largest printing house in the country could possess2 and the various commercial presses have developed technical skill and variety along various lines4 ,there was therefore no good reason1 we thought1 for a new private press in the old style1 arrogantly self-contained1 and with but one type and obsolete hand machinery4 ,our stock-in-trade has been the theory that mechanical means could be made to serve fine ends2 that the machine in printing was a controllable tool4 ,therefore we set out to be mobilisers of other people's resources2 to be designers1 specifiers1 rather than manufacturers2 architects of books rather than builders4 ,the propriety of our use of the word ,press was called in question by ,arnold ,bennett and others4 ,pedantically it may be wrong2 by the spirit it is nearly right4 ,there is no exact word for our function1 which was new4 ,nor for my own part in that function4 ,when ,i have wanted to sign a book1 at first ,i wrote ,typography by4 ,but typography is only a quarter of my battle1 and that phrase puts undue emphasis on one department1 one only1 of a job the essence of which is that it is manifold4 ,a number of books ,i signed ,f4 ,m4 ,finx4 ,but finxit means fashioned1 and so made1 rather than designed4 ,i also used the phrase under the care of1 but this is vague and inaccurate1 suggesting merely the oversight of someone else's designs4 ,perhaps ,this book was planned by is the least inaccurate formula1 though this again leaves out the whole business of overseeing4 ,overseeing is no purely typographical matter4 ,it means the planning and coordinating of the whole book--text1 editor1 and artist1 as well as paper-maker1 printer and binder4 ,in fact1 it involves an editorial as well as a typographical attitude4 ,illustration3 ,opening page from ,voltaire's ,princess of ,babylon with line drawing by ,thomas ,lowinsky4 ,composed in ,caslon1 printed by the ,westminister ,press4 ,published #aibh2 edition1 #aejj copies4 ,foulk ,grevill writing of the posthumous edition of ,sidney's ,arcadia said ,this requyres the care of his friends1 not to amend 7for ,i think that falls within the reach of no man living7 but only to see to the paper1 and other common errors of mercenary printing4 ,my own interest and ambition in founding the ,nonesuch was to see to the paper and other common errors of mercenary printing2 but ,d4 ,g4 and ,v4 ,m4 aspired to tackle the question of amendments as well4 ,from our fourth book onwards that policy has governed all our major publications4 ,when1 as sometimes happens1 a text needs no more editing3 when it is adequately and accurately established1 there is still the quasi-editorial function of the illustrator4 ,he may1 he should1 become in his designs more than a decorator2 he should1 ,i believe1 become a significant commentator4 ,kauffer on ,burton is1 for example1 how ,i would describe the drawings for our edition of ,the ,anatomy4 ,our books were published in limited editions because we had to rope in the collector as well as the reader and student4 ,we have found that it was necessary to impose another sort of limit on our output--a limit to the number of titles we could conveniently and properly publish in a given time4 ,we came to the conclusion that eight books a year was about as much as we could manage if every detail was to be our personal concern and if all were to be freshly designed4 ,the making of our books in a great variety of styles was an early principle1 firmly held to4 ,i did not want people to be able to say at the first sight of our books1 ,oh yes1 that must be a ,nonesuch book4 ,i wanted them to say1 ,that's not a bad looking book1 and then to find that it was ours4 ,my calculation--it was a calculation1 not a programme--proved surprisingly right4 ,our first hundred books have taken us twelve years to make4 ,our friends have been our editors2 and our editors have been our friends4 ,we have had the most valuable suggestions for books1 and the most valuable criticism of details of production even1 from them4 ,i have seldom passed a binding1 for example1 without asking ,geoffrey ,keynes's opinion of it4 ,his well-wishing has been of extraordinary value to us1 apart from the many editions which he has himself admirably edited for the ,nonesuch4 ,it was he who introduced us to those other excellent editors of our texts1 ,john ,hayward and ,john ,sparrow--the former a keen critic and helpful adviser4 ,e4 ,mc,knight ,kauffer1 ,stephen ,gooden and ,t4 ,l4 ,poulton have also done for us much more than illustrate a number of our books4 ,e4 ,mc,knight ,kauffer 7who drew us from the life for the last of his illustrations to ,the ,anatomy of ,melancholy7 at one time had office-room with us4 ,the hours ,i spent in discussing aesthetics with him were stimulating--over-stimulating1 we found1 when there was work to do4 ,so1 in the end1 we nailed up a list of red-herring words 7functional1 the ,artist and so forth7 which were not to be used during office hours on pain of a fine of sixpence for each use4 ,but there was no sixpenny escape from ,george ,moore4 ,while ,ulick and ,soracha was at the printers1 he came almost daily1 hung up his square bowler hat and settled down to read aloud to us the revisions he had made in his last batch of proofs4 ,each time it was an entirely new text4 ,the first version was almost illiterate4 ,the second grammatical but undistinguished4 ,the third a transfiguration4 ,it was fascinating to see the process of his composition at close quarters3 and our feelings were undisturbed by anxieties about the printer's bill1 for he had proposed at the outset that he should pay for his own corrections4 ,they exceeded the original cost of the setting4 ,in any event1 who am ,i to be critical8 ,for one book ,i had #cg different varieties of title-page set up4 ,my friend ,william ,maxwell1 who printed this book1 said that he did not mind losing 7printers are like farmers7 on the text of a ,nonesuch book because he always made up his loss on the title-page4444 ,in #aibe we moved from our cellar to ,great ,james ,street and we decided 7with some misgivings7 to incorporate the firm4 ,it seemed better to our auditors although we had suspicions that our subscribers might be discouraged from collecting when they saw first the formula ,ltd4 on our letter-paper4 ,we did them an injustice4 ,the partners became directors and shareholders4 ,vera ,meynell bought a little book entitled ,the ,secretary and ,his ,directors and1 impressed by the legal penalties that hedge about these offices1 occasionally wound up one of our long triangular discussions by taking down the minutes book and saying3 ,well1 ,i suppose that this might as well have been a board meeting4 ,once a year1 for the benefit of ,somerset ,house we 7the directors7 presented to ourselves 7the shareholders7 with all due formalities1 a report on the year's accounts and progress4 ,otherwise it made no difference4 ,illustration3 ,the ,antigone ,greek type used in ,homer's ,iliad1 decorated by ,rudolph ,koch4 ,printed by ,joh4 ,ensched en ,zonen4 ,published #aica2 edition1 #adej copies4 ,even the mundial bad-time 7to quote the phrase of an ,indian friend7 of #aicj did not seem to affect us or our customers much4 ,but the second year of the great depression brought onto the market many hoarded copies of our books from the pickle-shelves of profiteers and deflated some of their more astronomical prices4 ,our survival-value 7as luxury trades go7 is perhaps due to the fact that even in boom-time we tried to be honest traders1 not using our success with collectors to put prices as high as the traffic would bear1 but giving a constant ratio of good value in the sheer materials of book-making1 so that our paper1 printing1 binding were as good as any to be had at the price4 ,no book-producing of our kind can subsist without sales in ,america4 ,it was our good fortune to ally ourselves in #aibg with ,random ,house of ,new ,york4 ,no collaboration could be more satisfactory from a technical or a personal point of view4 ,it survived the get-rich-quick temptations of #aibi2 it has survived the difficulties of the depression4 ,new blood and money entered the ,press two years ago when ,cecil ,harmsworth1 ,desmond ,harmsworth and ,eric ,harmsworth joined our board4 ,but they belong to our ,second ,century1 not to our first4 ,we have avoided antagonisms1 even avoided competition4 ,my friend ,osbert ,sitwell suggested that we should publish a satire on ,noel ,coward2 ,coward that we should publish his satire on the ,sitwells4 ,to both we said no4 ,how pleasant it would have been to issue them together in a single book6 ,when ,i found that ,peter ,davies and the ,nonesuch were both planning to reissue ,cobbett's ,rural ,rides1 we met and tossed for it4 ,he won2 and our editorial work was made over to him4 ,of all ,nonesuch books that by which ,i should best like the venture to be judged is our ,shakespeare1 edited by ,herbert ,farjeon4 ,it brought us1 among other things1 a characteristic contact with ,t4 ,e4 ,lawrence4 ,lawrence had written a letter of fervent praise of the ,shakespeare to ,david ,garnett2 and ,i sought permission to use it4 ,david ,garnett was himself our ambassador4 ,lawrence appealed to the group of friends with whom he happened to be4 ,i don't want my letter to be reprinted4 ,i hate the advertising of my name and opinions1 he protested4 ,to his obvious chagrin 7for ,lawrence had a passion for publicity as great as his passion against it7 his friends supported his view4 ,after all1 said they you are not a ,shakespeare expert4 ,that decided ,lawrence4 ,i think it is my duty to give permission1 he said4 ,this was his letter3 ,we turn over to the ,nonesuch ,shakespeare4 ,there you have created a most marvellous pleasure4 ,i have handled it ever so many times1 and read ,,the ,,tempest right through4 ,it satisfies4 ,it is final1 like the ,kelmscot ,chaucer or the ,ashendene ,virgil4 ,and it is a book which charms one to read slowly1 an art which is almost gone from us in these times4 ,every word which ,shakespeare uses stands out glowing4 ,a really great edition4 ,the tact and grace of your editor have been surpassing4 ,i think ,i like the size and shape and binding almost as much as the text4 ,the paper1 too1 is just right4 ,altogether a triumph4 ,one of the best things is that it can be done again4 ,nobody will ever dare to produce the old type of edition now1 while your text stands there to reproach them4 ,it means a permanent improvement in ,shakespeares4 ,there they are1 my fifty men and women4 ,they must speak for themselves1 and ,i have almost silenced them with my chatter4 ,for their successors ,i can say only this3 that it remains the ambition of the ,press to make a worthy edition1 textually and typographically1 of every major ,english writer who has not already been appropriately served4 ,it will make these books for money1 and has no shame in that4 ,we are not ,gentlemen ,farmers but workers at our trade4 ,but we are enthusiasts also1 even in our middle years2 and still propagandists4 ,every well-designed book or advertisement or prospectus is the begetter of others2 and good printing is one of the graces of life even where life is ungracious4 ,illustration3 ,title page for small book edited by ,francis ,meynell1 composed in ,janson and printed on the premises at the ,press on ,van ,gelder mould-made paper4 ,edition1 #abej copies4 ,in a letter from ,vienna in #agag1 ,lady ,mary ,wortley ,montagu writes of ,prince ,eugene's library that it is though not very ample1 well chosen2 but as the ,prince would admit into it no editions but what are beautiful and pleasing to the eye and there are nevertheless numbers of excellent books that are but indifferently printed1 this finikin and foppish taste makes many disagreeable chasms in this collection6 ,i should like to make ,prince ,eugene patron saint of the ,nonesuch4 ,and dear ,lady ,mary as well2 for it remains the object of the ,nonesuch ,press to meet tastes finikin and foppish like his1 studious like hers4 ,,composed ,,in ,,poliphilus ,,and ,,blado ,,types ,,footnotes3 #cd ,when we published the ,compendious ,william ,morris ,i sent copies to ,g4 ,l41 to ,ramsay ,mac,donald and to ,mr4 ,baldwin--the last a stranger to me4 ,their replies make almost a rsum of their political characters4 ,g4 ,l4 saw in the social essays a conscience-pricking reproach about things left long undone4 ,j4 ,r4 ,m4 saw in them a cause for self-congratulation4 ,mr4 ,baldwin did not answer for nearly two years3 the book had been mislaid4 ,but when he did answer he covered two pages with his close hand-writing to apologise and explain4 ,the ,perfect ,gentleman6 ,illustration,,christopher ,,sandford,illustration ,printing for ,love ,from ,cockalorum3 ,a ,bibliography of the ,golden ,cockerel ,press1 ,june #aidc-;,december #aidh4 7,an address to the ,art ,society1 ,university of the ,south ,west of ,england in ,exeter1 ,june1 #aidg47 ,copyright #aiej by the ,golden ,cockerel ,press4 ,reprinted by permission of author and publisher4 ,illustration ,i have called this talk ,printing for ,love4 ,i have not come to preach a gospel to you1 but1 as ,i proceed to discuss printing and publishing and book-illustration1 it will be apparent to you that one of the tenets of my religion is that we workers should do our job1 whether it be farming1 or gardening1 book-keeping or building1 hewing coal or engineering1 with a will4 ,in ,ecclesiastes the ,preacher advises us3 ,whatsoever thy hand findeth to do1 do it with thy might4 7,ch4 #i1 v4 #aj47 ,you may say that my job is a nice job2 that it is all very well for me to talk4 ,i can assure you that book-manufacture is a most intricate process4 ,things tend to go wrong at every stage of production4 ,of worries we printers have no end4 ,i often feel like an ,irish farmer driving his pig to market4 ,in one hand he holds a stick to prod the pig4 ,in the other a string tied to the pig's leg4 ,the pig goes to the right and then to the left and the countryman wonders will he ever get that pig to the market4 ,many of my books are like that pig4 ,they drive me to despair4 ,and yet ,i love my printing like a mountaineer loves his mountains1 which he climbs arduously with sweat and aching limbs4 ,he has his reward when he reaches the summit and enjoys a fine view1 much as ,i enjoy the appearance of a book which ,i have made with infinite pains4 ,for both of us there is the joy of achievement--of something attempted1 something done4 ,oh1 but1 you may expostulate1 supposing you were a sewer-man1 could you bring love into your work8 ,i am sure ,i would4 ,in fact this case in point was quoted recently on the wireless4 ,if ,i remember rightly1 a speaker had referred with commiseration to the lot of the sewer-man working underground among the rats in the muck and stench of drains4 ,he was called to task by a most insulted sewer-man1 who explained that his was a good job--as good as any other4 ,all the artists and the craftsmen who co-operate with me--the paper-makers1 the cloth-makers1 the tanners1 the brass-cutters1 the illustrators1 the compositors1 the pressmen1 the binders--aye1 and the authors too1 who write and rewrite their text until it seems to me just right for the ,golden ,cockerel--all of them have their worries and their toil1 but their work for me is done with love4 ,this is a question you might ask yourselves3 can a beautiful thing be made cynically8 ,the dice is loaded against the unwanted child of a loveless marriage4 ,you cannot divorce your work from your life4 ,the two are parts of a whole4 ,my religion is that love should be the basis of all one's living and all one's work4 ,in so far as my books have been successful as works of art1 it is because they have been made with love4 ,only with great self-restraint can ,i refrain from reading you again that beautiful thirteenth chapter of ,st4 ,paul's ,first ,epistle to the ,corinthians on ,faith1 ,hope and ,love--you remember ,love suffereth long and is kind1 love envieth not1 love vaunteth not itself1 is not puffed up4 ,please read it now and then4 ,it is so important4 ,perhaps1 when you heard my talk was to be called ,printing for ,love1 you thought1 ,oh1 he means printing without financial reward4 ,believe me1 love1 too1 hath its reward4 ,make what you have to make1 and do what you have to do1 the way ,i advocate1 and you will have your reward4 ,you must have faith in this4 ,we have got to fight our battles against obstructions1 but1 if we fight well1 and do what we are intended to do1 everything is made possible for us3 the most miraculous things happen in their due time4 ,at the ,golden ,cockerel ,i never choose a book because ,i think it a good seller4 ,publishing friends are astonished when ,i admit that quite recently ,i refused books offered to me by ,evelyn ,waugh--one of the best selling novelists of today--and ,sir ,osbert ,sitwell4 ,of course ,i do not disapprove of the authors4 ,i admire them greatly4 ,but in each case the manuscript submitted was not one ,i wanted for the ,cockerel4 ,i choose those books which ,i believe are right for this gay1 mirthful1 versatile bird4 ,at times he likes to play1 at times to be serious4 ,he is interested in genuine old tales of adventure written by explorers and missionaries1 who may have travelled in birch-bark canoes or quaint unwieldy ships4 ,he is interested in old peoples and their poetry4 ,at present he is printing a translation of the epic of ,gilgamesh preserved on stone tablets4 ,it is at least six thousand years old and refers to a flood--like ,noah's ,flood--which was recent history to people then4 ,they were either more or less civilized then than we are now1 according to your view of what constitutes civilization4 ,they appear to have had more to eat than we have now2 they spent more time in making life beautiful1 and in thoughtful enquiry into spiritual things1 such as survival after death4 ,they had libraries of books1 not printed like ,golden ,cockerels1 but inscribed on series of stone tablets4 ,there were several copies of the epic of ,gilgamesh in the library at ,nineveh4 ,to return to the ,golden ,cockerel1 he also loves the masterpieces of ,english and ,french literature and classical literature4 ,he is really a very human bird1 kind and sometimes very amorous1 never spiteful1 never morbid1 never cruel4 ,i personally pretend to run this ,press1 but you know this chimeric cockerel really rules the roost4 ,when ,i and two friends took over the ,press in #aicc1 ,i had quite different ideas for it from those ,i had accepted a few months later4 ,this ,cockerel had his own personality and traditions4 ,i have rather enjoyed following his gaudy plumage along the aerial avenues in which he seems to want to fly4 ,this has not always been easy for me4 ,from time to time ,i had partners to help me4 ,their ideas and mine naturally did not always coincide4 ,they gave in to me so often that just occasionally ,i had1 in common charity1 to print and publish some book favoured by one of them and which ,i did not myself like4 ,usually on such occasions the finished book was to me abortive--a baby cuckoo among my own fledglings4 ,and they usually did not sell well4 ,try as you may1 you cannot do quite as well for someone else's offspring4 ,it has always been of paramount importance that my books should sell4 ,as a husband and a father of three children1 ,i have had to make the ,cockerel pay4 ,otherwise ,i should have had to work at something else4 ,obviously you cannot make a large income from the sale of1 say1 half a dozen books a year in small limited editions4 ,but the ,cockerel has never let me down and always made it possible for me to keep on with this work4 ,the late ,st4 ,john ,hornby1 who used to publish those monumental ,ashendene ,press books at prices in the neighbourhood of #ajj gns4 has said that1 taken all over1 he would just approximately cover his costs4 ,no profit6 ,he was in a financial position to ignore costs and the necessity to make his books pay4 ,in theory that is good4 ,in practice ,i think it is wholesome that the products of your labour should be commercially right4 ,the absolute necessity for you to sell what you produce makes you take notice of the reactions of your patrons1 keeps you from being too personal1 too idiosyncratic1 too precious1 shall ,i say too amateurish8 ,here ,i am on difficult ground4 ,it depends what you mean by amateurish4 ,i think of myself as a professional1 but1 to the trade publishers 7who would not dream of rejecting a manuscript from ,evelyn ,waugh71 ,i1 and others like me1 are looked on as amateurs1 because we do what we like4 ,this type of amateur1 who does what he likes1 scientifically1 is1 ,i believe1 very important4 ,into this category would fall research students1 and poets1 and scholars1 and inventors1 and all sorts of people4 ,has a scientific study ever been made of the amateur throughout the ages and his influence on our life8 ,if not1 there is a noble thesis for a research student1 and he could make of it a most interesting and ,i think saleable book4 ,perhaps one of you will do it6 ,now you may be thinking1 here's this chap and they tell me he has a certain reputation as a printer4 ,we get him down here to talk to us about printing1 and off he goes gassing about love1 and ,noah's flood1 and how to make money without trying to4 ,please forgive me6 ,you see ,i started as a printer and taught myself how to dress a book according to my tastes4 ,then ,i became a publisher4 ,let us make no mistake3 the important thing is the literary content of the book4 ,how it is dressed is only of secondary importance4 ,it can be dressed any old how4 ,obviously it is better when it is suitably dressed4 ,but the dress1 that is1 the printing and binding1 must not be accorded too great importance--it must not vaunt itself4 ,if you ask a book-seller who has built up a circle of people who collect cockerels why they like cockerels1 he will answer because they are cockerels4 ,by this he does not1 ,i hope1 mean because they wear cockerel dress--or1 shall ,i say1 plumage8--but rather that they are1 in their literary content1 in their dress1 and in their illustration1 examples of the cockerel idea of what a book should be4 ,of course it is no good the author thinking he has done everything--it is the composite whole which is so engaging4 ,i have known some illustrators who think the author doesn't count4 ,and authors tend to think the artist a hack who should do what he is told4 ,both may think that my own small contribution1 as the architect of the whole structure1 is unimportant4 ,quite the greatest joy for me in publishing is being in constant delightful intercourse with these beautiful authors and artists4 ,beautiful is the right word4 ,i don't mean physically1 of course1 but in their natures4 ,compare them if you like1 to the most sensitive instruments designed by man and you behold these ,god-made beings a hundred-fold more sensitive4 ,go to the races and delight in the controlled nervousness and the pent-up fire of enthusiasm in those beautiful thoroughbred horses1 and yet these dreamers of dreams1 these passionate romancers1 these scholars1 in all the controlled exuberance of their knowledge and their zeal for research1 these drawers of pictures1 who see the light that never was on sea or land3 the horses are as nothing beside them6 ,now1 who are these authors and scholars and artists8 ,well1 some are1 of course1 professionals1 in the sense that they live by their art1 and others1 a lot of them1 are civil servants1 or architects1 or even prime ministers1 who make their art a hobby4 ,but can we end there8 ,is not every roadman tidying his road1 every thatcher on the roof1 or every good accountant neatly writing his accounts1 and every worker planting his allotment of a summer's evening1 an artist to a greater or less degree8 ,he seems to me1 watching him1 to be working for love4 ,and so with those of us who make seemly books4 ,normally you have the publisher who chooses what books he will publish1 and contracts with the author to produce and sell his work in book form4 ,you have also the paper-maker1 the ink-maker1 the type-founder1 the maker of printing machinery and plant4 ,you have the printer1 with his compositors who prepare the type for press1 his proof-readers1 his pressmen who print the corrected type on the paper1 and his warehousemen1 who deal out the paper1 and pack the printed sheets4 ,you have the binders and manufacturers of material and machinery used in binding4 ,normally a host of people have taken their part1 however small1 in processes which go to the making of the finished book4 ,in a private press a very great deal of the work is concentrated in the hands of its owner4 ,in certain cases the owner himself has set the type and printed it on a hand-press4 ,his output has thus been severely limited to the productivity of one single pair of hands4 ,this is not practical politics today--one's turnover is too small to cover overheads4 ,an alternative is to employ skilled help with the type-setting and presswork4 ,this was the method employed by the ,golden ,cockerel up to #aicc4 ,for reasons ,i need not go into1 this method does not now pay4 ,the survival of the ,golden ,cockerel1 since ,i and my friends took it over in the midst of the great depression1 has been due in large measure to the method of production which we adopted4 ,by working in with the ,chiswick ,press1 a famous old firm of trade printers1 we arranged that the ,cockerel should have the use of their plant and their skilled labour precisely as and when we wanted it1 without the necessity for capital expenditure on plant or of providing the wages of skilled craftsmen1 week in week out1 whether or not fully employed4 ,those were terrible times1 and our solution was the only one practicable4 ,it was a great experiment1 but it worked4 ,of all the important private presses in this country1 the ,cockerel alone has carried on--and right through the war4 ,in the books of the ,golden ,cockerel a great tradition survives4 ,but the survival of the ,golden ,cockerel1 and of the tradition which it holds dear1 is not achieved solely by its method of production4 ,on the contrary1 there are other prime factors4 ,i have said that in my view the literary content of the book is more important than its dress4 ,we must not print for the sake of printing4 ,firstly then ,i only print what ,i greatly desire to publish--something that is really good4 ,i think ,i have been successful in finding a lot of new literary material which a sophisticated section of the community does enjoy to read4 ,of course some of my book-seller friends often beg me to print the old favourites1 for which there is such a great demand4 ,occasionally ,i oblige4 ,i have a ,gray's ,elegy at the binders now and a ,keats' ,endymion in the press4 ,but generally the ,cockerel prefers to be more enterprising4 ,look at all the literature we unearthed and published on the subject of the ,mutiny on the ,bounty--book after book4 ,and then those volumes of ,shelley's letters to ,hogg4 ,we found and published the journal kept by the ,pilgrim ,fathers when they went to ,america4 ,then there were the four previously unpublished books by that legendary character1 ,lawrence of ,arabia1 and so on4 ,these are typical of the sort of thing we've found and published for the first time4 ,not the old favorites1 but1 because they add to literature and knowledge1 so well worth making known4 ,the second important feature of ,cockerels is their illustration with engravings4 ,more than any other process1 engraving harmonizes with type4 ,engraved wood-blocks and copper-plates are very difficult to print as they should be printed1 especially on a durable rag-paper4 ,they are therefore little used in these days of mass-production4 ,in the hands of the team of artists who work for the ,golden ,cockerel1 engraving as an artistic medium is flowering as never before4 ,by the enthusiasm and love which these artists bring to their work1 they advance their techniques year by year1 always improving on their own previous best1 or the previous best of their competitors1 till there sometimes seems to be no limit to the new effects they will obtain in their illustrations4 ,it is an undying satisfaction to the ,golden ,cockerel to be able to encourage and advise talented engravers1 and1 by displaying their work to the best advantage1 to build up for them the reputations they deserve4 ,in the twenties it was ,eric ,gill1 ,robert ,gibbings1 ,eric ,ravilious1 ,david ,jones1 ,blair ,hughes-,stanton1 ,agnes ,miller-,parker and ,john ,nash4 ,in the thirties1 and more recently1 other engravers like ,clifford ,webb1 ,john ,buckland-,wright1 ,reynolds ,stone1 ,gwenda ,morgan1 ,peter ,barker-,mill1 and ,john ,o',connor have come to the fore4 ,you have seen a few examples of my own wife's work among the books ,i have brought along4 ,and now we have others too1 of an astonishing brilliance1 like ,dorothea ,braby1 coming on4 ,it is impossible for me to be sufficiently grateful for the privilege of being able in my small way to nurture this flowering and progressive art4 ,after their literary content and their illustration1 the third feature of ,cockerels which has sustained the ,press1 when other presses have fallen out1 is my policy of co-operating with the buying public--of producing books which they can afford to buy4 ,obviously the very rich men who can pay #ajj gns4 for a book are now very few and far between4 ,i have resisted the temptation to compete with the #ajj gn4 books--the museum pieces4 ,i have resisted the temptation to spend so much on the production of my books that they are inaccessible4 ,with the levelling of incomes there is now a considerable public1 which1 if it appreciates them1 can buy ,cockerels at the #b guineas or #d guineas which their production necessitates4 ,those1 then are the particular features of ,cockerels which ,illustration have maintained the ,press through difficult years4 ,that they are works of art--the conceptions of a book-architect--would not have sufficed1 but1 since they are expressions of the art of the book1 let us consider them architecturally for a few minutes4 ,the subject is vast3 ,i must try to epitomise it4444 ,,cockerel ,,devices ,,by ,,mark ,,severin ,,arthur ,w4 ,,rushmore ,,the ,,fun ,,and ,,fury ,,of ,a ,,private ,,press4 ,some ,voyages of ,the ,golden ,hind ,from ,bookmaking and ,kindred ,amenities edited by ,earl ,schenck ,miers and ,richard ,ellis4 ,copyright #aidb by ,rutgers ,university ,press4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,illustration ,it's fun1 isn't it8 said my wife4 ,i've gotten so that ,i can recall whole sonnets just by reading these first lines4 ,we were sitting in a patch of warm ,september sunshine under the walnut1 trimmed high like a giant umbrella1 over the terrace back of the press4 ,proof and copy of the long ,contents of ,edna ,millay's new volume of collected sonnets lay on the table between us as we idled1 savoring the first signs of ,fall in the yellow leaves that the breeze scattered about the gray flagstones4 ,the air was spicy and the ageratum and marigolds in the border matched the autumn colors of the goldenrod and wild asters by the roadside4 ,i love gardening1 too1 she said loyally4 ,i must pot those double begonias before the frost gets them4 ,i lit my pipe again and we went on with the proofs4 ,one hundred ninety-two pages set in ,bruce ,rogers' beautiful ,centaur1 corrected1 tied and wrapped1 lay in neat piles waiting to be taken to ,camden for printing4 ,we had worked at it off and on all summer--painstaking work1 but as rewarding1 in our eyes at least1 as any labor we could think of--interesting copy1 lots of problems to argue over1 the excitement of watching the author's mind at work as proofs came back with alterations1 changes that in some miraculous way always added clarity or cadence to the lines2 reading and re-reading proof until the sonnets became part of us4 ,now it was finished1 and we had added one more book to the world's store and to our little shelf of ,golden ,hind ,press imprints4 ,this book will be published by ,harper ,brothers in an edition which would take us the rest of our lives to print by hand4 ,the design1 the whole format and all the composition is ours4 ,the printing and binding will be done elsewhere4 ,thousands of people will share our pleasure 7or brand us failures74 ,we feel that books of this type offer golden opportunities for the private press4 ,we are not selling them1 we are making them our way for someone else to sell4 ,however1 most of our books are printed on an old hand press1 and given to our friends4 ,so far we still have our friends4 ,as a hobby1 a private press may be as extravagant1 or as inexpensive1 as one chooses to make it4 ,it's fun and hard work and a challenge to all the intelligence one possesses4 ,we started our press in #aibg1 named it ,the ,golden ,hind after ,drake's flagship that went on adventures no more hazardous than ours4 ,elmer ,adler called it ,a ,busman's ,holiday for a publisher's production man4 ,perhaps he was right4 ,at that time we knew little about the problems--about as much as parents do about the first baby4 ,we don't know much yet1 but we've had a swell time and through it have made a jolly lot of friends which in itself is reward enough4 ,we started with an ancient hand press of unknown vintage that had been in use in the cut-room at the old ,harper plant in ,pearl ,street since before the knowledge of any man now living4 ,i've an idea that it may have come from ,england when ,harpers started in #ahag4 ,until the #ahcj's all their books were printed on hand presses--so close are we to the beginnings of the art of printing4 ,later1 in ,philadelphia1 we found a big ,washington hand press in perfect condition that was going out as old metal4 ,the bed was smooth though the edges showed the nicks of hard wear from the endless up-ending of the forms of some country newspaper4 ,with decent treatment it will be just as good a hundred years from now4 ,we made up in enthusiasm what we lacked in knowledge4 ,it's not always wise to know too much--it's a great damper on ambition4 ,shortly after we started1 a chance came to do a proposed definitive edition of a well-known poet's works4 ,it was to be in seven folio volumes on handmade paper and no effort was to be spared to make it right4 ,six hundred pounds of #ah point ,lutetia and weight fonts of the smaller sizes were ordered cast at the ,ensched ,foundry in ,haarlem1 ,holland1 for the job4 ,the type duly came1 pages were set1 and sample forms printed and bound--and then the project was withdrawn6 ,in the light of accumulated experience ,i still break out in a cold sweat at the thought of our colossal nerve to have taken on such a task4 ,anyhow we had the type1 and have used it many times4 ,with it we have set the limited editions of each new book of ,edna ,st4 ,vincent ,millay's poems as they have come along1 since #aibh4 ,the status of a private press is difficult to define4 ,as far as we are concerned it is to make as well as we can only those books that we want to do and to turn down all else2 to have no help1 no payroll1 keep no books2 to care not a hoot about a balance sheet which has no column for satisfaction2 and to take all the time we want to do the job the way we want it4 ,from the standpoint of factory speed we are nothing to write home about--but we are not a factory and have no ambitions in that direction4 ,ours is a private press and we work as we please3 that is where the fun comes in4 ,we can work hard if need arises2 then hours have no meaning1 and we work till we get exhausted1 fed up1 and solemnly vow that we'll never do another book4 ,but we have been at it nearly fifteen years and we still think1 even though composition is exacting work1 that such congenial labor is the best fun in the world4 ,sometimes we have furious arguments over punctuation1 as though life depended on it4 ,it is surprising how much warmth can be generated over the position of a comma4 ,when we set ,shakespeare's ,sonnets we had at least six different sources to work from1 including a facsimile of the first edition4 ,a single punctuation mark will completely change the meaning of a sonnet1 so condensed is the wording to fit the mould4 ,no two sources agreed throughout--who were we to put in ,shakespeare's points for him--so the smoke got pretty thick sometimes1 and the result was still another reading of the sonnets embodying those details we preferred from each3 that's the fury of it4 ,the dream of every private press is to own its own private face4 ,we had our chance but didn't know what to use for money so we let it go4 ,one of the best presses in the ,united ,states now owns that type--alas6 ,we have many1 too many1 faces and borders and florets collected from ,europe when the world was sane1 yet every new volume seems to need something we do not have4 ,fred ,goudy cast for us at his shop at ,marlboro two sizes of ,mediaeval4 ,we did ,mrs4 ,browning's ,sonnets from the ,portuguese in it4 ,that type is precious now since the matrices were lost in the fire that destroyed all his equipment at ,deepdene4 ,long before the ,monotype cut the ,deepdene face1 ,fred cast it for us4 ,we used it for ,dr4 ,north's ,hymns4 ,then along came a book my wife wanted to do4 ,two hundred and eighty-eight pages of #ad pt4 ,a4,t4,f4 ,garamond all standing in galleys made a lot of type for us to store4 ,we used it again for ,frederic ,prokosch's ,the ,assassins and later for ,the ,carnival4 ,gradually the metal has crept into the house until scarcely a room is spared4 ,we sleep with #fj cases of type in stands on our sleeping porch4 ,we should be safe in a tornado--we have plenty of ballast4 ,a couple of years ago we did a group of ,edmund ,spenser's ,amoretti for ,christmas4 ,the lines breathe the spirit of another day and we wanted to preserve1 if we could1 the romantic atmosphere4 ,i remembered that for the titles of the poems in ,the ,queen's ,garland1 printed for ,r4 ,h4 ,russell in #ahih1 ,d4 ,b4 ,updike had used an odd ,italic which he told me was ,original ,old ,style cast by the old ,farmer foundry in #ahed4 ,some one had had fun with the #ah point size--it had a swell set of oversized vowels and all the long ligatures4 ,the resulting effect looked much like very early printing4 ,the mats were in the possession of the ,a4,t4,f4 though they seemed never to have heard of them and were a bit annoyed by my insisting on seeing their file copy of the ,farmer type book4 ,there it was1 and eventually they dug them out and cast them for us4 ,we printed the book on our old ,hoe hand press on ,arak ,ash white paper4 ,for a frontispiece we used ,virtue's beautiful engraving of ,spenser4 ,it was bound in tan boards with dusty rose cloth spine and a bright yellow label4 ,in many ways it is our favorite book4 ,last year we had fun 7perhaps ,i should say ,i did as my wife did not give her fullest sympathy74 #aidj was celebrated1 and how6 as the #ejjth ,anniversary of the ,invention of ,printing4 ,the whole country broke out in a rash of exhibitions1 lectures1 special articles and such like1 on poor old ,gutenberg about whom practically nothing is known to begin with1 not even that he invented movable type4 ,if he did1 he was only trying to fake manuscript writing and should have been hung as a forger4 ,i got pretty fed up on the tosh that was being handed out4 ,so1 to even the score1 ,i discovered in a garret in ,mainz1 ,germany1 the private diary of ,gutenberg's wife 7no one but ,i knew he had one74 ,by quoting from her diary ,i showed conclusively that all the credit was really hers4 ,i had cuts made of the old leather-bound volumes of the diary 7four old volumes from the ,harper ,medical ,library7 and a page of the manuscript 7translated into ,german and written in the lovely hand of ,dr4 ,otto ,fuhrmann74 ,dr4 ,herman ,pterschein1 that infallible authority on things typographic1 wrote a ,foreword4 ,it was titled ,the ,mainz ,diary3 ,new ,light on the ,invention of ,printing and #bjj copies went out for ,christmas4 ,then the unexpected happened4 ,letters began pouring in showing it was being taken as gospel4 ,pundits1 librarians1 experts in the graphic arts1 fell for it hard4 ,my wife threatened to disown me4 ,of course the tale hadn't a word of truth in it4 ,i had been in ,mainz and ,frankfort a few years before so that the thing started off with some element of reality4 ,a friend in ,london gobbled it whole--,i had to send a letter by ,clipper to keep him from showing it proudly to his friends4 ,after all1 my yarn had about as much truth in it as most of the hash that ,i'd been forced to listen to during the year and ,i'd gotten quite fond of ,frau ,gutenberg4 ,i felt1 too1 that ,i'd done my bit for the cause4 ,many of the biggest libraries1 including the ,library of ,congress1 had requested and received copies4 ,ten years from now it will pop up in some bibliography of a ,ph4,d4 thesis4 ,i had my fun all right4 ,but the boys got even with me4 ,a year later1 the editor of a well-known art magazine and his wife1 with careful deliberation and much ingenuity1 sold me down the river with a hoax that ,i gobbled whole4 ,so we are even and everybody is happy4 ,why are we so cracked about a private press8 ,i often wonder myself4 ,the house smells of printer's ink and type wash4 ,right now there are eleven metal-strapped type boxes on the sunporch where the expressman left them a week ago2 and my wife is to have a luncheon tomorrow4 ,fine looking mess4 ,i'll get around to them soon4 ,there are piles of printed signatures of our ,christmas book all over the place4 ,the composing room is crawling with undistributed type4 ,can hardly work without spilling it4 ,my pet ,vandercook brayer has fallen arches--it was left in the sun yesterday and its insides turned to soup4 ,next morning on my desk ,i found the proof of our new broadside ,emmer ,jane with the drawing at the top beautifully colored by the artist4 ,it's swell4 ,presently the messenger brought in the advance copies of the new ,sonnets bound in blue natural-finished cloth stamped in gold1 just as ,i wanted it4 ,i can hardly wait to get home to show them to my wife4 ,we must get that new type to use for ,the ,ghost ,ship4 ,we'll start it this week-end4 ,how slow the days go4 ,isn't a private press fun6 ,postscript #aiea3 ,still hard at it4 ,we are older but no wiser4 ,nowadays the grand-children come in the back door and call up the composing-room stairs1 ,arthur1 may we play type and picture cuts8 ,they spend hours at it and ,i spend hours putting things to rights4 ,the check-list has grown to #ahf books and pamphlets4 ,the work is still as exciting as ever1 though we try to check the fury a bit4 ,the skipper of the ,golden ,hind retired in ,january #aiej1 which released more time for the press2 being in business always was a nuisance4 ,we spent the summer doing a first edition of a ,mark ,twain book for ,harpers--mixed with a lot of farming4 ,for a retirement occupation we can commend a private press4 ,it keeps up the interest in life4 ,offers of work flow in1 much more than we care to accept4 ,we are not in business and we have more projects of our own than we shall ever complete4 ,it's fun to get up with the chickens and work together all morning1 spend the afternoon puttering about outdoors1 and retire at night dog tired--what my wife calls nice tired1 no nervous tension4 ,the ,golden ,hind is twenty-four years old but her seams are tight and she manages nicely--who knows1 maybe the voyage is only nicely begun4 ,,composed ,,in ,,fairfield ,,types ,illustration,,edwin ,,grabhorn,illustration ,the ,fine ,art of ,printing ,an address before the ,roxburghe ,club of ,san ,francisco at its meeting in the ,allied ,arts ,guild1 ,menlo ,park1 ,california1 ,may #ae1 #aicc4 ,fifty copies printed by ,edwin and ,robert ,grabhorn for members of the ,roxburghe ,club1 ,may #ae1 #aicc4 ,reprinted by permission of the author4 ,illustration ,i know of no better way of beginning this talk to you tonight on ,,paper1 ,,ink and ,,type than by first sketching a brief outline of the ,art of ,printing4 ,printing in its childhood was an art4 ,the highest period of any art is its childhood1 because childhood moves by spontaneous inner urge1 not by rules and intellectual bondage that runs all into fixed moulds4 ,it is an accepted truth that as skill and elaboration creep into development of an art1 simplicity1 feeling and beauty decline4 ,the early printers were not weighed down with rules1 formulas and theories which have smothered us today4 ,with but one font of type1 a wooden frame with a screw attachment and a crude inking device1 they have given us books of strength and beauty that we have never equalled4 ,we all like to think of the invention of printing as springing ,minerva-like from the brain of man4 ,printing is1 of course1 the combination of paper1 type1 ink and the press2 and these various elements were some three hundred years in the process of springing4 ,paper was the cheap substitute for vellum1 and type the substitute for hand-writing4 ,all of us are more or less familiar with the invention of printing and with its ,god-like first-born1 the ,gutenberg ,bible4 ,those who have had the thrill of examining the great #db-line ,bible have told us that it is the most beautiful book ever printed4 ,this is a magnificent tribute--one that ,i have never heard contradicted4 ,just how much of the beauty of this ,bible is due to the art of the illuminator and how much to the skill of the printer has never been told by those who represent it to be the most perfect specimen of printing4 ,a few years ago a book speculator dissected an incomplete copy1 selling the leaves with beautifully hand-illumined initials at twice the price of those pages without decoration4 ,i hope this speculator lost his ill-gotten gains in the stock market4 ,a thing of beauty stands alone1 and ,i know of no fixed law by which we can judge beauty except through the emotions2 and emotions are rather difficult to tabulate4 ,i1 myself1 can only contemplate the childhood of printing with amazement and admiration4 ,in its youth it exhausted every possibility of type arrangement4 ,an estimate of the activity of those first wooden frames can only be guessed at4 ,in ,venice alone1 as early as #adgb1 over two million separate volumes were printed4 ,by the opening of the sixteenth century the art of printing had spread to every civilized country and the supply of its raw materials became so great that the process of cheapening set in4 ,the first printers had selected as models for their types the beautiful hand-written books of their day4 ,the second generation of printers modelled their types from those of the first printers4 ,the illuminator gave way to the wood-cutter and the fine art of printing became a science1 then a craft1 and when ,william ,morris tried to stop its downward slide1 in #ahia1 it was a trade4 ,during this downward trip through four centuries1 weak attempts to restore the art of printing to its first high place in the life of man were made4 ,benjamin ,franklin wrote on the ,improvement of ,printing ,backwards1 protesting the discontinuance of the tall f4 ,but man was not interested in the intangible influence of art as much as he was in the perfection of the machine4 ,the ink was hardly dry on the effusions of our modern printing critics1 when the collapse of over-production set in and silenced them1 ,i hope1 permanently4 ,writing about modern books in the latest edition of the ,encyclopaedia ,britannica1 ,francis ,meynell of the ,nonesuch ,press says3 ,the type-setting machines used with as much skill as hand-set type will give a better result1 and in alliance with fast but very perfect cylinder printing presses1 will give this result not to a few1 but to a multitude4 ,it has taken us from the day of 'the book beautiful1' and given us the day of the beautiful book4 ,the fast moving cylinder presses of the ,nonesuch ,press have slowed up since this was written4 ,and we can thank ,god that we have some opportunity for reflection4 ,one of the modern criticisms of ,william ,morris and the private presses that he inspired is that too much stress was placed on method4 ,method means how a thing is done and how a thing is done is of very vital importance if we want to give our work durability4 ,i have said before that it was ,william ,morris who attempted to stop the downward slide of printing4 ,he was the leader in the revival of what is known as modern fine printing4 ,it has been said that ,morris was inspired by a lecture of ,emery ,walker's on the ,golden ,age of ,printing4 ,while not denying ,walker's position in this revival1 we must admit that there is a vast gulf between talking and doing4 ,morris's was a very simple yet positive personality4 ,there were no tints in his make-up4 ,when asked if he liked colors1 his answer3 blue and red1 tells us whole volumes in folio4 ,he had no tolerance for the effeminate printing of his day4 ,he even scorned the sunny pages of the ,italian ,renaissance printers4 ,it is no wonder that his ,gothic books1 in violent contrast to the weak old styles and modern type faces of his time--and our time1 too--were startling4 ,i have no doubt that some antiquarian hundreds of years hence1 delving among musty tomes1 will find ,morris's books still giants in a land of dwarfs4 ,whether you like or dislike ,morris's books is of little concern to me4 ,but what is of vital importance to me as a printer1 and should be to all printers who are endeavoring to print books that will last1 is the honesty of ,william ,morris4 ,morris knew1 because he was a collector of the earliest printed books1 that those early printed books could not have descended to him1 looking as sparkling and vital as the day they left their makers' hands1 without honesty of craftsmanship4 ,it was this craftsmanship that ,morris revived1 and that we today will have to revive again before our books can have any claims to a long life4 ,let me briefly describe to you the various processes used in the making of books1 beginning with the paper on which the book is printed4 ,morris found no paper being manufactured that was suitable for his use4 ,it was only after months of experiment and failure1 during which he worked at the paper mill himself1 that a satisfactory sheet was made for him4 ,with the closing of the ,kelmscott ,press after ,morris's death1 ,t4 ,j4 ,cobden-,sanderson and ,emery ,walker used his specifications for this paper at their ,doves ,press4 ,this mill still manufactures this paper1 and it can be obtained easily enough4 ,but it is not popular with the printers of today because its texture is so tough1 its resistance to type so great1 that we rather choose the short cut to the ,royal ,road to ,fine ,bookmaking1 using the many counterfeits with their imitation deckle edges and their artificial ageing at the mill4 ,we also like opaqueness in our paper1 although transparency is usually a guarantee of its quality4 ,all-linen-rag quality paper can easily enough be printed on if dampened first4 ,by lessening the resistance of the paper through dampening1 the type can penetrate its tough fiber1 and the ink thus becomes a part of the paper itself4 ,but by taking the short cut and not dampening the paper1 at least four times the quantity of pressure and ink must be used4 ,this over-abundance of pressure and ink still does not penetrate the paper but leaves the ink upon the paper's surface so that it looks to me as if printed from an etcher's plate4 ,the excessive amount of ink1 because of the heavy varnish used in its manufacture1 has a tendency to shine when dry1 producing a luster that is hard on the eyes4 ,in time a film of oil will encircle each individual letter1 discoloring the paper1 and the page will look like those cheaply printed eighteenth-century books do to us today4 ,i know of no process in the making of a fine book more difficult of perfecting than getting the right amount of pressure and ink into the paper4 ,in hand-made paper there is only an approximate uniformity in the thickness of the sheets1 and these variations can be overcome by using a hand-press4 ,the sense of touch must be developed until you can feel the right amount of pressure through the lever4 ,the mechanical press is so regulated that it cannot control the variations of the paper's thickness4 ,the right pressure can1 of course1 be applied to the average sheet--the heavier and lighter sheets can be sorted out before printing4 ,however1 this is seldom done4 ,the paper is usually sorted when the finished book is being collated4 ,i can speak with some authority on the importance of dampening a sheet of fine paper4 ,such a process takes lots of time1 but if you think the time not well spent compare a book from the ,kelmscott ,press with any of the books of our best machine printers of today4 ,you will see that decay is already beginning to set in in the machine book4 ,the edges of the paper will soon turn yellow and the ink begin to spread4 ,i hesitate to turn from the processes of making a fine book endure without impressing upon you the importance of using the finest quality of paper4 ,the paper1 and the ink that becomes a part of that paper1 determines the life of the book1 just as stones and mortar do in architecture4 ,no matter how fine the type or how beautiful the decorations1 the book must die if quality be lacking in both paper and ink4 ,and now just a few remarks about the binding of a book4 ,bindings are the protection for the body of a book4 ,here permanency decreases as use increases4 ,only those books that have escaped usage have come down to us with their original bindings1 except those bound in limp vellum4 ,heavy boards encased in leather were the protection of many early books4 ,the swinging of the heavy covers breaks the hinges of the book1 and this leads to destruction4 ,william ,morris revived the use of limp vellum as a book covering4 ,of far more importance than the cover in the making of a fine book is the gathering and sewing4 ,when the printed sheets are folded a trained eye should put them together so that pages either under- or over-inked may be taken out4 ,if there are no extras1 then all the light pages can be put into one book1 and the dark in another4 ,if this is done1 the critic will say that the press work is even4 ,after the book is assembled the sheets are sewn together by hand1 using a strong linen thread4 ,of course1 they can be sewn on a machine1 but you might just as well save that expense by gluing the sheets together4 ,if you don't believe me1 take a machine-sewn book1 before it is glued1 pull off the first section1 hold it up by the last page and watch the book fall to pieces4 ,hand-sewn books are sewn on either cords or tapes4 ,of course1 you can have cords and tapes on a machine-sewn book1 but they will be false ones1 pasted on after the book has been stabbed to death4 ,i do not want to give you the impression that ,i am some sort of ,john the ,baptist crying in a wilderness of machines4 ,machines are designed for special purposes and when we try to use them for a different purpose from that for which they were intended we fail4 ,you would think a carpenter who used a machine that was made to drive nails in an orange box unbalanced if he tried to adjust that machine to build a house4 ,the delicately adjusted printing press that ,francis ,meynell idealizes was designed for producing our ephemeral printing4 ,a machine cannot create--it can only assist1 directed by the mind and imagination4 ,the more that is left to the machine1 the worse the work4 ,the machine can arrive at perfection1 perfection that is cold and dead and mechanical4 ,and it is this cold and dead perfection that brings me to the beauty of the book of today4 ,i would say that ,post-,modern ,fine ,printing began in ,america with ,bruce ,rogers1 at the plant of ,william ,rudge4 ,it was ,bruce ,rogers' books that have influenced ,american and ,english printers more than any other recent single force4 ,it was the charm and finish of this man's work that none of us escaped4 ,during the years that ,bruce ,rogers was designing special editions at the ,riverside ,press there were few collectors of his books4 ,as late as #aibj1 ,i bought some of these books from the publishers4 ,they had been in stock nearly twenty years6 ,among them was ,the ,song of ,roland at the publisher's price4 ,when ,i first started printing ,i was already an admirer and collector of these ,riverside ,press limited editions4 ,now ,william ,rudge was a better business man than a printer4 ,he recognized the ability of ,rogers and engaged him4 ,then things began to happen to our ,fine ,art of ,printing4 ,the typographical designer came into fashion1 the machine was glorified and we all became theorists4 ,printing was aimed at suitability4 ,the scholar and critic displaced the master craftsman and the advertising artist was added by way of variety4 ,each new type face1 faithfully re-cut by the aid of the pantograph and resurrected from our admittedly worst periods of printing1 was eagerly bought by our typographical experts4 ,the printers who had been quietly producing books1 trying to make them a little better than necessary1 fell into the hands of the publisher and the publicity agent4 ,and the publisher announced that the next limited edition of #afjj copies was completely over-subscribed--the poor printer got one-third of what you had to pay4 ,it was a ,wonderland1 indeed1 until ,alice woke up1 and the printer was left with all the cards1 and they were all blank4 ,i am very glad it all happened4 ,i would go through any form of hysteria again1 if we could produce another ,leaves of ,grass4 ,since ,i am going to talk about type1 ,i know of nothing better than to relate our experience in printing ,walt ,whitman's masterpiece1 for it has shown me the folly of theory and intellect in art4 ,we accepted this undertaking with enthusiasm4 ,here was an opportunity to prove that we could print a book4 ,the first deposit had no more than been spent when the publishers announced it as the finest book to be printed in ,america1 and off we started on the wrong track4 ,well1 the finest book had to have the finest type and the finest type was the latest type4 ,and it had to be a folio in size1 because for ,one ,hundred ,dollars you had to get a folio4 ,we bought one thousand pounds of the finest type2 #ah point ,lutetia1 fresh from a new designer in ,holland4 ,and we hired two printers to set this bright new type and when it was all set1 we pulled a proof and started to put grass into it--pale green grass1 and it looked like grass and we pulled it out and tried again4 ,well1 every time we tried that bright new type it didn't look right4 ,so we dug up some of the latest theories about suitability1 tried again1 but it was no use4 ,the brain told us one thing and our eyes another4 ,meanwhile1 one thousand pounds of bright new type and months of labor were tied up with strings and the ,master ,craftsman was getting worried4 ,he went to specialists for advice4 ,they said3 ,try this new initial or this new picture1 and the ,master ,craftsman went back to his shop and bowed his head4 ,then his tired eyes lighted on a dusty case of type1 designed by the artist ,goudy but the critics had condemned it to the graveyard4 ,wearily the ,craftsman dug it up and set a page of ,whitman in it4 ,then he pulled a proof and ,lo6 ,he saw something that the machine had discarded2 he saw strength3 he saw the strong1 vigorous lines of ,whitman1 born of the soil1 without grass4 ,he saw what he had heard whispered before4 ,he saw strong1 vigorous1 simple printing--printing like mountains1 rocks and trees1 but not like pansies1 lilacs and valentines2 printing that came from the soil and was not refined in the class-room4 ,and the printer knew that the limited edition was not a racket as long as he had honesty and sincerity1 and reverence for the best traditions of his craft4 ,illustration,,holbrook ,,jackson,illustration ,,the ,,typography ,,of ,,william ,,morris ,from ,the ,printing of ,books by ,holbrook ,jackson4 ,copyright #aich by ,cassell ,company1 ,ltd4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,first read as a paper1 at the ,william ,morris ,centenary ,dinner of the ,double ,crown ,club1 ,london1 ,may #b1 #aicd4 ,william ,morris is an ironic figure4 ,his achievements not only missed their mark1 but hit marks he was not aiming at4 ,his printing is no exception4 ,the masterpieces of the ,kelmscott ,press which he aimed at making useful pieces of goods were typographical curiosities from birth1 and so far removed from the common way of readers that they have become models of what a book should not be4 ,he was a ,bibliophile1 or more exactly1 a typophile whose affections became unruly in the presence of decorated incunabula1 and1 although he was outwardly correct towards pure printing1 his heart was not there4 ,according to ,sir ,sydney ,cockerell he flirted with the idea of a folio edition of ,the ,earthly ,paradise1 profusely illustrated by ,sir ,edward ,burne-,jones1 a quarter of a century before the inception of the ,kelmscott ,press4 ,his personal taste was much the same then as later1 although he continued to pay homage to good as distinct from fine printing4 ,it was the essence of my undertaking1 he said1 to produce books which it would be a pleasure to look upon as pieces of printing and arrangement of type4 ,thus inspired by the example of the calligraphy of the ,middle ,ages1 and the earlier printing which took its place1 and in spite of his passion for decorated books he observed that the early printed books were always beautiful by force of the mere typography1 even without the added ornament with which many of them are so lavishly supplied4 ,much has been made of the emphasis he laid upon the book as an organic assembly of paper1 type1 and binding4 ,but although few printers or publishers in the nineteenth century had insisted upon the excellence of these ingredients1 as he did1 the architectonic principle had never been wholly ignored4 ,but in the main it was unconsciously observed4 ,deliberation is evident in the construction of the ,pickering books1 in the ,keepsakes and ,table ,books of the thirties and forties1 in the illustrated books of the sixties1 and the later productions of the ,daniel ,press2 and1 if we may leave ,england for a moment1 in such convenient publications as those of ,bernhard ,tauchnitz1 where there is rectitude to satisfy the demands of the most austere of functionalists4 ,it was not1 then1 the architectonics of the ,kelmscott books which evoked a typographical revolution4 ,nor was it the pursuit of beauty which always haunted ,morris's intentions4 ,i began printing books1 he said1 in the hope of producing some which would have a definite claim to beauty4 ,many printers and publishers of the time would have claimed as much4 ,bad taste in the arts and crafts is invariably the result of beauty-mongering1 and the more costly books of the nineteenth century are littered with beauty from cover to cover4 ,neither was it originality4 ,morris never sought to be original4 ,he was a revivalist1 and all his work is derivative4 ,there is nothing new even in that1 for all the arts and crafts are derivative1 and originality is apt to be a myth and often a nuisance4 ,morris was even less original than many other earnest innovators1 and the ,kelmscott books are derivatives twice removed4 ,they are modern variations of the early printed books of northern ,europe1 as they in turn were but mechanical imitations of the manuscripts which preceded the invention of movable types4 ,nor again was there anything peculiar even in that1 for all mechanical evolution seems to proceed in the same manner4 ,the earliest railway carriages followed the lines of the stage-coach2 the earliest steamships were schooners and brigantines with funnels and paddle-boxes2 and the earliest motor-car was a horseless-carriage complete with tail-board4 ,it is not surprising to learn that the earliest printed books were imitations of manuscripts1 but it is surprising to find a nineteenth-century printer of genius imitating the imitations4 ,illustration3 ,a page from ,poems ,by ,the ,way1 written by ,morris and set in the ,kelmscott ,golden type4 ,this small quarto was the first book printed at the ,press in two colors1 black and red4 ,issued in ,october1 #ahia1 in an edition of #cjj copies on paper and #ac on vellum4 ,there is1 however1 more than one difference between these mechanical devices and the ,kelmscott books4 ,the engineers copied because they could not think of anything better4 ,now and then they even made concessions to beauty1 in the form of superadded decorations1 much as ,morris did4 ,but there was a marked difference between them1 for ,morris knew better4 ,although to him beauty meant decoration or ornament1 yet in the first edition of ,the ,roots of the ,mountains he actually produced an undecorated book of great distinction4 ,the book is not only admirable in itself1 but it has had a better influence on recent typography than all the ,kelmscott books together4 ,morris himself was delighted with the book4 ,he declared it to be the best-looking book issued since the seventeenth century1 and added3 ,i am so pleased with my book1 typography1 binding1 and must ,i say it1 literary matter1 that ,i am any day to be seen huggling it up1 and am become a spectacle to ,gods and men because of it4 ,his enthusiasm rings true1 but this was a passing fancy1 for even then he was in hot pursuit of more opulent beauties4 ,it was the magnificence of the ,kelmscott adventure which impressed and influenced printers1 professional and amateur1 and resuscitated the curious vogue for so-called ,private ,press books artificially rarefied and deliberately beautified4 ,but1 in spite of many extravagances and some few absurdities1 the ,kelmscott influence has been beneficial4 ,morris reasserted sound principles1 and the richness of his books helped to secure their acceptance4 ,the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom4 ,the style of the books themselves1 because of their massive individuality1 must always provoke differences of opinion1 but in the house of books there are many mansions1 and room for all tastes1 whims1 and even fads4 ,i prefer my books pocketable1 flexible1 and legible4 ,in the ,kelmscott books these qualities are not sufficiently balanced4 ,each is there in some measure1 but something is invariably added to weaken proportion4 ,william ,morris 7or worse1 ,burne-,jones7 is always getting between reader and author4 ,i like my ,chaucer neat4 ,morris produced ,chaucer as ,henry ,irving and ,beerbohm ,tree produced ,shakespeare4 ,i suspect that enthusiasts for such productions are not readers4 ,the idea is supported by the fact that the majority of ,kelmscotts are still in mint state2 it is not easy to meet a copy bearing the honourable and endearing scars of use4 ,illustration3 ,a page from the first book printed in the ,kelmscott ,troy type1 ,the ,recuyell of the ,histories of ,troye1 a large quarto printed in black and red and published by ,bernard ,quaritch in #ahib4 ,the edition3 ,two volumes1 #cjj copies on paper and #e on vellum4 ,as to the matter of the book1 wrote ,morris1 it makes a thoroughly amusing story1 instinct with medieval thought and manners4 ,legibility is relative1 as ,i am reminded by my own experience1 for myself when young did eagerly frequent ,pickering's ,diamond ,classics--a practice ,i should probably have defended with conviction based upon sight rather than insight4 ,i take a different view today1 not only of miniature types1 but of rules and spacings generally4 ,morris granted the necessity of legibility4 ,in this he differed from another poet and amateur of printing1 ,robert ,bridges1 who used ,gothic characters for the ,daniel ,press edition of his poems to induce slow ingestion4 ,morris believed that solidity of type and setting made for easy reading4 ,by solid type he meant without needless excrescences or the thickening or thinning of the line1 which1 with reservations1 can be defended4 ,density of type area is a different matter and1 if ,i admit charm1 ,i reserve the right to question even aesthetical propriety in favour of legibility4 ,the solid page is impressive3 solidity inspires confidence1 but confidence1 as we know1 is often illusion and not always guiltless of trickery4 ,the first edition of ,the ,roots of the ,mountains would probably have been more readable with than without rules4 ,but although legibility must always be the first rule of printing1 there are other important principles4 ,morris summed them up in the word beauty with impressive but dubious results1 because of his predilection for ornamentation4 ,any plain space for him was an opportunity for decoration1 or1 in ,ruskin's words1 for the expression of man's joy in his work4 ,he would go out of his way to make books bigger than they need be so that he might have more space to fill with his and ,burne-,jones's illustrations4 ,his type-faces became picturesque1 his margins inclined to pomposity1 and his paper was pretentious4 ,the ,kelmscott books are overdressed4 ,they ask you to look at them rather than to read them4 ,you can't get away from their overwhelming typography1 and1 even if you could1 you might still be cheated of your author by their high-minded purpose1 for in addition to being the creations of an impressive genius the ,kelmscott books were protests against the logical conclusions of mechanical book-production4 ,all these things are hindrances to reading1 and ,i still believe that to be read is the destiny of a book1 and that reading is best when you are least conscious of print or paper or binding4 ,since the ,kelmscott books are not likely to induce that condition they must remain museum pieces1 typographical monuments--beautiful and ineffectual angels beating in the void their luminous wings in vain4 ,,composed ,,in ,,emerson ,,types ,stanley ,morison ,,first ,,principles ,,of ,,typography ,published #aiea by the syndics of the ,cambridge ,university ,press4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,,note3 ,this essay towards a rationale of book-typography was first attempted as an article1 s4v4 ,typography1 in the twelfth edition of the ,encyclopedia ,britannica 7,chicago and ,london1 #aibi74 ,it was reconsidered and entirely rewritten for ,no4 #g of ,the ,fleuron 7,cambridge1 #aicj7 when it also went out of print4444 ,although several reprints have been brought out and extracts have been made1 demands continue for the whole text from printers as well as from those outside the trade for whom the article was originally written4444 ,as the brevity of the essay seems to be one of its most approved qualities1 no expansion1 and only slight revision1 was made4444 ,the present reprint is that of the ,amsterdam edition published in #aidg1 in which the first paragraph was interpolated4444 ,it may be added that while the principles here set forth apply to the typography of books1 the sections dealing with composition may be adapted to the design of newspapers and publicity4444 ,s4,m4 ,i ,letters of the alphabet that are cast or founded for the purpose of impressing upon paper are known as types and the impression thus made as a print4 ,but every impression1 from any raised surface1 is a print4 ,hence the impression from the particular raised surfaces known as types is called a typographical impression2 or1 to use a more old-fashioned term1 letter-press4 ,the precise form of the types and the exact position they need to occupy upon the selected paper involve skill in the art that is called typography4 ,typography may be defined as the art of rightly disposing printing material in accordance with specific purpose2 of so arranging the letters1 distributing the space and controlling the type as to aid to the maximum the reader's comprehension of the text4 ,typography is the efficient means to an essentially utilitarian and only accidentally aesthetic end1 for enjoyment of patterns is rarely the reader's chief aim4 ,therefore1 any disposition of printing material which1 whatever the intention1 has the effect of coming between author and reader is wrong4 ,it follows that in the printing of books meant to be read there is little room for bright typography4 ,even dullness and monotony in the type-setting are far less vicious to a reader than typographical eccentricity or pleasantry4 ,cunning of this sort is desirable1 even essential in the typography of propaganda1 whether for commerce1 politics1 or religion1 because in such printing only the freshest survives inattention4 ,but the typography of books1 apart from the category of narrowly limited editions1 requires an obedience to convention which is almost absolute--and with reason4 ,since printing is essentially a means of multiplying1 it must not only be good in itself--but be good for a common purpose4 ,the wider that purpose1 the stricter are the limitations imposed upon the printer4 ,he may try an experiment in a tract printed in an edition of #ej copies1 but he shows little common sense if he experiments to the same degree in the tract having a run of #ej1jjj4 ,again1 a novelty1 fitly introduced into a #af-page pamphlet1 will be highly undesirable in a #afj-page book4 ,it is of the essence of typography and of the nature of the printed book qua book1 that it perform a public service4 ,for single or individual purpose there remains the manuscript1 the codex2 so there is something ridiculous in the unique copy of a printed book1 though the number of copies printed may justifiably be limited when a book is the medium of typographical experiment4 ,it is always desirable that experiments be made1 and it is a pity that such laboratory pieces are so limited in number and in courage4 ,typography today does not so much need ,inspiration or ,revival as ,investigation4 ,it is proposed here to formulate some of the principles already known to book-printers1 which investigation confirms and which non-printers may like to consider for themselves4 ,,ii ,the laws governing the typography of books intended for general circulation are based first upon the essential nature of alphabetical writing1 and secondly upon the traditions1 explicit or implicit1 prevailing in the society for which the printer is working4 ,while a universal character or typography applicable to all books produced in a given national area is practicable1 to impose a universal detailed formula upon all books printed in ,roman types is not4 ,national tradition expresses itself in the varying separation of the book into prelims1 chapters1 etc41 no less than in the design of the type4 ,but at least there are physical rules of linear composition which are obeyed by all printers who know their job4 ,the normal ,roman type 7in simple form without special sorts1 etc47 consists of an upright design1 and a sloping form of it3 ,,abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ,,abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ,,abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ,the printer needs to be very careful in choosing his type1 realizing that the more often he is going to use it1 the more closely its design must approximate to the general idea held in the mind's eye of readers perforce ruled by the familiar magazine1 newspaper and book4 ,it does no harm to print a ,christmas card in black-letter1 but who nowadays would read a book in that type8 ,i may believe1 as ,i do1 that black-letter is in design more homogeneous1 more lively and more economic a type than the grey round ,roman we use1 but ,i do not now expect people to read a book in it4 ,aldus' and ,caslon's are both relatively feeble types1 but they represent the forms accepted by the community2 and the printer1 as a servant of the community1 must use them1 or one of their variants4 ,no printer should say1 ,i am an artist1 therefore ,i am not to be dictated to4 ,i will create my own letter forms1 for1 in this humble job1 no printer is an artist in this sense4 ,nor is it possible today1 as it just was in the infancy of the craft1 to persuade society into the acceptance of strongly marked and highly individualistic types--because literate society is so much greater in mass and correspondingly slower in movement4 ,type design moves at the pace of the most conservative reader4 ,the good type-designer therefore realizes that1 for a new fount to be successful1 it has to be so good that only very few recognize its novelty4 ,if readers do not notice the consummate reticence and rare discipline of a new type1 it is probably a good letter4 ,but if my friends think that the tail of my lower-case r or the lip of my lower-case e is rather jolly1 you may know that the fount would have been better had neither been made4 ,a type which is to have anything like a present1 let alone a future1 will neither be very different nor very jolly4 ,so much for ,type4 ,the printer possesses also ,spaces and ,leads as a normal part of his typographical material1 straight lines of metal known as rules1 braces1 and finally a more or less indiscriminate collection of ornaments--head and tailpieces1 flowers1 decorated initial letters1 vignettes and flourishes4 ,another decorative medium at his option lies in his command of colour2 red is1 with sound instinct1 the most frequently used4 ,for emphasis1 heavy faces are used4 ,white space is an important item of composing-room equipment--margins1 blanks1 etc41 being filled in with what are known as quotations4 ,the selecting and arranging of these elements is known as ,composition4 ,imposition is the placing of the composed matter upon the sheet4 ,printing includes impressing in due order1 perfecting the sheet in due register 7backing up71 regulating the inking1 and achieving a crisp type-page4 ,finally the tone1 weight and texture of the paper are important factors entering into the completed result4 ,typography1 therefore1 controls the composition1 imposition1 impression and paper4 ,of paper1 it is at least necessary to demand that it be capable of expressing the value of the composition2 of imposition1 that the margins be proportionate to the area of the text1 affording decent space for thumbs and fingers at the side and bottom of the page4 ,the old-style margins are handsome in themselves and agreeable to the purpose of a certain kind of book1 but are obviously not convenient in books where the page dimension is unavoidably small or narrow1 or the purpose of the book is to be carried in the pocket4 ,for these and other kinds of book1 the type may be centred on the measure of the page1 and slightly raised above ocular centre4 ,imposition is the most important element in typography--for no page1 however well composed in detail1 can be admired if the mise-en-page is careless or ill-considered4 ,in practical printing today1 these details of imposition are on the whole adequately cared for2 so that it is possible to report that the mass of books presents a tolerable appearance4 ,even a badly composed work may give a good appearance if it is well imposed--good imposition redeeming bad composition1 while a good composition would be effectively ruined by bad imposition4 ,,iii ,the designer of the book1 therefore1 first determines his imposition and then tackles the details of composition4 ,the first principles of composition do not require much discussion since they necessarily follow from the conventions of alphabetical printing in the ,roman letter accepted by those for whom we are printing4 ,the matter is relatively simple4 ,first1 it is certain that the eye cannot read with ease any considerable number of words composed of letters embodying sharply contrasted thicks and thins2 secondly1 it is none the less certain that the eye cannot agreeably read a mass of words composed even in a rightly constructed letter1 if the lines are beyond a certain length4 ,the most expert reader's eye cannot seize more than a certain number of words in a given size except in a proportionate length of line4 ,thirdly1 practice proves that the size of the letter must be related to the length of line4 ,respect for these principles will generally protect the reader from the risk of doubling 7reading the same line twice74 ,the average line of words which the reader's eye can conveniently seize is between ten and twelve4 ,nevertheless1 the typographer1 while exerting himself to the utmost to respect this ocular truth1 is daily confronted with the fact that unavoidable conditions make it impossible for him to secure a type of the duly related size1 and that he is driven to use a relatively small type4 ,to obviate here the risk of doubling1 he consistently inserts proportionate leads through the matter1 so opening the lines that the eye comfortably travels and returns from beginning to end and from end to beginning4 ,the practice of leading1 denounced in certain quarters as essentially evil1 is an inevitable necessity to a large proportion of printing2 and the skilled typographer1 making the best use of his material1 makes in turn1 wise use of leads4 ,the orthodox high-brow view that leads produce in every instance an unhappy weak-looking effect will not survive a wide experience4 ,on the contrary1 it will be found that their absence may effectively ruin even a composition in large type1 so that it is true to say that the intelligent use of leading distinguishes the expert from the inexpert printer4 ,a slight differentiation of type-face may make the practice advisable4 ,clearly1 while a letter of the size now under the reader's eye1 with fairly long ascenders and descenders1 would not require leading unless set to a measure of more than #c-a_/b in41 there exist letters with short descenders designed rather to sustain leading by rule than by exception4 ,baskerville's is a type to which leading is invariably an advantage4 ,the problem of determining the amount to be given is not to be settled by considering only the ascenders or the body of the type1 because breadth of letter is also a factor to be reckoned with--some letters are narrow in respect to their height1 while others are wide4 ,a composition in a round1 open1 wide letter1 chosen because it is rather loose 7that is to say1 the space between the letters is greater1 or appears greater1 by reason of the curves of the c1 o1 e1 g71 gains in consistency when there is a satisfactory lead between the lines4 ,it is often argued that loose setting is not admirable in itself2 to which it might be replied that the printer is generally bound to carry out the instructions of his customer2 often to respect the wishes of an artist who may be illustrating the work2 and1 not seldom1 committed by the publisher to a paper-size dictated by irrelevant considerations4 ,further1 it is obvious that the space between words composed in a condensed letter may be less than that between words in a round1 wide form of letter4 ,where there is no leading between the lines1 and the composition is1 for extrinsic reasons1 necessarily tight1 it may be an advantage to set leads between the paragraphs1 even though this result in pages with uneven tails4 ,in paragraphing1 it is important to realize that the opening sentence of a work should automatically manifest itself as such4 ,this may be secured by the use of the large initial letter2 the printing of the first word in ,,capitals1 or ,,small ,,capitals 2 ,,capitals and ,,small ,,capitals 2 or by setting the first word into the margin4 ,on no account should the opening of a chapter be indented1 since indention should mark 7and always mark7 the subsequent sections1 i4e41 the paragraphs1 of the text4 ,the abolition of paragraph-indentions is plainly an undesirable practice2 nor is setting the first word in capitals or small capitals an agreeable substitute for the indention4 ,the space of the indention should be sufficient to be noticeable4 ,as both measures must be related1 displaying a proportion pleasing to the eye1 the depth of the page follows from its width4 ,it seems that the proportions of the oblong are more pleasing than those of the square2 and as a horizontal oblong drives out the line to an impossible length1 and a two-column arrangement is tedious1 the vertical oblong has become the normal page4 ,such are the elements of typography2 and a volume built up of type-pages composed in accordance with them will be generally satisfactory4 ,there remain only the page headings and the folio4 ,by ranging the headings inside towards the gutter1 to the left and right respectively1 two pages are fixed as a unity2 but they can also be ranged outside to the right and left1 or they may be centered4 ,the folio may be centered at the foot1 or range either way at the top or bottom 7preferably1 for quicker reference1 on the outside71 but it cannot be centered at the top without cancelling the running page headline--only to be done by exception4 ,the running headlines may be set in capitals of the text1 in upper and lower-case of the text1 or in a combination of capitals4 ,full-sized capitals overemphasize what is1 after all1 a repetitive page-feature inserted chiefly for the convenience of librarians and readers interested in the identification of leaves which have worked loose4 ,if set in upper and lower-case1 the headline loses in levelness1 so that it seems well to employ ,s ,m ,a ,l ,l ,c ,a ,p ,i ,t ,a ,l ,s2 these are best separated by hair spaces1 since the unrelieved rectangular structure and perpendicularity of capitals tend to defeat instantaneous recognition4 ,full-sized capitals may well be used for chapter headings1 with the number of the chapter in smalls2 both indications being hair-spaced4 ,the reader1 travelling from the generally invariable blank at the end of a chapter to the beginning of the next1 finds a dropped chapter head an agreeably consistent feature1 which saves him from feeling suffocated or overpowered by the text4 ,,iv ,the foregoing elementary directions affect the main part of the book1 its body4 ,there remains a section which goes before the text1 known as the preliminaries1 often complicated both in respect to arrangement and draftsmanship4 ,before considering these1 it may be well to summarize our present findings--to concentrate them into a formula4 ,according to our doctrine1 a well-built book is made up from vertical oblong pages arranged in paragraphs having an average line of ten to twelve consistently spaced words1 set in a fount of comfortable size and familiar design2 the lines sufficiently separated to prevent doubling and the composition being headed by a running title4 ,this rectangle is so imposed upon the page as to provide centre1 head1 fore-edge and tail margins of dimensions suitably related not only to the length of line but to the disposition of space at those points where the text is cut into chapters1 and where the body joins the prefatory and other pages known as preliminaries4 ,now these first pages1 being intended rather for reference than for reading and re-reading1 are less strictly governed by convention than the text-pages4 ,they consequently offer the maximum opportunity for typographic design4 ,the history of printing is in large measure the history of the title-page4 ,when fully developed1 the title occupied a recto page1 either partially or wholly2 and the title-phrase1 or the principal words of it1 has generally been set in a conspicuous size of type4 ,sixteenth-century ,italian printers generally used large capitals copied from inscriptions1 or by exception1 from medieval manuscripts2 while ,english use emulated the ,french in employing a canon line of upper and lower-case1 followed by a few lines of pica capitals4 ,next came the printer's device1 and at the foot of the page1 his name and address4 ,these large sizes of upper and lower-case1 an inheritance from printers who were accustomed to black-letter 7which cannot be set in solid capitals71 have gone4 ,the device has also vanished 7it has been revived by a few publishers71 and thus the contemporary title page is generally a bleak affair1 exhibiting in nine out of ten cases a space between the title and the imprint of the printer-publisher1 so that this blank tends to be the strongest feature on the page4 ,when the device was first abandoned1 the author1 printer or publisher took advantage of the leisure of the reader and the blank at their disposal1 to draft a tediously long title1 subtitle and list of the author's qualifications1 designed to fill the entire page4 ,the present-day publisher goes to the other extreme1 reducing the title to as few short words as possible1 followed with by and the author's name4 ,a professional writer may insert1 e4g41 ,author of ,the ,deluge under his name or there may be incorporated a motto2 but apart from such exceptions1 three and sometimes four inches of space separate the author's name from the first line of the imprint4 ,the result is that unless the title is set in a size of type out of all relation to that of the remainder of the book1 this space is more conspicuous than the chief line4 ,it is more reasonable to lessen this space by shortening the depth of the whole piece from title to imprint4 ,it is clear that a volume in #ab-point does not require a #cj-point title unless it be a folio in double-column2 and it is of no consequence if the title page is a little shorter than the text pages4 ,there is no reason1 other than a desire to be different1 for a title page to bear any line of type larger than twice the size of the text letter4 ,if the book be set in #ab-point1 the title need be no larger than #bd-point--and may decently enough be smaller4 ,as lower-case is a necessary evil1 which we should do well to subordinate since we cannot suppress1 it should be avoided when it is at its least rational and least attractive--in large sizes4 ,the main line of a title should be set in capitals2 and1 like all titling capitals1 they should be spaced4 ,whatever may happen to the rest of the composition1 the author's name1 like all displayed proper names1 should be in capitals4 ,v ,here we may pause to counter an objection4 ,it will be contended that whatever the value of our preceding conclusions1 their adoption must mean an increase in standardization--all very well for those who have an economic objective but very monotonous and dull for those whose aim is that books shall possess more life4 ,this means that the objectors want more variety1 more differentness1 more decoration4 ,the craving to decorate is natural1 and only if it is allowed the freedom of the text pages shall we look upon it as a passion to be resisted4 ,the decoration of title pages is one thing--that of a fount to be employed in books is another4 ,our contention1 in this respect1 is that the necessities of a mass-production book and the limited edition differ neither in kind nor in degree1 since all printing is essentially a means of the multiplication of a text set in an alphabetical code of conventional symbols4 ,to disallow variety in the vital details of the composition is not to insist upon uniformity in display4 ,as already pointed out1 the preliminary pages offer scope for the utmost typographical ingenuity4 ,yet even here1 a word of caution may be in place1 so soon do we forget1 in arranging any piece of display 7above all1 a title page71 the supreme importance of sense4 ,every character1 every word1 every line should be seen with maximum clearness4 ,words should not be broken except unavoidably1 and in title pages and other compositions of centred matter1 lines should hardly begin with such feeble parts of speech as prepositions and conjunctions4 ,it is more reasonable1 as assisting the reader's immediacy of comprehension1 to keep these to the ends of lines or to centre them in smaller type and so bring out the salient lines in a relatively conspicuous size4 ,no printer1 in safeguarding himself from the charge of monotony in his composition1 should admit1 against his better judgment1 any typographical distraction doing violence to logic and lucidity in the supposed interests of decoration4 ,to twist his text into a triangle1 squeeze it into a box1 torture it into the shape of an hour-glass or a diamond is an offence requiring greater justification than the existence either of ,italian and ,french precedents of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries1 or of an ambition to do something new in the twentieth4 ,in truth1 these are the easiest tricks of all1 and we have seen so much of them during the late revival of printing that we now need rather a revival of restraint4 ,in all permanent forms of typography1 whether publicly or privately printed1 the typographer's only purpose is to express1 not himself1 but his author4 ,there are1 admittedly1 other purposes which enter into the composition of advertisement1 publicity and sales matter2 and there is1 of course1 a very great deal common to both book and advertisement composition4 ,but it is not allowable to the printer to relax his zeal for the reader's comfort in order to satisfy an ambition to decorate or to illustrate4 ,rather than run this risk the printer should strive to express himself by the use of this or that small decorative unit1 either of common design supplied by the type founders or drawn for his office by an artist4 ,it is quite true that to an inventive printer decoration is not often necessary4 ,in commercial printing1 however1 it seems to be a necessity1 because the complexity of our civilization demands an infinite number of styles and characters4 ,publishers and other buyers of printing1 by insisting upon a setting which shall express their business1 their goods1 their books and nobody else's business or goods or books1 demand an individuality which pure typography can never hope to supply4 ,but book-printers1 concerned with the permanently convenient rather than with the transiently sensational or the merely fashionable1 should be on their guard against title-page borders1 vignettes and devices invented to ease their difficulties4 ,there is no easy way with most title pages2 and the printer's task is rendered more difficult by the average publisher's and author's incompetence to draft a title or to organize the preliminaries in reasonable sequence4 ,,vi ,those who would like to lessen or vary the tendency towards standardization in day-today book production have a field for their activity in the last-mentioned pages4 ,the position on the page of the half-title1 title1 dedication1 etc41 and their relation to each other1 are not essentially invariable4 ,nevertheless1 as it is well for printers and publishers to have rules1 and the same rules1 it may be suggested that the headings to ,preface1 ,table of ,contents1 ,introduction1 etc41 should be in the same size and fount as the chapter heads2 and should be dropped if they are dropped4 ,the order of the preliminaries remains to be settled4 ,with the exception of the copyright notice1 which may be set on the verso of the title page1 all should begin on a recto4 ,the logical order of the preliminary pages is ,half-title or ,dedication 7,i see no reason for including both71 ,title1 ,contents1 ,preface1 ,introduction4 ,the certificate of limitation1 in the case of books of that class1 may face the title where there is no frontispiece1 be incorporated with the half-title1 or be taken to the end of the volume4 ,this order is applicable to most categories of books4 ,novels need neither ,table of ,contents nor ,list of ,chapters1 though one or the other is too often printed4 ,if it is decided to retain either1 it would be reasonable to print it on the back of the half-title and facing the title page1 so that the structure1 scope and nature of the book will be almost completely indicated to the reader at a single opening4 ,where the volume is made up of a few short stories1 their titles can be listed in the otherwise blank centre of the title page4 ,,vii ,fiction1 ,belles-,lettres and ,educational books are habitually first published in portable1 but not pocketable formats2 crown octavo 7#e by #g-a_/b in47 being the invariable rule for novels published as such4 ,the novel in the form of ,biography will be published as a ,biography1 demy octavo 7#e-e_/h by #h-c_/d in471 the size also for ,history1 ,political ,study1 ,archaeology1 ,science1 ,art and almost everything but ,fiction4 ,novels are only promoted to this format when they have become famous and standard2 when they are popular rather than famous they are composed in pocket 7#d-a_/b by #f-c_/d in47 editions4 ,size1 therefore1 is the most manifest difference between the categories of books4 ,another obvious difference is bulk1 calculated in accordance with the publisher's notion1 first1 of the general sense of trade expectation and1 secondly1 of the purchasing psychology of a public habituated to certain selling prices vaguely related to number of pages and thickness of volume 7inconsistently enough1 weight does not enter into these expectations74 ,these habits of mind have consequences in the typography2 they affect the choice of fount and size of type1 and may necessitate the adoption of devices for driving out1 i4e41 making the setting take up as much room as possible4 ,by putting the running headline between rules or rows of ornaments2 introducing unnecessary blanks between chapters2 contracting the measure2 exaggerating the spaces between the words and the lines2 excessively indenting paragraphs2 isolating quoted matter with areas of white space3 inserting wholly unnecessary sectional titles in the text and surrounding them with space2 contriving to drive a chapter ending to the top of a recto page so that the rest of it and its verso may be blank2 using thick paper2 increasing the depth of chapter beginnings and inserting very large versals thereto2 and so on1 the volume can be inflated to an extra sixteen pages and sometimes more--which is a feat the able typographer is expected to accomplish without showing his hand4 ,limited editions of standard authors1 or of authors whose publishers desire them to rank as such1 are commonly given a rubricated title or some other feature not strictly necessary4 ,a dreadful example of overdone rubrication is to be found in an edition of ,thomas ,hardy's verse1 in which the running heads throughout the book are in red--the production of a firm which desired to make an impression on the purchaser in view of the price asked for the edition4 ,this could have been better done by reserving colour for the initial letters4 ,handmade paper is generally used for ditions de luxe1 and none but the brave among publishers will disregard the superstitious love of the book-buying classes for its untrimmed1 ugly and dirt-gathering edges4 ,that most of the public prefer to have it so is because a trimmed book looks ordinary to them4 ,any book which is different from the ordinary in one superficial way or another is apt to impress those lacking trade experience4 ,and there has been a notable increase during recent years in the category of books1 generally illustrated1 known to the trade as fine printing1 ditions de luxe1 press-books1 limited editions1 collectors' books1 etc4 ,hence1 it is hoped that the above setting out of the first principles of typography may give the discriminating reader some sort of yardstick which he can apply not only to the entries catalogued by the book-sellers as limited editions1 but to the output of publishers responsible for printing the literary and scientific books which are more necessary to society1 and are often designed with greater intelligence4 ,,composed ,,in ,,new ,,times ,,roman ,,types ,illustration,,carl ,,purington ,,rollins,illustration ,american ,type ,designers and ,their ,work ,published by ,the ,lakeside ,press #aidg-aidh4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,a piece of paper about two inches square1 originally pinned to the manuscript of the ,rev4 ,ezra ,stiles's diary in the ,yale ,university ,library is all that remains of the first original ,american type design4 ,it is a proof of letters made by ,abel ,buell1 a ,connecticut ,yankee1 in #agfi4ce ,buell was his own designer1 punch cutter1 and caster1 since in his day1 as for many years after1 the making of type was entirely a hand operation4 ,not the least exacting part of the work was the cutting of the punch on the end of a short bar of softened steel4 ,it was not until the invention of the ,benton pantograph punch-cutting machine in #ahhe that any other method was known4 ,all type made before #ahhe was therefore dependent on hand punch cutting1 and the designer of the type was almost always the same man who cut the punches4 ,who these type designers were after ,buell is a matter of uncertainty and obscurity4 ,the first type specimen book in ,america was that of ,binny ,ronaldson of ,philadelphia1 issued in #ahab2 and from then almost to our own day the type foundries have taken the credit for the type designs which they have offered for sale4 ,type designers1 like architects1 got no credit2 possibly ,modesty1 with a backward glance at old specimen books1 raised a warning finger1 and the designers were willing to let the foundries have whatever glory there was4 ,illustration3 ,the ,punch ,cutting ,machine4 ,courtesy ,george ,macy ,publications4 ,abel ,buell and his contemporaries and successors followed the general trends in design in the arts as a whole4 ,the ,greek ,revival and the ,victorian ,age1 marked by the two great expositions at ,london and ,philadelphia with their crudities and extravagancies in design1 found echoes in our imitative craft of printing4 ,so it is not surprising that type design began to improve1 along with the other arts1 with the advent of the '#ij's4 ,we have always followed ,european and especially ,english models1 and it is natural that the upheaval in type design in ,england under ,morris's influence had immediate repercussions here4 ,but while imitations of ,kelmscott types were soon on the market1 two surprisingly original ,american designs appeared at the same time as the imitations4 ,about #ahid or #ahie the ,central ,type ,foundry of ,st4 ,louis introduced a face which became widely used1 called 7for no better reason than attends the christening of most type faces7 ,de ,vinne4 ,it is of unknown parentage1 though there is some reason to suppose that it descended from the ,elzevirs2 but it was a face of character and distinction4 ,at the same time the same foundry brought out another design which had an acknowledged father--,will ,bradley4 ,of this face it has been said that it has remarkably bold letters1 with peculiarities of form never before attempted4 ,thus we have in the ,de ,vinne and the ,bradley faces two fresh and distinctively ,american types1 destined to be the forerunners of many others4 ,and in one case the name of the designer was definitely attached4 ,with the invention of the pantograph punch cutter1 type design became an art rather than a craft1 and as might be expected the personality of the designer became for various reasons more important4 ,it is not without interest that the chief designer of the ,american ,type ,founders ,company--a man responsible for almost the whole type output of that foundry for many years--,morris ,fuller ,benton1 was the son of the man whose machines were responsible for this revolution in type design4 ,for it was the two basic machines invented and developed by ,linn ,boyd ,benton which made it possible for those unskilled in the intricacies of type making to provide the basic designs for type4 ,the machines were very ingenious1 and the designs partook of the faultily faultless1 icily regular perfection of the mechanical device4 ,this method of making type faces involved the drawing of the design and the making of two or three patterns in thin brass of the outline of the letter--each pattern good for several sizes of type1 and slightly modified for another group of sizes4 ,this is the way in which modern type is designed4 ,it is the reason why such a type series as ,cheltenham1 designed by the architect ,bertram ,g4 ,goodhue in #aijj for the ,mergenthaler ,linotype ,company1 while very expertly handled in the details1 seems monotonous in mass2 whereas the ,caslon type of the original cutting shows all the inevitable variations of hand work4 ,a survey of the types of the first quarter of the present century1 made by the ,editor of the ,inland ,printer in #aibg1 displays #afa type faces brought out by seven or eight of the leading foundries between #aijj and #aibe4 ,of these1 it was possible to name the designers of #gb1 almost all from the ,barnhart ,brothers ,spindler foundry of ,chicago1 whose records seem to have been in better shape1 or whose generosity was more spontaneous4 ,oswald ,cooper1 ,sydney ,gaunt1 ,will ,ransom1 ,robert ,wiebking1 and ,george ,trenholm were the chief names4 ,it is unfortunate that the names of the designers of the types put out by the ,american ,type ,founders ,company have not been preserved except in rare instances4 ,of course1 ,benton was responsible for the greater portion1 and on the aesthetic side they occasionally scored a triumph as in the case of the ,cloister face4 ,the list included in the ,inland ,printer's survey fails to include some of the outstanding designs of the period4 ,goodhue's ,merrymount was done in #ahid1 but after #aijj we have ,mr4 ,rogers's ,centaur1 ,mr4 ,hunter's odd but forceful types 7properly cut on punches by the designer71 the output of the rapidly growing composing-machine industry1 and ,frederic ,w4 ,goudy's fifty designs completed in that quarter century4 ,goudy's output of six score type designs in fifty years is an amazing record1 one probably never equalled4 ,such designs as those for ,goudy ,modern1 ,goudy ,text1 and ,hadrian would establish his reputation4 ,he had his limitations as a designer--most of his designs lack a certain crispness--but his versatility was extraordinary4 ,in the years since #aibe new designers have come to the fore3 ,blumenthal with his ,emerson1 ,dwiggins with his ,electra and ,caledonia1 ,ruzicka with his ,fairfield1 and ,chappell with his ,lydian4 ,this brief survey cannot hope to mention all types or designs which ,american designers have contributed1 but it is well to see if any tendencies can be detected4 ,the type which ,buell made in #agei1 as well as the type of his immediate successors into the first decades of the nineteenth century1 were mainly variations on the so-called modern romans of ,didot1 ,bodoni1 ,austen1 and ,thorowgood4 ,as the artistic styles in design in general1 not alone in type1 gradually lost the evolutionary force which has developed letter forms through the centuries1 eccentricity and anarchy came into play4 ,the nineteenth-century types as shown in the specimen books of ,bruce1 ,connor1 ,farmer1 etc41 and exhibited in all their grotesque horror in ,fred ,phillips' ,old-fashioned ,type ,book1 had no legitimate parentage1 and they are as well relegated to the bizarre and pseudo-nostalgic advertisement4 ,the result of the ,kelmscott revival was to turn attention to type forms of the past which could be revived for modern use1 and the type designers after #aijj did a remarkable piece of work in introducing good type faces4 ,the advertisers have been eager to use new and novel faces1 and have greatly stimulated this activity1 even in many cases over-exciting it4 ,the most interesting result has been the renewed interest in calligraphy4 ,first directed toward new forms of script1 the truer form of broad pen lettering is now beginning to influence type design1 to free it from too slavish a devotion on the one hand to the serif1 and on the other to a too-free rejection of the serif altogether4 ,such a face as ,mr4 ,chappell's ,lydian is an example of real advance in design1 and if one could adduce ,european examples1 more could be cited4 ,american designers have not developed many new or good book faces2 such types as ,oxford1 ,centaur1 ,emerson1 ,fairfield1 ,electra1 are the exception4 ,their efforts have been given to the drawing of display and advertising types--too often not to the enrichment of the printer's repertory4 ,it is quite as true now as in the past that distortions of the normal ,roman letter form in the direction of extra condensed or extra heavy or very light mono-line letters result in eccentricities which have no permanent value4 ,on the other hand such novel type designs as ,garamond ,bold ,italic1 ,hadriano1 the newspaper ,ionics1 and ,lydian are meritorious additions to the printer's fonts4 ,when it is realized that eccentricity and originality are not the same thing1 we may expect from our increasingly intelligent designers indigenous types of usefulness and charm4 ,,footnotes3 #ce ,reprinted in ,lawrence ,c4 ,wroth's ,the ,first ,work with ,american ,types1 page #fe4 ,,typography--,,eric ,,gill ,from ,printing ,piety1 ,an ,essay on ,typography by ,eric ,gill4 ,copyright #aica by ,j4 ,m4 ,dent and ,sons1 ,ltd41 ,london4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,one of the most alluring enthusiasms that can occupy the mind of the letterer is that of inventing a really logical and consistent alphabet having a distinct sign for every distinct sound4 ,this is especially the case for ,english speaking people3 for the letters we use only inadequately symbolize the sounds of our language4 ,we need many new letters and a revaluation of existing ones4 ,but this enthusiasm has no practical value for the typographer2 we must take the alphabets we have got1 and we must take these alphabets in all essentials as we have inherited them4 ,first of all1 then1 we have the ,,roman ,,alphabet of ,,capital letters 7,upper-case71 and second the alphabet which printers call ,,roman ,,lower-,,case4 ,the latter1 tho' derived from the ,capitals1 is a distinct alphabet4 ,third we have the alphabet called ,,italic1 also derived from the ,capitals but through different channels4 ,these are the three alphabets in common use for ,english people4 ,are there no others8 ,it might be held that there are several2 there are1 for example1 the alphabet called ,black ,letter1 and that called ,lombardic4 ,but these are only partial survivals1 and very few people could1 without reference to ancient books1 write down even a complete alphabet of either4 ,as far as we are concerned in modern ,england1 ,roman ,capitals1 ,lower-case and ,italics are three different alphabets1 and all are current coin4 ,but however familiar we are with them1 their essential differences are not always easily discovered4 ,it is not a matter of slope or of serifs or of thickness or thinness4 ,these qualities1 though one or other of them may be commonly associated with one alphabet more than another1 are not essential marks of difference4 ,a ,roman ,capital ,a does not cease to be a ,roman ,capital ,a because it is sloped backwards or forwards1 because it is made thicker or thinner1 or because serifs are added or omitted2 and the same applies to ,lower-case and ,italics 7see ,fig4 #a74 ,illustration3 ,figure #a illustrates the contention that slope in either direction does not deprive ,capitals1 ,lower-case or ,italics of their essential differences4 ,illustration3 ,figure #b in which the upper line of letters is essentially ,roman ,lower-case2 the lower essentially ,italic4 ,the essential differences are obviously between the forms of the letters4 ,the following letters1 abdefghklmnqrtu and y1 are not ,roman ,capitals1 and that is all about it4 ,the letters shown in the lower line of ,fig4 #b are neither ,capitals nor ,lower-case4 ,the conclusion is obvious3 there is a complete alphabet of ,capital letters1 but the ,lower-case takes ten letters from the ,capital alphabet1 and the ,italic takes ten from the ,capitals and twelve from the ,lower-case4 ,figure #c shows the three alphabets completed1 and it will be seen that ,,cijopsvwx and ,z are common to all three1 that bdhklmnqrtu and y are common to ,lower-case and ,italics2 that ,,abdefghklmnqrtu and ,y are always ,capitals2 and that aef and g are always ,lower-case4 ,illustration3 ,figure #c shows the differences and similarities between the three current alphabets4 ,note3 the curve of the ,italic y's tail is due to exuberance1 and not to necessity4 ,but tho' this is a true account of the essential differences between the three alphabets1 there are customary differences which seem almost as important4 ,it is customary to make ,roman ,capitals upright4 ,it is customary to make ,lower-case smaller than ,capitals when the two are used together2 and it is customary to make ,italics narrower than ,lower-case1 sloping towards the right and with certain details reminiscent of the cursive hand-writing from which they are derived4 ,fig4 #d shows the three alphabets with their customary as well as their essential differences4 ,illustration3 ,figure #d shows the ,capitals1 ,roman ,lower-case and ,italics with their customary as well as their essential differences4 ,properly speaking there is no such thing as an alphabet of ,italic ,capitals1 and where upright or nearly upright ,italics are used ordinary upright ,roman ,capitals go perfectly well with them4 ,but as ,italics are commonly made with a considerable slope and cursive freedom1 various sorts of sloping and quasi-cursive ,roman ,capitals have been designed to match4 ,this practice has1 however1 been carried to excess2 the slope of ,italics and their cursiveness have been much overdone4 ,in the absence of punch cutters with any personal sensibility as letter designers1 with punch cutting almost entirely done by machine1 the obvious remedy is a much more nearly upright and non-cursive ,italic1 and for ,capitals the ordinary upright ,roman4 ,even with a nearly upright ,italic1 the mere presence of the ,italic aef and g alters the whole character of a page1 and with a slight narrowness as well as a slight slope1 the effect is quite different from that of a page of ,lower-case4 ,the common practice of using ,italics to emphasize single words should be abandoned in favour of the use of the ordinary ,lower-case with spaces between the letters 7l e t t e r - s p a c e d74 ,the proper use of ,italics is for quotations and footnotes1 and for books in which it is or seems desirable to use a lighter and less formal style of letter4 ,in a book printed in ,italics upright ,capitals may well be used1 but if sloping ,capitals be used they should only be used as initials--they go well enough with ,italic ,lower-case1 but they do not go with one another4 ,we have1 then1 the three alphabets1 and these are the printer's main outfit2 all other sorts of letters are in the nature of fancy letters1 useful in inverse proportion to the importance and quantity of his output4 ,the more serious the class of book he prints1 the wider the public to whom he appeals1 so much the more solemn and impersonal and normal will be and should be his typography4 ,but he will not call that book serious which is merely widely bought1 and he will not call that a wide appeal which is made simply to a mob of forcibly educated proletarians4 ,a serious book is one which is good in itself according to standards of goodness set by infallible authority1 and a wide appeal is one made to intelligent people of all times and nations4 ,the invention of printing and the breakdown of the medieval world happened at the same time2 and that breakdown1 tho' hastened by corruption in the ,church1 was chiefly caused by the recrudescence of a commercialism which had not had a proper chance since the time of the ,romans4 ,the invention of double-entry book-keeping also happened about the same time1 and though1 as with modern mechanical invention1 the work was done by men of brains rather than men of business1 it was the latter who gained the chief advantage4 ,printing1 a cheaper method of reproducing books than hand-writing1 came therefore just at the right moment4 ,since its first fine careless rapture1 and in spite of the genuinely disinterested efforts of ecclesiastical presses1 ,university presses and the work of many notable individual printers and type-founders1 the history of printing has been the history of its commercial exploitation4 ,as is natural with men of business1 the worse appears the better reason4 ,financial success is1 rightly1 their only aim1 and technical perfection the only criterion they know how to apply to their works4 ,,typography 7the reproduction of lettering by means of movable letter types7 was originally done by pressing the inked surface or face of a letter made of wood or metal against a surface of paper or vellum4 ,the unevenness and hardness of paper1 the irregularities of types 7both in respect of their printing faces and the dimensions of their bodies7 and the mechanical imperfections of presses and printing methods made the work of early printers notable for corresponding unevennesses1 irregularities and mechanical imperfections4 ,to ensure that every letter left its mark more or less completely and evenly1 considerable and noticeable impression was made in the paper4 ,the printed letter was a coloured letter at the bottom of a ditch4 ,the subsequent development of typography was chiefly die development of technical improvements1 more accurately cast types1 smoother paper1 mechanically perfect presses4 ,apart from the history of its commercial exploitation1 the history of printing has been the history of the abolition of the impression4 ,a print is properly a dent made by pressing2 the history of letter-press printing has been the history of the abolition of that dent4 ,but the very smooth paper and the mechanically very perfect presses required for printing which shall show no impression can only be produced in a world which cares for such things1 and such a world is of its nature inhuman4 ,the industrial world of today is such1 and it has the printing it desires and deserves4 ,in the industrial world ,typography1 like house building and sanitary engineering1 is one of the necessary arts--a thing to be done in working hours1 those during which one is buoyed up by the knowledge that one is serving one's fellow men and neither enjoying oneself like an artist nor praising ,god like a man of prudence4 ,in such a world the only excuse for anything is that it is of service4 ,printing which makes any claim on its own account1 printers who give themselves the status of poets or painters1 are to be condemned2 they are not serving2 they are shirking4 ,such is the tone of the more romantic among men of commerce2 and the consequence is a pseudo-asceticism and a bastard aesthetics4 ,the asceticism is only a sham because the test of service is the profits shown in the accounts2 and the aesthetics is bastard because it is not founded upon the reasonable pleasure of the mind of the workman and of his customer1 but upon the snobbery of museum students employed by men of commerce to give a saleable appearance to articles too dull otherwise to please even the readers of ,the ,daily ,mail4 ,nevertheless1 as we have already shown1 commercial printing1 machine printing1 industrial printing would have its own proper goodness if it were studiously plain and starkly efficient4 ,our quarrel is not with such a thing but only with the thing that is neither one nor the other--neither really mechanically perfect and physically serviceable nor really a work of art1 i4e41 a thing made by a man who1 however laughable it may seem to men of business1 loves ,god and does what he likes1 who serves his fellow men because he is wrapped up in serving ,god--to whom the service of ,god is so commonplace that it is as much bad form to mention it as among men of business it is bad form to mention profits4 ,there are1 then1 two typographies1 as there are two worlds2 and1 apart from ,god or profits1 the test of one is mechanical perfection1 and of the other sanctity--the commercial article at its best is simply physically serviceable and1 per accidens1 beautiful in its efficiency2 the work of art at its best is beautiful in its very substance and1 per accidens1 as serviceable as an article of commerce4 ,the typography of ,industrialism1 when it is not deliberately diabolical and designed to deceive1 will be plain2 and in spite of the wealth of its resources--a thousand varieties of inks1 papers1 presses and mechanical processes for the reproduction of the designs of tame designers--it will be entirely free from exuberance and fancy4 ,every sort of ornament will be omitted2 for printers' flowers will not spring in such a soil1 and fancy lettering is nauseating when it is not the fancy of type-founders and printers but simply of those who desire to make something appear better than it is4 ,paradoxical though it be1 the greater the wealth of appliances1 the less is the power of using it4 ,all the while that the technical and mechanical good quality is increasing1 the de-humanizing of the workmen is also increasing4 ,as we become more and more able to print finer and more elaborate and delicate types of letter it becomes more and more intellectually imperative to standardize all forms and obliterate all elaborations and fancifulness4 ,it becomes easier and easier to print any kind of thing1 but more and more imperative to print only one kind4 ,on the other hand1 those who use humane methods can never achieve mechanical perfection1 because the slaveries and standardizations of ,industrialism are incompatible with the nature of men4 ,humane ,typography will often be comparatively rough and even uncouth2 but while a certain uncouthness does not seriously matter in humane works1 lack of uncouthness is the only possible excuse for the productions of the machine4 ,so while in an industrialist society it is technically easy to print any kind of thing1 in a humane society only one kind of thing is easy to print1 but there is every scope for variety and experiment in the work itself4 ,the more elaborate and fanciful the industrial article becomes1 the more nauseating it becomes--elaboration and fancifulness in such things are inexcusable4 ,but there is every excuse for elaboration and fancy in the works of human beings1 provided that they work and live according to reason2 and it is instructive to note that in the early days of printing1 when human exuberance had full scope1 printing was characterized by simplicity and decency2 but that now1 when such exuberance no longer exists in the workman 7except when he is not at work71 printing is characterized by every kind of vulgarity of display and complicated indecency4 ,but1 alas for humanity1 there is the thing called compromise2 and the man of business who is also the man of taste1 and he of taste also who is also man of business will1 in their blameless efforts to earn a living 7for using one's wits is blameless1 and earning a living is necessary71 find many ways of giving a humane look to machine-made things or of using machinery and the factory to turn out1 more quickly and cheaply1 things whose proper nature is derived from human labor4 ,thus we have imitation period furniture in ,wardour ,street1 and we have imitation arts and crafts in ,tottenham ,court ,road4 ,the-man-of-business-who-is-also-man-of- taste will tend to the period work1 the-man-of-taste-who-is-also-man-of-busi ness will tend to the imitation handicrafts4 ,and1 in the printing world1 there are business houses whose reputation is founded on their resuscitations of the eighteenth century1 and private presses whose speed of output is increased by machine-setting and gas engines4 ,these things are more deplorable than blameworthy4 ,their chief objectionableness lies in the fact that they confuse the issue for the ordinary uncritical person1 and they turn out work which is neither very good nor very bad4 ,period printing looks better than the usual vulgar products of unrestrained commercialism1 and there is no visible difference1 except to the expert1 between machine-setting and hand-setting1 or between sheets worked on a hand-press and those turned out on a power-driven ,platen4 ,nevertheless1 even if these things be difficult to decide in individual instances1 there can be no sort of doubt but that as industrialism requires a different sort of workman so it also turns out a different kind of work--a workman sub-human in his irresponsibility1 and work inhuman in its mechanical perfection4 ,the imitation of the work of pre-industrial periods cannot make any important ultimate difference2 the introduction of industrial methods and appliances into small workshops cannot make such workshops capable of competition with big business4 ,but while false standards of good taste may be set up by period work1 this good taste is entirely that of the man of business and his customers2 it is not at all that of the hands--they are in no way responsible for it or affected by it2 on the other hand1 the introduction of mechanical methods into small workshops has an immediate effect on the workmen4 ,inevitably they tend to take more interest in the machine and less in the work1 to become machine-minders and to regard wages as the only reward4 ,and good taste ceases to be the result of the restraint put upon his conscience by the workman himself2 it becomes a thing imposed upon him by his employer4 ,you cannot see the difference between a machine-set page and one set by hand4 ,no1 but you can see the difference between ,cornwall before and after it became the ,english ,riviera2 you can see the difference between riding in a hansom and in a motor-cab--between a cabby and a taxi-man2 you can see the difference between the ordinary issue of ,the ,times today and its ordinary issue a hundred years ago2 you can see the difference between an ordinary modern book and an ordinary book of the sixteenth century4 ,and it is not a question of better or worse2 it is a question of difference simply4 ,our argument here is not that ,industrialism has made things worse1 but that it has inevitably made them different2 and that whereas before ,industrialism there was one world1 now there are two4 ,the nineteenth century attempt to combine ,industrialism with the ,humane was necessarily doomed1 and the failure is now evident4 ,to get the best out of the situation we must admit the impossibility of compromise2 we must1 in as much as we are industrialists1 glory in ,industrialism and its powers of mass-production1 seeing that good taste in its products depends upon their absolute plainness and serviceableness2 and in so much as we remain outside ,industrialism1 as doctors1 lawyers1 priests and poets of all kinds must necessarily be1 we may glory in the fact that we are responsible workmen and can produce only one thing at a time4 ,that if you look after goodness and truth beauty will take care of itself1 is true in both worlds4 ,the beauty that ,industrialism properly produces is the beauty of bones2 the beauty that radiates from the work of men is the beauty of the living face4 ,,composed ,,in ,,perpetua ,,types ,illustration ,,frederic ,w4 ,,goudy ,illustration,,types ,,and ,,type ,,design,illustration ,the ,syracuse ,university ,school of ,journalism awarded its first medal of honor to ,f4 ,w4 ,g4 in #aicf1 for distinctive achievement in typographic design4 ,his address then1 reflecting the typographic philosophy and practice of two-score years1 is reprinted as published by the ,university in #aicf4 ,it would be mere affectation on my part were ,i to pretend not to be touched by the signal honor you extend to me this evening1 and ,i would be ungrateful indeed if ,i neglected to voice my very great appreciation of your kindness4 ,i wish that ,i might express that appreciation in words that would leave no shadow of doubt in your minds as to the depth and sincerity of my feeling4 ,i am not conscious of any outstanding reasons for the kind words spoken here tonight of my work4 ,at the same time ,i am under no illusions as to the ultimate value of the work ,i have attempted to do1 although it is1 after all1 merely the every-day work of an earnest craftsman who endeavors to perform each task well and the next one1 if possible1 even better2 and withal no thought or expectation of acclaim4 ,my craft is a simple one4 ,for nearly two score years it has been my constant aim and endeavor to create a greater and more general esteem for printing and type design2 to give to printers and readers of print more legible and more beautiful types than those in current use4 ,this has involved some little sacrifice2 the missionary seldom acquires much more than the satisfaction of work well done1 and yet1 on the whole1 ,i haven't done badly1 since my work has brought me a wealth of friendship beyond measure4 ,and now to the subject which has been assigned to me for this occasion--something about types of the past1 type revivals1 and a bit about type design1 as ,i see it4 ,i trust you will not find that my brief postprandial attempt bears out ,gay's lines too literally3 ,so comes the reckoning when the banquet's o'er1 ,a dreadful reckoning1 when men smile no more4 ,one hundred and twelve years ago type design was generally imagined to be a matter that concerned only the letter cutter4 ,j4 ,johnson1 author of ,typographia 7published in #ahbd71 wrote of a type face that the printer needed only to observe that its shape be perfectly true1 and that it lines or ranges with accuracy1 and that by noting certain mathematical rules the letter cutter may produce ,roman characters of such harmony1 grace and symmetry as will please the eye in reading2 and by having their fine strokes and swells blended together in due proportion1 will excite admiration4 ,he says further that if the letter stands even and in line1 which is the chief good quality in letter1 it makes the face thereof sometimes to pass1 though otherwise ill-shaped4 ,type design as a profession evidently did not exist in #ahbd4 ,and even today many printers are uninformed as to the various steps that must be taken between the inception of a type face in the designer's mind and its eventual appearance on the printed page4 ,today the designing of type is practiced by few artists as a separate craft2 it is an humble art at best--and a minor one4 ,yet every user of types demands in them certain artistic qualities1 i4e41 invention1 novelty1 style1 beauty1 distinction 7a few insist on legibility72 most of those users forget or do not realize that these are qualities an artist only may secure1 and even the artist cannot always insure that his design will present all of them4 ,first3 ,invention requires that we soar above mere caprices of fashion or the demands of passing fancy4 ,our letter forms have become fixed in their essentials by long use and tradition1 yet a study of all that has gone before will enable the designer seeking new expressions to infuse new life and character into traditional shapes and inspire him to create new designs based on the broad impressions stored in the granary of his mind4 ,second3 ,novelty gives us some new impression suited to and brought about by new conditions of life and environment--by the changes that time has wrought4 ,by novelty ,i do not mean1 however1 the imitation novelty so frequently met with and presented as something new2 too often it means simply some older thing newly described4 ,achieving the fantastic quality reminiscent of the slimy trail of ,art ,nouveau1 which you older ones will recall as rampant in the #ahij's1 produces freaks of fashion in an attempt to be novel1 but may not1 necessarily1 always secure the novelty desired4 ,traditions of the past need not be disregarded nor overlooked in order to meet the prejudices of the present4 ,just now a seemingly insatiable demand for novelty is giving us a senseless and ridiculous riot of beautiful atrocities4 ,the inundation of freak types is largely due to a revival of some former products of ignorance bringing in their train new designs even more bizarre in the attempt to secure novelty--a detestable word used frequently1 ,i fear1 like charity1 to cover a multitude of sins4 ,it has no place in artistic considerations1 as a thing that really is good should be good for all time4 ,sporadic outbreaks in the name of novelty inevitably occur from time to time and fortunately have usually only their little day in the sun before vanishing forever into the limbo of the forgotten4 ,i do not wish to imply that novelty itself is undesirable--by no means2 striving for newness keeps things fresh and alive4 ,it is the re-presentation of the extraordinarily ugly and bizarre types of the middle of the last century with no exceptional artistic warrant for their revival1 in an attempt to do something different1 that ,i deprecate4 ,newness for its own sake only may not always be worth while4 ,i find it difficult to speak dispassionately of some of the types advertisers are using nowadays1 because ,i am too deeply steeped in the traditions of the past to accept them4 ,i cannot be accused of intolerance1 however4 ,the best art of the designer1 the highest skill of the printer1 and the clear1 lucid argument of the advertisement writer must be requisitioned4 ,yet in much of the typography of today many of the new types display a marked avoidance of everything that is plain1 simple and legible4 ,why are simplicity and easy readability no longer esteemed as desirable qualities in print8 ,why are these outlandish characters selected8 ,for four hundred years the ,roman types of the early ,italian printers have furnished models to suit all tastes and serve every purpose4 ,for several years past advertisers and even our magazine and book printers have somewhat strayed from a definite standard of dignity and beauty in the quest for novelty4 ,foreign types1 imported to add a touch of novelty to our advertising 7types which1 no doubt1 are good enough for the conditions in the bailiwicks that gave them birth71 too frequently impart to print a fantastic or a too fanciful effect when used under the entirely different conditions found here4 ,these types are likely to impart to our printing an air of incongruity displeasing to the trained taste4 ,en passant1 ,i am reminded of a suggestion offered by ,reinhardt1 the scenic designer3 ,do not try to inspire from foreign ideas4 ,be interested in them1 of course1 and they will help to fertilize your own4 ,third3 ,style is a subtle quality that comes from an intelligent use of a good tradition renewed and advanced into our own times2 it is a quality inseparable from the tools and materials employed1 and is not to be acquired simply by taking thought or by a determination to attain it4 ,style is the living expression controlling both the form and the vital structure of the vehicle which presents thought in tangible form--an intimate and inseparable something in the work of a craftsman wholly unconscious of style or of any definite aim towards beauty for itself4 ,fourth3 ,distinction is more difficult to secure1 yet1 when a type presents an unassuming simplicity2 when it expresses thought in every detail2 when it is clear1 elegant1 strong2 nothing in it that is loose and vague1 no finesse of design1 but showing clearly in every line the spirit the designer has put into the body of his work1 that type can hardly fail of real distinction4 ,to meet the demands of utility and to preserve also an esthetic standard is the problem the type designer must attempt to solve4 ,obviously a large order for a mere amateur 7or even for a professional designer74 ,as to legibility1 ,i shall not here comment4 ,everyone knows 7or thinks he knows7 just what constitutes it2 ,i fear ,i do not1 or ,i would never permit myself consciously to make a type that was not the quintessence of legibility4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i am frequently asked how ,i design a type face4 ,there are so many things that lead up to one that it is difficult to give a specific reply4 ,i once told a student that ,i think of a letter and then mark around the thought4 ,that is hardly real designing4 ,it may be easy to think of one letter1 but to think also of its twenty-five relations which with it form the alphabet and so to mark around them that they will combine in complete harmony and rhythm with each other and with all--that is the difficult thing1 the successful doing of which constitutes design4 ,what is the inspiration for a new face8 ,that also is difficult to answer4 ,in the first place1 it is hardly possible to create an absolutely new type or one that will not be reminiscent of the past4 ,it is quite within the province of the letter artist to take his inspiration for a new face from any source--the lapidary inscriptions of the first centuries of the ,imperial age of ,rome2 a mediaeval brass that marks the last resting place of a departed ruler2 a manuscript letter by some unsung scribe of the ,renaissance1 or an early type of the golden age of typography4 ,or maybe he may even strive to put into tangible form on his drawing board some vision from out of nowhere--the realization of a chance thought straying through an idle reverie which he will whip into a satisfactory medium of intellectual exchange4 ,on the other hand1 he may prefer to attempt the re-creation of new letter from the bones of a more ancient form1 endeavoring to secure in it a new expression of life and vigor1 with new graces suited to our times and our use4 ,if the designer chooses to disregard old types and go direct to their source1 the manuscript hands of the scribes1 well1 why not8 ,by revising their forms1 refining them1 eliminating their whimsicalities and vagaries and formalizing their irregularities1 he may meet1 too1 the mechanical requirements and technical limitations of type founding4 ,this1 probably1 is the more legitimate method1 since in this way he will inspire from the real beginnings of our lower case forms4 ,for myself ,i am inclined to agree with a writer who maintains that it is doubtful whether the type designer benefits from a close study of hand lettering1 meaning of course the manuscript hands of the past4 ,interesting as old manuscripts are1 ,i find them of little practical use as offering models for new types4 ,speaking for myself only ,i find it more feasible to get my inspirations from a study of the earlier types that appeal to me4 ,they frequently offer opportunity for new expression4 ,with no attempt to copy their particular forms1 or to make changes merely in weight or serif1 ,i endeavor rather to tear from them the qualities and the spirit that makes them good1 for incorporation in my own letter shapes4 ,i realize1 of course1 that the letters ,i may select as my models were1 without doubt1 inspired by some manuscript hand that personally ,i may find offers little for use in my own work4 ,with complete independence of calligraphy ,i attempt1 instead1 to secure the negative quality of unpretentiousness2 ,i strive for the pure contour and monumental character of the classic lapidary forms of the first centuries of the ,christian era2 ,i endeavor in my work to avoid any bizarre quality or exhibition of conscious preciosity4 7,it has been said that in this latter aim ,i sometimes fail47 ,once in a while a type face by some other designer seems to present an interesting movement or quality that ,i like4 ,i take early opportunity to make it mine1 frankly and openly1 in the same way that a writer might use exactly the same words as another1 but by a new arrangement of them present a new thought1 a new idea1 or a new subtlety of expression4 ,or as two painters using identical tools and colors1 each might produce a masterpiece1 yet the work of one probably would not resemble that of the other in any detail4 ,by copying carefully a few characters of the type that appeals to me drawn by another hand1 ,i try to secure in my own drawings some certain movement or rhythm his may present4 ,i soon discard my model and proceed from there1 as it were1 under my own steam1 and sometimes produce a face which my good friend ,kent ,currie says has an acid1 typy quality and 7in substance7 that it is regular and well-ordered1 that it has interest1 color1 movement1 and sometimes quaintness4 ,several years ago ,i accepted a commission to make a type for a magazine of large circulation4 ,at that time it was my practice to make drawings from which matrices were engraved for me by the late ,robert ,wiebking of ,chicago4 ,his death occurred just about the time ,i was to send him my originals for translation into mats from which to cast the type4 ,in order to carry out my arrangement with the magazine1 and finding difficulty in procuring the work elsewhere1 ,i determined to try doing also the mechanical work of matrix engraving myself4 ,like ,moxon1 ,i learnt it of my own genuine inclination1 with no previous instruction in the craft4 ,with no engraving or casting plant ready to my hand ,i began the getting together of the various paraphernalia of a type foundry4 ,procuring machines for a type foundry was comparatively simple2 the operation of them1 making patterns for use in the engraving machines1 the lining and fitting of the cast types1 etc41 all after ,i had reached my sixtieth birthday1 was something else4 ,looking back1 ,i am amazed at my temerity4 ,it was literally a case of rushing in where angels might well fear to tread4 ,yet1 since that time ,i have engraved many hundreds of matrices4 ,and now1 one other personal note4 ,it is my credo4 ,for nearly two score years ,i have made use and beauty the great desiderata4 ,i have never permitted myself intentionally to utilize the message ,i was attempting to present1 to serve as a mere framework or scaffolding upon which to exploit my own skill1 nor ever to allow my craft to became an end in itself instead of a means only to a desirable and useful end4 ,,composed ,,in ,,deepdene ,,types ,illustration,,theodore ,,low ,,de ,,vinne,illustration ,the ,old and the ,new ,a ,,friendly ,,dispute ,,between ,,juvenis ,,and ,,senex with a note by ,,frederic ,w4 ,,goudy ,published by ,the ,village ,press1 ,marlboro1 ,new ,york1 #aicc4 ,juvenis3 ,what is it that you admire in the types of old books8 ,don't you love them more for their quaintness than for their beauty8 ,i have seen originals or accredited facsimiles of the best books of ,gutenberg1 ,jenson1 ,aldus1 ,kerver1 ,caxton1 and other notable printers1 but ,i prefer modern types4 ,senex3 ,then you have seen the pointed black-letter1 the round gothic1 the aldine ,italic1 the flemish black1 and the early ,roman4 ,did not any of these styles please you8 ,juvenis3 ,not one4 ,to try to read the pointed black of ,gutenberg and ,kerver is as repelling as a walk through the crypts of an old church2 the round gothics are as scraggy as a heap of oyster shells2 the ,aldine italics are squeezed as to width1 elongated as to height1 and incongruously mated with absurdly small capitals2 the flemish black-letter is the 'tour de force' of a literary acrobat4 ,in all these characters ,i see bad drawing and disregard of proportion4 ,the founding is as bad as the design2 some characters are fitted too near1 others too wide1 and many letters are out of line4 ,senex3 ,you surely cannot censure ,jenson's ,roman for bad fitting8 ,juvenis3 ,i do except that1 for ,jenson was a good mechanic1 and so was ,kerver4 ,their types are well fitted and neatly lined4 ,but ,i have small praise to give ,jenson for his much admired ,roman letter4 ,better1 no doubt1 than any other ,roman of the period1 but was it perfection8 ,bibliophiles forget that this ,jenson ,roman was out of fashion fifty years after his death1 and that his models have been altered by every succeeding punch-cutter4 ,senex3 ,how1 then1 can you explain the favor shown to the recent types of ,william ,morris8 ,his ',golden' type is based on the ,jenson model2 his ',troy' and ',chaucer' types are modeled after the round gothic of the fifteenth century4 ,juvenis3 ,i do not pretend to explain freaks of fashion in typography any more than in religion or art or music4 ,the ,athenians who worshiped an unknown or forgotten god have successors in every generation4 ,there are ,englishmen1 nursed in the ,catechism1 who try to be devout ,buddhists2 there are ,impressionists1 ,pre-,raphaelites1 and ,wagnerians4 ,the lover of singularity who can invent nothing that is new must hunt up something that is old1 or at least odd1 to keep up his reputation for discernment4 ,it is enough for me to know that the literary world1 outside of ,germany1 moved by common impulse1 discarded all the early types4 ,the sacred black-letter of ,gutenberg1 and other forms1 went to oblivion for good reason4 ,all were of bad form and hard to read--obscured by abbreviations1 misuse of capital letters1 absurd divisions1 and inconsistent orthography4 ,much as a student of our time may profess admiration for early typography1 he will not consult the ',bible of ,forty-two ,lines' for a disputed text1 when a more readable edition is accessible4 ,senex3 ,you confound two features of typography that should be kept separate4 ,the shapes of early types should be considered apart from the skill1 or want of skill1 in their compositors4 ,the black-letter types of the fifteenth century are often fair copies of the admirable manuscripts of the period4 ,juvenis3 ,the black-letter of every early printer was but a servile copy of the manuscript most attainable4 ,malformations were copied1 but the flowing graces of penmanship could not be reproduced in mechanically square types4 ,no punch-cutter of the period improved on the manuscript copy4 ,all the early books abound in infelicities of design and cutting1 indicating that the work was not as thoughtfully done as similar work is done now4 ,it is a begging of the question to assume that the early punch-cutters were demigods in art4 ,to say that they were right is to say that ,albrecht ,drer and ,geoffroy ,tory1 who wrote books on the true proportions of letters1 and ,granjon and ,garamond1 who gave a lifetime to type-making1 were wrong4 ,i prefer to accept the teachings of known artists as of higher authority4 ,senex3 ,is not the difficulty of reading old black-letter due to its unfamiliar abbreviations and to mannerisms in type-setting now out of fashion8 ,would not modern types be obscure if similarly treated8 ,juvenis3 ,they would2 but the fault begins with the shapes of the printed letters4 ,you note it in the modern ,german fraktur1 always a perplexity to every ,english-born student4 ,the ,germans themselves practically admit its inferiority4 ,their scientific books are usually in ,roman4 ,their preference for ,roman is a confession that ,roman types are better1 and that the printers of the seventeenth century did wisely in their general abandonment of pointed letters4 ,the reading world had outgrown them4 ,why should we revive them8 ,senex3 ,let us not trouble ourselves about pointed letters4 ,there is no probability that they will ever be accepted by ,americans for the texts of ordinary books4 ,let us consider the ,roman types that have been in use by the ,latin races and by ,english-speaking people for three centuries4 ,are modern types as readable as those of ,jenson8 ,here is his ,pliny of #adgb1 and here is the 'soprasilvio' of ,bodoni1 as exhibited in his ,manuale ,tipografico of #ahah4 ,which is better8 ,juvenis3 ,i am surprised at the question4 ,every character in the ,bodoni type is correctly drawn2 every system of uniform thickness1 every hair-line and serif sharp as a knife-edge4 ,curves are true and graceful1 angles exact2 fitting and lining beyond criticism4 ,in the ,jenson type there is not one perfect letter4 ,the hair-lines are scant and of unequal thickness1 the serifs are stubby1 the stems of uneven width1 the characters out of proportion4 ,raggedness of drawing and roughness of cutting are not concealed by its fairly good fitting and lining4 ,no publisher of the last two centuries would dare to print1 and no reader consent to buy1 a contemporary book in this type4 ,senex3 ,can you not see something more in this ,jenson type8 ,is it not more readable8 ,i put them side by side at a distance of ten feet1 where you can read the ,jenson and cannot read the ,bodoni4 ,juvenis3 ,true3 but types in great primer are not made to be read at ten feet distance4 ,senex3 ,true again2 but the mannerisms that obscure the ,bodoni type at ten feet are more distressing in his small types1 usually read at the distance of fifteen inches4 ,the over-sharp hair-line1 the dazzling serif1 and the vanishing curve are more irritating in the smaller than in the larger sizes4 ,ordinary eyesight does not seize at a glance the entire face of modern type2 it dimly sees hair-lines or serifs2 it deciphers the stems only2 it sees but half of the letter1 and guesses at the invisible4 ,the type of ,bodoni is a wearying strain on the eye4 ,juvenis3 ,your remarks do not fairly apply to readers of good sight4 ,senex3 ,they do apply to the majority of readers4 ,it is a mistake to make for ordinary texts types with lines that cannot be easily seen by all4 ,juvenis3 ,if you think boldness of most importance in a type1 why make ,jenson's type your model8 ,why not go back still farther8 ,why not take up the lapidary letters of old ,rome1 ,greece1 or ,etruria8 ,senex3 ,they are uncouth and wasteful of space4 ,designed to be chiseled on stone1 they are unfit for types4 ,the ',caroline minuscule1' which is the basis of our ,roman text letter1 is more compact1 quite as irregular1 and much more readable4 ,juvenis3 ,if you believe that there was a gradual improvement in the shapes of letters between the first and fifteenth centuries1 why stop at the fifteenth8 ,why not admit that this improvement continues8 ,senex3 ,because the changes that followed were not always improvements4 ,the faultless curves1 sharp lines1 and exact angles of ,bodoni were disfigurements made at the expense of readability4 ,types are made to be easily read1 not to show the skill of the designer4 ,when they fail in readability the fault is fatal4 ,the proper development of typography was checked by the invention of copper-plate that trod on its heels4 ,its delicacy of line1 its perfect graduation of shadows1 its vigorous blacks1 and its facile rendering of a receding perspective put out of fashion all strong and manly work on wood4 ,drer's ',little ,passion1' ,holbein's ',dance of ,death1' and ,vostre's ,book of ,hours were put aside1 and the insipid effeminacies of overworked line-engraving took their place4 ,punch-cutters of the sixteenth century thought that printing would be improved if they imitated the methods of line-engravers1 and so they cut their types sharper and thinner4 ,they would not see that relief engraving and incised engraving are diametrically opposed in theory and practice1 and that the imitation of one process by the other is impossible4 ,repeated failures did not check this desire to imitate4 ,increasing refinements in types produced a corresponding degradation in printing4 ,the inferiority of the average book of the eighteenth century is largely due to the so-called 'improved' faces of type4 ,the most irrepressible imitator of copper-plate effects was ,bodoni of ,parma4 ,william ,morris is right in saying that his imitations of copper-plate delicacy indicate a real abasement of the typographic art4 ,juvenis3 ,if correct drawing1 exact proportion1 and high finish are merits in other arts1 why should they be faults in type-making8 ,senex3 ',finish' is a merit only when it improves2 when it over-elaborates1 when it leads the reader to think more of the means employed than of the object sought1 it is a fault4 ,bodoni's careful drawing and finical cutting defeat the purpose for which types were made4 ,they do not fully show the letter2 they do show ,bodoni2 and it is a fair supposition that he was more intent on showing his skill than he was on aiding the reader4 ,your ideal of merit in types is that of mechanical precision4 ,you forget that letters are of irregular shapes1 with intent to make them distinct4 ,the more you prune away the irregularities1 the more indistinct they become4 ,readers do not isolate and critically examine each letter2 they read words at a glance4 ,they prefer characters with enough of irregularity to arrest the eye and fix the thought of the writer4 ,it is with types as with penmanship4 ,has it been your misfortune to revise a long manuscript written in feminine style with a crow-quill pen1 and with admirable precision1 but with almost invisible hair strokes8 ,recollect your exasperation at its mechanical precision and wearisome monotony4 ,how gratefully you turned to a jagged and masculine but readable style of penmanship1 in which you were content to have all the rules of writing-masters violated6 ,recall these experiences1 and then understand why ,i prefer old types4 ,not because they are old1 or of faultless form1 but because the letters are more distinct4 ,they were made1 not to show the skill of the punch-cutter1 but to help the reader2 and they deserve the credit due to straightforward workmanship4 ,a ,,note ,,by ,,frederic ,w4 ,,goudy ,in #ahih the name ,de ,vinne meant little more to me than the name of a then popular display printing type1 until the day1 in a book-shop in ,detroit1 ,i chanced on a copy of ,the ,book-lover's ,almanac for #ahif4 ,of the eight or ten articles listed in the table of contents one was by ,theo4 ,low ,de ,vinne4 ,the article was written in the form of a discussion between ,senex and ,juvenis on the comparative merits of the early type faces and those of ,bodoni and his successors4 ,this was1 ,i believe1 my first realization that ,de ,vinne was the name of a living personality4 ,i was just becoming interested in the history of the typography of books and was making also a closer study of type design1 but it did not occur to me that such study would ever lead to the actual practise of the art ,i have since made peculiarly my own4444 ,when ,i first read ,mr4 ,de ,vinne's article it seemed to me that ,senex had rather the better of the argument1 indeed1 ,i have not found1 during the nearly two score years that have elapsed1 any statements elsewhere that have changed materially the opinions then formed as to the soundness of his asseverations4444 ,if ,i were asked to say what ,i think has been the greatest single influence in my work as a type designer ,i would be hard put to find a satisfactory reply2 but there is no doubt in my mind that the principles set forth in this article and in his book ,notable ,printers of ,italy ,during the #aeth ,century have certainly loomed large in crystallizing the character of my types4 ,the consistency of thought he displayed1 his sound knowledge of old types1 his fairness in the consideration of each moot point1 the simple yet lucid presentation of his ideas and opinions interested me2 they influenced my own thought1 and in turn are reflected in my work4 ,if1 to my more mature consideration of this discussion there is any lapse of the author's pen1 it seems to me it is1 that ,senex failed to stress more strongly a demand for greater grace and beauty in types in closer combination with legibility4 ,i feel that the proper standard of beauty in types basically resides in their utility1 but there are1 nevertheless1 secondary esthetic attributes which may be included without any sacrifice of life and vigor and legibility4 ,a certain rugged beauty is perceived without difficulty1 and irregularities which in isolated or individual characters1 might seem objectionable from the standpoint of grace alone1 may prove highly desirable in the composed line4 ,readability is of course to be considered above every other quality1 because1 failing this it fails utterly1 regardless of every other excellence2 yet1 while striving for legibility1 beauty of form should also be given almost equal consideration4444 ,i venture to disagree with ,senex's statement that the lapidary letters of old ,rome are uncouth and 444 unfit for types4444 ,marlboro1 ,n4 ,y41 ,may1 #aicc ,illustration3 ,bruce ,rogers ,,paragraphs ,,on ,,printing ,from ,paragraphs on ,printing4 ,copyright #aidc by ,william ,e4 ,rudge's ,sons4 ,reprinted by permission of author and publisher ,,note3 ,the text for this book on the functions of the book designer was elicited from ,b4,r4 in talks with ,james ,hendrickson4 ,these informal observations on typographical problems were accompanied by numerous reproductions of pages of ,mr4 ,rogers' design1 by way of illustration and example4 ,you think of the book1 the size and shape of the book1 before you consider type or anything else4 ,what kind of a volume should it be8 ,in what particular form and in what face of type would you like to read it8 ,the type and format should be governed by your conception of the character of the subject matter4 ,as an instance take ,conrad's tale1 ,the ,tremolino1 recently printed4 ,it is a slight but vivid story1 to be read almost at a glance1 so it would have been a misfit to make it larger1 say in octavo size4 ,the vividness is indicated by the dramatic little cuts in color1 the slightness by the dimensions and open character of the pages4 ,after the size is determined the selection of a suitable type comes next4 ,and that depends usually on what types are available in the office in which the book is to be made4 ,even this is not always necessary1 as many offices have composition done outside by type-composition firms1 so that an almost unlimited choice may be yours4 ,there are so many varieties of type now1 that for almost any size or kind of book you plan you will readily find an appropriate face4 ,at any rate it isn't so vitally important as other things4 ,illustration ,it is a great advantage in laying out a page1 especially a title or display page1 if the designer can handle pen or pencil2 and the more definitely he can represent the type he proposes to use1 the greater saving of time and expense there will be when it comes to the setting of it4 ,it is true that some masters of printing do not resort to sketching--at least not more than mere lines on the paper1 labeled with the kinds and sizes of type they represent4 ,but to visualize the completed page in such slight indications is an unusual gift1 and if one does not possess this gift there is the probability that the first setting of the page will have to be torn apart several times before a satisfactory one is produced4 ,it is sometimes well worth while to work a page out very carefully1 even in pen-and-ink1 so that it will be a pretty close approximation to the finished thing2 especially if you have to submit the scheme to a customer for his approval1 or if he asks to see alternative treatments4 ,of course1 after many years of familiarity with type faces1 it isn't necessary to draw them accurately for your own guidance1 even though you should possess that ability2 but some nevertheless find it a pleasant thing to see the page take form under their pencil or pen before it goes into actual type4 ,frequently1 however1 there is a sense of disappointment in seeing the first type proof1 for the freedom and swing of your sketch has usually vanished in its translation into type2 and the more formal the style of type the less it will retain the quality of your sketch4 ,illustration ,making an allusive format for a book--that is1 casting it in the style of the period of the original text--is in a small way something like planning the stage setting for a play4 ,an up-to-date style for an ancient text would compare with staging ,hamlet in modern dress4 ,however novel and effective in its own way1 you feel it to be strange1 and this sense of strangeness is an annoying distraction2 you are forced to think of the setting and the designer rather than of the text4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the character of the text to be printed is of course the first thing to consider in selecting the kind of type2 and the number of pages to which the book will probably run is the determining factor as to what size of type is possible4 ,the width and length of the type page are then to be proportioned to the paper page1 which in turn also helps to determine the size of the type4 ,all these considerations are interlocking4 ,there have been several rules formulated for page proportions4 ,one is that the width of the page should approximate one-half of the diagonal4 ,another is that the length of line should be one-half more than the length of a line of the twenty-six lower-case letters of the type used4 ,but all such rules are only guides1 to be discarded when the effect you are after seems to require something else2 this something else to be determined only by the judgment of the designer and his feeling for the appearance of the page4 ,in the reproduction of the styles of early typography the designer should avoid setting small type in too wide a measure4 ,the old printers in their folio volumes did not seem to mind very long lines of comparatively small type4 ,but most of these ancient books in ,roman type were never intended for rapid reading4 ,they were generally ,latin texts where the eye follows the line better than in ,english or ,french composition4 ,latin composition naturally makes more beautiful pages on account of the preponderance of short letters--m1 n1 u1 etc41 with comparatively few ascenders and descenders4 ,the evenness of spacing that the early printers got came from their abundant use of ,latin abbreviations and their indifference as to how many consecutive word divisions occurred at the ends of lines1 but it was never a conscious effort to obtain what is called texture in the page4 ,there should be no laboring to produce a perfectly spaced page but rather an endeavor to avoid a badly spaced one4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the amount of leading that a page requires depends on so many factors that it is difficult to give any fixed method of procedure4 ,the kind of type1 the size of type1 the length of line and the general character of the text all bear on this point4 ,generally speaking1 most types should be at least slightly leaded1 especially if the lines are fairly long4 ,this helps the eye to catch the following line in rapid reading more easily than when the type is set solidly4 ,the solid pages were usually adopted when old-style types were used exclusively2 but when modern type came in1 beginning with ,bodoni1 the custom of leading1 sometimes double-leading1 arose4 ,the effect of these new types was helped by a generous amount of white paper between the lines4 ,this applies to ,bodoni1 ,bulmer1 and the ,scotch face and their derivatives4 ,antique types were1 however1 occasionally very freely leaded1 especially in ,spanish books of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries4 ,the conventional use of quotation marks is to place a double mark at the beginning and end of the passage quoted1 with single marks for any quotations within it4 ,in books with much conversation the use of double quotes frequently results in very mottled typography1 and for many years some ,english printers have adopted the single mark for the major quotations1 using double marks only if an inner quote occurs4 ,this violates1 a little1 one's sense of relative importance1 but in a book where there are only simple quotations there is no reason why the single mark should not suffice1 much to the visual improvement of the typography4 ,there is some possibility of confusion if the last word of the extract should chance to be a possessive plural1 with an apostrophe1 as the two marks are identical2 but this occurs so infrequently as to be negligible4 ,inverted commas were used for opening quotes in most founts until comparatively recent years1 but now a separate pattern is provided for most founts4 ,reversed1 instead of inverted commas now accompany many founts1 particularly the reproductions of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century types1 at which time they were first introduced4 ,french1 ,spanish and other continental founders furnish a special design of marks1 2 but these look rather strange to ,anglo-,saxon eyes4 ,in ,elizabethan printing the quotation marks sometimes ran entirely down the margins of the extracts1 and if1 as was frequently the case1 the page was enclosed with rules1 they were often placed outside the rules4 ,this treatment occurs in one of the handsomest books of that period1 ,nobilitas ,politica vel ,civilis1 printed in #afjh by ,william ,jaggard1 the printer of the ,first ,folio fifteen years later4 ,the ,nobilitas is generally accounted the masterpiece of his press1 and in itself comprises nearly all of the various typographical features of books of that time4 ,large and small types1 ,roman1 ,italic1 black-letter and ,anglo-,saxon1 both solid and leaded pages1 tabular work with handsome braces1 side notes1 woodcut initials1 head-pieces and tailpieces1 and a series of costume plates engraved on copper and printed within the rules on folioed blank pages left for them in the form--all go toward making a book that is a compendious example for students of ,elizabethan typography4 ,illustration ,red is the most satisfactory secondary color with black1 and you will often find that it is better to use just one spot of color on the page4 ,in using red for an occasional display line1 blue-red or purple-red or orange-red should be avoided4 ,a red such as the early printers had1 a full-bodied1 rather dull vermilion1 which will hold up well with the black1 is the most successful4 ,if it is desirable to employ the blue for a border or an initial it shows up much more brilliantly when the design is in white on a solid or stippled ground of the blue4 ,an outline design in blue is too light in mass to accompany the black of the type4 ,but black and blue alone are never so pleasing a combination as when red is introduced as the second color1 with blue as the third4 ,the black for the text or reading types should be intense without being glossy1 because the gloss causes a reflection of light and interferes with legibility4 ,the same objection does not apply to colors1 for a moderate gloss enriches them and overcomes a sort of dustiness that their surfaces take on4 ,the text pages of most books should be printed in black ink4#cf ,the tendency of a young printer is often to try for novelty by printing with color rather than with black1 not realizing that most types were not designed for anything but black on white4 ,if1 however1 the job is somewhat aside from the usual run of books1 and is not of too great extent1 a brown or green ink may be substituted for black if the tint be dark enough to afford perfect legibility4 ,but the result then acquires something of the character of an object of art rather than a book4 99 99 99 99 99 ,letter-spacing is often misused4 ,it is safe to say that lower-case type should practically never be letter-spaced1 for the individual letters were designed for close combination with other letters of the alphabet4 ,if it becomes necessary to fill out a line it is preferable to put all the extra space between the words even though the resultant holes are distressing to the eye4 ,sometimes with very large types it is permissible to letter-space in a minor degree1 as the spaces between the letters naturally are larger and letter-spacing does not detract too much from the appearance of the line1 especially if it is distributed according to the irregular space between the different letters as normally set4 ,with capitals or upper-case letters the conditions are different4 ,then it is frequently a great advantage to use letter-spaces1 even considerably2 but this depends upon the general style of the typography adopted for the book4 ,in the hands of some contemporary printers the ,aldine practice of wide letter-spacing of small capitals has been followed quite skilfully in title- or subtitle lines1 chapter headings1 and other display work4 ,this is of particular advantage with the rather heavy-faced modern types1 i4e41 ,scotch1 ,bodoni1 etc4 ,it is well to avoid too many1 and too open letter-spaced lines in any kind of display composition1 for the effect is sometimes disastrous4 ,baskerville was very fond of letter-spacing and most of his work is1 in that respect1 extremely ugly4#cg ,he sometimes pushed spacing to the point of absurdity2 notably in his great ,bible1 where in the heading of the ,book of ,job he set the letters ,j ,o ,b in capitals of about #dh-point size with three inches of space between them4 ,it could hardly be called a word1 but rather just a bad job of type-setting4 ,the practice of letter-spacing to produce blocked-out lines of capitals must be done with great caution and skill or else a very uneven texture will be produced4 ,frequently it is better to abandon the idea of a block of type if the spacing cannot be done with a fairly uniform effect4 ,it is a mistake to start with a determination to produce a block of type and then to persist in it at any cost of legibility or appearance4 ,when lines of capitals are set without leading1 letter-spacing should never be used4 ,the leading should be in proportion to the spacing in order to keep the continuity of the lines of type1 otherwise you will produce columns of letters instead of lines4 ,it is hardly necessary to say that the best letter-spacing is not done with uniform spaces between the letters4 ,the spacing on either side of a letter should be determined by the shape of the adjacent letters4 ,most compositors have now learned to use spaces according to the shape of the letters1 but the cutting of such letters as ,v1 ,w1 to make them set closer than their natural width is usually very much overdone4 ,the new logotypes cut for this purpose are equally faulty in this respect4 ,the resulting effect is more noticeable and more objectionable than the natural setting of the type would be4 ,anything that strikes the eye as strange or unusual in a line of type is to be avoided4 ,periods and commas of letter-spaced capitals should not be set off from the last letter of the word1 regardless of the amount of spacing used elsewhere in the line4 ,colons and semicolons have traditionally been set apart from the word they follow1 whether in capitals or lower case4 ,in old books they are frequently centered in the space between the words where they occur4 ,exclamation and interrogation points should if possible be set off with thin spaces because they often form disagreeable and confusing combinations with the last letter of the word1 such as ff61 ll61 f81 etc4 ,,composed ,,in ,,centaur ,,and ,,arrighi ,,types ,,footnotes3 #cf ,of the more than half-thousand books that ,mr4 ,rogers has designed1 only four come to mind as having the text matter printed in anything other than black2 and these four were all slight volumes1 more or less in the gift-book classification4 #cg ,when we look at his books we think of ,baskerville2 while to look at the work of ,jenson is to think but of its beauty1 and almost to forget that it was made with hands6 ,,updike1 ,printing ,types1 ,,ii1 p4 #aaf4 ,,adventurer ,,with ,,type ,,ornament ,illustration3 ,b4,r4 ,paul ,a4 ,bennett ,revised and amended from ,p4,m41 ,vol4 ,,ii1 ,no4 #e1 ,new ,york1 ,january #aicf4 ,to anyone who has set or handled type1 the achievements of ,bruce ,rogers in combining decorative type units to form a design are extraordinary4 ,this may seem undiluted enthusiasm2 actually and sincerely it is but simple fact4 ,how8 ,why8 ,only a detailed examination of a particular ,b4,r4 design with type ornaments will reveal4 ,an examination1 that is1 accompanied by simultaneous scanning of a proof of the individual elements comprising the design4 ,when one sees the units alone--some of them so seemingly useless that one wonders that anything1 even second-rate stuff1 could possibly be done with such drab material--then one appreciates the typographic magic ,b4,r4 has accomplished4 ,how he sees anything in some of the units he uses so dexterously1 ,i don't know4 ,when and how he first became interested in doing designs with type ornaments is worth considering4 ,his experiments date back to ,riverside ,press days1 though in that period no attempts were made to use type ornament except by conventional combinations into borders or head-pieces4 ,but even at that time he had several seventeenth-century flowers recut for the decoration of a collection of early ,american documents1 titled ,sailors ,narratives of ,voyages ,along the ,new ,england ,coast1 #aebd-afbd1 edited by ,george ,parker ,winship4 ,interest in combining type ornaments was shown again while at the ,university ,press in ,cambridge1 ,england1 during #aiah-ai1 but he developed it there into nothing more than the revival of two or three other earlier ornaments which were used1 as at ,riverside1 in conventional ways4 ,a page of his scrapbook shows also a number of trials with ,egyptian hieroglyphs1 but apparently nothing came of these4 ,the germ of his allusive use of ornaments is probably to be found in the ,goosefest menu which he concocted at ,carl ,rollins' ,montague ,press2 when at the bottom of an elaborate bill of fare three of ,will ,bradley's strutting little figures are set 7or laid7 flat on their backs in a row1 with the legend1 ,turn over 7not us but the leaf74 ,the earliest traceable use of ornaments and punctuation marks that in combination bear directly upon the text thus decorated was in the heading for the first page of ,the ,symbol and the ,saint1 where a line of parentheses1 a cross and three dolphins symbolize the overseas quest of the hero of the tale4 ,this same motif was developed and elaborated later in ,joseph ,conrad the ,man1 ,the ,ancient ,mariner1 and other pieces4 ,his scrapbook shows many unused variations on this theme4 ,the sea and leaping dolphins and palms seem to be his favorite preoccupation4 ,illustration ,probably the most difficult compositions of this kind he has produced are to be found in ,conrad's unfinished novel1 ,the ,sisters2 where in a space the width of the page and one-quarter to one-half inch in depth may be found suggestions of illimitable ,russian wheat fields1 ,paris with its mansard roofs and ,french roads leading into it1 a farewell scene at sunset on a winding ,spanish road1 etc41 each based upon some phrase or paragraph in the story itself4 ,illustration ,illustration ,illustration ,illustration ,illustration ,most certainly ,b4,r4's accomplishments surpass those decorative combinations of type ornaments shown in early printers' and type-founders' specimens--yes1 even including the foremost achievements of the hallowed rule benders4 ,little research is necessary to support these rather inclusive statements4 ,an excellent example is the ,utopia title page1 done for the ,limited ,editions ,club4 ,here is swirling movement in a border1 if ever you saw it4 ,and accomplished1 mainly1 with two traits of ornament and their reverses4 ,the entire border took but several more4 ,illustration ,setting them out individually1 doesn't give a hint of their possibilities4 ,yet look at the result of their use by ,b4,r41 scan the design closely to discover just where and how each element is placed with such telling effect--and you begin to appreciate the man's ability4 ,another example--old stuff ,b4,r4 will call it--is the title page of a little ,christmas book issued a dozen years ago by ,rudge4 ,could one reasonably expect anything remotely approaching typographic whimsy from a few typographic toy soldiers1 a dog1 an elephant1 a few ,christmas trees1 a half moon and some stars8 ,just glance at ,the ,symbol and the ,saint title page though1 and see how ,b4,r4's subtle skill utilized material teetering toward the junk pile4 ,never1 your perceptive collector will say1 has anything more masterful been done with type ornaments than in the ,grolier ,club ,pierrot of the ,minute4 ,few would disagree1 for if ever there was a typographic jewel1 the ,pierrot is it4 ,yet ,b4,r41 in discussing it critically1 termed it ,french millinery4 ,probably all right for its purpose4 ,rather over-decorated1 but then the poem itself seems over-decorative4 ,illustration ,there are dozens of other examples of ,b4,r4's mastery of typographic decoration4 ,but space is not limitless1 and ,i want particularly to say something about some designs with ,linotype ornaments 7drawn by ,t4 ,m4 ,cleland7 that ,mr4 ,rogers devised a few years ago for the ,linotype ,company4 ,these were used for the first time in the insert discussing the auction prices of twenty ,b4,r4 books1 which appeared in ,barnacles ,from ,many ,bottoms1 several of which are shown on pages #bij1 #bii and #cjj4 ,that something may best be told1 ,i believe1 by excerpts from letters written to a ,company executive1 in ,april and ,may #aica1 by ,b4,r41 who then was in ,london3 444 ,in an odd hour ,i got to playing about with some of the ,cleland ornaments1 cutting them out of a specimen and pasting them into a design which finally evolved itself into several amusing compositions4 ,later on it occurred to me that you might be able to use them in some piece4444 ,having only a limited number of proofs1 and no slugs whatever1 ,i was able to work out the idea in only the roughest fashion--not fit to show anyone--but the principal one of the designs is for a page heading 444 or the elements composing it could be used singly--as tail pieces1 initial letters1 etc4 ,this probably is an impractical idea a suggestion by ,mr4 ,rogers on how the material might be used1 but ,i only make it to put into action more or less work that ,i have already done to save it from the scrap basket--work that might be useful to your firm as a demonstration of what can be done with some of your product4 ,i really don't think anyone has yet worked out the possibilities of your ornamental material1 much of which is the best on the market4 ,illustration ,illustration ,additional proofs of the ,cleland ornaments were sent immediately to ,mr4 ,rogers in ,london4 ,with them he made eight designs1 cutting the proofs and pasting the ornaments to show the desired effect4 ,this tree1 for instance1 was used on the title page of the ,barnacles insert3 ,illustration ,this was printed from a line engraving made direct from ,mr4 ,rogers' paste-up1 and used as is to show how accurately his layouts for this type of work reach the composing-room4 ,a month later1 in ,may #aica1 ,mr4 ,rogers returned his layouts with this note3 444 ,i have only just been able to complete the designs ,i had begun4444 ,one or two other combinations occurred to me1 which ,i have also put in--but we could go on endlessly1 almost1 when once started on this kind of thing4444 ,i would have built up the designs with impressions from sections of a slug1 had you sent an inch or two of each unit2 but it is perhaps better1 though slower1 to cut and paste proofs1 as each cutting is a guide to the compositor as to how and where trimming or beveling the ornaments are necessary4 ,but only a few such trimmings are required1 and all the bevelings are at #de degrees--as is the diagonal composition of the oak tree heads4 ,if at all possible ,i would like to have a chance to revise proofs of these1 before they are actually printed--but if that isn't feasible1 then ,i must rely on the compositors getting the closest possible approximation to my pasted-up designs4 ,as close setting as possible is the secret of most work of this kind4 ,the various parts must hang together well--though ,i do not mind a slight indication at the joints that they are made of individual pieces of type4 ,i once had an over-zealous electrotyper fill up all the joints with solder--and ruined the appearance of the design--it looked like a drawn one4 ,it wasn't possible to show ,mr4 ,rogers what had been done with his layouts for the insert in ,barnacles1 which was essentially a surprise book distributed as a keepsake at a dinner in his honor4 ,the fighting cocks1 to cite one instance1 were originally suggested by ,b4,r4 to be used to dress a page folio at the bottom of the page2 in the insert they were raised to the top of the page and printed with his initials4 ,other slight adaptations of similar character were taken in that piece of printing4 ,illustration ,typographic whimsy1 wrote ,carl ,purington ,rollins in ,b4,r4--,america's ,typographic ,playboy1 in #aibg1 is a pretty difficult achievement4 ,the compositor at the case is too much concerned with the practical minuti of his craft to have much time for such trivialities1 and the man who designs printing at a draughting board is apt to find his humor1 if he attempts it in type1 limping like a thrice-told jest4 ,mr4 ,rogers has had the advantage of enough familiarity with type to know what can be done1 and he has been able at times to work with compositors who take a large and robust view of their calling4 ,that whimsy ,mr4 ,rollins had reference to lies in many of ,b4,r4's more ephemeral efforts1 frequently reproduced4 ,it is reflected to a measure1 by ,the ,symbol and the ,saint page4 ,but there is considerably more than whimsy in the type ornament designs by ,b4,r4 ,these have graced dozens of books of varying subjects 444 and the marvel of it all is1 to me1 that the man never repeats himself--he swings off on a new tack 444 adventurous1 exploring1 mastering new trails1 scattering typographic inspiration for dozens of others1 pointing up paths they previously never even suspected4 ,postscript1 #aiea3 ,it is fitting to add a note concerning one of ,b4,r4's more distinguished recent projects1 the great folio ,bible designed for ,the ,world ,publishing ,company1 which was four years in the making4 ,the design of the ,world ,bible employed decorative treatment for the bordered title page1 the sixty-six book openings1 initial letters and numerous tailpieces4 ,these1 together with the type selected a revised1 special cutting of ,goudy ,new-style1 are intended to give a slightly oriental flavor to the volume1 ,b4,r4 pointed out1 indicative of the ,syriac and ,hebrew sources of the text on which the ,king ,james translators based their classic version4 ,in discussing the matter of ornaments in the ,bible with the publishers1 ,b4,r4 revealed his thinking concerning their use3 444 ,most of the ,books will probably not begin at the top of the page and the use of ornaments are to me necessary to separate the end of the preceding book from the title of the following one4 ,illustration ,the ,bible has always been a book on which much decoration and illustrations have been lavished1 and there is no reason in tradition why it should be treated solemnly in that respect4 ,the very first edition 7of which ,i have specimen sheets and a whole ,bible printed from the same type and with the same decorations by the same printer1 twenty-five years later1 #afce7 is just peppered with woodcut decorations and type ornaments4 ,so we have a good precedent for a decorated treatment--if any were needed4 ,you know the ,bible is on the whole one of the most exciting texts in existence1 and the modern 'practical' treatment of it as mainly a book of devotion is ignoble1 to say the least4444 ,some of the typographic decoration and initials used in the ,bible are included here4 ,william ,targ's detailed account1 ,the ,making of the ,bruce ,rogers ,world ,bible1 contains most of the decorative elements--initials1 tailpieces and chapter initials--and reveals the intimate story of the progress of the book's production through the four years4 ,it was published by ,world in #aidi1 in a limited edition of #ahge copies1 #ejj of which were for sale4 ,,composed ,,in ,,centaur ,,and ,,arrighi ,,types ,illustration3 ,book labels devised with typographic ornament by ,b4 ,r4 ,in the originals1 a second color was used for each excepting the ,reydel4 ,,some ,,tendencies ,,in ,,modern ,,typography ,illustration ,daniel ,berkeley ,updike ,from ,some ,aspects of ,printing ,old and ,new by ,d4 ,b4 ,updike4 ,copyright #aida by the author4 ,reprinted by permission of the ,providence ,public ,library1 ,providence1 ,rhode ,island4 ,not very long since ,i was asked by a printer to what extent he should accept or avoid modern trends in the design of types and books4 ,i attempt here to answer that question4 ,i have a friend1 connected with one of the great companies supplying machines for type composition4 ,not long since he spoke to me in unflattering terms of the examples of typography shown at an exhibition of the products of the ,bauhaus ,school1 originally of ,weimar and later of ,munich4 ,he protested against a practice there manifested of discarding capital letters and depending solely on those in the lower-case4 ,i consoled him by showing him a ,french book1 printed entirely in this style4 ,this volume1 entitled ,typographie conomique1 was published in ,paris in #ahcg and so far as it had any influence on printing1 then or later1 is as dead as ,queen ,anne4 ,the author1 the ,count de ,lasteyrie1 who promoted this scheme1 was one of a race of ,french scientists1 of some intellectual and social importance--one of the daughters of ,lafayette married into that family4 ,in the eighteenth century no less a person than the ,german writer ,grimm tried a similar typographical plan4 ,in the ,fairy ,tales containing ,snow ,white and the ,seven ,dwarfs1 later compiled by ,jacob and ,wilhelm ,grimm1 the practice was not continued4 ,this supports the contention that many new and disturbing experiments1 under the patronage of distinguished names1 are merely survivals or revivals of ancient failures4 ,thus in the light of experience1 there is in ,bauhaus typography nothing for my acquaintance--or anybody else--to be excited about4 ,now ,bauhaus typography is of the essence of modernism4 ,that its position may be fairly stated ,i quote the following from a ,bauhaus ,year ,book3--verbatim and 7,i may add7 literatim3 why should we write and print with two alphabets8 both a large and a small sign are not necessary to indicate one single sound4 ,a a we do not speak a capital ,a and a small a4 we need only a single alphabet4 it gives us practically the same result as the mixture of upper and lower-case letters1 and at the same time is less of a burden on all who write--on school children1 students1 stenographers1 professional and business men4 it could be written much more quickly1 especially on the type-writer1 since the shift key would then become unnecessary1 typewriting could therefore be more quickly mastered and typewriters would be cheaper because of simpler construction1 printing would be cheaper1 for fonts and type cases would be smaller1 so that printing establishments would save space and their clients money4 with these common sense economies in mind 444 the bauhaus made a thorough alphabetical house-cleaning in all its printing1 eliminating capitals from books1 posters1 catalogs1 magazines1 stationery and even calling cards4 dropping capitals would be a less radical reform in english4 indeed the use of capital letters occurs so infrequently in english in comparison with german that it is difficult to understand why such a superfluous alphabet should still be considered necessary4 ,now in ,german printing all nouns have capital letters4 ,in the sentence ,a ,dog chases a ,cat into a ,barn1 dog1 cat1 barn are all capitalized4 ,no one can be blamed for wanting to be rid of so much capitalization4 ,but when ,germans purge anything the innocent invariably suffer with the guilty4 ,thus all capitals must go4 ,while it may have overcome a difficulty felt in ,germany1 this imported missionary zeal corrects no difficulty in the printing of ,english prose or poetry4 ,in some instances such a custom brings about surprising results4 ,suppose1 for example1 a newspaper says the white house favors black and prefers even green to a dyed-in-the-wool red4 ,to make the sentence intelligible would need the addition of a number of words--which would not be typographie conomique6 ,we need labour this point no further but leave these experiments to the advertising of ,coty and ,elizabeth ,arden4 ,such effects have what is called attention value--like ,neon signs--but ,i am not considering that kind of typography4 ,i have1 however1 here traced the source of a current fashion of printing signs and advertisements without capital letters4 ,i have been classed by my work as a conservative1 but ,i am a liberal conservative or a conservative liberal--whichever you like or dislike4 ,all ,i wish to conserve1 either in traditionalism or modernism1 is common sense4 ,what little ,i have was gained by experience4 ,i regard many typographic experiments with good will and many traditional viewpoints with tolerance4 ,i agree wholeheartedly with neither4 ,i remember--or try to do so--that every generation has in turn to be told that there was once a man named ,caesar1 who wrote a very dull book called the ,commentaries1 of which the first sentence is all that most people remember2 that the makers of ,baker's ,chocolate did not invent the familiar picture of a chocolate girl1 which was an eighteenth-century painting by ,jean ,etienne ,liotard now in a ,dresden picture gallery1 and that ,william ,blake did not write1 but only illustrated1 the ,book of ,job4 ,we who have long known these things forget that people are born not knowing them4 ,we should therefore look tenderly on many typographic experiments4 ,to us elders they may seem akin to lighting a fire with kerosene or applying one's tongue to metal in zero temperatures1 but it is by such unwise ventures that we outgrow them4 ,and as ,i have spent a long life learning1 and to most questions do not yet know the answers1 ,i have no right to frown on more youthful and enterprising enquirers4 ,obviously some of the eccentricities of present-day typography are a natural reflection of that rather tortured world in which we find ourselves4 ,if art1 the drama1 literature1 and music reflect current trends of life it is natural that printing should in a measure do so4 ,if we throw overboard old standards of conduct1 we may far more readily throw over old standards of taste4 ,when one casts a convention away as useless and outmoded1 we often learn for the first time why it was there6 ,it is urged that fuller expression of individuality1 unhampered by rules1 is development4 ,it seems to me more accurate to say that through the experience of trying these experiments development comes--though not always of a kind expected4 ,such development ought never to stop until in the exact sense of the word we are accomplished--finished--which few live to be4 ,the problem is to distinguish between a true development1 and a false one4 ,in judging either modernistic or retrospective typography1 that is what must be decided4 ,do these developments--wise or otherwise1 produce a well-made and readable book--in short a good book8 ,in the printing of books meant to be read1 says an authority1 there is little room for 'bright' typography4 ,even dullness and monotony in the type-setting are far less vicious to a reader than typographical eccentricity or pleasantry4 ,cunning of this sort is desirable1 even essential in the typography of propaganda1 whether for commerce1 politics1 or religion because in such printing only the freshest survives inattention4 ,but the typography of books1 apart from the category of narrowly limited editions1 requires an obedience to convention which is almost absolute--and with reason4 ,it is the fashion1 just now1 to decry typographic conventions4 ,some conventions and traditions deserve to be decried and some have already been laughed out of existence4 ,there are1 however1 good and bad conventions and traditions in printing1 just as there are true and false developments1 and the trick is to know which is which6 ,convention and particularly tradition are1 generally1 the crystallized result of past experiments1 which experience has taught us are valuable4 ,in some of the extreme modernistic typography a little more tradition might come in handy4 ,the trouble with the modernist is that he seems afraid not to throw everything overboard and mistakes eccentricity for emancipation4 ,thus some books of today seem to be the arrangement of a perverse and self-conscious eccentricity4 ,such printing is often the work of eager1 ambitious1 and inexperienced men1 and because they are young and ,god is good1 one can afford to be patient2 sure that they will1 in the long run1 outgrow the teething1 mumps1 and measles of typography4 ,their convalescence will possibly be hastened by meditating on the saying of ,lord ,falkland that when it is not necessary to change1 it is necessary not to change4 ,no movement ever accomplishes all that its first promoters intended or hoped for2 almost all movements make some lasting contributions to our common stock4 ,every new idea1 every new invention brings along with its expected benefits unforeseen evils4 ,modernistic architecture is at present exciting because new and unusual2 when more common it will become commonplace4 ,when it becomes difficult to differentiate the exterior of a modernistic church from a warehouse1 we may get very1 very tired of it4 ,then a compensating reaction will set in and balance will be restored4 ,the same thing is true of modernistic typography4 ,at present1 it shocks us into attention1 but we get tired of being shocked1 for we do not want printing to surprise but to soothe us4 ,the modernist must remember1 too1 that such a thing as an underivative work of art does not and cannot exist1 and no great master in the arts has thought or asserted otherwise4 ,we gladly admit that some modernistic formulas have had good results4 ,in architecture1 perhaps to some degree in typography1 they have taught us to get rid of clutter and useless ornamentation4 ,but neither the one nor the other leads anywhere--except to a dead end4 ,the conservative1 however1 need not think that all truth is on his side4 ,however much he tries to practise retrospective or period typography1 consciously or unconsciously his work will show the influence of his time4 ,just as there is a popular idiom in speech which varies in each decade1 so there is a current idiom in printing4 ,all these idioms1 literary and typographic1 have not come to stay1 but some become accepted terms4 ,under ,theodore ,roosevelt we suffered from the word strenuous4 ,president ,harding inflicted the word normalcy on ,american speech4 ,we now have reactions1 and contacts4 ,clergymen challenge things1 have spiritual adventures1 talk of strategic positions for their parish houses and aid parochial charities by clarion calls1 though if confronted with a clarion 7if this instrument exists outside of sermons7 they would be quite unable to blow it4 ,all these catch-words and stock phrases are in the air4 ,we suffer much the same thing in typography1 about which there is also a new jargon which replaces the old clichs of my youth about rhythm1 balance1 and colour4 ,neither in speech nor printing can one make a clean sweep of the past nor help being of the present1 no matter how hard one tries4 ,i deplore violent attempts to make current printing accord with the spirit of the age4 ,it always has1 always will1 and does now4 ,nor need the conservative sniff at typographic experimentation4 ,to turn to another department of daily life1 what would happen if no one had ever tried experiments with food8 ,in the distant past there was the first human being who--as an experiment--ate an oyster1 though perhaps first trying jelly-fish with less comfortable results4 ,others died of eating toadstools before people learned that they could survive on mushrooms4 ,almost all our vegetable food we owe to gastronomic adventurers4 ,thus the hide-bound conservative owes sustenance to the fruits1 and vegetables1 of experiment4 ,to speak more seriously1 both modernist and conservative should lay to heart what ,benedetto ,croce says in his ,autobiography about the impossibility of resting on the results of past thought and the necessity of modesty in stating one's present position4 ,i see1 he writes1 a new crop of problems springing up in a field from which ,i have but now reaped a harvest of solutions2 ,i find myself calling in question the conclusions to which ,i have previously come2 and these facts 444 force me to recognize that truth will not let itself be tied fast4444 ,they teach me modesty towards my present thoughts1 which tomorrow will appear deficient and in need of correction1 and indulgence towards myself of yesterday or the past1 whose thoughts1 however inadequate in the eyes of my present self1 yet contained some real element of truth2 and this modesty and indulgence pass into a sense of piety towards thinkers of the past1 whom now ,i am careful not to blame1 as once ,i blamed them1 for their inability to do what no man1 however great1 can do 444 to fix into eternity the fleeting moment4 ,there is1 to the reasonable mind1 no real quarrel between modernism and traditionalism in printing1 except in degree4 ,modernism must and does influence the conservative in spite of himself--if by modernism we mean a healthy awareness of the needs of the time in which we are living4 ,tradition must and does influence the modernist1 if by tradition we mean patient and respectful appraisal of what that accumulation of yesterdays1 which we call the past1 has to teach4 ,it is only by experience that we can effect a wise blend of the two4 ,then we produce books which1 while representing the best practice of our time1 will outlast it4 ,the appraisal of their ultimate values we must leave to the future4 ,there is no past that we need long to return to1 said ,goethe1 there is only the eternally new which is formed out of enlarged elements of the past2 and our real endeavor must always be towards new and better creation4 ,,composed ,,in ,,bell ,,types ,illustration,,peter ,,beilenson,illustration ,the ,amateur ,printer3 ,,his ,,pleasures ,,and ,,his ,,duties ,from ,graphic ,forms3 ,the ,arts ,as ,related to the ,book4 ,copyright #aidi by ,harvard ,university ,press4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,although the title of this piece is sufficiently long to be impressive and important-sounding1 all ,i really want to write about is printing as fun4 ,i am going to write about the amateur printer1 and the amateur is the fellow who has fun4 ,i do not wish to belittle the affection a professional printer may have for his work4 ,he should love his work4 ,but he can love it only in a different way3 for after all he is essentially a businessman about it4 ,his work1 like that of any other businessman1 is something he has to sit down to by nine in the morning and something he can't leave until five at night4 ,it is something that involves landlords and labor unions1 payrolls and tax inspectors1 truckmen1 office-boys1 salesmen1 compositors1 pressman1 bindery workers--and customers4 ,he has to worry about payments1 and depreciation1 and publicity1 and time sheets4 ,the professional has to concern himself with all these things which are not printing at all1 because he is in business and has to make money4 ,his primary yardstick of success as a professional is3 ,how much money did we make last year8 ,of course he has other minor yardsticks of success too3 he may be successful because his presses turn out useful things like timetables1 or gratifying things like corporation reports for the year1 or beautiful things like four-color reproductions of ,varga girls4 ,to make these things well is a kind of fun2 and insofar as the fun comes from the satisfaction in the thing itself rather than in the profit that derives from it1 ,i'd like to call it amateur satisfaction4 ,but essentially our professional printer--and permit me to limit myself to the professional book printer--is supposed to make money1 not to have fun4 ,and he makes money best1 nowadays1 if his plant is equipped with the efficient modern machinery which is designed for maximum production4 ,such machinery is a wonderful creation of man2 it is thrilling to watch in action2 and it gets results4 ,but it has its disadvantages4 ,now that mechanization is becoming more and more complete in more and more places1 we can begin to see clearly the greatest disadvantage of all3 under such mechanization individual workers have lost pride and satisfaction in their work1 because they have become mere replaceable units of less and less importance2 whereas the machines they operate are more and more important1 and have become the essential units4 ,a generation ago the professional printer might have boasted of his skilled compositors1 who could set type more expertly1 or his skilled pressmen1 who could make more careful overlays or match ink better than someone else's craftsmen4 ,today he boasts of his remote-control composing machines1 his presses which come close to eliminating make-ready altogether1 and his ink supplier's new gadget which matches colors scientifically4 ,today the most successful printer is the one who with the least possible dependence on man-power1 can keep the most presses running fastest for the greatest number of hours per day and days per year4 ,he is not the one with the most skilled craftsmen4 ,in such a world1 where the executive's function is to feed the machine and the workman's is to tend it1 the human spirit begins to cry out for the fun in work which ,i have called the amateur satisfaction4 ,it is true that today's shorter working hours--which the machine makes possible--permit people to have more outside fun2 permit the manager to play more golf1 and the workman to play more softball 7or more pinball7 in the late afternoon2 it is true that more people now see more beer advertised on more television programs1 and may even drink more of it1 in the evenings4 ,but managers and workmen alike turn so avidly to such kinds of fun because they no longer get fun out of their daily work4 ,it is becoming harder and harder for people to equate work and happiness4 ,now ,i do not set myself up as a social reformer dedicated to the dream that all people should be happy in their work4 ,nor do ,i propose as a step to this end that we revert1 smash the wonderful machines1 and go back to the good old days when everyone really did work with his hands--usually from dawn to dark1 six days a week4 ,there was no pinball or television then1 but still ,i do not wish to go back6 ,nor do ,i suggest that the solution is the promised thirty-hour week1 with all the workmen driving their own ,buicks home at two each afternoon1 and taking out the wife and kiddies to ,braves ,field or the ,gardner ,museum4 ,but ,i do suggest that some of you people who really love printing1 but are too involved with the nine-to-five daily business of it to enjoy it much1 should enrich your lives by becoming amateur printers in your spare time4 ,you will have fun4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i yield to no man in my boredom with vegetables and salads4 ,i see green at every meal save breakfast4 ,i have eaten enough stringbeans to stretch--if they were straightened out and laid end to end--from ,fordhook ,nurseries in ,delaware to the city of ,burbank1 ,california4 ,if you could see all the lettuce leaves ,i have consumed in my lifetime1 piled leaf on leaf and dripping in their oils1 their vinegar1 their mayonnaise1 and their roquefort dressings1 you would be absolutely appalled4 ,but1 bored as ,i am with green things on the table--bored because despite their goodness they have been too plentiful and too easily come by--,i am not bored on those occasions when1 like ,candide1 ,i cultivate my garden1 get my hands into the dirt1 and smell ,god's good fragrance in the loam4 ,to watch the power of living things like salad greens and stringbeans pushing their way out of the seed1 up through the earth1 reaching down for water and up for sunlight with an irresistible drive1 is to realize afresh the power of life on this planet4 ,it is a reinvigorating and religious experience4 ,it is impossible to watch seeds grow into plants and flowers and fruit and still to believe cynically in a mere mechanistic explanation for such a life drive4 ,to get back to the seed1 the earth1 and the root is to re-experience the fun and meaning of life4 ,in the same way that ,i have become bored with salad1 we have all become bored with words1 printed words4 ,we have seen too many of them1 we have read too many of them1 we have measured1 or proofread1 or edited1 or sold1 too many of them4 ,we have forgotten their primal power1 their irresistible living urge4 ,we have forgotten that sincere authors have not put them down on paper because of two cents a word or #aj per cent of the retail gross--that they have been written 7in the best cases7 out of human necessity1 human ebullience1 human passion1 human sympathy1 or human understanding4 ,the industrial book-printing world cannot ever think of words in that way4 ,it must always think of them as areas of type #bb by #bh picas1 as numbers of pages which do or do not make up a multiple of thirty-two1 as units of sale at #c4jj less #dj per cent4 ,to go back to nature and become an amateur printer in such an industrialized book world is like working in the garden when you are bored with salad4 ,you really get back to the roots of words4 ,if you are a genuine amateur printer1 and set the type and print the pages yourself1 you actually can share in the creative agonies and satisfactions of the author4 ,for you put down his words1 letter for letter in your type-stick1 just as he did with his quill or his battered ,remington4 ,the best way on earth to appreciate an author and his creative spirit 7or for that matter to realize more quickly the faults in him7 is to pick him up letter by letter from a ,california case4 ,an even more acid test is to distribute the type after printing him4 ,in such a case you pick up half a dozen lines of type at once and work backwards1 distributing the last word of the last line first4 ,it is a revelation how the hollowness of an author can show up under this treatment4 ,it is especially cruel to poets1 for every word which is not really necessary1 which is there just for padding or for a rhythm or a rhyme1 becomes as noticeable as the well-known sore thumb4 ,but the genuine1 sincere author with a pure style stands up beautifully under such treatment1 and has his reward in your pleasure at this discovery4 ,after you have set your author's type you must make up his pages1 choose his decorations or illustrations1 and set his headings4 ,you must decide whether to stretch him to twenty-four pages or condense him to sixteen4 ,you must buy his paper1 lock up his pages in your chase1 make him ready1 curse your press which is printing him1 apply your ink to his words1 and impress him for posterity4 ,perhaps you will thereafter fold him1 sew him1 and encase him in boards4 ,in so doing1 you become1 to the extent of sixteen or twenty-four pages1 in an edition of one hundred or three hundred copies1 ,god4 ,you have created something which did not exist before1 and which would not have existed save for your thinking brain and tired back and dirty hands4 ,true1 you have not created ,heaven and ,earth1 and you have undoubtedly worked at your creation for more than the original quota of six days4 ,but anyway you have given the world something which was at first only words you loved1 and is now a whole1 real book1 which you love all the more because it is your book1 your child1 your embodiment of those words4 ,that is the fun and satisfaction of being an amateur4 ,in our printing world there is no other satisfaction equal to it4 99 99 99 99 99 ,good old ,ralph ,waldo ,emerson was mortally right when he wrote down his doctrine of ,compensation4 ,his doctrine of ,compensation says that every pleasure carries some penalty1 every gain some kind of loss4 ,every duty accepted gives you a satisfaction1 and every satisfaction received involves you in a duty4 ,thus far ,i have written of the satisfaction of your being an amateur printer4 ,now ,i wish to write of your duty and obligation4 ,the amateur book printer has a duty which1 if he will accept it1 will in the long run return to him the greatest satisfaction4 ,this duty is to teach the professional1 by example1 about the outer cultural world1 and to experiment for him in matters of printing style4 ,now this is directly contrary to what ninety out of one hundred current amateurs would seem to think1 and ,i must therefore beg their ninety pardons if ,i disturb their habits of mind4 ,most amateurs either don't trouble their minds about problems of printing style at all1 or else they fall too easily into the habit of working in the ,colonial style1 or ,venetian style1 or some other historical style1 rather than in a contemporary one4 ,maybe they do so for psychological reasons4 ,and maybe not4 ,i am too set in my diction to learn the trick of talking in psychological terms4 ,i would express their case like this3 ,amateurs who work in historical styles do so because they are romantics1 romantics who turn away from the impersonal machine world of the present for a breath of the more human and glamorous-seeming past4 ,i sympathize with such an instinct1 and hold myself ready to defend any man who seeks to re-inject a human element into the printing craft4 ,the trouble is1 such amateurs think that because printing in the past was done by hand1 and because there is something more satisfying and human about printing by hand1 they must therefore work in an antique printing style and make ,colonial and ,venetian books in order to enjoy themselves4 ,this is a false syllogism4 ,i strongly recommend printing by hand to amateurs because it will give them greater satisfaction1 not because it will make their books look like antiques4 ,it is too easy to fabricate such antiques1 and to do so will in the long run give you less enjoyment than making something which in style is original and new4 ,as a matter of fact it is already too late to think in terms of revivals and reproductions4 ,in printing1 the revival habit started over a hundred years ago with ,whittingham and ,pickering1 when they dusted off the forgotten ,caslon types and the eighteenth-century style4 ,it has been going on ever since1 and reached a climax of understanding and skill in our century at the hands of ,updike1 ,rogers1 ,rollins1 ,goudy1 and others4 ,this revivalism was a kind of search for humanism1 and a kind of rebellion against commercialism4 ,these men were not unique4 ,in every generation since #ahjj1 in every art and craft1 every field of thought1 the ,industrial ,revolution has prompted men to make the same search backward for satisfactions which the modern world did not seem to offer4 ,too many of our amateurs are still making the same search1 although the ,industrial ,revolution is well over one hundred years old1 all the necessary backward searching has been done1 and all the historical styles have been reworked4 ,our predecessors have made it unnecessary for us to go through the process once again4 ,we can see now that their work was an escape perhaps for them1 but that it can never be a durable way of creative realization for us4 ,from now on1 we must join up with the forward-looking crowd who think they can build a new world4 ,the book-printing industry has not been very forward-looking in matters of style4 ,with the exception of a few printers and designers1 book printers have been unhealthily backward4 ,therefore the time is ripe for amateur book-experimentalists to prod and teach them4 ,the amateur can do it4 ,he is1 or should be1 a man with interests in other fields of culture than his own4 ,he is aware already of what has been done in painting and music1 in fabrics and furniture design1 in architecture too--most important of all4 ,he must now help printing to develop its own new styles1 equivalent to those in other fields4 ,that he can do so is evidenced by the fact that in recent years the greatest strides forward have been taken not by the professionals but by people who in a sense are amateurs1 but who have known how to apply modern ideas from other fields4 ,the ,bauhaus group first became notable1 between the wars1 by applying the functional theories of modern architecture to the printed page4 ,the ,black ,sun ,press and ,harrison of ,paris applied the ideas of ,monroe ,wheeler and others who were stimulated by modern painting4 ,there may be similar publishing projects in this country today1 but they are not yet influential4 ,the most effective1 most vocal1 most lovable of contemporary ,american influences is that rugged individual ,merle ,armitage1 whose ideas have been influential in shaping my own attitude4 ,such people all know that the world has changed2 that it will never turn back again2 and that it is up to us to catch on to the flying coattails of ,today4 ,i urge other amateurs to join the ranks of these apostles of change4 ,it will be a great day for all of us when ninety out of one hundred are experimentalists1 and not the other way around4 ,of course in urging amateurs to develop new styles1 ,i am not recommending any easy hobby4 ,it is simple1 but dull1 to copy an old style4 ,it is hard1 but exciting1 to work out a new one4 ,and while you are working at it1 you must expect cynical observers to give your experiments the adjective wacky2 you must expect certain curious kinds of people to praise your work for the wrong reasons2 and you must expect alternating moods of conceit and frustration4 ,the proofs you gloat over at night will become commonplace by dawn4 ,your wife may go back to her mother in rage and despair4 ,you may need sleeping pills4 ,you will make misjudgments about the intelligence of ordinary readers4 ,you will make mistakes of taste4 ,you will find it too easy to get an effect by means of shock1 and you will forget that any book1 even a twenty-first-century book1 must be a coherent unit4 ,and you will often1 since there are no highway markers for the explorer1 feel lonely and discouraged1 and want to go back to the old familiar well-traveled roads again4 ,but if you go through with it1 or even if you just play with it sometimes as a hobby1 you can have great fun4 ,for it will put you out in the open1 free to please yourself1 with the boss and the customer left far behind4 ,you can be subtle or bold1 as you feel the urge1 for you do not have to please the great common denominator1 the common man4 ,you can advance your own work by looking to other fields of creation1 enjoying and profiting by the experiments going on in them4 ,you can feel yourself a part of the whole forward-looking culture of your day1 and not someone off in a little forgotten corner4 ,and1 if you do strike a vein with the glitter of real gold in it1 you will become rich indeed4 ,for you will have become a creator in a new sense2 your duty done as an amateur will be compensated with a twenty-four-carat satisfaction4 ,at such a moment of realization you will have earned the privilege to rest and feel content4 ,as on a seventh day after six of creation1 standing late at night with bloodshot eyes and inky fingers and aching back in a paper-littered room1 you have become a creator4 ,you have not merely escaped from the flattened monotony of the machine age--you have become one of the shapers of its future4 ,more power to you in that work6 ,t4 ,m4 ,,cleland ,harsh ,words ,an address delivered at a meeting of ,the ,american ,institute of ,graphic ,arts1 in ,new ,york ,city1 ,february #eth1 #aidj1 on the occasion of the opening of the eighteenth annual exhibition of the ,fifty ,books of the ,year4 ,copyright #aidj by ,t4 ,m4 ,cleland4 ,reprinted by permission4 ,mr4 ,chairman and ,members of ,the ,american ,institute of ,graphic ,arts3 ,the generosity of your invitation to me to speak on this important occasion leaves me a trifle bewildered4 ,i am so accustomed to being told to keep my opinions to myself that being thus unexpectedly encouraged to express them gives me some cause to wonder if ,i have1 or ever had1 any opinions upon the graphic arts worth expressing4 ,but since it is the theory of your ,committee that ,i have1 and it may never be anybody's theory again1 and they have gone so far as to give me no instructions or suggestions as to the scope or the limitations of what ,i might say1 it would seem as ungracious to decline such an exceptional offer as it would be to abuse it4 ,so if ,i accept it as wholeheartedly as ,i believe it was given--if ,i take you at your word and say things that ,i have long wanted to hear somebody say--,i hope it will not be thought an abuse of this kindly tendered privilege4 ,i realize that1 nominally at least1 my subject must be that of printing and typography as exemplified by the selection of the fifty best books of the year which we are here to celebrate2 and ,i suppose1 by comparison to deplore the fifty thousand worst books which may be seen elsewhere4 ,but by what may seem a very odd paradox1 ,i don't quite know how to stick to this subject without wandering a good way off it4 ,or1 perhaps ,i should say that ,i cannot approach it directly except by a very roundabout way4 ,if ,i have a thesis for these remarks1 ,i can only develop it in terms of a tree4 ,this is because ,i do not believe that invention in the arts can be picked from empty space like objects in a prestidigitator's act4 ,fruits really grow on trees and trees have roots in the earth4 ,the tree ,i have in mind is cultural civilization3 one of its limbs is art and a branch of this we call the graphic arts1 and a twig on this branch is printing and typography4 ,i promise not to dig into the roots of this tree1 but ,i may be found1 monkey-wise1 climbing all over it before ,i am through4 ,i am at some disadvantage in that ,i do not belong to any organizations for the advancement of typography and the graphic arts--not even to this one--and ,i am ill-informed and out of touch with what is going on in these fields except by casual observation4 ,but as members of this very useful organization1 you are not engaged in printing or other graphic arts1 ,i take it1 solely for each other1 but for the enjoyment and delectation of the world at large4 ,so there is a partially compensating advantage in my being at large myself1 and thus able to speak of present trends in the graphic arts as they appear from the outside1 looking in4 ,but this advantage may in turn be offset by the fact that ,i cannot honestly speak of what ,i see with much enthusiasm4 ,i can bring you no message of hope or light of inspiration4 ,much as ,i am filled with admiration and respect for many individual talents and accomplishments that still contrive to exist1 they seem to me to stand unhappily isolated in what ,i can't help viewing as artistic bankruptcy and cultural chaos4 ,among them are printers making beautiful books and other things about as well as these things have ever been made4 ,but as to the general volume of printing1 no one has asked me1 to be sure1 what ,i thought was the lowest point of artistic taste in the five hundred years of its existence which we are celebrating this year1 but if anyone should ask me1 ,i would be bound to say that we have reached that point just about now4 ,things may get worse1 but it's hard to see how they can4 ,to paraphrase a remark in the concluding chapter of ,updike's classic work on printing types1 it has taken printers and publishers five hundred years to find out how wretchedly books and other things can be made and still sell4 ,i am not forgetting that there were some very benighted periods of taste in other centuries that would seem to refute this sweeping assertion4 ,perhaps it is worth noting here--and the fact is peculiarly ironical--that the design and style of official and governmental things--money1 postage stamps1 bonds and stock certificates--was created and solidified into a seemingly unalterable convention at that hitherto all time low point of the decorative arts in the mid-nineteenth century4 ,so powerful is this convention that we would be suspicious of a ten dollar bill that was not visually saturated with ugliness4 ,a counterfeiter with aesthetic sensibilities must not only sweat blood but weep tears over the job of imitating one4 ,but in the sadly perverted taste of that epoch there was a kind of innocence3 standards were still respected1 and proficiency1 though overworked and misdirected1 was recognized and not condemned4 ,today when ,i look about in the bookstore1 and more especially on the newsstands1 or open the pages of most of the magazines with the biggest circulations1 ,i want to do what the little boy did in the story which was a favorite of my friend1 the late ,hal ,marchbanks4 ,the little boy had been to his first party1 and when he arrived home1 his mother said3 ,did mama's little boy have a nice time at the party8 ,yep1 he replied4 ,what did mama's little boy do at the party8 ,i thow'd up4 ,against this steady decline in both taste and workmanship1 your fifty books selection and exhibit each year has been a noble effort1 and in this country1 almost the only concerted one of consequence to uphold some standards4 ,you have inspired both publishers and printers to earnest endeavor to improve their products with frequently admirable results4 ,but these are only fifty books out of how many other books and other printed things4 ,without this good work of yours1 one wonders if any standards at all would survive the flood of cheap and easy mechanization1 careless workmanship and bad taste4 ,not that there is anything wrong with machines4 ,the first hand press1 it should be remembered by its sentimental admirers1 was also a machine4 ,we have not learned to use the machines at their best1 but accepted them like fruits in the ,garden of ,eden1 and thought of nothing but how much we could get out of them in speed and quantity and profit4 ,because we can do with them easily what formerly demanded time and pains to do at all1 we have too easily assumed that they delivered us from the need of any time or pains4 ,before ,i go any farther on or off the track with these random remarks1 ,i should like it to be understood that ,i am addressing them particularly to any students and beginners in the graphic arts that may be present1 rather than to those who are arrived4 ,i am a student and still a beginner myself1 and so my interest and my heart are naturally with my own kindred4 ,i speak as an old beginner to younger ones4 ,i am at a great disadvantage with regard to the number of years ,i have left in which to get started1 and if ,i have any advantage at all1 it is only in experience with the bewilderments and illusions that clutter our common way in learning and trying to practice one or more of the graphic arts4 ,the confusions and distraction of this day make the path of the student and beginner rough and tortuous4 ,having travelled it for more years than ,i like to admit1 when ,i look backward1 ,i am astonished to discover the number of twists and turns and pitfalls ,i might just as well have spared myself4 ,perhaps the most foolish of these was the fear of not being original--what ,romain ,rolland calls the fear of the already said4 ,the notion that ,i must do something new every day1 or ,i would not be creative--forgetting that ,god made the planets all the same shape as far as we can see1 and that the oak tree does not alter the form of its leaves from year to year4 ,there is no supposition so pathetically misleading as that creative originality is within your own volition--the notion that it can be acquired leads to deplorable results4 ,it distracts the mind and energies of the young student from gaining needful technical competence--from learning his trade1 and in more mature stages tempts the would-be artist into vulgar mannerisms and formulas which he will call his style4 ,the idea that originality is essential to the successful practice of the graphic arts is more prevalent today than it ever was in the days when the graphic arts were practiced at their best4 ,the current belief that everyone must now be an inventor is too often interpreted to mean that no one need any longer be a workman4 ,hand in hand with this premeditated individualism goes1 more often than not1 a curious irritation with standards of any kind4 ,the conscious cultivator of his own individuality will go to extravagant lengths to escape the pains imposed by a standard4 ,but of all the perils that lie in wait for adolescent artists there is none more seductive than the bewildering array of ologies and isms that leer and beckon to him at every crossroad of his journey4 ,just as isms and ologies have taken the place1 in social and political life1 of right and wrong2 so have they become the accepted terms of the arts4 ,in fact1 nonsense is now so universally the language of art that it is nearly hopeless to try to make oneself understood in any other4 ,brood mare to all of these extravagancies--and ,i have lived to see many of them come and go--is that one which achieves the super absurdity of calling itself modernism2 and none has been expounded and exploited in more contradictory and antic ways4 ,to deliberately call oneself modern is no less ludicrous than something an old ,danish friend told me years ago about a line in one of the books of a very prolific writer of historical romances in his country4 ,in a tale with a medieval setting this writer had one of his knights in armour cry out to another3 ,we men of the middle ages never take insults1 etc4 ,embraced with fanatic enthusiasm by many architects and designers is the current quackery called ,functionalism4 ,it1 in common with its many predecessors1 offers a new gospel for the regeneration of our aesthetic world by restricting all design to the function of its object or its materials4 ,like the new religions and philosophies that have paraded in and out of our social history for countless generations1 it purports to be an original concept4 ,it has brought to us such gladsome gifts as concrete boxes with holes in them for buildings1 chairs of bent pipe with no hind legs1 glass fireplaces1 beds of cement blocks joined by structural steel1 the queer agglomeration of unsightly edifices we call the ,world's ,fair and many other specimens of stark and forbidding claptrap4 ,unless all signs are misleading me1 it is another mass vulgarity like the age of golden oak and mission furniture1 even now on its way to the junk pile or the attic1 perhaps to be someday rediscovered there and dragged out by future generations in search of quaintness4 ,it seems to me1 ladies and gentlemen1 that all art was modern when it was made1 and still is if it is suitable to life as we now live it2 and ,i look in vain for any applied art worthy the name that was not also1 in some sense functional4 ,from the buttresses of a gothic cathedral to the gayest ,chippendale chair one finds1 upon analysis1 a perfect work of engineering perfectly adapted to its purpose4 ,if this were not so1 these things would hardly have endured for so long a time4 ,so that common regard for function which has always been the basic principle of first-rate design1 assumes the impressive aspect of a religion1 with high priests and ritual1 by the simple addition of an ism4 ,as students and beginners in search of truth1 we are today being pushed and pulled about by no end of such bogus preachments--familiar faces with false whiskers--old and common principles dolled up with new names and often used to account for incompetence and laziness4 ,and what is the meaning of this term functionalism8 ,must a design be related to no functions except mechanical and material ones8 ,might not the most fantastic and elaborate works of the geniuses of the baroque and rococo styles have also been functional in that they expressed the spirit and fitted perfectly the life they were intended to serve8 ,we hear much holy talk of simplicity in this day and the idea of simplicity expressed by a total absence of everything not essential to mechanical function has been elevated to a fetich4 ,we have divorced simplicity from its old mate charm as we might break up the happy relationship of ham and eggs or pork and beans4 ,but in this reverent renunciation of all adornment not strictly functional in this limited sense1 have we paused to ask whether we are in fact following a basic human instinct1 or merely attempting to make a virtue out of poverty of invention8 ,there is no evidence that man is imbued with an instinctive love of simplicity in the objects with which he finds it useful to surround himself4 ,indeed1 our museums are bulging with evidence to the contrary4 ,from the ,cro-,magnon cave to gothic cathedrals1 from the temples of ,india to the palace of ,versailles1 the earth has been made to flower with man's inherent love of ornament4 ,it would seem then that ornamentation is deeply rooted in the human instinct since no tribe1 however primitive in other respects1 is without it4 ,the restraints of this instinct and the tempering of it with what we call taste is a cultivated faculty like the restraint of our other appetites2 but to be a teetotaler in ornament or in anything else1 is to confess to either weakness of control or incapacity for enjoyment4 ,a teetotaler1 said ,whitman1 is just another kind of toper4 ,this instinctive yearning for ornamentation is well demonstrated in the case of our own ,rockefeller ,center2 where it has been catered to with peculiar ineptitude4 ,here all the important structures have been piously stripped of everything non-essential to mechanical function4 ,pillars1 pilasters1 cornices and mouldings--ornaments that at least have their genesis in structural functions--have all been piously renounced4 ,and then because it was found that the human spirit could not tolerate such barren starkness1 and business might suffer from it1 ornaments have been pasted around its doorways and approaches like gold paper lace on a pasteboard box--ornaments completely unrelated to any structural function of any kind4 ,sculptures1 fountains1 trees1 flowers and awnings have all been pressed into service to compensate for this spurious simplicity4 ,many of these things are beautiful in their own right like ,mr4 ,manship's golden figure of ,prometheus4 ,one of the little office girls that further decorate the scene at the noon hour1 was overheard the other day explaining to another that this was a statue of ,primiscuous escaping from ,responsibility4 ,so under this wildly flapping banner of ,modernism marches a quaint array of worn and shabby syntheses for art1 each day parading a new dress and a new alias4 ,the common urge for self-expression can always find one or another of them at its service4 ,for those who are particularly deficient in the talent1 energy and patience demanded for the mastery of an art1 something called non-objective art has been invented4 ,for this the only things required are a box of paints1 brushes and a surface to exercise them on4 ,with these simple and easily procurable tools you express your own inner emotions and need not trouble yourself with anyone else's or with what anyone else sees4 ,if you watch the others you will see that it is mostly being done with triangles1 circles or vortexes of paint just as it comes from the tube4 ,if you have no paint1 toothpaste will do as well4 ,if1 after a few minutes of this1 you are tired1 stop--you will have added spontaneity to its other attractions4 ,the fact that it deals only with your own emotions will not prevent you putting it on exhibition for other people to enjoy4 ,if anyone balks at enjoying it1 you smile wanly and shrug your shoulders and pity them for their dumb enslavement to outworn tradition4 ,it works like a charm--no one will dare attack you--they will all be afraid that you've got something there4 ,people have a terror of making mistakes--as if they had not been made by the best people in all ages4 ,it is the most perfect device yet invented for attracting attention to yourself with the least trouble4 ,a generation ago we heard a great deal about art for art's sake3 now it is art for the artist's sake1 like bread for the baker's sake or medicine for the doctor's sake4 ,and ,i say1 for ,god's sake1 tell me what art made through the vision of a human eye with a brain behind it is not non-objective8 ,no two men will ever draw or paint the same picture of the same object4 ,only the lens of a camera will render it quite objectively1 and even the camera in the hands of an artist is capable of some degree of subjectivity4 ,and since ,i have inadvertently mentioned the camera1 ,i ought to say a good word for it too4 ,it is just now in its hey-day and people are taking greater pains with it than they are willing to take with any other medium of artistic expression4 ,i see a great many very fine pictures made with it1 in spite of its obvious limitations4 ,but it has also been tortured into serving as a medium for self-conscious originality until its new ideas have come to be1 in their way1 in their monotony and staleness1 an intolerable bore4 ,the marvels of color photography have revealed to us hitherto unsuspected depths of aesthetic sordidness4 ,this factual reproduction of what we are told are ,nature's colors1 ,i am given to understand1 is not yet wholly perfected4 ,only when it is will we know the worst--only then will we know what the things that through our eyes have stirred us by their beauty1 really are6 ,perhaps another super instrument of disillusionment will be invented to reveal us1 not in form and color alone1 but in spirit1 to each other as we really are4 ,good-by then to human love1 respect and friendship6 ,i have strayed a good way from my subject1 as ,i warned you that ,i might2 and these remarks must appear by now to be not only ramblings but the ravings of an old reactionary who is blind to anything that is new4 ,that deduction will be almost literally correct1 ladies and gentlemen4 ,there is no denying that ,i am old1 and toward much that ,i see around me1 ,i am reactionary2 and ,i have learned nothing in all my years of striving for knowledge1 more convincing than that statement in the ,book of ,ecclesiastes to the effect that there is nothing new under the sun4 ,i plead guilty to this hideous indictment and throw myself on the mercy of this court4 ,i am even happy to have learned that much1 and wish1 in the manner of the camp meeting revivalist1 that ,i might pass on something of this blessed revelation to the brethern and sistern present4 ,while ,i thus brazenly deny the existence of anything really new1 and fail to recognize what is called progress and deplore the waste of talent and energy that is dissipated in striving for these things1 ,i am far from blind to the value of revolt4 ,our creative sense is all too prone to doze off into dreams of past glories4 ,from these1 and the sterile copying of them1 we may be awakened and rescued by even the crudest of revolutions4 ,we may benefit from them provided we do not let them tear up our roots--provided we still can recognize an illusion when we meet it4 ,the squirrel in his revolving cage must have some illusion of progress1 else he would not take any exercise1 and without exercise he would fatten and sicken and die4 ,and1 remember1 there is always progress to be made within yourselves1 no matter if it is the same progress in the same direction that has been made by countless other souls4 ,and there will1 ,i hope1 always be things new to you1 as there are every day things new to me1 even if the sun has seen them all before4 ,i don't want to live a day longer than ,i can learn4 ,there is no reason to suppose that there is not today as much latent talent for the arts in existence1 as at any time in their history4 ,but talent for art is not talent for being an artist--one may have much of the one1 without much of the other4 ,it seems to me that there are more temptations and distractions working against the talent to be an artist today than ever before4 ,more alluring short cuts and seductive philosophies--a disturbing babel of undigested ideas and indigestible objectives4 ,if in this riot you can keep your heads and not lose sight of the important difference between a grain of truth and the whole truth1 if you can grow in understanding of what it is you want to do1 you may1 even now1 have a good chance of doing it4 ,but what has all this to do with printing and typography and their related graphic arts8 ,i seem by now to be so far off the track that it will take a derrick and wrecking crew to get me back on again4 ,as a matter of fact ,i have not forgotten the subject altogether and have1 in my lumbering way1 been working toward it4 ,but because ,i can't think of typography as an art in itself1 unrelated to all the other arts1 ,i could not approach it except by the way ,i have4 ,all of these things that ,i have been complaining about in the other arts1 have their counterparts in present-day typography and printing4 ,the same restless craving for something new1 the same preoccupation with isms1 the same monotonous sameness4 ,but this poison is aggravated in the case of printing and typography1 by the fact that of all the arts1 it is1 by its very nature and purpose1 the most conventional4 ,if it is an art at all1 it is an art to serve another art4 ,it is good only in so far as it serves well and not on any account good for any other reason4 ,it is not the business of type and printing to show off1 and when1 as it now so frequently does1 it engages in exhibitionistic antics of its own1 it is just a bad servant4 ,for this reason the embarrassing ineptitude of the current efforts toward a new typography are even more distressing than similar contortions in other fields4 ,typography1 ,i repeat1 is a servant--the servant of thought and language to which it gives visible existence4 ,when there are new ways of thinking and a new language1 it will be time enough for a new typography4 ,when we have altered all of our manners and social customs1 only then will it be time to radically alter the well grounded conventions of this very minor art4 ,within them there is now ample room1 as there always has been1 for the exercise of ingenuity1 skill and individual taste4 ,i suggest that those who cannot abide the conventions of typography are mostly those who have never tried them4 ,in what does the newness of this new typography consist8 ,it seems to be new as the neu in neurosis from which it largely derives4 ,it is new as it would be new for a man to enter the dining room on his hands instead of his feet1 and instead of eating his soup1 to pour it into his hostess's lap4 ,it is as new and agreeable and pleasing to look at as delirium tremens which it closely resembles4 ,the new typography engages in such side-splitting pranks as putting the margins of a book page in just the opposite arrangement to that which practical utility and well founded tradition have always placed them4 ,it might with equal reason and originality1 turn the type page upside down4 ,in advertising display it makes use of that highly original and refreshing device of printing what is to be read at a cockeyed angle4 ,the make-up expert indulges that other fresh and original dodge of bleeding pictures off the edge of the page so that a flat two dimensional photograph is viewed without a frame on two of its sides and must compete with a background of all the three dimensional things in the room4 ,i refuse to bore you or myself by enumerating all the tiresome stock-in-trade eccentricities of the typographic expert in search of something new--the epileptic fits he throws to attract attention to himself at the expense of the words he is printing4 ,you see enough of them every day to know what ,i mean4 ,nearly every magazine and newspaper page1 not to mention a good many books1 present the same revolting spectacle--the order of the day1 it seems1 is disorder4 ,and speaking of magazines1 it has fallen to my lot from time to time in the past thirty-five years to design and redesign a number of periodicals of one kind and another4 ,such jobs require really very little actual work--it's by endless argument and conference that they can wear you to the bone4 ,my simple purpose with these things has always been to bring any measure of order the case will permit out of the disorder in which ,i generally find it4 ,my mission1 if ,i have any1 is to suppress typography1 not to encourage it--to put it in its place and make it behave like a decently trained servant4 ,i find magazines rolling in the gutter covered with the accumulated mud of years of dissipation4 ,i pick them up and brush them off1 give them a cup of black coffee and a new suit of clothes and start them off on respectable typographic careers4 ,but like other missionaries1 more often than not1 ,i find them a year or so later1 back in the same gutter1 drunk and disorderly and remorselessly happy about it4 ,if the philosophy of functionalism has hit the new typography as it has the other applied arts1 ,i see no evidence of it4 ,on the contrary1 in this field1 anything goes1 so long as it is eccentric1 free from the restraints of reason1 and can successfully discourage the reader from reading4 ,all the distortions of the ,roman alphabet that were discarded a half century ago--in fact any types which are as nearly unreadable as types can be made--have been dragged out again and called modern4 ,these range from the elaborately ornamental letters of the most depraved periods of design to the stark diagrams of letters that were called by type-founders in my youth3 ,printer's lining gothic--as absurd a misnomer as could be imagined1 since they have nothing whatsoever to do with gothic letters or any other letter forms known to history4 ,laymen called them1 more accurately1 block letters2 but in the new typography they are elegantly referred to as sans serifs because1 among other features of the ,roman alphabet which they lack1 is a total absence of serifs4 ,they bear the same relation to ,roman letters as would an engineer's drawings for a trolley track4 ,at the moment they are very much in vogue and are widely believed to be modern and to be a simplification in harmony with the new architecture1 furniture and other things4 ,they are supposed to represent the spirit of our day like the noise of rivetting hammers in a modern musical composition4 ,they simplify the traditional forms of type as you might simplify a man by cutting his hands and feet off4 ,you can no more dispense with the essential features of the written or printed ,roman alphabet1 ladies and gentlemen1 than you can dispense with the accents and intonations of human speech4 ,this is simplification for simpletons1 and these are block letters for blockheads4 ,the users of typography and printing1 the publishers and advertisers1 are also confused by illusions of their own4 ,foremost among these is the notion that they require every week new types to give freshness and effectiveness to what they print and publish4 ,this wholly unwarranted assumption is undoubtedly a godsend to the type-founders1 however disastrous it is to the development of a sane and ordered typography4 ,it has peopled the earth with typographic experts who know the latest thing and not much else1 and it has relieved the designers of printing from the burden of knowing anything about design4 ,it is so much easier to buy new types than to learn how to use effectively the types we already have4 ,and if1 instead of flooding our composing rooms with new types1 which are seldom more than variations upon old themes of distortion1 our type-founders would give us at least twice as many sizes as they now make1 of a few good types1 we should have a really flexible medium to work in4 ,we would have to make fewer compromises with good design1 and they might profit commercially1 as typography surely would profit artistically4 ,and this constructive suggestion reminds me that ,i ought perhaps to temper this hurricane of destructive criticism with some further helpful hints4 ,at the moment ,i can only think of two that might relieve the dreadful situation that ,i have pictured4 ,one is that we organize a pogrom of all type designers--a little hard on them perhaps1 but they would gain martyrdom to a cause--and the other is that we establish a concentration camp in which to intern all those who think up or think they think up new ideas in typography for such time as it will take them to recover from their delusion4 ,there they might while away pleasant hours in the distinguished company of the inventors of paper-towels1 pasteboard milk bottles and beer in cans4 ,with my younger colleagues still in mind1 ,i ought to say something of the practical problems that we encounter in professing and practicing one or other of the graphic arts4 ,we are1 or should be1 if we are really artists1 more concerned with what we give to our art than with what we get out of it4 ,but we have to live--or think we do--and to do that by the practice of art is certainly no easier now than it ever was4 ,if anything1 it's a little harder4 ,beyond that inner satisfaction with what we can give--and there is only a little of that and at rare intervals--the only two things to be got out of art are money and fame2 and ,i daresay there are few of us who would not welcome a little of both4 ,but we must compete today with a great many of those who work for nothing else2 and who1 under the banner of one or another of these isms of which ,i've been prating1 can concentrate upon that unique objective unhampered by any serious interest in art itself4 ,they are devotees of success1 like their commercial brethren1 and by means of the same promotional paraphernalia they succeed so well that one is tempted at times to believe that the only living art is the art of self promotion4 ,another curious development of these times is the classification of artists according to political ideology4 ,we hear now of left wing artists4 ,as nearly as ,i can discover1 these are to be recognized by their contempt for any sort of craftsmanship and a peculiar inability to keep their drawings clean4 ,they make penury--the unhappy lot of nearly all artists--a pious virtue1 and they are not infrequently big with pretension to being the only serious interpreters of life and truth4 ,these are balanced on the other end of the political see-saw by a school of economic royalists who have made of art a commercial opportunity4 ,as ,industrial ,designers with large staffs and control boards and troops of indefatigable press agents1 they have welded art and commerce so successfully that it is nearly impossible to tell them apart4 ,somewhere between the two is the artist2 and he is as often as not a forgotten man4 ,not quite poor enough to be picturesque or heartrending1 just well enough off to keep his collar and his drawings clean1 he must nevertheless spend an exorbitant part of his life and energies in worrying about bills4 ,and now to stop the clamor of the butcher1 the baker et al41 to whom must we sell our graphic arts8 ,for the most part1 ,i suppose1 it will be to publishers1 industrialists and advertising agents4 ,the publisher is a pretty decent sort1 on the whole1 but if he is a book publisher1 he can generally be recognized as such by the fact of having very little money to spend on art4 ,in my own experience1 the most generous and appreciative customer for our wares has been the industrialist4 ,what you do for him can often increase his profit very materially1 and he is not slow to recognize that fact4 ,the advertising agent1 speaking very generally and with the particular exception of one very dear friend in mind1 deals largely in what might be called scientifically organized fraud4 ,i am aware that to say this now is to risk being called a communist transmission belt--whatever that may be4 ,it has even been suggested that by these animadversions upon advertising1 ,i am biting the hand that fed me2 but ,i suggest that ,i am biting the hand that ,i have fed until ,i am fed up on feeding it4 ,it may be that you will find1 as ,i sometimes have1 in the ranks of these shock troops of deception1 sympathetic and amiable clients for your work who can deal differently with artists than they deal with the public--but not very often4 ,each of them employs what is called an ,art ,director whose importance is derived1 not so much from art as from the financial size and number of advertising accounts toward which he directs it4 ,it is his duty to furnish you with what he calls ideas1 upon the theory that an artist is not mentally up to having any of his own4 ,ten to one he will end by altering your drawing to give it the wallop thought to be essential to all advertising4 ,a public1 already groggy and half blind from the incessant battering of advertisements with a punch1 will hardly notice the difference4 ,to think at all1 says the ,spanish philosopher1 ,ortega y ,gasset1 is to exaggerate4 ,a careful measurement of anatomical detail in the drawings and sculptures of ,michelangelo will reveal startling exaggerations of fact1 but these enlargements upon fact are but his medium for truthful expression4 ,he gives us the figure of a man or woman more essentially true than could be made by any anatomist with micrometer calipers4 ,so1 ,i humbly pray1 ladies and gentlemen1 that you will apply no instruments of precision to my words--they are the best ,i could find in this emergency for saying what ,i believe to be true4 ,if you think me guilty of exaggeration1 the foregoing remarks are my only defense4 ,but if you accuse me of being facetious1 ,i will tell you that ,i have never been more serious in my life4 ,,composed ,,in ,,bodoni ,,book ,,types ,illustration,,oscar ,,ogg,illustration ,a ,comparison of ,calligraphy ,lettering ,copyright #aidg by the ,american ,artist4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher and author4 ,superior writing and able lettering have never made inconsequential literature valuable1 nor have poorly conceived1 incompetent calligraphy and lettering ever invalidated good literature4 ,letters which are well considered1 expertly executed1 conscientiously fitted to their purpose1 however1 can create visually a spiritual state in a reader which will influence him to be receptive to the message he reads4 ,it may even be possible that beautiful writing1 aside from the intense pleasure it gives us as graphic art1 helps to make uninspired authors seem more profound4 ,perhaps it is this realization that has made graphic artists in recent years exhibit a notable increase in interest in ,american calligraphy4 ,the quotes are intentional4 ,so much which is not calligraphy has had the term applied to it and so much which is calligraphy has been considered something else1 that some sort of evaluation and comparative definition now appears to be wise4 ,the aura of romance which has surrounded the tools1 the methods1 and the products of the scribe has tended1 we believe1 to place them in the eyes of practicing letter artists somewhat higher in the scale of the arts than those of the letterer4 ,hence the lettering man likes to call himself a calligrapher4 ,this same snobbishness is often evident between easel painters and illustrators1 between book illustrators and magazine illustrators1 between book designers and advertising typographers4 ,and all of it is false4 ,by simple definition lettering and writing are related but certainly not competitive arts4 ,calligraphy is beautiful writing4 ,lettering1 in modern usage1 refers to built-up1 designed forms4 ,stanley ,morison1 in the ,encyclopaedia ,britannica1 says3 ,calligraphy is the art of fine writing4 ,writing is a means of communication by agreed signs2 if these signs or symbols are painted or engraved on stone or wood or paper we have that extension and application of writing known as lettering1 i4e4 a script generally formed with mechanical aids such as the rule1 compass1 and square4 ,but it is the essence of hand-writing that it be free from such1 though not from all1 government4444 ,calligraphy may be defined as freehand in which freedom is so nicely reconciled with order that the understanding eye is pleased to contemplate it4 ,illustration3 ,the same nib was used for built-up and written forms in this freely rendered fragment of a ninth-century manuscript4 ,built-up and written forms each have their place4 ,one of the tenets of fine letter art is that the forms be in perfect taste2 that is1 that the letter and its method of production be in harmony with its use4 ,a delicately drawn cursive is as out of place on a subway card advertising a cough remedy as is a poster egyptienne on the title page of a small volume of romantic poetry4 ,to assume1 however1 that either the written or the drawn form is the more aristocratic is unsound4 ,to attempt a representation of either by the other is likewise illogical4 ,written letters1 based on traditional manuscript usage1 are more serious in concept than their less restrained contemporary built-up characters and do not permit of the same unconcern with anatomical discrimination4 ,both1 properly executed1 can be superb examples of letter art--and both can be terrible4 ,illustration3 ,a simple ,roman1 executed entirely with a broad nib4 ,characteristic strokes employed in writing the above4 ,illustration3 ,a similar letter designed and built up using a brush4 ,characteristic outlines to be filled in for above4 ,the growing practice of calling all script-like letters calligraphy is unjust to writing and lettering alike4 ,particularly the practice of producing with a pointed pen or brush the built-up1 tricked-out impersonations of broad nib writing must be abandoned if the art of making letters is to remain honorable4 ,having defined1 then1 the general limitation of the terms1 let us look at some of the principal differences in character between the two4 ,historically1 we find them side by side4 ,since they were both produced by scribes and illuminators working in like tradition1 there was no question of fitness one with the other4 ,both stemmed from the same source and were produced with the same type of tool4 ,they were necessarily in harmony4 ,contemporarily1 however1 much lettering is executed by craftsmen who neither know or care about the historical background of the alphabet4 ,the responsibility for this lies1 we believe1 as much with the purchaser as with the producer of letters4 ,the art director1 working in a viciously competitive field1 demands of the letterer something different4 ,the result is usually a built-up form which has little in common with its ancestors1 either in shape or method of production4 ,but1 if it is handsome in itself1 it may have a real affinity for a text of type4 ,a written element may also serve beautifully as a foil for the rigidity of a type page4 ,illustration3 ,these two treatments of a title are by no means the only likely ones by either method4 ,the lower form was actually used4 ,the letter was designed in the spirit of the type which was used in conjunction with it4 ,perhaps if a written title had been chosen1 one based on an ,italian rather than an ,english hand would have been more suitable4 ,the great difference in these two treatments is that the written serves as a contrast1 while the built-up harmonizes with the type on the page4 ,to establish further the variance between calligraphy and lettering1 a brief inspection of the methods of production may be advantageous4 ,the designed form is conceived as a drawing--it is a device which may be finished up with any instrument at hand4 ,the only limitation which the designer must not exceed is the recognizability of the particular letter4 ,the written form depends upon tradition for letter shape and upon tool for letter character4 ,distortion is possible and poor form not unusual1 but since the pen is essentially the letter-making tool1 the natural action of a properly cut pen eliminates at least some of the opportunities for improbable forms4 ,illustration3 ,these two letters1 enlarged from the two renderings of ,wartime ,correspondence1 illustrate the control which is exerted by the cut and size and handling of a square nib upon the calligraphic form as opposed to the freedom from constraint in the built-up treatment4 ,the tool decided the shape of the first4 ,a careful patterning of curves and weights to conform to the type of the book page 7,poliphilus7 determined the second4 ,a ,soennecken steel pen was used for the written1 and a pointed brush for the built-up4 ,the calligraphic and the built-up approach to the execution of a book title may indicate how each may be employed frankly and honestly without recourse to camouflage to procure particular effects4 ,the size1 general weight1 and disposition of the letters are indicated in the rough layout4 ,the artist who executes the built-up rendering will keep the weight of letters even by constant checking of one against the other4 ,the calligrapher will cut a reed or pen to this weight and thus maintain even color4 ,it will be noted that the designed form is completely and finally established in the penciled form4 ,the laying-out for the written form is less accurate and is the product of a double pointed tool1 set to the width of the nib to be used4 ,in any but a very tight design such as this1 the pen-executed letter requires rather less preliminary penciling than is here indicated4 ,a line for the bottom of the letters is usually sufficient4 ,it has been impossible to crowd all one should like to write on this subject into these few words4 ,if1 however1 this first voicing of a need for a sane concept of the relations between lettering and calligraphy has even the smallest influence1 the author will bear with pleasure the rightful criticism of incompleteness4 ,illustration3 ,the width of the nib is that of the widest part of the down-stroke4 ,strokes #e and #f fill the openings thus left4 ,illustration3 ,layout and demonstration of the written form 7calligraphic74 ,illustration3 ,the center line is drawn by compass4 ,width of the swell is arrived at by moving the point #a_/b this width to right and left4 ,illustration3 ,layout and demonstration of the designed form 7lettered74 ,illustration,,aldous ,,huxley,illustration ,typography for the ,twentieth-,century ,reader ,the introduction from ,printing of ,today1 an illustrated survey of post-war typography in ,europe and the ,united ,states1 by ,oliver ,simon and ,julius ,rodenberg4 ,copyright #aibh by ,peter ,davies1 ,ltd41 ,london1 and ,harper and ,brothers4 ,reprinted by permission of the publisher4 ,in our enthusiasm for the spirit we are often unjust to the letter4 ,inward and outward1 substance and form are not easily separated4 ,in many circumstances of life and for the vast majority of human beings they constitute an indissoluble unity4 ,substance conditions form2 but form no less fatally conditions substance4 ,indeed1 the outward may actually create the inward1 as when the practice of religious rites creates religious faith1 or the commemoration of the dead revives1 or even calls into existence1 the emotions to which the ceremonial gives symbolical expression4 ,there are other cases1 however1 in which spirit seems not to be so closely dependent on letter1 in which the quality of the form does not directly affect the quality of the substance4 ,the sonnets of ,shakespeare remain the sonnets of ,shakespeare even in the most abominable edition4 ,nor can the finest printing improve their quality4 ,the poetical substance exists independently of the visible form in which it is presented to the world4 ,but though1 in this case1 the letter is powerless to make or mar the spirit which it symbolizes1 it is not for that reason to be despised as mere letter1 mere form1 mere negligible outside4 ,every outside has a corresponding inwardness4 ,the inwardness of letters does not happen to be literature2 but that is not to say that they have no inwardness at all4 ,good printing cannot make a bad book good1 nor bad printing ruin a good book4 ,but good printing can create a valuable spiritual state in the reader1 bad printing a certain spiritual discomfort4 ,the inwardness of letters is the inwardness of any piece of visual art regarded simply as a thing of beauty4 ,a volume of the ,penny ,classics may give us the sonnets of ,shakespeare in their entirety2 and for that we may be duly grateful4 ,but it cannot at the same time give us a work of visual art4 ,in a finely printed edition we have ,shakespeare's sonnets plus the lovely equivalent of1 say a ,persian rug or a piece of ,chinese porcelain4 ,the pleasure we should derive from bowl or carpet is added to that which the poetry gives us4 ,at the same time our minds are sensitized by the contemplation of the simple visual beauty of the letters3 they are made more susceptible of receiving the other and more complex beauties1 all the intellectual and spiritual content1 of the verse4 ,for our sensations1 our feelings and ideas do not exist independently of one another1 but form1 as it were1 the constituent notes of what is either a discord or a harmony4 ,the state of mind produced by the sight of beautiful letters is in harmony with that created by the reading of good literature4 ,their beauty can even compensate us1 in some degree1 for what we suffer from bad literature4 ,they can give us intense pleasure1 as ,i discovered in ,china1 even when we do not understand what they signify4 ,for what astounding elegances and subtleties of form stare out in gold or lampblack from the shop-fronts and the hanging scarlet signs of a ,chinese street6 ,what does it matter if the literary spirit expressed by these strange symbols is only ,fried ,fish and ,chips1 or ,a ,five ,guinea ,suit for ,thirty ,shillings8 ,the letters have a value of their own apart from what they signify1 a private inwardness of graphic beauty4 ,the ,chinese themselves1 for whom the ,fish-and-,chips significance is no secret1 are the most ardent admirers of this graphic beauty4 ,fine writing is valued by them as highly as fine painting4 ,the writer is an artist as much respected as the sculptor or the potter4 ,writing is dead in ,europe2 and even when it flourished1 it was never such a finely subtle art as among the ,chinese4 ,our alphabet has only six and twenty letters1 and when we write1 the same forms must constantly be repeated4 ,the result is1 inevitably1 a certain monotonousness in the aspect of the page--a monotonousness enhanced by the fact that the forms themselves are1 fundamentally1 extremely simple4 ,in ,chinese writing1 on the other hand1 the ideographs are numbered by thousands and have none of the rigid1 geometrical simplicity that characterizes ,european letters4 ,the rich flowing brushwork is built up into elaborate forms1 each form the symbol of a word1 distinct and different4 ,chinese writing is almost the artistic image of thought itself1 free1 various1 unmonotonous4 ,even in the age of hand-writing1 the ,european could never hope to create1 by means of his few and simple signs1 an art of calligraphy comparable to the ,chinese4 ,printing has rendered the ,chinese beauty yet more unrealizable4 ,where the ,chinese freely painted we must be content with reproducing geometrical patterns4 ,pattern making is a poorer1 less subtle art than painting4 ,but it is still an art4 ,by some one who understands his business the printed page can be composed into patterns almost as satisfyingly beautiful as those of the carpet or the brocade4 ,the problem which confronts the contemporary printer may be briefly stated as follows3 to produce beautiful and modern print-patterns by means of labour-saving machinery4 ,there have been numerous attempts in recent years to improve the quality of printing4 ,but of these attempts too many have been made in the wrong spirit4 ,instead of trying to exploit modern machinery1 many artistic printers have rejected it altogether and reverted to the primitive methods of an earlier age4 ,instead of trying to create new forms of type and decoration1 they have imitated the styles of the past4 ,this prejudice in favour of hand-work and ancient decorative forms was the result of an inevitable reaction against the soulless ugliness of nineteenth-century industrialism4 ,machines were producing beastliness4 ,it was only natural that sensitive men should have wished to abandon the use of machines and to return to the artistic conventions in vogue before the development of machinery4 ,it has become obvious that the machine is here to stay4 ,whole armies of ,william ,morrises and ,tolstoys could not now expel it4 ,even in primitive ,india it has proved itself too strong for those who would1 with ,gandhi1 resist its encroachments4 ,the sensible thing to do is not to revolt against the inevitable1 but to use and modify it1 to make it serve your purposes4 ,machines exist2 let us then exploit them to create beauty--a modern beauty1 while we are about it4 ,for we live in the twentieth century2 let us frankly admit it and not pretend that we live in the fifteenth4 ,the work of the backward-looking hand-printers may be excellent in its way2 but its way is not the contemporary way4 ,their books are often beautiful1 but with a borrowed beauty expressive of nothing in the world in which we happen to live4 ,they are also1 as it happens1 so expensive1 that only the very rich can afford to buy them4 ,the printer who makes a fetish of hand-work and medieval craftsmanship1 who refuses to tolerate the machine or to make any effort to improve the quality of its output1 thereby condemns the ordinary reader to a perpetuity of ugly printing4 ,as an ordinary reader1 who cannot afford to buy handmade books1 ,i object to the archaizing printer4 ,it is only from the man with the machine that ,i can hope for any amelioration of my lot as a reader4 ,to his credit be it spoken1 the man with the machine has done his duty4 ,he has set himself to improve the sordid typographical surroundings in which the impecunious reader was so long condemned to pass his life4 ,he has shown that cheap books need not necessarily be ugly1 and that machinery directed by a judicious mind can do as well as1 or much better than1 the hand of an uninspired craftsman4 ,there are publishers in business today whose seven-and-sixpennies1 regarded as typography1 are worth a guinea apiece4 7,what they are worth as literature is another question47 ,there are a dozen ,presses producing fine work at moderate prices4 ,the men behind the machines have used their brains4 ,some of our excellent machine-printers are still1 it is true1 too fond of using decorations borrowed from the past1 and types that savour of another age than ours4 ,so long as our sense of period remains as strong as it is1 so long as we retain our love of the quaint and its more modern equivalent1 the amusing1 this tendency to substitute pastiche for original creation is bound to persist4 ,there is an incessant demand for the antique3 we should not be too hard on the printers who supply it4 ,if they are sinning1 they are at least sinning in company4 ,let the architects and painters1 the interior decorators1 and the theatrical producers throw the first stone4 ,there are pastichers among the printers1 just as there are pastichers among the professors of every art4 ,but there are also more original men1 who are prepared to encourage modern decorators and to use types that are elegant and striking without being affectedly archaic4 ,with this last phrase ,i may seem to be damning the moderns with the faintest of praise4 ,but the truth is that ,typography is an art in which violent revolutions can scarcely1 in the nature of things1 hope to be successful4 ,a type of revolutionary novelty may be extremely beautiful in itself2 but1 for the creatures of habit that we are1 its very novelty tends to make it illegible1 at any rate to begin with4 ,i know a rather eccentric ,german typographical reformer1 for whom legibility is the greatest enemy1 the infamous thing that must at all costs be crushed4 ,we read1 he argues1 too easily4 ,our eyes slide over the words1 and the words1 in consequence1 mean nothing to us4 ,an illegible type makes us take trouble4 ,it compels us to dwell on each separate word3 we have time1 while we are deciphering it1 to suck out its whole significance4 ,putting his theory into practice1 this reformer had designed a set of letters so strangely unlike those with which the typographical practice of generations has made us familiar1 that ,i had to pore over a simple ,english sentence as though it were ,russian or ,arabic4 ,my friend was perhaps justified in thinking that we read too much and too easily4 ,but his remedy1 it seems to me1 was the wrong one4 ,it is the author's business to make reading less facile1 not the printer's4 ,if the author concentrated more matter into the same number of sentences1 his readers would have to read more carefully than they do at present4 ,an illegible type cannot permanently achieve the same result1 for the simple reason that it does not permanently remain illegible4 ,if we are prepared to make the effort to read until the novel forms have become familiar1 the illegible type will come to be perfectly legible4 ,in practice1 however1 we are reluctant to make this effort4 ,we demand that typographical beauty shall be combined with immediate legibility4 ,now1 in order that it may be immediately legible1 a type must be similar to the types with which we are familiar4 ,hence1 the practical printer1 who has to live by selling his wares to a large public1 is debarred from making revolutionary innovations in the designs of his type4 ,he must content himself with refining on the ordinary1 accepted types of commerce4 ,if he has great typographical reforms in view1 he must proceed towards them by degrees1 modifying the currently accepted designs gradually1 so as not to repel the ordinary lazy reader1 who is frightened by the idea of making any unnecessary effort4 ,in other arts1 where form and substance are directly associated1 revolution is possible1 may even be necessary4 ,but the outward form of literature is not typography4 ,the association1 in a book1 of literature with one of the graphic arts is in the nature of an accident4 ,the printer who would at one stroke revolutionize his art frightens away readers1 for whom the idea of revolution in literature1 or in any one of the graphic arts that is independent of literature1 has no terrors4 ,the reason for this is obvious4 ,people buy books for the sake of the literature contained in them and not1 primarily1 as specimens of graphic art4 ,they demand of the typography that it shall be beautiful1 yes2 but also that it shall give them immediate and unhampered access to the literature with which it is associated4 ,printers may desire to be revolutionary2 but unless they can afford to sell no books1 they are compelled by the force of circumstances to adopt a cautious policy of gradual reform4 ,the ,communist must either turn ,liberal or retire from business4 ,,merle ,,armitage ,,notes ,,on ,,modern ,,printing ,from ,notes on ,modern ,printing by ,merle ,armitage4 ,copyright #aide by ,william ,e4 ,rudge's ,sons4 ,reprinted by permission of author and publisher4 ,,how ,,does ,,one ,,design ,a ,,book8 ,i ,,conclude ,,as ,i ,,began ,,with ,a ,,few ,,general ,,ideas ,,and ,,suggestions3 #a4 ,allow the subject of a book to determine its design and format4 #b4 ,design a book for effortless reading1 utilizing the format to enhance or interpret the text4 #c4 ,use the prime materials--type1 paper and space--to achieve your results4 ,meaningless decorations disclose the designer's poverty of invention4 #d4 ,simplicity is the best policy4 #e4 ,make no attempt to design every page 444 let type and space have their natural rhythm4 #f4 ,understand the text 444 know your primary aims 444 let form follow function4 #g4 ,type ornaments have their place 444 but an ornament designed for general use has no particular significance4 #h4 ,a brilliantly designed book can't save a dull or mediocre text4 #i4 ,a page of type can be a thing of unique1 arresting beauty4 #aj4 ,mere type legibility is to a book as mere shelter is to architecture4 #aa4 ,book design should be a synonym for the arrangement and integration of materials--paper1 binding1 illustration1 type and space4 ,my friends of the musical world believe that music is the most important thing in life4 ,painters are absolutely certain that the reformation will come only through an understanding of art4 ,acquaintances among the engineers are sure that by technological development alone can emancipation come to man1 while scientists rightfully take the credit for progress in the contemporary world4 ,friends in industry insist that mass production is the great panacea4 ,the photographers can prove that photography makes the pictorial painters unnecessary1 and the writers ,i have encountered are convinced that the written word is the one route to world unity4 ,however1 the painter 444 the musician 444 the engineer 444 the photographer 444 the industrialist 444 the scientist 444 and the writer have a rendezvous with the book4 ,here1 the knowledge1 the romance1 the fiction1 the facts1 the speculations1 the opinions1 and the accomplishments of the world are made permanently articulate4 ,this is our day1 our time1 our environment4 ,we can make a statement1 through the employment of design1 that is valid and true 444 not divorced from tradition1 but using the great works of the past as a springboard toward new horizons6 ,,composed ,,in ,,gill ,,sans ,,types ,benjamin ,franklin3 ,,printer and ,,publisher ,,john ,t4 ,,winterich ,from ,early ,american ,books and ,printing by ,john ,t4 ,winterich4 ,copyright #aice by ,houghton ,mifflin ,company4 ,reprinted by permission of ,curtis ,brown1 ,ltd41 agent4 ,josiah ,franklin was reared a dyer in the village of ,ecton in ,northamptonshire1 but soon after his arrival in ,america1 about #afhb1 he foresaw a greater future in the trade of tallow-chandler and soap-boiler4 ,it was a calling which seems humble enough in a day that has evolved such mouth-filling occupational designations as sales engineer1 merchandising counsel1 and mortician4 ,josiah ,franklin1 had the locution been available in his era1 might have asserted with all accuracy that he was an important factor in public utilities--even our own catch-phrase epoch has not been quite equal to the coinage of the label public utilitarian4 ,for when the ,boston town watch wanted fresh candles they bought them from ,josiah ,franklin--from other tallow-chandlers too1 perhaps1 but at least some1 by documentary evidence1 from ,josiah ,franklin4 ,the close relationship between progress in the science of artificial illumination and progress in the dissemination of the printed word could be charted with almost mathematical accuracy4444 ,most of the books of colonial days were designed for the use of those whose professions exacted some considerable amount of required reading--ministers1 physicians1 lawyers1 public officials1 schoolmen4 ,the man who toiled with his hands 7and hands are eminently useful in the building-up of a new country7 labored while the light of heaven would let him and then returned to a home wherein the conveniences were hardly such as to make reading a pleasure4 ,lincoln studied by the glare of blazing pine-knots1 but the middle-class ,bostonian and ,new ,yorker and ,philadelphian of the generations immediately preceding ,lincoln 7to say nothing of their country cousins7 had to depend on illuminants that offered no greater inducements to either the solace or the benefits of type4 ,josiah ,franklin's wife and their three children accompanied him to ,america4 ,before her death she bore him three more children4 ,josiah remarried1 and of the second union ten children were born4 ,of this multitudinous offspring thirteen grew to maturity--a remarkable proportion for the time and region4 ,the eighth child and last son of the second marriage1 christened ,benjamin after a paternal uncle1 was at first intended for the ,church1 but ,josiah could not afford to give him the education which this most learned of the professions demanded1 and at the age of ten1 after receiving as thorough an intellectual rearing as could be expected in so short a space1 ,benjamin ,franklin quit school to assist his father in the fabrication of candles and soap4 ,an elder brother1 ,john1 had already become proficient in the twin arts of illumination and sanitation and had gone to the bustling colony of ,rhode ,island to practice them4 ,another brother 7and another ,josiah7 had also investigated them1 found them not to his liking1 and run away to sea4 ,benjamin1 also1 made it clear that the parental pursuits were not to taste1 and a wise father1 fearing another abrupt departure1 took ,benjamin walking about ,boston1 that he might see joiners1 bricklayers1 turners1 braziers1 etc41 at their work and thereby1 boywise1 make known to his elder which way his inclinations lay4 ,a patent leaning toward books at length persuaded the father to make him a printer1 despite the fact that another brother1 ,james1 ,benjamin's elder by nine years 444 had adopted the craft4 ,benjamin conceded a preference to the claims of printing over those of tallow-chandlery1 but he still sniffed1 with the true landsman's appetite1 the tang of the salt breeze that blew in from the east4 ,josiah1 however1 was insistent1 and the parental insistence of #agah was no toy scepter to swing above the head of a sub-adolescent boy4 ,accordingly1 ,benjamin was duly indentured to ,james to serve as an apprentice till ,i was twenty-one years of age1 only ,i was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year4 ,before long1 ,benjamin was writing odds and ends of verse1 and ,james1 with the inbred ,franklin sagacity1 encouraged him in his endeavors and let him put some of his compositions in type4 ,one 7declared ,benjamin7 was called ,the ,lighthouse ,tragedy1 and contained an account of the drowning of ,captain ,worthilake1 with his two daughters3 the other was a sailor's song1 on the taking of ,teach 7or ,blackbeard7 the pirate4 ,they were wretched stuff1 in the ,grub-street-ballad style2 and when they were printed he sent me about the town to sell them4 ,the first sold wonderfully1 the event being recent1 having made a great noise4 ,this flattered my vanity2 but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances1 and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars4 ,the importance of these two pieces consists in the fact that they were the first with which ,franklin's name can be identified as either author or printer1 according to ,dr4 ,william ,j4 ,campbell1 who adds that no copy is known to exist1 nor is the exact title of either of them known4 ,this was true in #aiah1 when ,dr4 ,campbell's admirable catalogue of ,the ,collection of ,franklin ,imprints in the ,museum of the ,curtis ,publishing ,company was issued1 and it is unfortunately still true today #aice4 ,if they were at all like similar productions of both earlier and later date1 they were broadsides--single sheets that were distributed like handbills1 the main difference being that they commanded a price4 ,they would command a fantastic price today1 together or singly1 and their eventual discovery is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility4 ,a copy of one--or copies of both--may be tucked away in some forgotten contemporary theological compendium which has not been opened for a century4 ,the disappearance of these broadsides is regrettable on many counts1 not least of which is the fact that even if ,benjamin had never accomplished anything else1 he could at least claim credit for sponsoring perhaps the most textually interesting productions of his brother's press4 ,james ,franklin was a skilled printer--,london trained1 and no slovenly self-taught colonial1 in ,paul ,leicester ,ford's phrase--and ,james was not1 of course1 in any degree responsible for the dullness of the copy that was brought to his shop4 ,a brief glance at a few of his imprints of this period is of interest mainly because of the certainty that ,benjamin worked on many of them4 ,the product of ,james ,franklin's press 7says ,ford in ,the ,many-,sided ,franklin1 ,new ,york1 #ahii7 is a dreary lot of gone-nothing-ness4 ,a few of the ,new ,england sermons of the day2 ,stoddard's ,treatise on ,conversion2 ,stone's ,short ,catechism2 ,a ,prefatory ,letter about ,psalmody1 in defense of church singing1 which many ,puritans still held to be unholy2 an allegory styled ,the ,isle of ,man1 or1 ,legal ,proceedings in ,manshire ,against ,sin2 ,care's ,english ,liberties2 sundry pamphlets on the local politics of the moment1 such as ,a ,letter from ,one in the ,country to his ,friend in ,boston1 ,news from the ,moon1 ,a ,friendly ,check from a ,kind ,relation to the ,chief ,cannonneer1 and ,a ,word of ,comfort to a ,melancholy ,country2 two or three tractates on inoculation1 and one aimed half at the ,boston clergy and half at the fair sex1 entitled ,hooped ,petticoats ,arraigned by the ,light of ,nature and the ,law of ,god1 were the chief output of the new printer during the years his brother served him4 ,in the summer of #agba1 ,james ,franklin established a newspaper1 ,the ,new ,england ,courant4 ,two years earlier he had been engaged to print the ,boston ,gazette1 but with the transfer of its management a few months later the contract had gone elsewhere4 ,the ,courant was a new departure even for the novelty that was ,american journalism--so extensive and violent a departure1 indeed1 that in the following year the authorities sentenced the printer-proprietor to a month's imprisonment for his insolence4 ,the punishment did not improve him2 free again1 he pressed the thorn of the ,courant deeper into the flesh of his persecutors1 with the consequence that he was soon forbidden to print or publish either the ,courant or any other pamphlet or paper of the like nature unless it were first submitted to the secretary of the province4 ,there were two apparent ways out of the dilemma1 and one was as eminently unsatisfactory as the other4 ,the first was to quit printing and publishing4 ,the second was to submit to the censorship4 ,james hit upon a more ingenious solution4 ,he turned the ,courant over to sixteen-year-old ,benjamin4 ,benjamin's indentures as apprentice to ,james had five years to run1 and in order to forestall any objection on the part of the authorities that an apprentice was not competent to manage the paper1 the indentures were ostentatiously canceled and a new document drawn up as a private and confidential 7but none the less binding7 memorandum which in theory was no one's affair save ,james's and ,benjamin's4 ,the half-sheet issue of the ,courant for ,february #d-aa1 #agbc1 identified it as printed and sold by ,benjamin ,franklin in ,queen ,street1 where ,advertisements are taken in4 ,benjamin ,franklin's name thus first appeared in an imprint4 ,it remained on the tail-board of the ,courant until the paper's discontinuance in #agbf1 long after ,benjamin had left ,boston4 ,the gratifying tableau of two stalwart brothers battling loyally side by side for freedom of the press1 however1 was not the whole picture4 ,james and ,benjamin had differences1 and ,benjamin later admitted that he himself was perhaps 444 too saucy and provoking1 and that ,james1 despite the blows his passion too often urged him to bestow upon me1 was otherwise not an ill-natur'd man4 ,benjamin1 at all events1 decided to take advantage of the freedom accorded him by the cancellation of his indentures1 which act he later conceded to have been not fair and one of the first errata of my life4 ,james spread the tidings of this perfidy throughout ,boston1 and every local printing establishment thereupon became a closed shop to ,benjamin ,franklin4 ,if ,james assumed that ,benjamin would thus be forced to return to his own shop1 he reckoned without his ,benjamin4 ,for not long thereafter1 with the connivance of a friend1 ,john ,collins1 ,benjamin was smuggled aboard a ,new ,york-bound sloop1 and three days later1 thanks to a fair wind1 he was in a city which was not yet a metropolis judged even by easy colonial standards4 ,he called on old ,mr4 ,william ,bradford 7aged sixty71 who had nothing to offer1 but who suggested that his son ,andrew1 then flourishing 7after a fashion7 in ,philadelphia1 might have a position for him1 since ,andrew's principal hand1 ,aquila ,rose1 had just died4 ,franklin set out by water by way of ,perth ,amboy4 ,it is interesting to note1 in view of the dispute regarding the earliest ,new ,jersey imprint 444 that the trip from ,new ,york to the ,new ,jersey port took thirty hours4 ,all in good time he reached ,philadelphia4 ,washington did not cut down a cherry tree and then inform his father that he could not tell a lie2 ,wellington did not say ,up1 ,guards1 and at 'em6 or ,pershing1 ,lafayette1 we are here4 ,the dear old legends explode all about us2 it is gratifying to recall that there is one at least the accuracy of which is unimpeachable4 ,walking up ,market ,street1 ,philadelphia1 ,benjamin ,franklin did pass the home of his wife-to-be with a roll under each arm and munching a third1 and his wife-to-be did see him and note that he made a most awkward1 ridiculous appearance4 ,andrew ,bradford had nothing to offer--the vacancy left by the death of ,aquila ,rose had already been filled4 ,but ,franklin was not yet done with the ghostly trail of ,aquila4 ,at ,andrew ,bradford's suggestion he waited on ,samuel ,keimer1 who had recently set up as a printer despite a meager endowment of equipment1 native ability1 or acquired skill4 ,he found ,keimer composing an ,elegy on ,aquila ,rose directly from the type4 ,so there being no copy 7recorded ,franklin71 but one pair of cases1 and the ,elegy likely to require all the letters1 no one could help him4 ,i endeavor'd to put his press 7which he had not yet us'd1 and of which he understood nothing7 into order fit to be work'd with2 and1 promising to come and print off his ,elegy as soon as he should have got it ready1 ,i return'd to ,bradford's1 who gave me a little job to do for the present1 and there ,i lodged and dieted4 ,a few days after1 ,keimer sent for me to print off the ,elegy4 ,and now he had got another pair of cases1 and a pamphlet to reprint1 on which he set me to work4 ,this broadside poem1 therefore1 was the first piece of ,philadelphia printing with which ,franklin's name is clearly identified4 ,the pamphlet to reprint may have been ,a ,letter to a ,friend in ,ireland1 ,the ,doctrine of ,absolute ,reprobation ,refuted1 ,a ,letter from ,one in the ,country to ,his ,friend in the ,city1 ,a ,parable1 or 7and this would certainly have been ,franklin's choice7 ,the ,curiosities of ,common ,water1 all of which ,keimer imprints of #agbc are listed in the short-title check list which follows the ,curtis catalogue4 ,no more specifically is it possible to identify the little job which ,andrew ,bradford gave him4 ,it is not likely that ,franklin would have long continued with ,keimer 7who was an odd fish2 ignorant of common life1 fond of rudely opposing receiv'd opinions1 slovenly to extream dirtiness1 enthusiastic in some points of religion1 and a little knavish withal7 even if a roundabout coincidence had not brought him to the attention o the governor of the province1 ,sir ,william ,keith1 whose quarrel with ,william ,bradford had been one of the impulses that had established the latter as ,new ,york's first printer4 ,keimer star'd like a pig poison'd one day when no less a worthy than ,sir ,william entered the shop in search of the new assistant from ,boston4 ,governor and assistant adjourned to a tavern1 where the former disclosed a grandiose idea for setting the newcomer up in a shop of his own4 ,he must first1 of course1 go to ,london to buy equipment1 and to this end the governor loaded him down with enthusiasm and letters of credit4 ,after a short visit to ,boston1 where all made me welcome1 except my brother1 who receiv'd me not very frankly1 look'd me all over1 and turn'd to his work again1 ,franklin sailed for ,london1 which he reached the day before ,christmas1 #agbd--to learn1 to his intense mortification1 that ,sir ,william's letters of credit were worthless1 since that gentleman's prowess as a promiser and his shortcomings as a performer were rather more familiar in the old country than in the new4 ,franklin1 however1 had little difficulty in extricating himself from the crisis into which he was precipitated on his arrival in ,london by the non-negotiability of ,sir ,william ,keith's commercial paper4 ,i immediately got into work at ,palmer's1 he says1 then a famous printing house in ,bartholomew ,close1 and here ,i continu'd near a year4 ,samuel ,palmer1 declares ,john ,clyde ,oswald in ,benjamin ,franklin1 ,printer 7,new ,york1 #aiag71 was more than an ordinary printer4 ,he had visited ,america1 was letter-founder as well as printer1 and was engaged in the writing of ',a ,history of ,printing1' only a third of which he had completed when he died in #agcb4 ,franklin identifies only one of the jobs on which he worked at ,palmer's4 ,i was employed1 continues the ,autobiography1 in composing for the second edition of ,wollaston's ,religion of ,nature4 ,the name of ,william ,wollaston 7#afei-agbd7 now survives mainly by virtue of this adventitious association with a nineteen-year-old immigrant compositor4 ,the ,religion of ,nature ,delineated first appeared in #agbb in a small privately printed edition4 ,presumably this first edition is now rare1 but no collector is impressed thereby1 preferring above it that on which ,franklin worked 7the third in strict sequence1 but the second published edition71 which1 happily1 is relatively common4 ,it bears the imprint3 ,london3 ,printed by ,s4 ,palmer1 and sold by ,b4 ,lintott1 ,w4 and ,j4 ,innys1 ,j4 ,osborn1 ,j4 ,batley1 and ,t4 ,longman4 #agbe4 ,the printer from ,america pondered over the copy as he set it1 and out of his ruminations came a pamphlet reply to the recently deceased author3 ,a ,dissertation on ,liberty ,and ,necessity1 ,pleasure and ,pain 7,london1 #agbe74 ,franklin printed one hundred copies1 gave a few to friends1 and then1 repenting of his materialistic agnosticism1 burnt the rest except one copy2 pride of authorship would not wholly down4 ,that copy may be one of the four known to survive today1 all in institutional collections4 ,receiving a better offer from ,john ,watts1 who conducted a larger printing establishment1 ,franklin went thither1 remaining six months1 when he accepted the proposal of a ,philadelphia merchant then in ,london that he return and act as his clerk1 keep his books1 in which he would instruct me1 copy his letters1 and attend the store4 ,in leaving ,london1 therefore1 ,franklin supposed that he thereby took leave of printing forever4 ,man proposes4 ,franklin and his new employer reached ,philadelphia2 the store was duly opened and its new clerk installed2 four months later the employer died4 ,the establishment was taken over by the executors and ,franklin was out of work4 ,keimer wanted him back as foreman of his new and larger shop1 but ,franklin1 who knew well his ,keimer1 first sought a place at his new trade of clerk and salesman4 ,nothing offered1 so he reluctantly accepted ,keimer's bid4 ,the affiliation did not last long4 ,franklin and ,keimer quarreled over a trifle that represented the culmination of a long series of abuses3 ,a great noise happening near the courthouse1 ,i put my head out of the window to see what was the matter4 ,keimer1 being in the street1 look'd up and saw me1 call'd out to me in a loud voice and angry tone to mind my business1 adding some reproachful words1 that nettled me the more for their publicity1 all the neighbors who were looking out on the same occasion1 being witness how ,i was treated4 ,he came up immediately into the printing-house1 continu'd the quarrel1 high words pass'd on both sides1 he gave me the quarter's warning we had stipulated1 expressing a wish that he had not been oblig'd to so long a warning4 ,i told him that his wish was unnecessary1 for ,i would leave him that instant2 and so1 taking my hat1 walk'd out of doors4 ,had affairs not fallen out thus ludicrously1 then some other incident would have snapt our connections4 ,if no great noise had occurred near the courthouse 7what1 one wonders1 was the cause of the disturbance871 there would still have been a subsequent great noise in ,keimer's shop1 and the hireling would have spoken his piece to the overlord and walked out of the identical door to the fulfillment of his high destiny4 ,franklin was of more than half a mind to return to ,boston1 in which event ,philadelphia would one day have been compelled to seek another patron saint4 ,fortunately for ,philadelphia1 while working at ,keimer's1 ,franklin had struck up a friendship with ,hugh ,meredith1 a fellow craftsman1 who suggested a partnership4 ,a secret agreement was drawn up1 and pending the completion of arrangements for launching the venture1 ,franklin sought temporary work at ,bradford's4 ,keimer meanwhile was negotiating with the provincial government of ,new ,jersey for the printing of an issue of paper money at ,burlington1 and urged ,franklin to accompany him if he was awarded the job4 ,the plan went through1 and the pair were in ,burlington three months4 ,there is not a single piece of this paper money known to exist today1 says ,dr4 ,campbell1 and of the ,new ,jersey ,laws that they printed at the same time there are only two known copies4444 ,in the summer of #agbh the new firm of ,b4 ,franklin and ,h4 ,meredith came into existence4 ,they had scarce opened our letters 7their cases1 that is1 not the morning mail7 when a friend brought a countryman to us1 whom he had met in the street inquiring for a printer4 ,the identity of this bucolic1 casual1 but superlatively important patron of the typographic arts is unknown and probably forever unknowable1 for he could hardly have been aware that he was the instrument of ,providence chosen to motivate the first imprint issued by ,franklin as a master printer4 ,dr4 ,campbell surmised the job was probably stationery or a small handbill4 ,whatever it was1 it has probably vanished beyond hope of recall1 or at least beyond hope of positive identification4 ,almost on the heels of this first customer came another--none other than ,samuel ,keimer1 whose general ineffectualness and chronic state of panic provide much of the comic relief in the history of early ,american printing4 ,keimer had been working off and on for three years on ,william ,sewell's ,history of the ,rise1 ,increase1 and ,progress of the ,christian ,people ,called ,quakers3 ,the ,third ,edition1 ,corrected4 ,the end was not in sight1 and ,keimer1 evidently in a condition of acute mental distress1 rushed to the new shop for assistance4 ,franklin and ,meredith composed and printed forty sheets1 totaling nearly a third of the seven hundred pages--the first known job to issue from their shop1 even though it did not bear their imprint4 ,sewell's ,history is doubly a ,franklin item1 as ,franklin must have worked on the book while he was still in ,keimer's employ4 ,thanks to the diligence of its proprietors--or of one of them1 for ,meredith was often seen drunk in the streets1 and playing at low games in alehouses--the new shop prospered4 ,but about the middle of #agcj it encountered a hazard which its sponsors had not foreseen4 ,meredith's father had advanced one hundred pounds to put the enterprise on its feet and had promised another hundred4 ,when the time came for him to meet his obligation1 he could not1 and the ,new ,printing-,office near the ,market was faced with a creditor's suit4 ,this crisis confirmed young ,meredith's conviction that he was not cut out for the printing business2 moreover1 he was anxious to join a company of fellow ,welshmen who were planning a settlement in ,north ,carolina4 ,two of ,franklin's friends offered to come to the aid of the senior partner1 and the difficulty was amicably adjusted4 ,thus was the ,b4 ,franklin imprint born4 ,it appeared for the first time not on anything in ,english1 but at the bottom of the title-page of ,mystische und ,sehr ,geheyme ,sprueche1 by ,conrad ,beissel1 whose religio-communistic ,ephrata colony1 itself to become one day an important printing center1 had been organized only a few years before4 ,shortly before the dissolution of the firm of ,franklin and ,meredith there had been another odd run-in with ,keimer4 ,franklin was already planning a newspaper1 and foolishly imparted the secret to a friend who forthwith made it known to ,keimer4 ,toward the end of #agbh the not-to-be-anticipated ,keimer issued the first number of ,the ,universal ,instructor in all ,arts and ,sciences3 and ,pennsylvania ,gazette4 ,it was ,keimer's inescapable genius to start what he could not finish1 and he was soon glad to dispose of the paper to ,franklin and ,meredith1 whose control dates from ,october #b1 #agbi4 ,one of ,franklin's first acts as a newspaper publisher--his memory must have harked back to the old ,boston days--was to shorten the too comprehensive title to ,the ,pennsylvania ,gazette4 ,probably some three months after the departure of ,meredith1 ,franklin initiated a new partnership4 ,he married4 ,partnership is no romantic figure of speech4 ,the name of ,deborah ,read has an honored place on the roster of women who helped to make ,american printing4 ,by her husband's own testimony1 her share in the work of the establishment included1 in some measure1 the folding and stitching of pamphlets1 and it is not unlikely that her hands had a busy share in the preparation of some of the series of pamphlets with which1 more than with any other1 ,franklin's name is most clearly associated as author-printer-publisher--the ,poor ,richard almanacs4 ,the importance of the almanac in the colonial scheme has already been stressed4 ,franklin was naturally alert to this importance2 in fact1 as soon as the house of ,franklin and ,meredith was in existence he had commissioned ,thomas ,godfrey to compile an almanac4 ,godfrey was a self-taught mathematician1 great in his way1 but he knew little out of his way1 and there was considerable of the prima donna in his make-up4 ,he prepared almanacs for #agcj1 #agca1 and #agcb1 and then1 in an outburst of temperament1 transferred his skill to the shelter of ,andrew ,bradford4 ,the fortunate result1 certainly not anticipated by ,thomas ,godfrey in his dudgeon1 was1 as ,paul ,leicester ,ford defines it1 the birth of ,american humor4 ,franklin initiated the ,poor ,richard series1 compiling the bulk of the contents himself1 but attributing their authorship to ,richard ,saunder or ,saunders1 whose almanacs had enjoyed enormous popularity in ,england and were still enjoying it1 though ,saunders had been gone this many a year4 ,a ,poor ,robin series of almanacs was also popular in ,england1 and ,james ,franklin a few years earlier had begun a series of ,rhode ,island almanacs under this title4 ,poor ,richard was an immediate success1 and though the first number was not advertised in ,the ,pennsylvania ,gazette until ,december #ai1 #agcb1 which was rather late in the year for a new almanac1 three printings were necessary to supply the demand4 ,poor ,richard thereafter issued regularly every ,december under ,franklin's own editorship until #ageg 7for #ageh74 ,poor ,richard's rich wisdom has become part of common speech wherever ,english or any other language is spoken4 ,everyone from ,china to ,peru knows that ,god helps those that help themselves1 that three removes are as bad as a fire1 that ,vessels large may venture more1 ,but little boats should keep near shore4 ,a recent commentator--,carl ,l4 ,becker in the ,dictionary of ,american ,biography--says of the ,poor ,richard almanacs3 ,nothing better exhibits the man1 or better illustrates his ingenuity as an advertiser4444 ,richard ,saunders1 the ,philomath of the ,almanack1 was the ,sir ,roger de ,coverley of the masses1 pilfering the world's store of aphorisms1 and adapting them to the circumstances and the understanding of the poor4 ,necessity never made a good bargain4 ,it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright4 ,many dishes make diseases4 ,the used key is always bright4 ,the ,almanack was immediately successful and commonly sold about ten thousand copies4 ,as ,poor ,richard says became a current phrase1 used to give weight to any counsel of thrift4 ,the work made ,franklin's name a household word throughout the colonies4444 ,the introduction to the last ,almanack 7,father ,abraham's speech at the auction7 spread the fame of ,poor ,richard in ,europe4 ,it was printed in broadsides and posted on walls in ,england1 and1 in translation1 distributed by the ,french clergy among their parishioners4 ,it has been translated into fifteen languages1 and reprinted at least four hundred times4 ,franklin's rise to the position of the most important printer in the colonies after the well-entrenched ,bradfords was now rapid4 ,before long he was official printer to ,pennsylvania1 ,new ,jersey1 and ,delaware4 ,of the bulk of his non-governmental productions1 ,ford writes that while generally of little moment1 still there can be no doubt that as a whole they contain more of genuine merit than those of any other printer of the same or previous periods in the colonies1 the amount of doctrinal and polemical theology being a minimum1 and bearing a less proportion to the whole mass than can be found in the books of contemporary ,american printers4 ,in #agce appeared over ,franklin's imprint ,james ,logan's ,cato's ,moral ,distichs ,englished in ,couplets4 ,nine years later ,franklin sponsored ,samuel ,richardson's ,pamela--not only the first ,american edition1 but the first novel to be printed in ,america1 ,price #f s4 ,in the same year1 #agdd1 he issued what is generally regarded as the typographical masterpiece of his press1 ,m4 ,t4 ,cicero's ,cato ,major1 or ,his ,discourse of ,old-,age3 ,with ,explanatory ,notes 7also ,englished by ,james ,logan71 referring to it in a four-page foreword of his own composition as this first ,translation of a ,classic in this ,western ,world4 ,this was a wide error1 for ,george ,sandys had translated ,ovid on the banks of the ,james ,river a life-span earlier1 and the translation had been printed in ,london in #afbf2 moreover1 ,franklin forgot those ,moral ,distichs of ,cato and ,james ,logan which he himself had issued in #agce4 ,in #agdh1 ,franklin formed a partnership with an alert young ,scotchman whom he had engaged five years before1 and the ,franklin and ,hall imprint thereupon replaced 7with a few exceptions7 the familiar ,b4 ,franklin4 ,a few earlier connections must be mentioned4 ,franklin's name is found on several ,german titles in combination with that of ,gotthard ,armbruester and with that of ,johannes ,bhm1 and1 apparently once only1 with that of ,johannes ,wster1 but these seem to have been purely partnerships of convenience1 and suggest no such dual affiliations as those with ,meredith and ,hall4 ,the ,hall partnership lasted eighteen years1 and during that period ,franklin's connection with printing and publishing became less and less important as the crisis in international affairs that was bringing on the ,american ,revolution grew more and more acute4 ,but the printer in him could not wholly be suppressed4 ,when he went to ,paris in #aggf as representative of the colonies1 he established a little press for his own amusement at his home in ,passy1 then a suburb1 now as much a part of the metropolis as ,greenwich ,village is of ,new ,york4 ,it was not quite such a toy as ,robert ,louis ,stevenson and his stepson ,lloyd ,osbourne were one day to set up in ,switzerland1 the main difference being that the ,stevenson-,osbourne combination knew nothing about printing and was joyously aware of it1 whereas ,franklin1 with just as joyous awareness1 knew as much about it as any man of his time4 ,one factor the two private presses of ,passy and ,davos-,platz have in common--their productions are excessively rare and costly collector's playthings4 ,the story of the ,french venture is authoritatively set forth in ,luther ,s4 ,livingston's ,franklin and ,his ,press at ,passy1 issued by the ,grolier ,club of ,new ,york in #aiad4 ,livingston listed thirty-two entries1 and since his monograph was published six others have come to light1 according to ,will ,ransom's ,private ,presses and ,their ,books 7,new ,york1 #aibi74 ,the output of ,franklin's press from #agbi to the termination of the ,hall partnership 7#agff7 is statistically impressive4 ,the following summary is tabulated from the short-title check list of all ,franklin imprints known in #aiah which ,dr4 ,campbell appended to the ,curtis catalogue 7excluding ,the ,pennsylvania ,gazette and the numerous issues of paper currency printed by ,franklin from #agca to #agfd73 #agbi #h #agdh #cj #agcj #ae #agdi #cc #agca #h #agej #ai #agcb #ae #agea #bd #agcc #ad #ageb #ah #agcd #ae #agec #af #agce #bj #aged #ae #agcf #h #agee #bg #agcg #ac #agef #bf #agch #i #ageg #ca #agci #ab #ageh #ac #agdj #df #agei #af #agda #de #agfj #aj #agdb #ca #agfa #ab #agdc #be #agfb #h #agdd #be #agfc #ae #agde #ae #agfd #ah #agdf #bc #agfe #ai #agdg #bg #agff #d ,any book1 pamphlet1 broadside1 or periodical that bears a ,franklin imprint1 alone or in combination1 is worth treasuring on that account alone4 ,in general1 the scale of desirability is set by scarcity1 this scale one might suppose1 should follow the line of chronology with reasonable accuracy1 but it happens that it does not4 ,the ,sewell ,history1 for instance1 ought by chronological measurement to be an excessively rare book as the first book on which ,franklin worked as an independent printer1 and rare it assuredly is1 but by no means to the point of utter elusiveness4 ,twelve years later the total of ,franklin imprints was moving toward two hundred--and in that twelfth year1 #agdj1 there issued from his press the second edition of ,david ,evan's ,a ,short1 ,plain ,help for ,parents and ,heads of ,families1 to ,feed ,their ,babes with the ,sincere ,milk of ,god's ,word4 ,being a ,short1 ,plain ,catechism1 ,grounded ,upon ,god's ,word1 and ,agreeable to the ,westminster ,assembly's ,excellent ,catechism4 ,no copy of the first edition is known to be extant--,dr4 ,campbell quoted the title imperfectly from a contemporary advertisement--and neither ,hildeburn nor ,campbell knew that a second edition had ever been issued4 ,neither did anyone else until #aibi1 when a copy came to light and won its way to a ,new ,york book-seller's catalogue4 ,the book is mentioned here1 not because it possesses great intrinsic importance 7it would be of trivial note if a hundred or two copies of it survived71 but as an indication of the fact that unrecorded ,franklin imprints are likely to appear at any time1 and as indication1 further1 that the scarcity of ,franklin imprints does not altogether parallel the dates of his activity as printer and publisher4 ,in these notes it has been necessary to neglect ,franklin1 the author 7save as ,poor ,richard71 in favor of ,franklin1 the printer and publisher4 ,but it would be an effrontery to allude even briefly to ,franklin without mention of the ,autobiography4 ,begun in #agga in the quiet charm of an ,english country-seat1 the first great ,american classic never was completed4 ,the manuscript first appeared in print1 by an odd series of accidents1 in ,french in #agia4 ,subsequently ,franklin's grandson1 ,william ,temple ,franklin1 issued it in a ,bowdlerized ,english version that would have afforded the old man quiet and somewhat indignant laughter4 ,the text was not definitely published until #ahfh1 soon after ,john ,bigelow had come into possession of the original manuscript4 ,franklin's epitaph is easily the most familiar in ,american history1 and almost as well-known a document1 perhaps1 as ,lincoln's ,gettysburg ,address4 ,it is not generally known1 however1 that the original version of it was composed in #agbh1 the very year in which its author1 a youth of twenty-two1 entered into partnership with ,meredith4 ,the version written in that year1 which differs in minor details from the final draft1 was this3 ,,the ,,body ,,of ,b ,,franklin ,,printer1 7,,like ,,the ,,cover ,,of ,,an ,,old ,,book ,,its ,,contents ,,torn ,,out ,,and ,,stript ,,of ,,its ,,lettering ,,gilding7 ,,lies ,,here1 ,,food ,,for ,,worms4 ,,but ,,the ,,work ,,shall ,,not ,,be ,,lost2 ,,for ,,it ,,will1 7,,as ,,he ,,believ',d7 ,,appear ,,once ,,more1 ,,in ,a ,,new ,,and ,,more ,,elegant ,,edition ,,revised ,,and ,,corrected1 ,,by ,,the ,,author4 ,note3 ,a documented account of the various transcripts of ,franklin's celebrated epitaph appeared in ,the ,new ,colophon1 ,volume #c1 ,new ,york1 #aiej4 ,it discusses the date of its composition1 place of first publication and the differing texts1 and was written by ,lyman ,h4 ,butterfield1 associate editor of the ,jefferson papers4 ,,composed ,,in ,,baskerville ,,types ,illustration,,earnest ,,elmo ,,calkins,illustration ,the ,book ,job ,print ,from ,the ,colophon1 ,new ,graphic ,series ,no4 #a4 ,copyright #aici by the publisher4 ,reprinted by permission of the author and ,mr4 ,elmer ,adler4 ,i ,the printing office was a long narrow room over a store4 ,one front window was appropriated to a cubicle known as the office--seldom used1 its desk piled high with galley proofs and dusty government reports4 ,frames for type cases occupied the two remaining front windows and the three at the back4 ,in between were the hand-power cylinder press1 the two ,gordon jobbers1 an imposing stone for the newspaper and one for job work4 ,along the walls ran the dump--sloping shelves divided longitudinally by strips of wood1 holding galleys and standing jobs tied up with white packthread4 ,the prevalent odor was a mixture of benzine and warm roller composition familiar to old-time printers1 but sweeter than the scents of ,araby to the young apprentice about to be initiated into the craft and mystery of printing4 ,they seated him on a high stool before a case in the darker part of the room1 with a composing stick1 a setting rule1 and a piece of patent medicine reprint4 ,a slug on a string hung on his upper case to hold the copy in place1 for the oldest rule of the printing trade is follow copy though it goes out the window4 ,in each corner of the lower case boxes ,big ,sweeny1 the foreman1 had stuck letters from a job font to guide the youngster in learning the case4 ,for days the tyro was absorbed in the seemingly impossible task of setting a stick full of type and dumping it on the galley4 ,the first lot exploded in the air2 it took hours to distribute the pi4 ,in a few weeks he had learned his case1 except the small boxes around the edge1 double ffls and ffis and little-used punctuation points4 ,he could distinguish a #c-;em space from a #e-;em1 and justify a line by distributing them judiciously1 remembering1 as was often impressed on him1 to put more space between words ending in tall letters4 ,he began to look about him and take stock of the curious world in which he found himself4 ,for years he had dreamed of printing1 his appetite whetted by the life of ,franklin in the ,harper ,story ,books1 and a manual of instructions for young printers in the same volume4 ,he pored over type specimen books obtained from ,barnhart ,brothers ,spindler1 and reveled in the amazing faces shown4 ,other boys had their ambitions--firemen1 policemen1 railroad engineer--but his hero was the journeyman printer1 a green shade over his eyes1 sleeves rolled to display a bright red undershirt1 spitting tobacco with an accuracy that missed nothing but the spittoon4 ,tales told by typographical tourists1 the tramp printers1 were his folklore1 and for some years after he learned his trade his chance to work came mostly in subbing for printers frankly laying off to get drunk4 ,type had two names4 ,he was setting brevier ,roman2 the smaller size used for quotations and for county correspondence was nonpareil4 ,other sizes with equally picturesque names piqued his curiosity4 ,in the early eighties the point system had not reached the prairies4 ,later he became familiar with it4 ,the old names of the types with approximate sizes in points that prevailed in the days of our young apprentice were as follows3 ,diamond1 #d-a_/b-point2 ,pearl1 #e-point2 ,agate1 #e-a_/b-point2 ,nonpareil1 #f-point2 ,minion1 #g-point2 ,brevier1 #h-point2 ,bourgeois1 #i-point2 ,long ,primer1 #aj-point2 ,small ,pica1 #aa-point2 ,pica1 #ab-point2 ,english1 #ad-point2 ,columbian1 #af-point2 ,great ,primer1 #ah-point2 ,paragon1 #bj-point2 ,double ,pica 7strictly this should be ,double ,small ,pica71 #bb-point2 ,two-line ,pica1 #bd-point2 ,two-line ,english1 #bh-point2 ,two-line ,great ,primer1 #cf-point2 ,two-line ,double ,pica1 #dd-point2 ,canon1 #dh-point4 ,it must not be supposed that all these sizes were found in the office of the ,book ,job ,print1 nor for that matter probably anywhere but in the warehouses of ,barnhart ,bros4 ,spindler1 ,marder1 ,luse ,co41 ,mac,kellar1 ,smiths ,jordan ,co41 ,bruce1 or other type-founders4 ,our apprentice was afflicted with one of those curious prying minds that sought to know the reason for all things4 ,much typographical history lurked behind the names given to type sizes4 ,diamond1 agate and nonpareil1 it seemed1 were merely fancy names1 but brevier was so-called because it had been used to print breviaries2 canon1 from the first lines of the canonical mass1 and primer for primaries or elementary prayer books4 ,bourgeois has been attributed to the city of ,bourges1 to a printer named ,bourgeois1 and to having been used in cheap books for the middle classes1 the bourgeoisie4 ,minion was said to be the ,french word mignon1 darling4 ,but the origin of pica1 so constantly used as a yardstick for measuring leads1 slugs1 reglets1 and the width of columns and pages1 is as fascinating as it is baffling4 ,pica is ,latin for magpie1 and it has been ingeniously supposed that some work now lost1 an account of that thievish and mischievous bird1 was printed in type now bearing that name4 ,de ,vinne#ch cites a far more amusing derivation3 ,like great primer1 pica takes its name from its early use as a text letter4 ',the ,pie1' writes ,mores1 'was a table showing the course of the service of the church in the time of darkness4 ,it was called the ,pie because it was written in letters of black and red1 as the ,friars de ,pica were so named from their party-colored raiment black and white1 the plumage of the magpie4' ,and is it not at least probable that pi1 a jumble of unsorted type1 is also derived from the same source1 either because of the pied feathers of the bird1 or from its habit of assembling a miscellaneous collection of objects in some hiding place8 ,as he explored his upper case1 our apprentice discovered that while the capitals and small capitals were ranged in alphabetical order1 ,j and ,u were left to the end like substitute ball players on the bench4 ,by studying an unabridged dictionary he learned that those letters were late comers into the alphabet2 the old scribes1 finding that ,i tended to become confused with the last stroke of the previous letter1 gave it a tail to distinguish it4 ,the two forms were used indiscriminately for the consonant and vowel sounds of ,i until in due course they were separated4 ,in the same way ,v was half of ,w1 distinguished as singleyou and doubleyou4 ,v was carelessly written as ,u and even as ,y1 and had all the sounds1 but was at length assigned one job1 and the ,u added to the alphabet4 ,how long ago that happened6 ,so conservative was the printing art that even after two hundred years the case had not been shifted to accommodate them1 and dictionaries as late as #ahjj still used both forms in the same classification4 ,our apprentice felt that the office where he was learning his trade had not changed greatly1 typographically at least1 since ,plantin4 ,,ii ,the number and variety of faces at the disposal of the master printer equalled their ugliness1 though this apprentice considered them all beautiful4 ,there were of course the ,roman faces1 some of which were good1 and still are1 but these were strangely distorted as condensed1 extra-condensed1 extended1 expanded1 as well as shaded1 open1 skeleton1 contour1 sloped 7both ways71 ornamented1 and hair-line letters4 ,one would think these were enough for all the printing anyone would want to do1 but there was also a bewildering multitude of so-called job types of fancy and fantastic design4 ,each foundry put out a book as big as a dictionary1 filled with bizarre creations in which the innocent alphabet was twisted and tormented and decorated until some of its masterpieces were illegible4 ,among them were a number informally standardized and cast by all foundries4 ,such were ,antique1 ,boldface1 ,gothic1 ,lightface1 ,clarendon1 ,caledonian1 ,ionic1 ,doric1 ,egyptian1 ,runic1 ,celtic1 ,rustic1 ,script1 ,grecian1 ,monastic1 ,norman1 ,title1 and these too were also condensed1 extended and otherwise squeezed1 stretched and pulled about4 ,when the type-writer came there was added that monstrosity1 type-writer type4 ,but the pride of each foundry was its own exclusive creations1 to which were given names as fantastic as the designs1 putting ,pullman nomenclature to shame1 such as ,pansy1 ,olive1 ,asteroid1 ,van ,dyke1 ,vulcan1 ,schwabacher1 ,florist1 ,teuton1 ,text1 ,eastlake4 ,from such an array the country printer was expected to choose the types to equip his shop4 ,his outfit consisted of fair quantities of ,roman1 nonpareil1 brevier and long primer for straight matter--the weekly newspaper1 booklets and pamphlets1 with larger sizes for job work1 too many faces with few fonts large enough to set more than a line or two4 ,this did not matter since it seemed obligatory to set in a different letter each line of display1 advertisements1 title pages1 as well as dodgers and handbills1 the greater the contrast and variety the better1 with ands and thes in lines by themselves1 centered and flanked by flourishes on each side4 ,type larger than two-line canon was made of wood1 and was called stud-horse type because used for the big bills tacked up on barns and trees to advertise the services of a stallion4 ,small fonts of job type were listed in foundry catalogues #e;,a #ac;a1 to indicate quantity1 other letters being in proportion4 ,there was seldom more than one of little used letters1 necessitating a shift to another font when a line turned up with two ,xs or two ,zs4 ,job types were laid in cases like the uppers of ,roman1 the boxes all of a size1 capitals on one side1 lower case on the other4 ,new type was an abomination4 ,the compositor's fingers1 already tender from the lye used to wash forms1 were cut by the sharp edges1 and his eyes blinded by the glare from sorts1 and the printers were forever prowling the shining metal4 ,there was chronic clack of up and down the live bank with tweezers1 pulling out the needed letters1 and inserting an equal-sized type upside down to mark the place4 ,another source of trouble was the font from a different foundry1 supposedly the same body1 but with a slight variation1 that was forever getting into the wrong case and being set up1 dropping out when the form was lifted4 ,,iii ,the apprentice was kept too busy to have much time for the acquisition of abstract knowledge4 ,in return for instruction in the art and mystery of printing he was expected to perform the duties of a devil4 ,he arrived at half-past six1 started the fire in the pot-bellied stove1 swept up 7no light job1 for the continuous barrage of fine-cut and plug formed a coping around the feet of every frame1 and the trimmings from the big knife lay in windrows74 ,all day he ran errands with proofs1 handbills1 billheads1 advertisements1 to submit to customers2 wet down paper for the weekly run of the newspaper1 and pasted the subscribers' names on them for the mail2 distributed pi1 and rushed the growler for thirsty journeymen4 ,but he learned that the printers in one shop were a chapel1 the head was the father1 who was not the foreman4 ,it thrilled him that such expressions went back to the time when ,caxton had his press in ,westminster ,abbey4 ,a small group of men working on the same job was a companionship1 and had strict rules as to who was to do what4 ,points of procedure1 such as the first or a fat take1 or the selection of a victim to set up the beer1 was determined by a curious custom4 ,the men gathered around the imposing stone1 and each in turn shook out a few em-quads1 five or seven1 throwing them on the stone like dice4 ,the one with the most nicks uppermost was the winner4 ,these were time-honored practices1 but each shop had customs peculiar to itself4 ,he learned not to whistle at his case1 for a sponge of dirty water was apt to take him squarely in the mouth4 ,when late he found lines set up in his composing stick1 which he had to distribute before he began work1 at his own expense--when he was finally promoted to piece work1-- ,a diller1 a dollar1 a ten-o'clock scholar1 ,what makes you come so soon8 ,you used to come at ten o'clock1 ,but now you come at noon4 ,for some time his tormentors had alluded mysteriously to the type louse that haunted the forms1 and promised to show him one when found4 ,a journeyman working at the stone over a newspaper form wet down for distribution called him over1 and pointing excitedly1 cried1 ,now1 there1 look6 ,he looked4 ,handfuls of type had been removed1 and the water gathered in small pools between the columns4 ,the apprentice bent over eagerly to behold the strange insect1 whereupon the journeyman shoved up a column of type1 forcing the water to rise like a fountain into the apprentice's innocent face1 while the force roared with laughter and pounded with their composing sticks on the frames4 ,,iv ,in a small office in pre-union days1 every printer was or became an all-round man4 ,not only could he stick type 7and some old-time printers had a wonderful instinct for spacing71 but he could kick a jobber1 impose1 make ready1 and feed a cylinder press4 ,some of the vagabond printers who drifted back and forth across the ,west1 working a few days at each halt1 were not only craftsmen but characters4 ,it was amazing how promptly they became at home in a strange shop1 in a few moments working as if they had been there for years4 ,the saga of the typographic tourist has yet to be told4 ,it was not long before he found himself standing on one leg like a stork1 working the treadle of the ,gordon jobber with the other1 feeding some small job1 milk tickets or dodgers or billheads1 against three #c-;em quads pasted to the tympan in lieu of gaugepins4 ,as the press had no grippers the feeder must grab the printed sheet before the ink pulled it off and insert the next1 regulating the speed according to his need4 ,pasting scraps of cardboard on the quads to project a bit helped hold the printed card or paper4 ,the regular gaugepins sold never seemed to work as well as quads1 and anyway1 old-time printers were self-helpful and never bought what they could make4 ,from feeding press he graduated to making ready and locking up forms4 ,there were always enough odds and ends of furniture for small jobs without cutting new1 but for big work1 particularly a book or pamphlet1 the furniture was cut to fit the job4 ,the form was locked by driving quoins1 wedge-shaped bits of hard wood1 along the tapering side sticks with an implement known as a shooting stick1 notched at one end4 ,the form was planed with a block of wood beaten over the form to drive down type that might stick above the printing surface4 ,something like this still prevails1 no doubt1 but not with such primitive tools1 and very little printing is now done from the type4 ,i am sure the shooting stick and wooden quoins must be as obsolete as ink balls4 ,the night before the newspaper was run off1 the paper was laid down on a broad platform1 a quire at a time1 drenched with water1 covered with a wide board1 and a heavy stone placed on top to squeeze the water out4 ,dampening was necessary to make the ink stick4 ,subscribers received their papers so wet they had to dry them before reading4 ,the press was a cylinder with a large flywheel having a handle attached4 ,it was run by human power--a husky ,negro1 who also furnished the muscle for the big knife1 or guillotine1 with which books were trimmed4 ,in the words of the proprietor he always gives a scent back no matter what we pay him4 ,the apprentice and devil doubled for the porter when he was otherwise engaged1 but shortly steam was installed1 adding greatly to the excitement on press day4 ,feeding the dampened sheets against the gripper was not easy1 and often he missed4 ,to stop the press he grasped the long switch lever and threw the overhead belt on to the idle pulley4 ,if it failed1 as it sometimes did1 the tympan was inked1 and several sheets must be run through before it ceased to offset on the wrong side of the paper1 a waste of which his employer made him emphatically aware4 ,it had been easier to stop the press when it was turned by hand4 ,a daily chore which fell to his lot cruelly sharpened the appetite of a hungry boy toward the noon hour4 ,this was the menu card from the local hotel with corrections for the day's dinner 7square meal1 #be cents74 ,he picked up the standing type1 slid it on a galley1 and proceeded to pull out yesterday's banana fritter and stewed corn and insert today's pear fritter and stewed tomatoes4 ,he then ran off thirty copies1 taking extra care as the stock was special and had the word ,menu embossed in gold and other decorations4 ,it was a sort of ,barmecide's feast for him1 whetting an appetite that needed no whetting4 ,every printing office boasted one of those geniuses expert at rule twisting1 who with shears1 file and pliers bent brass rule into patterns that would print scrolls and flourishes around headlines and on title pages1 ornaments for the corners of boxes1 and when needed extra long braces4 ,some could create intricate designs1 birds with streamers in their beaks in which type could be set1 like those that were the pride of the writing masters4 ,like leads1 brass rule was bought in lengths of a foot or so1 and cut as needed4 ,much ingenuity was required to make the corners meet1 until the arrival of labor-saving1 with corners mitered or beveled4 ,v ,when work in the printing office became slack he was moved to the bindery1 where the files of ,godey's1 ,peterson's and ,ballou's ,magazines were put in dull black covers with names lettered on the spine4 ,its principal work1 however1 was the manufacture of account books1 made to order to fit the individual book-keeping methods of bank or merchant4 ,the ancient ruling machine of mahogany looked something like a loom for weaving cloth4 ,until the advent of loose-leaf books and adding machines1 business men kept their accounts in three enormous tomes labeled respectively ,day ,book1 ,journal1 and ,ledger4 ,every transaction was entered in the ,day ,book chronologically4 ,it was rentered in the ,journal to separate outgo from income4 ,finally1 each item appeared in the ,ledger under the name of the customer1 or creditor1 to show the status of individual accounts4 ,sheets of paper1 bearing picturesque old names--,royal1 ,crown1 ,demy1 or ,foolscap--were fed to the ruling machine1 and came into contact with a battery of pens1 each with its own little fountain of ink1 red or blue1 as the line demanded--both colors ruled at once4 ,the sheets were then printed at the top of each page with the name of the firm1 numbered by hand1 and bound in the familiar heavy books1 with covers half an inch thick1 hinges of rawhide1 red leather backs and corners1 and sides decorated with marbled paper4 ,the marbled paper was made in the shop4 ,a square tray or pan of slate was filled with a thin sizing of water and gum tragacanth4 ,on its surface were gently shaken little blobs of color that spread slowly on the surface of the pool4 ,the fashion in blank books seemed to run to red1 blue and white4 ,the spots of color were combed into the wavy patterns peculiar to such books4 ,a sheet of paper laid on the surface of the water took off a fine impression of the pattern4 ,these sheets were used for end-papers as well as covers4 ,the edges of the book were also marbled4 ,all this was once done in a small printing office in a prairie town of about #ab1jjj inhabitants4 ,the books were sturdy and durable4 ,i have seen many of them preserved in vaults beneath banks1 filled with the neat ,spencerian hand of the bookkeepers of that era1 the pupils of the writing masters who drew without taking pen from paper the flowing florid birds trailing messages from their bills4 ,he was for some years a two-thirder4 ,a two-thirder received two-thirds the wages of a journeyman printer1 which were fifteen dollars a week4 ,they did not have piece work at the ,book ,job ,print1 but later he entered another world1 worked on the evening newspaper of the town and tasted the excitement of a race against bogie1 the average day's work of ten thousand ems1 the printer's measure familiar to all crossword puzzle fans4 ,the piece rate was twenty-five cents a thousand1 whether leaded brevier or solid nonpareil4 ,a rapid compositor could set ten or more thousand a day1 according to luck with takes4 ,one learned the fine art of jockeying for position1 slowing up when the next take on the hook1 was an undesirable one1 or speeding in the race for a fat one4 ,fat takes were pickups--railroad time table1 baseball score1 market report1 taken from the live bank1 corrected and added to one's string to be paid for as if set4 ,each compositor had a numbered slug that he dumped on the galley with his stickful of set matter4 ,when the galley was proved he kept a copy1 and at the end of the day pasted up his work1 being careful to join the takes closely1 signed his name and turned it in4 ,as soon as the paper was up there was a let-down1 the tension relaxed1 pipes were lit1 conversation was possible1 and the men picked up incredibly long handfuls of type from the forms returned from the pressroom1 and proceeded to throw in a thumping big case against next day's work4 ,cuts1 if any1 were of wood4 ,there was an engraver in the town who supplied illustrations when badly enough needed and plenty of time was available4 ,he made both the drawing and the block1 and was a better engraver than artist4 ,his pictures were what is now modernist and even surrealist4 ,an ingenious method of making cuts in an emergency was nipped in the bud by the progress of zinc etching4 ,that was the chalk plate4 ,a metal plate coated with a film of chalk could be drawn on with a sharp instrument1 cutting through the chalk to the plate4 ,the plate was then used as a matrix to make a casting that would print the lines drawn1 something after the manner of a stereotype4 ,but the pride of the country press was its stock of ready-made cuts--,lodge emblems3 ,masonic1 ,odd ,fellows1 ,i4,o4,g4,t42 patriotic3 eagle1 star1 flag1 ,liberty ,bell2 trade symbols3 mortar and pestle1 false teeth1 piano1 anvil1 watch1 domestic animals1 together with the inevitable pointing finger 7fist7 and clasped hands4 ,there were houses1 ships1 buggies1 and1 even still on hand in some offices1 runaway slaves4 ,these were used to embellish circulars1 invitations1 or programs1 and were also used in small ads in the newspaper4 ,there were molds for casting rollers that looked much like huge candle molds4 ,the roller composition was a mixture of glue and molasses1 consistency varying according to the season of the year4 ,it was more practicable to buy rollers by this time1 but homemade rollers were still cast occasionally4 ,in a near-by village as late as #ahhi a four-column folio weekly newspaper was run off--pulled1 ,i should say--on a hand-lever press1 one page at a time1 the same method and almost the same press as that which printed the ,virginia ,gazette1 or the earlier ,saturday ,evening ,post1 or for that matter all incunabula4 ,it is quite likely that all the old-time editors of country newspapers were printers4 ,the tradition no longer holds1 but one apprentice printer in my old shop whose destiny was no doubt influenced by this early contact with type was ,john ,finley1 who became editor of the country's greatest newspaper4 ,there are still men1 though not so many as there were once1 playing important roles in world affairs who at some time in their lives experienced the thrill of handling the twenty-four 7now twenty-six7 potent little lead soldiers that change the history of the world4 ,no man ever loses that sense of the importance of printing1 or can look upon a printed thing with indifference1 who has once felt it4 ,nor for that matter does he ever forget the lay of the case4 ,it is a craft that gets into the blood4 ,in #ahhi or thereabouts ,i witnessed a scene which foretold the great change that was coming to the art ,i had learned with such patience and diligence1 as revolutionary as the change of shipping from sail to steam4 ,there arrived and was set up a machine intended to set type4 ,its name was ,thorne1 and its principle was to release the letter called for when the key was pressed by means of nicks in the body of the type1 like the tumblers of a ,yale lock4 ,the type travelled in the channels to a galley1 and was justified by hand1 if ,i remember rightly4 ,obviously the device depended upon a hair-trigger nicety of adjustment4 ,even the mechanics who came with it had difficulty in making it work4 ,it jammed repeatedly1 and before many hours the floor was covered with broken sorts4 ,after a few months it was packed up and sent back1 and the old-fashioned method of setting by hand was reinstated1 until that day when that office1 like every one of its class1 was equipped with a battery of linotypes4 ,thus vanished a craft that had been four hundred years in the making1 that uncanny skill with which a good printer manipulated type4 ,the tramp printer1 with his thirst1 his steel setting rule1 his budget of gossip of all the printing offices in a wide territory1 has become extinct4 ,the callous forefinger of the printer is as much a legend as the miller's sensitive thumb4 ,,vi ,did they print books in those far-away prairie printing offices8 ,they certainly did4 ,one of the rarest items of ,western ,americana bears a ,galesburg imprint4 ,a pioneer of that town1 a genius who played the flute and made many inventions1 one of them the rotary plow still used to clear snow from the tracks of western railroads1 was ,riley ,root4 ,in #ahdi he caught the gold fever and made the trip to ,oregon and ,california over-land in a covered wagon4 ,he had many adventures1 and on his return wrote a book that was printed in ,galesburg and is now a collector's item4 ,a famous ,boston book-seller became excited when he discovered a copy4 ,unknown1 he wrote in #aicb1 to ,wagner1 ,smith1 ,cowan1 or as far as we know to any other bibliographer of the ,west1 and unrecorded in the entire run of ,american ,book ,prices ,current4 ,the front wrapper reads3 ,journal of ,travels _/ from _/ ,st4 ,josephs to ,oregon _/ with _/ observations of that country _/ together with _/ a ,description of ,california1 _/ its agricultural interests1 _/ and _/ a full description _/ of _/ its ,gold ,mines4 _/ ,by ,riley ,root _/ ,galesburg1 ,ill4 _/ ,intelligencer ,print _/ #ahej4 ,the matter on the wrapper is repeated on the title page with some minor variations4 ,the book is a substantial pamphlet1 size #i-a_/b by #f inches1 #add pages1 uncut4 ,the ,boston bookman continues3 ,riley ,root's ,journal has everything that a rare piece of ,western ,americana should have4 ,in the first place1 it looks rare4 ,like several rare ,western items of which only a few copies exist1 it was printed in a small mid-,western town4 ',galesburg1 ,illinois1 #ahej' is an imprint that has charm for the collector4 ,it must be excessively rare4 ,the only other copy of which ,i know1 besides the one described1 is now appropriately in the ,seymour ,library of ,knox ,college4 ,of this copy the librarian said 7when he acknowledged the gift to the ,library in #aica73 ,this little unbound pamphlet was written by ,riley ,root who came with his family to this prairie country in #ahcf1 when he was #cg years old1 and helped to build the houses of ,log ,city1 the forerunner of ,galesburg4444 ,it was printed in ,galesburg in #ahej by the ',intelligencer ,print' and bears in the border of the cover the name of the compositor1 ,southwick ,davis1 who graduated from ,knox in the first class--that of #ahdf4 ,this creditable piece of printing was done only about fourteen years after ,galesburg was staked out and when ,knox ,college was graduating its fifth class4 ,in ,april #ahdh ,riley ,root left ,galesburg to make this over-land journey1 crossing the continent by way of the ,oregon ,trail to ,oregon ,city1 a distance of #ahdf miles from ,st4 ,josephs on the ,missouri ,river1 which was regarded as the starting point for the long journey through the ,indian ,country4 ,although gold had been discovered at ,sutter's sawmill in ,california on ,february #ajth1 #ahdh1 nearly two months before ,mr4 ,root left ,galesburg1 it is not probable that he learned of that famous event until he reached ,oregon in mid-,september4 ,the news spread slowly even on the ,pacific coast1 credible reports reaching ,san ,francisco only in ,may4 ,mr4 ,root says that the excitement 7'yellow fever1' he calls it7 began in ,oregon about the middle of ,august1 and that within one month nearly #b1jjj persons left ,oregon for the gold fields4 ,the purpose of ,mr4 ,root's over-land journey to ,oregon is not stated1 but it would seem from an entry in his diary seven months after reaching ,oregon ,city1 to the effect that he had been 'roaming up and down the valley1 in pursuit of information1' that he was scouting for new lands on a new frontier4 ,finding himself in the midst of all the gold rush 'commotion' he may very well have been attacked by the 'yellow fever' bug himself4 ,at any rate he left ,oregon in ,april1 #ahdi1 just a year after leaving ,galesburg1 and going to ,san ,francisco and the ,california gold fields1 spent five months1 returning to ,illinois by way of ,panama and ,new ,orleans4 ,he arrived in ,galesburg1 ,january #h1 #ahej4 ,this little pamphlet records the details of this epic journey1 and if ,riley ,root's reputation rested on this alone he would take high rank as a historian4 ,it is extremely well done and is a faithful journal of not only the day to day happenings1 but of the country and its climate1 the wild animals1 the ,indians1 the geology and botany1 the mountains1 the forests and streams1 and many other features that give evidence of the observant eye of the author4 ,one interesting and important chapter relates the harrowing details of the ,indian massacre of ,november1 #ahdg1 in which ,dr4 ,marcus ,whitman and his wife lost their lives4 ,this story was supplied to ,mr4 ,root by eye-witnesses and is said to be its earliest publication in book or pamphlet form4 ,among the many changes of ownership of presses in ,galesburg1 it would be difficult to decide whether the shop in which ,i learned my trade was a descendant of the ,intelligencer ,print or not1 but it was produced in just such a primitive and resourceful plant4 ,,footnotes3 #ch ,plain ,printing ,types1 ,theodore ,l4 ,de ,vinne1 ,new ,york1 #aijb4 ,james ,shand ,,author ,,and ,,printer3 ,g4,b4,s4 ,,and ,r4 ,r4 ,c43 #ahih-aidh ,from ,alphabet and ,image3 #h1 ,winter1 #aidh4 ,copyright by ,art and ,technics1 ,ltd4 ,reprinted by permission of the author and publisher4 ,illustration3 ,topolski's drawing from the illustrated ,penguin ,pygmalion4 ,author and printer1 publisher and book-seller2 these conjunctions flow too easily from the pen4 ,they cover an immeasurable sum of human experience1 both melancholy and magnificent1 in the long history of the book trade2 they should be used with more reserve4 ,fortunately for the reader1 the writer is no doctor in bibliography expounding the perils and diseases of textual transmission1 but a typographical reporter1 with an interim case-history of a particular author1 a particular printer and a healthy body of work in progress4 ,our author is ,george ,bernard ,shaw1 sometime of ,dublin3 our printer1 ,r4 ,r4 ,clark1 now1 as always1 of ,edinburgh4 ,the association is unique in more than a geographical sense2 in time it covers fifty years2 in space it defies quantitative analysis4 ,bernard ,shaw's quota1 if consigned to the ,society of ,authors1 would probably make that body independent of the publishing trade for years to come4 ,miss ,marjorie ,plant has pointed out1 in her always readable economic history1 ,the ,english ,book ,trade1 that there was once a time when the person who was of no account whatever in the early years of the book industry was the author4 ,at a later period when the printer was dominated by book-seller and publisher1 ,dr4 ,johnson wrote in ,the ,gentleman's ,magazine in #agci1 ,we can produce some who threatened printers with their highest displeasure for having dared to print books for those who wrote them6 ,in the history of ,english literature the relations of author1 printer and publisher have often been bitter and obscure1 posing many problems in bibliography and textual criticism4 ,dr4 ,mc,kerrow1 introducing the literary student to bibliography1 suggests that the best way of obtaining a clear and lively comprehension of the processes by which the books of ,shakespeare's time were produced would be by actually composing a sheet or two in exact facsimile of an ,elizabethan quarto and printing it on a hand-press4 ,once he does this1 he adds1 he will find that the material book1 apart altogether from its literary content1 can be a thing of surprising interest4 ,the surprise of ,dr4 ,mc,kerrow's student trying to disentangle the impositions by which the ,penguin edition of more than a million copies of ,shaw's plays were produced on modern perfector printing presses and automatic folding machines would indeed be considerable4 ,nevertheless it is to be doubted whether there are as many bibliographical vagaries and obscurities in ,shaw as in the folios and quartos of ,shakespeare4 ,certainly there is something of the same fascination in the printing and production of the material books of the later playwright2 apart from the literary antics of an ebullient ,irish author with that most emotional of all romantic characters3 seemingly hard-headed ,scots printers4 ,since we are presenting the romance of playwright and printer1 without benefit of publisher1 let us set our characters in their dramatic place and scene4 ,the place is ,edinburgh2 the scene ,r4 ,r4 ,clark2 the principal characters1 ,edward ,clark1 ,bernard ,shaw and ,william ,maxwell2 with a faint echo off-stage from that habitual bankrupt1 ,grant ,richards1 later deserted for the more solid attractions of a commissioned ,constable4 ,illustration3 ,shaw's original shorthand draft of his letter to ,maxwell on the centenary of ,r4 ,r4 ,clark in #aidf4 ,professor ,g4 ,m4 ,trevelyan1 in one of those two brilliant chapters on ,scotland in his ,english ,social ,history1 points out that rapidly developing eighteenth-century ,edinburgh was hardly less important than ,london in the ,british field of letters4 ,mr4 ,stanley ,morison1 speaking in ,edinburgh in #aidd on the subject of ,the ,typographic ,arts1 pointed out that the first history of typography ever written for the instruction of the trade was ,james ,watson's ,the ,art of ,printing1 published in ,edinburgh in #agac4ci ,a few years later the ,edinburgh book-seller1 ,alexander ,donaldson1 who set up shop in the ,strand and put ,edinburgh printed classics on sale at #cj per cent to #ej per cent below the usual prices1 was largely responsible for the creation of a permanent and enlarged printing and type-founding industry in ,edinburgh4 ,mr4 ,morison also asserts that in the last quarter of the eighteenth century ,scotland led the interest in technicalities of printing4 ,the first edition of the ,encyclopaedia ,britannica1 printed in ,edinburgh in #agga1 was brought out by a ,society of ,gentlemen of ,scotland4 ,john ,bell's ,british ,poets and ,british ,theatre were printed at the ,apollo ,press by ,gilbert ,martin1 an ,edinburgh printer of whom ,mr4 ,morison would gladly know more4 ,the social1 imaginative and intellectual life of ,scotland in the early nineteenth century centred largely in ,edinburgh on ,burns and ,scott1 ,adam ,smith and ,the ,edinburgh ,review4 ,the familiar publisher names1 ,ballantyne1 ,blackwood1 ,chambers1 ,constable1 ,nelson1 were also printers4 ,in type-founding1 ,miller ,richards' ,scotch ,roman cut in #ahjc1 and the later ,old ,style1 were widely used throughout the trade1 at home and abroad1 right up to the present day4 ,it was in #ahdf1 six years before ,alexander ,phemister cut the now famous ,old ,style1 that ,robert ,clark1 with a loan of #bjj1 laid the modest foundations of ,r4 ,r4 ,clark4 ,after serving his apprenticeship in ,montrose as compositor and pressman 7what is called in the ,edinburgh trade a twicer7 he sought experience in ,london as a journeyman1 before returning to ,edinburgh to start his own business4 ,his ,london experience must have been of some value to him because it was not long before he and his partner1 ,james ,kirkwood1 had developed an active business with ,london publishers3 ,macmillans1 ,bentley1 ,john ,murray1 ,smith ,elder1 ,a4 ,c4 ,black1 amongst others4 ,robert ,clark's policy of providing fine quality1 with conscientious service at the highest possible price1 no doubt contributed to the financial success of a rapidly developing business which moved to the present printing works at ,brandon ,street in #ahhc4 ,robert ,clark's only surviving son1 ,edward1 took over sole control after his father's death in #ahid4 ,william ,maxwell first appears on the scene at this time1 entering ,r4 ,r4 ,clark as a shorthand writer in #ahib4 ,it was in #ahib that ,shaw's first play1 ,widowers' ,houses1 was produced2 #ahih when ,plays ,pleasant and ,unpleasant1 published by ,grant ,richards1 were printed by ,r4 ,r4 ,clark4 ,few living authors nowadays can claim continuous direct relations with one printer over a period of fifty years4 ,books are now the product of mechanical composing machines1 automatic printing presses1 and mechanized binderies4 ,they require expert control by experienced production staffs dealing with many different paper-makers1 printers and binders4 ,for this reason alone the printed works of such a productive author as ,bernard ,shaw are a remarkable exception to the general rule in the highly-organized printing and publishing trades4 ,commission publishing is the resort of authors whose reputation guarantees a lucrative circulation and who can afford the necessary capital4 ,shaw now deals directly with his printer and binder1 buying and paying for his own composition1 machining1 paper and binding4 ,shaw had always very definite ideas about the format of his books and1 with the complete and friendly co-operation of his present publisher1 has dealt continuously with ,r4 ,r4 ,clark since #ahih4 ,clarks are now #ajb1 ,shaw #ib1 ,maxwell #ge2 this unique association of author and printer is also a competition in longevity4 ,illustration3 ,page from the ,standard ,edition1 which began publication in #aica1 in ,fournier small pica1 #a-a_/b points leaded1 large crown octavo1 #ex#h inches4 ,the influence of ,bernard ,shaw on our time has been profound2 in the theatre1 in films and in broadcasting4 ,the circulation of his printed works has been immense4 ,his direct collaboration with his printer over a long period is of more than professional interest to publishers1 printers and bibliographers4 ,this unique author-printer relationship provides an unusual aspect for us of the wit1 vigour and working methods of one of the most successful authors and playwrights of our time2 demonstrating also in no uncertain terms the integrity1 craftsmanship and mechanical resource of the printing house of ,r4 ,r4 ,clark1 so soundly based and flexibly developed over the last hundred years in the solid traditions of the ,edinburgh book-printing trade4 ,in #aidf1 on the occasion of the centenary of ,r4 ,r4 ,clark1 ,shaw wrote of that renowned ,edinburgh printing firm1 ,ever since it printed my first plays1 ,pleasant and ,unpleasant1 in #ahih1 it has been as natural a part of my workshop as the pen in my hand4 ,few printers can ever have received so eloquent a tribute from so eminent an author4 ,as a young author1 ,shaw's experiences with publishers had not been exactly encouraging4 ,between #ahgi and #ahhc1 as regularly as clockwork1 at the rate of one a year1 they rejected all his novels4 ,the climate in publishing at that time is best described by ,shaw himself writing to ,daniel ,macmillan in #aidc4 ,the letter is quoted in full in ,charles ,morgan's ,the ,house of ,macmillan2 a small portion bears reprinting here4 ,after describing how ,meredith turned him down for ,chatto's without extenuating circumstances2 how ,blackwood accepted his first novel but reneged2 how ,smith ,elder were polite and asked to see future efforts1 ,shaw goes on to write3 ,i am now one of the few who personally remember the ,grand ,old ,men of the publishing world of that day3 ,alexander ,macmillan1 ,longmans and ,bentley4 ,they were so powerful that they held the book-sellers in abject subjection1 and were denounced by ,walter ,besant and his newly-organized ,society of ,authors as remorseless sharks4 ,when they died and were succeeded by their sons1 the hereditary system did not always work as well as it did in ,bedford ,street2 and the book-sellers got the upper hand4 ,john ,murray's ,byronic prestige was so select that ,i did not dream of trying him until years later1 when ,i was an author of some note and had already helped to bankrupt three publishers4 ,i offered him ,man and ,superman4 ,he refused in a letter which really touched me4 ,he said he was old-fashioned and perhaps a bit behind the times2 but he could not see any intention in my book but to wound1 irritate and upset all established constitutional opinion1 and therefore could not take the responsibility of publishing it4 ,by that time ,i could command sufficient capital to finance my books and enter into direct friendly relations with the printers 7this began my very pleasant relations with ,clarks of ,edinburgh74 ,i took matters into my own hands and1 like ,herbert ,spencer and ,ruskin1 manufactured my books myself1 and induced ,constables to take me on commission4 ,sidney and ,beatrice ,webb sent ,shaw to their ,edinburgh printer4 ,an informative and amusing correspondence reprinted at length by ,grant ,richards in ,author ,hunting reveals how he was ruled and educated by ,shaw in the choice of type1 ,morris margins1 specimen pages1 paper and other details of production4 ,holbrook ,jackson has pointed out in an article in number four of ,the ,fleuron that ,shaw's books followed the model of ,william ,morris's ,roots of the ,mountains1 printed in ,caslon ,old ,face at the ,chiswick ,press in #ahib4 ,shaw1 ,socialist intimate and admirer of ,morris1 was also in close touch with ,emery ,walker1 and familiar no doubt with the typographical ideas of ,morris1 ,walker and ,cobden-,sanderson1 first elaborated in ,edinburgh in #ahhi at a meeting of the ,national ,association for the ,advancement of ,art1 and later published in ,arts and ,crafts ,essays printed in ,edinburgh in #ahic4 ,in preliminary discussions of the production of ,plays ,pleasant and ,unpleasant1 ,shaw insisted on a trade union printer4 ,grant ,richards doubted whether a union house could do justice to his ideal of the book beautiful4 ,i had few notions of what makes a union house1 wrote ,grant ,richards4 ,i do not think ,i had a union house on my list4 ,the problem shifted to the question of fair wages1 and ,r4 ,r4 ,clark were approved4 ,shaw1 in a letter to ,grant ,richards in #ahig1 observed1 ,clark is all right2 a first-rate house4 ,i enclose a letter which you can hold as a certificate of compliance with my fair wages clause4444 ,edward ,clark doubtless also got much entertainment from his dealings with a teetotal1 non-smoking1 vegetarian1 ,socialist of an author4 ,there is a story that1 on one specimen1 ,shaw's instructions for close and mechanically-equal spacing between words were so precisely followed by the pragmatical ,scots1 that at the end of some closely spaced lines the definite article the was divided t- and he turned over1 and the indefinite article a- with n turned over4 ,shaw's comment when returning the specimen1 as ,maxwell tells the story1 was1 ,excellent2 but please do not go so far as to prove the author is really a damn fool4 ,shaw denies the story2 nevertheless1 true or untrue1 it has a ,shavian flavour4 ,shaw's choice of ,caslon for his original edition was inevitable4 ,we know that he picked up the pre-,kelmscott formula ready-made from ,william ,morris2 but1 unlike the founding fathers of the private press movement1 he lacked the unearned income to indulge in a privately-cut type-face4 ,in #ahig we must remember that there were only two text-types available in most book-houses3 ,old ,style or ,modern4 ,more often than not1 before mechanical type-setting1 there was not even any choice4 ,publisher and author often had to accept the type of which there happened to be1 at any given moment1 the greatest amount of dis4 ,shaw's original hand-set page in type-founder's ,caslon1 long primer solid1 stood up to thirty years' constant use4 ,to our post-war eyes1 conditioned by authorized economy standards1 the precise and consistent setting of the plays1 with their even ,roman small caps1 lower-case italics in square brackets1 with occasional lower-case ,roman words letter-spaced1 has considerable nostalgic typographical charm4 ,here is sense and sensibility in book-making1 well ahead of its typographical time4 ,of course1 there are many people1 ,william ,maxwell and ,bernard ,newdigate amongst them1 who protested that long primer ,caslon set solid was too small and too difficult to read4 ,but ,shaw proved faithful to his original style and to his original setting until the plates wore out4 ,he liked a colourful block of letter-press without white rivers4 ,he complains that modern printing ink is not black enough4 ,in the middle twenties when the project of a ,limited ,collected ,edition was discussed1 ,shaw still preferred ,caslon1 but agreed to a larger size1 pica solid1 on a larger page1 medium octavo4 ,but1 and to ,william ,maxwell it was a considerable but1 ,shaw specified hand-setting4 ,as a disciple of ,william ,morris1 ,shaw objected to setting his books by machine4 ,our ,william from ,edinburgh thereafter called on ,shaw with two different specimen pages1 one hand-set in original ,caslon and one machine-justified in ,monotype ,caslon4 ,both were submitted to ,shaw without saying which was which4 ,the suspected ,monotype justification was preferred4 ,maxwell triumphed4 ,emery ,walker1 consulted by letter1 also approved the machine-set page4 ,what a victory for the machine6 ,or rather1 what a subtle example of ,maxwell's typographical tact and persuasiveness6 ,the re-setting of the whole of ,shaw by hand would have been an inexcusable and expensive drudgery4 ,maxwell convinced ,shaw that the mechanical composing machine could equal hand-setting in typographical quality and close spacing between words and sentences4 ,the devotion to ,monotype ,caslon in the middle twenties seems strange to us now1 looking back from a wealth of typographical equipment1 including ,bembo1 ,bell and ,times4 ,but if we look round the literature of the trade at that time1 particularly at ,the ,fleuron1 we note that ,caslon in its ,monotype version had a vogue1 almost a kind of typographical ,indian summer4 ,the ,fleuron number one was set in the then fashionable design known as ,garamond2 number two in ,baskerville2 numbers three and four reverted to ,caslon4 ,when ,mr4 ,stanley ,morison took over the editing of numbers five1 six and seven1 and the printing moved from ,curwen to ,cambridge1 the final volumes were all set in ,fournier4 ,it was about this same time that ,william ,maxwell told ,shaw that his old ,caslon plates were worn out and suggested complete resettings in a new ,standard ,edition in large crown octavo in small-pica ,fournier #a-a_/b-points leaded4 ,in the final choice of type for the ,standard ,edition1 we detect again how ,shaw trusted ,william ,maxwell's judgment and accepted his advice4 ,no doubt there was an improvement in readability over the original edition1 but my own feeling is that the ,standard ,edition1 as at present printed1 has none of the evocative charm of the original edition4 ,it may be that the ,sundour binding seems prosaic4 ,but ,shaw1 disgusted by the fading of his green covers1 was converted to ,sundour by a ,winterbottom director emphasizing that not even the ,indian sun could change it4 ,when ,shaw first saw ,maxwell's specimens for the new ,standard ,edition in various type-faces1 ,caslon1 ,baskerville1 ,scotch ,roman1 ,old ,style and ,fournier amongst others1 he replied1 ,i like them all but ,i'll stick to ,caslon until ,i die3 and after ,i am dead you can do what you like4 ,fortunately1 ,shaw is still alive and the ,standard ,edition is in ,fournier4#dj ,i cross-examined ,william ,maxwell closely and at some length on this switch from ,caslon to ,fournier4 ,his persuasive and peculiar ability to get his own way1 even in face of such a do-or-die statement of ,shaw's1 must be remarked here4 ,i am afraid1 however1 the only light ,i can throw on this1 the greatest typographical conversion of all time1 is that ,maxwell himself is very fond of ,fournier italics4 ,maxwell is no hard-headed ,scot4 ,he comes from the soft ,hyperborean north1 where the ,gulf ,stream makes the fuchsias grow six feet high4 ,when he confesses to an affair with an elegant ,french type there isn't much chance for even an ,irish author1 much less the ,english public1 to break up the auld alliance4 ,thus ,shaw's ,standard ,edition1 now running into some thirty-five volumes1 began publication in ,fournier in #aica and has steadily reprinted in this type and format at intervals ever since4 ,in an article on ,author and ,printer in the eleventh impression of the ninth edition of ,collins's ,authors' and ,printers' ,dictionary ,dr4 ,r4 ,w4 ,chapman observes3 ,the prolixity of modern writing1 fostered by cheap paper and print1 by the habit of making books out of articles and lectures1 by the use of typewriters and stenographers1 is a positive evil4 ,illustration3 ,shaw's meticulous proofreading is indicated by this heavily-corrected proof of ,on the ,rocks1 with a complete retyping of the passage below4 ,shaw's method1 probably verging on the diabolical to ,dr4 ,chapman1 is to write everything first in shorthand4 ,a double-spaced typescript then becomes his working copy1 to be sent to the printer only after careful emendation and revision1 in ,shaw's always clear hand4 ,the manuscripts1 typescripts1 galley1 page and final press proofs1 indeed the whole apparatus of the ,shavian workshop in ,william ,maxwell's collection1 show the great pains ,shaw takes in writing and revising before setting4 ,his meticulous proof reading is as characteristic as the clarity of his proof correction4 ,william ,maxwell tells me that ,shaw's first-proof corrections are often heavy1 sometimes involving considerable re-setting and re-make-up4 ,but wherever lengthy excisions or additions are made in final proofs1 ,shaw is always careful to supply the exact number of words2 sometimes in shorter corrections counting individual letters in substituted words in order to avoid over-running and re-justification4 ,by all the standards of ,horace ,hart and ,howard ,collins1 ,shaw would qualify as an admirable and expert author in the technical aspect of his relations with his printer--except1 perhaps1 for ,dr4 ,chapman's scholarly strictures on prefatorial prolixity and diabolonian authorship4 ,shaw's plays are drafted in what he calls ,author's ,shorthand 7simplified ,pitman72 typed by his secretary2 revised2 printed2 and passed for press after two more revisions4 ,for rehearsal1 fifty copies are struck off as ,by a ,fellow of the ,royal ,society of ,literature4 ,if more are required they are ,by ,bernard ,shaw4 ,these sets are privately printed4 ,alterations and additions in rehearsal and during the run of the play are incorporated as final corrections before publication4 ,one of the most interesting ,shaw exhibits in ,william ,maxwell's possession is the original of the filmscript of ,pygmalion4 ,shaw allowed no hand but his own on the scripts of his films4 ,the corrected copy of the play1 with alterations in dialogue and time scheme for the screen and the additional scenes and sequences1 is in itself remarkable visual evidence of ,shaw's nimble-witted inventiveness4 ,few playwrights at the age of eighty-five have tackled so successfully the transition into another medium1 cooperating with director and producer to present in all its freshness and verve the authentic ,shavian touch on both sound-track and screen4 ,the original edition1 the ,limited ,collected edition1 the ,standard edition1 form the bulk of ,shaw's printed works2 his printed ephemera are not my concern here4 ,there are1 however1 various editions of what we might call out-of-the-run-plays-and-prefaces books3 ,the ,intelligent ,woman's ,guide1 ,everybody's ,political ,what's ,what1 the two-column quarto editions of the ,prefaces and ,the ,complete ,plays1 the illustrated ,black ,girl1 the illustrated ,good ,king ,charles's ,golden ,days 7there was also an illustrated edition of ,geneva printed by the ,chiswick ,press7 and the illustrated ,penguin edition of ,pygmalion4 ,omnibus editions of the ,plays and ,prefaces have been published by ,odhams1 cheap editions by ,penguin2 and ,back to ,methuselah by the ,oxford ,university ,press in ,world's ,classics4 ,the ,odhams omnibus was reprinted from ,shaw's plates2 the ,penguin editions were re-set in ,times4 ,the ,intelligent ,woman was instructed in ,caslon on a page dimension decided by ,william ,maxwell2 a binding design by ,douglas ,cockerell2 and a four-colour half-tone jacket from an original drawing by ,eric ,kennington of a nude female ,intelligencer looking down a well4 ,she1 needless to add1 had a much less shapely figure than the ,black ,girl4 ,the typography of ,the ,intelligent ,woman's ,guide 7#aibh7 is in the ,caslon formula4 ,we need only note in passing that the drop initials at the beginning of chapters are tightly fitted and spill over into the margins4 ,the binding suggests that too much ,cockerell can spoil a trade binding4 ,the jacket was regrettable3 the externals of this book seem out of character with the rest of ,shaw's production4 ,a more acceptable popular edition1 printed from the same plates1 with reduced margins in small demy octavo1 was published a year later in #aibi4 ,illustration3 ,shaw's note on the corrected ,pygmalion filmscript in which he altered the dialogue and time scheme1 providing additional scenes and sequences for the film as shown in the two pages following4 ,illustration ,illustration ,the two-column edition of the ,complete ,plays1 set in ,scotch ,roman in quarto1 is a skillful piece of book-making2 a pleasant1 readable page1 which ,william ,maxwell can appropriate entirely to his own credit4 ,for size1 weight and general colour the ,scotch ,roman was eminently successful for all the plays in one volume1 not too heavy in the hand1 in a format which makes for easy reference and re-reading4 ,the contrast of the two-column ,fournier setting of the ,prefaces with the two-column setting of the ,complete ,plays in ,scotch ,roman is to the advantage of the ,scotch ,roman4 ,the small pica ,fournier is too large in relation to the width of the column and1 to my eye1 does not look at all happy in this two-column setting4 ,everybody's ,political ,what's ,what provides us with an interesting example of the close collaboration in proof-reading between ,william ,maxwell1 his press-readers and ,shaw4 ,shaw1 to illustrate some argument1 asserted erroneously that so many codfish were being caught at one period that great quantities were being thrown back into the sea4 ,maxwell pointed out that codfish were never thrown back into the sea2 they are salted1 dried1 preserved and disposed of in many other ways4 ,shaw1 hazy about varieties1 intended fish in general and not codfish in particular4 ,also in this book1 ,shaw mentioned that when an outsider wins a race1 book-makers lose4 ,william ,maxwell1 no mean expert in the making of these other kinds of books and having absorbed1 no doubt1 from ,edward ,clark some knowledge and appreciation of the sporting spirits1 questioned this2 and innumerable letters from punters and bookies overloaded ,shaw's letterbox4 ,he re-worded the passage to silence the rule-of-thumb practitioners4 ,we have all been afflicted from time to time in prefaces and authors' notes with the names of odd people who have also read the proofs4 ,there can be few authors who get the benefit of skilled press-reading and skilled scrutiny from a managing director so knowledgeable about fish and about bookies4 ,the codfish and bookie stories are an interesting indication of how every page of ,shaw's goes through a double sieve at ,brandon ,street1 such is the passion of ,scots for accuracy in type-setting4 ,the ,scots' passion for perfection in press-work comes to light in this association with the production of ,the ,black ,girl4 ,some time prior to #aicb1 ,shaw asked ,maxwell to suggest an engraver-illustrator for this ,voltairean tale2 ,maxwell suggested ,john ,farleigh4 ,with that thorough attention to detail characteristic of the ,scot1 he not only ensured that ,shaw should have an illustrator capable of interpreting his ideas1 he also took care that the engravings1 paper and ink should all be happily matched and tested4 ,by accepting full responsibility for the typography of the illustrated page1 he undoubtedly produced an illustrated ,shaw of a quality and at a price which was a credit to author and printer4 ,my typographical feelings about ,the ,black ,girl are mixed4 ,the engravings seem rather too heavy for the ,fournier setting2 it may be an odd observation to make about a ,shaw book1 but the illustrations overload the text of this slim book2 the binding is too much and too black4 ,shaw's own wash drawings of the ,black ,girl are much more subtle in suggestion than ,john ,farleigh's white line4 ,but there was little doubt about the success of ,the ,black ,girl with a large public4 ,it is an interesting and successful example of a short book with text and illustrations printed at one impression1 and without any complications in binding4 ,the contrast between ,farleigh's sharp white line and ,topolski's loose black squiggle in the illustrated edition of ,good ,king ,charles's ,golden ,days demonstrates what ,i mean by the rigidity of ,the ,black ,girl page4 ,shaw as an author is impossible to illustrate2 he can only be annotated and decorated4 ,there is an engaging light-hearted quality about ,topolski's cosmopolitan draughtsmanship which seems to suit ,shaw better than ,farleigh's engravings4 ,maxwell's earliest recollection of meeting ,shaw is of going to see ,mrs4 ,shaw at the ,adelphi about the printing of her translations of some plays by ,brieux1 the author of ,damaged ,goods4 ,shaw had written an introduction to them4 ,in the centenary letter to ,william ,maxwell in ,november #aidf1 ,shaw wrote3 ,i remember ,edward ,clark very kindly and very well2 but it was with you that our business relations developed into a cordial personal relationship which has been of inestimable value to me as an author4444 ,illustration3 ,correction in popular edition of ,the ,intelligent ,woman's ,guide showing careful count of words and letters for exact fit of substituted passage4 ,william ,maxwell at an early stage in his career became aware of the printer's responsibility to the author4 ,clark's work for ,robert ,louis ,stevenson must often have been recollected and discussed4 ,many other authors have passed through ,brandon ,street on their way4 ,it is one of the doubtful pleasures of a book-printing establishment to deal direct with authors4 ,maxwell has had his full share of that kind of mixed pleasure and responsibility with ,hardy1 ,kipling1 the ,webbs1 ,sir ,james ,frazer1 ,hugh ,walpole1 ,virginia ,woolf1 ,charles ,morgan1 ,osbert and ,edith ,sitwell4 ,i began with an ,edinburgh book-printer2 ,i conclude with an honorary ,,ll4,d4 of ,edinburgh ,university4 ,in #aidg that ancient ,university conferred on ,william ,maxwell that honour which he values above any personal recognition4 ,it was a deserved compliment to ,r4 ,r4 ,clark and to ,scottish printing as a whole4 ,no man is self-made2 but so far as any one individual can by his own efforts raise the standard of his trade1 the renown of his firm and add to the lustre of his native city1 ,dr4 ,william ,maxwell has done so by his devoted and sedulous years in the service of many authors and many publishers4444 ,this inadequate typographical report is in no sense intended to be either accurate or inclusive4 ,nor do ,i make any claim for startling innovations in graphic design or any particularly noteworthy contributions to typography4 ,this productive association has covered fifty of the most inventive years in the mechanical development of book-printing2 ,bernard ,shaw himself wrote1 ,i have not had to think about my printing4 ,i have left it to do itself1 which means that ,r4 ,r4 ,clark had to do it4 ,all the same he thought a lot about it4 ,i may well conclude with the final paragraph of ,shaw's letter to ,william ,maxwell of ,november #aidf4 ,long may you and ,r4 ,r4 ,clark ,ltd4 flourish after we have said our last farewell which we shall both1 ,i hope1 be still too busy to attend to4 ,,composed ,,in ,,caledonia ,,types ,,footnotes3 #ci ,two excerpts are included in this book1 see pages #hf and #hg4 #dj ,a specimen page from ,the ,devil's ,disciple is shown on page #chf4 ,illustration,,paul ,a4 ,,bennett,illustration ,on ,type ,faces ,for ,books ,it is simple enough to understand that type1 paper and ink are components of book printing4 ,but not so easy to comprehend the reasons for the variety of papers available1 nor the many dozens of type faces offered for book composition4 ,the reasons for this great variety are partly functional1 partly aesthetic1 and competitive4 ,papers differ in many ways--color1 finish1 opacity1 strength and bulk are some of them4 ,type faces differ1 too1 and for equally valid reasons4 ,there are the important design and style differences that comprise the old style1 transitional and modern faces suitable for books4 ,and distinctions in weight or color2 distinctions in roundness1 in degree of compactness1 and distinctions in legibility1 and in size4 ,to the designer of books1 type face selection is important in relation to the character of the text to be printed4 ,the size of type selected1 and the amount of leading1 or space between its lines1 has a bearing upon the number of pages the manuscript will make4 ,some shorter manuscripts1 for instance1 need to be driven out or padded1 to make the book appear greater in content than it actually is1 to justify its price4 ,others need every possible degree of compression to get the manuscript into a lesser number of pages1 which1 in turn1 means fewer forms to print1 fewer signatures to bind1 and less paper to use4 ,to turn from the functional use of type to the aesthetic1 and also make a rather loose analogy1 one may think of the type face as a garment with which the designer dresses the author's words4 ,in this instance the designer selects a type face to develop an allusive format--to reflect something of the style of the period of the manuscript4 ,bruce ,rogers1 the greatest master of allusive book-making1 in his ,paragraphs on ,printing points out that in a small way this is like planning the stage setting for a play4 ,an up-to-date style for an ancient text would compare with staging ,hamlet in modern dress4 ,however novel and effective in its own way1 you feel it to be strange1 and this sense of strangeness is an annoying distraction2 you are forced to think of the setting and the designer rather than the text4 ,it is easier to suggest a feminine appeal with types like ,estienne or ,fairfield or ,garamond1 than with less decorative faces such as ,baskerville1 ,bodoni or ,janson4 ,yet it is foolish to go too far in this direction4 ,strictly speaking1 there are no definitely feminine or masculine types--the way type is handled has much to do with the mood it evokes4 ,and it is dangerous to pin labels on types without knowing a great deal of their background and derivation4 ,the idea of using many distinguished types for the composition of this book was deliberate3 ,the intent was to demonstrate1 on a uniform paper surface and under identical printing conditions1 the behavior of twenty of the finest types of our time4 ,and to afford a basis for comparison that might not only illumine some of the points mentioned1 but also provide reference specimens of these notable book faces4 ,to that end1 a complete alphabet showing in caps and lower-case of each face is included1 with a brief account of its background and development4 ,not every essay will be equally appealing1 typographically4 ,yet the variety of faces used in setting them seems more successful than would be the less sensitive treatment of uniform typography4 ,reading the articles and studying the performance of the individual types should provide an increased appreciation of the part typography plays in developing the book's format4 ,in this present instance1 the designer has chosen one basic background face1 ,janson1 for the majority of the essays4 ,and has interleaved1 so to speak1 many of the essays set in different types4 ,this treatment lessens any tendency toward uneven color and spottiness1 and minimizes some of the potential scrap book feel of many differing type specimens4 ,the problem of coupling face with essay was carefully considered4 ,there could be none but the obvious selection of the author's own design in connection with five of the essays3 ,electra for ,w4 ,a4 ,dwiggins' ,investigation into the ,physical ,properties of ,books2 ,perpetua for ,eric ,gill's ,typography2 ,times ,roman for ,stanley ,morison's ,first ,principles of ,typography2 ,deepdene for ,frederic ,goudy's ,types and ,type ,design2 and ,centaur for the extracts from ,bruce ,rogers' ,paragraphs on ,printing4 ,some background on the type selections for other essays may be of interest3 ,monticello1 a recutting of one of the earliest ,american types1 was a natural and excellent choice for ,lawrence ,wroth's ,first ,work with ,american ,types1 as was ,bembo1 one of ,beatrice ,warde's favorite faces for her ,printing ,should ,be ,invisible4 ,bell1 which ,mr4 ,updike was one of the first to use with distinction--he called it ,mountjoye when he acquired it in #aijc--was the choice for his ,some ,tendencies in ,modern ,typography4 ,the selection of ,poliphilus for ,sir ,francis ,meynell's ,some ,collectors ,read seemed appropriate in recognition of the many fine ,nonesuch books he had set in ,english ,monotype faces2 while that of ,baskerville for ,john ,winterich's essay on ,franklin as printer and publisher was because ,baskerville was a type ,franklin greatly admired4 ,caledonia1 an original ,dwiggins face influenced by ,scotch ,roman1 was the more subtle choice for ,scot printer ,james ,shand's revealing account of ,george ,bernard ,shaw's relations with his printer--more appropriate to ,shand's preference and background1 than would have been the choice of ,caslon or ,fournier1 in which ,shaw's books have been set4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the brief mention of old style1 transitional and modern faces may need amplification4 ,and also the descriptive terms ,linotype and ,monotype1 which are trade-marked words that indicate methods of composition4 ,in ,linotype1 the product is an actual line of type1 called slug in printer's parlance4 ,this is produced by one machine1 from matrices assembled through finger action on a keyboard4 ,in operation1 the assembled line moves to the mold for casting and the matrices are then returned 7distributed7 to their channels in the magazine for use in other lines4 ,in ,monotype1 the product is individual pieces of type--letters and spaces assembled into a line of many elements1 as in hand type4 ,the ,monotype machine consists of two units3 the keyboard 7which resembles a type-writer7 punches holes in a roll of paper1 not unlike that in a player piano4 ,this roll is then fed into the casting unit1 where it functions by controlling levers which bring the matrix of each character into position for casting letters and spaces in sequence in the lines4 ,illustration ,the distinctions between type faces called old style1 transitional or modern1 are apparent at a glance to the technician4 ,just as1 for instance1 you distinguish instantly between a ,scandinavian1 a ,latin-,american1 or a ,mongolian4 ,analysis may indicate that the chief factor in your instant recognition of these types is memory of features4 ,so too in type faces4 ,here the differences are more minute1 and essentially a matter of design distinctions3 the weight and relation of thick and thin strokes1 the treatment and stress of curves1 and the handling of serifs4 ,there is little difference in the actual shapes of letters1 which is as it should be4 ,one of the more lucid accounts of the development of letter forms is ,w4 ,a4 ,dwiggins' ,the ,shapes of ,roman ,letters1 included in his ,mss4 by ,,wad4 ,illustrations from this minor classic are used here by permission4 ,remember that most of the letter forms we meet are modifications of written letters1 shaped by pen action4 ,some differences in the details of serif treatment are indicated by these ,dwiggins drawings3 ,illustration a b c d a shows a commonly designed serif detail1 much better handled by natural pen action in b4 ,the arch of a letter1 frequently handled in type as c1 is more crisp and attractive in d1 the natural pen form4 ,in type1 serifs help carry the eye in a horizontal direction1 a designer friend points out1 setting up a flow from letter to letter within the word1 and from word to word across the line4 ,illustration e f ,contrast the degenerate1 commonly used form of o shown in e1 with the more attractive pen form in f4 ,here is graphic distinction in the treatment and stress of curves4 ,the two most common classes of type faces are old style and modern4 ,the transitional1 a merging of the old style form into the modern--is typified by the illustration of ,bulmer1 between the ,janson and ,bodoni specimens used for the visual presentation on page #djd4 ,our old style faces descend from the early ,italian ,roman types and differ in minor details and national characteristics4 ,among the old style faces used in this book are ,bembo and ,centaur1 which reflect the ,italian form2 ,estienne1 ,granjon and ,garamond1 which reflect the ,french form2 ,caslon and ,janson1 typical of the ,english-,dutch form2 and ,fairfield and ,times ,roman1 as differing expressions of contemporary old style types4 ,modern faces1 the result of a swing of taste in the opposite direction1 stemmed from an effort to copy in type the letters of eighteenth-century copper-plate engravers4 ,bodoni1 the classic form of the modern1 is included in its lighter rendering1 named ,bodoni ,book4 ,the first ,english modern1 named ,bell1 is also included2 together with two contemporary moderns1 the ,dwiggins-designed ,electra and ,caledonia faces1 cut by ,linotype4 ,all three are less severe than ,bodoni and retain elements of the transitional form in some letters4 ,the two really transitional faces included are the classic ,baskerville1 and ,monticello1 which verges somewhat more to the old style character4 ,letters1 as ,mr4 ,dwiggins illustrates graphically1 are made out of thick 'stems1' thin 'hair-lines1' loops and 'serifs1' or finishing strokes4 ,illustration ,how the variations that produce the different styles of ,roman types actually came about is easily understood by seeing how the nib of the pen is slanted to write an old style letter like ,caslon 7g71 as against holding it at right angles to the written line for the modern letter1 such as ,scotch 7h73 ,illustration g h ,differences in curve and finish are a natural result of these two pen positions4 ,as ,mr4 ,dwiggins explains3 ,in writing lower-case 'a1' for example1 the stroke begins at the little bulb at the upper left-hand corner1 passes over the arch at the top1 descends to form the straight stem1 and finishes with an upward flick2 a second motion forms the loop4 ,as the line moves1 it swells and thins in accordance with the shape of the pen and the direction of the movement4 ,illustration i j ,in the ,caslon letter 7i71 the swelling at the top begins at the bulb or dot2 the arch expands throughout its whole curve2 the loop has a decided tilt1 as has the finishing stroke4 ,in the ,scotch letter 7j71 the arch is a thin line2 the expansion does not begin until the downward stroke of the stem2 the swelling of the loop is at right angles to the line of writing1 and the letter ends with a perpendicular flick4 ,in the 'b1' one notices the difference in the loops and in the serifs at the tops of the letters4 ,illustration k l ,the typical 'old style' serif at the top 7k7 tilts as the pen is tilted2 the loop is a tilted sweep of the slanted pen2 while the serif and loop of the 'modern' letter 7l7 partake of the perpendicular position of the pen4 ,these characteristics of tilt or perpendicularity appear in all the lower-case letters and to a limited extent in the capitals4 ,to check the distinctions in different characters in the following twenty types1 a magnifying glass will be helpful4 ,the artistic quality of a type letter1 ,mr4 ,dwiggins concludes1 is determined by its degree of grace of line and proportion4 ,the standards of grace and proportion are to be looked for in the natural motions of the pen4 ,but the quality called art is dependent1 too1 upon the artist's appreciation of the material in which he works--namely metal4 ,the draughtsman does not attempt to copy exactly the form of his pen-written model1 but modifies the pen form to a shape suitable to its final state--that of a metal punch4 ,,notes ,,on ,,the ,,type ,,faces ,,used ,,in ,,this ,,book ,by ,paul ,a4 ,bennett ,,note3 ,the following specimens are set in a #aj point type size1 except ,centaur1 in #ad point1 and ,eldorado1 in #aa point1 which were the only sizes available for this book4 ,,baskerville1 the fine transitional face named for the eighteenth-century ,english printer1 is available in several contemporary versions4 ,the ,linotype cutting used here1 most faithful to the original ,roman1 was produced from a complete font cast from the original matrices1 exhumed at ,paris in #aibi4 ,for twenty years ,baskerville has been a favored type with ,american book-makers4 ,illustration3 ,,baskerville was used for setting ,benjamin ,franklin3 ,printer and ,publisher1 pp4 #ceb-cfg4 ,,bell1 the fine ,english transitional-modern1 was cut by ,richard ,austin about #aghh for ,john ,bell1 a leading ,english book and newspaper publisher4 ,the ,english ,monotype version used here was reproduced in #aica from the original punches1 then in possession of the ,stephenson-,blake foundry in ,sheffield4 ,bruce ,rogers used the type 7calling it ,brimmer7 for many fine ,riverside ,press books4 ,illustration3 ,,bell was used for setting ,some ,tendencies in ,modern ,typography1 pp4 #cjf-cab4 ,,bembo1 the fine ,venetian old face1 is a revival by ,english ,monotype of one of the earliest ,aldine romans4 ,that was cut before #aejj by ,francesco ,griffo of ,bologna1 the designer responsible for the first ,italic type a half-dozen years later1 and named for ,pietro ,bembo1 the humanist scholar 7later ,cardinal and secretary to ,pope ,leo ,x71 whose ,de ,aetna was printed by ,aldus in #adie4 ,illustration3 ,,bembo was used for setting ,printing ,should ,be ,invisible1 pp4 #aji-aad4 ,,bodoni ,,book1 a light weight rendering of the popular ,a4,t4,f4 ,bodoni1 is widely used in the ,united ,states for book and periodical composition4 ,introduced in #aiaj1 it is not a copy of the types of the great ,italian1 ,giambattista ,bodoni1 but rather a version retaining his principle of modern letter design4 ,the lessened degree of contrast between its thick and thin lines make it gain in reading ease4 ,illustration3 ,,bodoni ,,book was used for setting ,harsh ,words1 pp4 #cba-ccf4 ,,caledonia1 a contemporary ,linotype face designed by ,w4 ,a4 ,dwiggins1 was inspired by the work of ,scotch type-founders1 in particular by a lighter weight1 more slender transitional face cut by ,william ,martin for ,bulmer around #agij4 ,christened for its forebears1 ,caledonia resembles neither--though it has touches of both ,bulmer's ,martin and ,wilson's ,scotch1 and also something of the simple1 hard-working1 feet-on-the-ground quality of ,scotch ,modern4 ,illustration3 ,,caledonia was used for setting ,author and ,printer3 ,g4,b4,s4 and ,r4 ,r4 ,c41 pp4 #cha-dja4 ,,caslon1 the great eighteenth-century ,english old style1 has suffered more from improvement and refinement by succeeding generations of type founders than most celebrated types4 ,a development based on ,dutch models rather than an original creation1 ,caslon has been eloquently termed the finest vehicle for the printed conveyance of ,english speech that the art of the punch-cutter has yet devised4 ,monotype's excellent rendering used here 7,no4 #ccg7 reflects the essential qualities of the original4 ,illustration3 ,,caslon was used for setting ,typographic ,debut1 pp4 #gh-hb and ,metal-,flowers1 pp4 #hc-hd4 ,,centaur1 a distinguished ,italian ,renaissance face designed by ,bruce ,rogers1 was cut by ,robert ,wiebking of ,chicago in #aiad1 in the #ad point size4 ,its first use by ,,br was in a limited edition of ,de ,guerin's ,the ,centaur1 printed at ,carl ,rollins' ,montague ,press4 ,the face1 recut by ,english ,monotype in #aibi1 seemed to ,d4 ,b4 ,updike to be one of the best ,roman founts yet designed in ,america4 ,the ,italic is ,arrighi1 designed by ,frederic ,warde1 used since there is no ,centaur ,italic4 ,illustration3 ,,centaur was used for setting ,paragraphs ,on ,printing1 pp4 #bha-bhi1 and ,b4,r43 ,adventurer ,with ,type ,ornament1 pp4 #bij-cje4 ,,deepdene1 designed and cut by ,frederic ,w4 ,goudy in #aibg1 was named for his estate at ,marlboro-on-,hudson4 ,in his ,a ,half ,century of ,type ,design1 ,mr4 ,goudy mentions the face was suggested by a ,dutch type 7the ,lutetia of ,van ,krimpen7 which had just been introduced 444 but as with some of my previous designs1 ,i soon got away from my exemplar to follow a line of my own4 ,the ,monotype recutting1 done later1 is used here4 ,illustration3 ,,deepdene was used for setting ,types and ,type ,design1 pp4 #bfg-bgc4 ,,eldorado1 the latest ,linotype face designed by ,w4 ,a4 ,dwiggins1 was developed through the war years and completed in #aiea4 ,it was suggested by an uncommonly compact and distinctive eighteenth-century face used in ,madrid by the ,spanish printer1 ,de,sancha4 ,in no sense a copy1 ,eldorado retains in its letter anatomy something of the treatment of curves1 arches and junctions that brought distinction to its antecedent1 as well as flavor of ,spanish typographic tradition4 ,illustration3 ,,eldorado was used for setting ,what is a ,private ,press1 pp4 #age-aha4 ,,electra1 an original modern1 designed for ,linotype by ,w4 ,a4 ,dwiggins1 reflects the warmth and distinction of his personal lettering4 ,the effort was to work into ,electra letter shapes1 where possible1 some of the twentieth-century spirit3 electricity1 high-speed steel1 streamlined curves1 the readers' familiarity with newspaper and type-writer faces 444 to develop letters filled with energy1 human warmth and personality4 ,electra is available with either an oblique ,roman lower-case companion form1 or the more familiar cursive4 ,illustration3 ,,electra was used for setting the ,investigation ,into the ,physical ,properties of ,books1 pp4 #abi-add and ,twenty ,years ,after1 pp4 #ade-aeb4 ,,emerson was designed by ,joseph ,blumenthal and cut by ,monotype in ,england in #aicd4 ,the face is a duplicate of his ,spiral ,press type1 designed several years earlier and cut for him by ,louis ,hoell in ,frankfort1 ,germany1 in #aica4 ,this face was initially used for a limited edition of ,ralph ,waldo ,emerson's essay on ,nature1 printed on a hand press at ,croton ,falls in #aicb1 and privately published4 ,the accompanying ,emerson ,italic was designed in #aicf4 ,illustration3 ,,emerson was used for setting ,typography of ,william ,morris1 pp4 #bcc-bch4 ,,fairfield1 a slightly decorative1 original and contemporary old style1 was designed for ,linotype by ,rudolph ,ruzicka1 the distinguished ,american wood engraver4 ,sharply cut1 as though the letters came from the artist's graver rather than pen1 ,fairfield was designed for reading by one of the most knowledgeable men in the country about letter forms and their style4 ,to invite continuous reading1 the designer feels1 type must have a subtle degree of interest and variety of design4 ,illustration3 ,,fairfield was used for setting ,the ,fun and ,fury of a ,private ,press1 pp4 #bbj-bbe4 ,,garamond was introduced in ,america by ,,atf in #aiai1 when their cutting1 based on the caractres de l',universit of the ,imprimerie ,nationale1 appeared4 ,since1 at least eight other versions have been made3 by the ,english and ,american ,linotype and ,monotype1 by ,intertype1 ,ludlow1 and the ,stempel foundry4 ,a documented article considering the ,,xvi and ,,xvii sources of the ,garamond types1 by ,paul ,beaujon1 appeared in ,the ,fleuron1 ,v4 ,this version is the ,american ,monotype4 ,illustration3 ,,garamond was used for setting ,colophons1 pp4 #ca-dd4 ,,gill ,,sans1 designed by ,eric ,gill in #aibh1 was patterned after lettering done for the ,douglas ,cleverdon book-shop in ,bristol4 ,first offered by ,english ,monotype as a titling font 7caps1 figures and points only71 the lower-case was added as the face grew in favor4 ,today1 ,gill is the most popular sans serif in ,england4 ,it ranges through a variety of weights1 including light1 normal1 heavy1 extra heavy1 and shadow and outline display and condensed versions4 ,illustration3 ,,gill ,,sans was used for setting ,notes on ,modern ,printing1 pp4 #cej-cea4 ,,granjon was designed for ,linotype by the late ,george ,w4 ,jones1 one of ,england's greatest printers4 ,it is neither a copy of a classic face nor an original creation1 but rather something between the two1 with its basic design stemming from classic ,garamond sources4 ,an exceedingly compact and useful old style1 ,granjon is exceptionally clear in small sizes4 ,its space-saving virtues are important in the book and periodical field4 ,illustration3 ,,granjon was used for setting ,printers as ,men of the ,world1 pp4 #hh-ajb4 ,,janson1 the distinguished seventeenth-century old style face1 is presumed ,dutch in origin4 ,it was issued by ,anton ,janson1 a ,leipsic punch-cutter and type-founder1 between #affj and #afhg4 ,little is known of ,janson to supplement his first type specimen issued in #afge4 ,the original matrices1 bought in ,holland from the heirs of ,edling1 ,janson's successor1 are possessed by the ,stempel foundry in ,frankfort1 ,germany4 ,the ,linotype recutting of ,janson was made from type cast from the original matrices4 ,illustration3 ,,janson was used for setting all the essays in this book excepting those indicated in other faces4 ,,monticello is a recutting of the famous ,binny ,ronaldson ,roman ,no4 #a1 a distinguished early ,american face cut in #agif in ,philadelphia4 ,type cast from the original matrices by ,a4 ,t4 ,f4 has been favored for years by such discriminating printers as ,d4 ,b4 ,updike1 ,fred ,anthoensen and the ,grabhorns4 ,linotype's remodeling of the type for modern use was named for the ,papers of ,thomas ,jefferson1 a fifty-volume publishing project by ,princeton1 for which the face was adopted4 ,illustration3 ,,monticello was used for setting the ,first ,work ,with ,american ,types1 pp4 #fe-gg4 ,,perpetua was designed by ,eric ,gill1 the eminent ,english sculptor and maker of letters with pen1 chisel and graver4 ,mr4 ,gill's account of his type 7cut in ,england73 from drawings made by me4 ,those drawings were not made with special reference to typography--they were simply drawn with brush and ink4 ,for the typographical quality of the fount1 as also for the remarkably fine and precise cutting of the punches1 the ,monotype ,corporation is to be praised4 ,illustration3 ,,perpetua was used for setting ,typography1 pp4 #beg-bff4 ,,poliphilus is a literal reproduction of the ,aldine ,roman used in the ,hypnerotomachia ,poliphili in #adii1 cut by ,francesco ,griffo4 ,the recutting1 by the ,english ,monotype organization in #aibc 7from sheets of the book7 was attempted with the thought of providing a type to convey an old-world atmosphere appropriate for reprinting fifteenth-century classics4 ,the accompanying ,italic1 named ,blado1 was the first of a number of ,chancery italics to come from ,european type-founders4 ,illustration3 ,,poliphilus was used for setting ,some ,collectors ,read1 pp4 #aia-baa4 ,,times ,,roman was designed by ,stanley ,morison for the ,london ,times1 and first used in that great newspaper4 ,its masculine simplicity1 directness of design and excellent color makes it exceptionally useful for periodicals and general commercial work4 ,the basic design objective of maximum legibility in minimum space has resulted in the larger letter-structure that makes each point size seem the equivalent of a size larger in most other types4 ,illustration3 ,,times ,,roman was used for setting ,the ,first ,principles of ,typography1 pp4 #bci-bea4 ,,index ,adler1 ,elmer1 #bba advertising card1 #afj-fa1 #afg1 #afh ,aesop 7,parma1 #adhc71 #eg ,aldine ,poets series1 #aef ,aldine type face1 #bda ,italic1 #bgd ,aldus2 see ,manutius1 ,aldus alphabet ,greek1 #d-ad ,hebrew1 #ac-ad letters of1 #f-ac ,phoenician1 #d-ad ,roman1 #d-ad sources of1 #c-ad ,american ,institute of ,graphic ,arts1 xiv1 #agj ,fifty ,books of the ,year1 #afe1 #cba-bb ,trade ,book ,clinic1 #afd1 #afe ,american ,type ,founders ,co41 #bed ,ames1 ,joseph1 ,typographical ,antiquities1 #ch1 #gh ,anabat1 #aed ,anne of ,austria1 #aje ,anthoensen1 ,fred1 #dai ,antigone ,greek type1 #bjg ,apollo ,press1 #chd appendix1 #afc ,applegarth1 ,augustus1 #bg ,armitage1 ,merle1 xii-xiv1 #cai ,notes on ,modern ,printing1 #cej ,arnoullet1 ,balthazar1 #fj ,arrighi type face1 #dad ,arrivabene1 ,georgius1 #ec ,ashbee1 ,c4 ,r41 ,the ,private ,press1 #ahj ,ashendene ,press1 #aha1 #ahh1 #bae ,bibliography1 #aha ,virgil1 #bji ,austin1 ,richard1 #ib1 #ii1 #daa back matter1 #afc-fd ,bagford1 ,john1 #fd ,bailey1 ,francis1 #gf ,baldwin1 ,stanley1 #aig n4 ,barker-,mill1 ,peter1 #bah ,barnacles from ,many ,bottoms1 #big ,barnhart ,brothers ,spindler 7,chicago71 #bed1 #cfi ,bartlett1 ,edward ,e41 #afd ,baskerville1 ,john1 #fj1 #fd1 #ib1 #ih1 #ahf letter-spacing of1 #bhg-hh ,baskerville type face1 #aee-ef1 #bdd1 #djd specimen1 #daa bastard title1 #afj1 #afh ,bauhaus ,school1 typography of1 #cjf-g1 #cai ,bay1 ,jacob1 #fi-gg ,bayer1 ,herbert1 xii1 xiv ,beaujon1 ,paul1 #dag ,becker1 ,carl ,l41 #cfc ,begg1 ,john1 xiv ,beilenson1 ,peter1 xiii1 #afd1 #afe1 #afh ,graphic ,forms1 #cac ,bell1 ,john1 #ib1 #daa ,british ,poets1 #ajj1 #chd ,british ,theatre1 #gh1 #chd career of1 #ii-ajj ,bell type face1 #djc specimen1 #daa ,belloc1 ,hilaire1 #aib ,bembo1 ,pietro1 #ec1 #id1 #dab ,bembo type face1 #djc specimen1 #dab ,beneti1 ,cyprian1 #da ,bennett1 ,arnold1 #bjc ,bennett1 ,paul ,a41 xv1 #bij ,bensley1 ,thomas1 #ib ,benton1 ,linn ,boyd1 #bed ,benton1 ,morris ,fuller1 #bed ,berghen1 ,adrien van1 #df1 #dh ,bernard1 ,st41 ,sermones 7#adha71 #dd ,berners1 ,juliana1 comp41 ,book of ,st4 ,albans1 #ajg ,berthelet1 ,thomas1 #ej ,besant1 ,walter1 #chg ,bible ,estienne1 #ig first printed1 #ahc-hd ,german 7#adgh71 #ah ,gutenberg1 #bbf-bg ,latin 7#adef71 #ah ,plantin polyglot1 #if printing monopoly in ,england1 #ahd n4 ,rogers ,world1 #cjb-d ,sower's ,german1 #fg1 #gj ,vulgate 7,venice1 #adhg71 #ec bibliography1 #afc binding1 #aai binding1 limp vellum1 #bcj ,binny1 ,archibald1 #gf ,binny ,ronaldson 7,philadelphia71 #gg1 #beb1 #dai ,birrell1 ,francis1 #aii black-letter ,gutenberg1 #bgd-gf modern1 #bda ,black ,sun ,press1 #cai ,blado1 ,antonio1 #ed ,blado ,italic type face1 #ed1 #dbj ,blaeu1 ,willem ,j41 #hi ,blumenthal1 ,joseph1 #afd1 #afe ,emerson1 #bee1 #daf ,blunt1 ,wilfrid1 #aib ,bocard1 ,andrieu1 #da ,bodoni1 ,giambattista1 #fj1 #fd1 #ib1 #ih ,manuale ,tipografico 7#ahah71 #bgf ,bodoni ,book type face specimen1 #dab ,bodoni's 'soprasilvio1' #bgf-gh1 #bhd1 #bhg ,bologna1 ,francesco da1 #ib book1 anatomy of2 see under individual headings book design1 principles of1 #aae-bh1 #bha-hi1 #cej-ea ,book of ,st4 ,albans1 #ajg ,bourdillon1 ,f4 ,w41 #gi ,boydell1 ,john1 ,shakespeare1 #gh ,braby1 ,dorothea1 #bah ,bradbury ,evans1 #aeg ,bradford1 ,andrew1 #cef-eg1 #cfb ,bradford1 ,william1 #cef1 #ceh ,bradley1 ,j4 ,w41 ,dictionary of ,miniaturists1 #dj ,bradley1 ,will1 #bec1 #bia ,bradley type face1 #bec ,bridges1 ,robert1 #bch ,brimmer type face1 #daa ,browning1 ,robert1 #aib ,buckland-,wright1 ,john1 #bah ,buell1 ,abel1 #fe-ff1 #fh1 #ga-gc1 #beb1 #bee ,bull of ,pius ,,ix 7,mainz1 #adfc71 #db1 #ec ,bulmer1 ,william1 #ib1 #ajj1 #dac ,burn ,oates1 #aid1 #aif ,burne-,jones1 ,sir ,edward1 #bcc1 #bcf1 #bch ,caledonia type face1 #bee1 #djd specimen1 #dac ,calkins1 ,earnest ,elmo1 #cfh calligraphy1 #bee1 #ccg-dc defined1 #ccg-ch ,cambridge ,university ,press1 #ea1 #aeh1 #ahd n41 #ahe1 #bia ,campbell1 ,dr4 ,william ,j41 ,collection of ,franklin ,imprints1 #ced1 #ceg1 #cfj1 #cfe ,canstein1 ,baron von1 #bi ,capell1 ,edward1 ,prolusions1 #gh capital letters1 #beg-fa ,cary1 ,mary1 ,diary1 #aig ,caslon1 ,william1 #fc1 #fd1 #hi1 #ib ,caslon type face1 #adb1 #aef1 #aie1 #bjd1 #bda1 #bed1 #cia rediscovery of1 #cah ,shaw's preference for1 #cij specimen1 #dac ,catherine de ,mdici1 #ajf ,catherine the ,great1 #ajf ,caxton1 ,william1 #ai1 #bi1 #db1 #di1 #hi1 #ib1 #ahd-he ,dictes or ,sayengis1 #ai1 #hj ,caxton ,club1 #cc ,centaur type face1 #bbj1 #bee-ef1 #djc specimen1 #dad ,central ,type ,foundry 7,st4 ,louis71 #bec ,century ,dictionary1 #cd ,champollion1 ,j4 ,f41 #c ,chapman1 ,dr4 ,r4 ,w41 #cib1 #cid ,chappe1 ,paulinus1 #ah ,charlemagne1 #ab ,charles1 ,thomas1 #bi ,cheltenham type face1 #bed ,chesterfield1 ,earl of 7,philip ,stanhope71 #ij ,chiswick ,press1 #bag ,christie1 ,e4 ,d41 #ie ,chronicles of the londe of ,england1 #dj ,cicero1 ,epistolae 7,venice1 #adfi71 #dj ,clark1 ,edward1 relations with ,shaw1 #chb-dja ,clark1 ,robert1 #chd-he ,clark1 ,r4 ,r41 ,shaw's printer1 #cha-dja ,claudin1 ,anatole1 #agf ,cleland1 ,t4 ,m41 xiii1 #aab-ac ,harsh ,words1 xi1 #cba type ornaments1 #big1 #bii ,cleve1 ,johann von1 ,cantiones1 #db ,cloister type face1 #bed ,cobbett1 ,william1 ,rural ,rides1 #bjh ,cobden-,sanderson1 ,t4 ,j41 #ahj-ha1 #ahh1 #bbi1 #chh ,cockerell1 ,douglas1 #cie ,cockerell1 ,sir ,sydney1 #bcc ,coleridge1 ,s4 ,t41 ,table ,talk1 #aeg ,colines1 ,simon1 #ahe ,collins1 ,f4 ,h41 ,authors' and ,printers' ,dictionary1 #cib ,collins1 ,howard1 #cid ,colman1 ,morris1 #afd1 #aff-fg colophon1 #cb-dd1 #eb defined1 #cb-ch examples of1 #ch-db1 #dd composition1 defined1 #bdb ,conkwright1 ,p4 ,j41 #afd1 #aff ,conrad1 ,joseph1 #aaf ,cooper1 ,oswald1 #bed ,copland1 ,robert1 #ahe copyright1 notice of1 #afa1 #aff1 #afg1 #afh ,coward1 ,noel1 #bjh ,cowper1 ,edward1 #bf-bg ,croce1 ,benedetto1 ,autobiography1 #cab ,crompton1 #bf ,currer1 ,mrs4 ,richardson1 #ajg ,currie1 ,kent1 #bgb ,daniel1 ,rev4 ,c4 ,h4 ,o41 #agh1 #ahg ,daniel ,press1 #ahg1 #bcd1 #bch ,darton1 ,f4 ,j4 ,h42 see ,sawyer1 ,c4 ,j4 ,davies1 ,peter1 #bjh ,davis1 ,southwick1 #cgi ,dawson1 ,thomas1 #ea ,day1 ,john1 #ej1 #hj ,daye1 ,matthew1 #ig ,daye1 ,stephen1 #ig ,deceyte of ,women1 ,the1 #ec1 #fa ,decretals of ,gregory ,,ix 7,rome1 #adgd71 #da dedication1 #afa-fb1 #aff-fh ,deepdene type face1 #bbc1 #djc specimen1 #dad de ,la ,haye1 ,corneille1 #fj ,dent1 ,j4 ,m41 #aeg ,de,sancha1 ,antonio1 #dae ,de ,vinne1 ,theodore ,low1 x1 #ca ,notable ,printers of ,italy1 #bgi ,plain ,printing ,types1 #cgj ,treatise on ,title-pages1 #db-dc1 #bgd ,de ,vinne type face1 #bec ,diamond ,classics1 #aef1 #bcf ,diane de ,poitiers1 #ajf ,dibdin1 ,t4 ,f41 #ajd ,dictionary of ,american ,biography1 #cfc ,didot1 ,firmin1 #bf career1 #ajj ,didot1 ,franois ,ambroise1 #ib ,didot family1 #fd1 #ij1 #ib1 #aja ,diui ,athanasii 7,paris1 #aejj71 #da ,dolet1 ,etienne1 #id-if ,donaldson1 ,alexander1 #chd ,dorici brothers1 #ec double-page spread1 #afh ,doves ,press1 #aag1 #ahj1 #ahh1 #bbi ,du ,barry1 ,countesse1 #aje du ,bois1 ,simon1 ,hours 7#aebg71 #aed ,dunlap1 ,john1 #gf ,dunster1 ,henry1 #ih ,dunster1 ,mrs4 ,henry1 #ih ,drer1 ,albrecht1 #ee1 #ib1 #bge1 #bgg ,dwiggins1 ,w4 ,a41 x ,caledonia1 #bee1 #dac ,eldorado1 #dae ,electra1 #bee1 #dae ,,mss by ,,wad1 #abi1 #dje ,shapes of ,roman ,letters1 #dje-g ,dyck1 ,christoffel van1 #ib ,edinburgh1 publishing history of1 #chd-he ,ege1 ,otto1 ix1 #c ,eldorado type face1 specimen1 #dae ,electra type face1 #bee-ef1 #djc specimen1 #dae ,elizabeth1 ,queen1 #aje-f ,elzevir family1 #fj1 #ib1 #ig ,emerson type face1 #bee-ef specimen1 #daf ,encyclopaedia ,britannica1 #ce1 #bbg1 #bci1 #cch first edition1 #chd engraving for illustration1 #bah invention of1 #be ,ensched ,foundry1 #bba-bb ,erasmus1 ,desiderius1 #id ,adagia1 #bi ,colloquia ,familiaria1 #bi ,essex ,house ,press1 #ahj ,estienne1 ,robert1 #id n4 career1 #if-ig ,estienne family1 #ib1 #if n41 #ahe ,eugene1 ,prince of ,savoy1 #baa ,evans1 ,sir ,arthur1 #d ,eve1 ,clovis1 #aje ,eve1 ,nicolas1 #aje ,exercitium super ,pater ,noster1 #bc ,fairfield type face1 #bee-ef ,fairfield type faces1 specimen1 #daf ,faques1 ,william1 #ej ,farjeon1 ,herbert1 #bji ,farleigh1 ,john1 #cii ,fell types1 #agh1 #ahg1 #aif ,fichet1 ,guillaume1 #aec-ed ,field and ,tuer1 #aeg ,figgins1 ,vincent1 #ib ,fine1 ,oronce1 ,quadrans ,astrolabicus1 #ef ,finley1 ,john1 #cgh ,fleuron1 ,the1 x1 #chh1 #cia1 #dag ,flower1 ,desmond1 #ajj1 #aec ,ford1 ,paul ,leicester1 ,many-,sided ,franklin1 #ced-ee1 #cfb1 #cfc-fd foreword2 see preface format2 see book design ,foulis1 ,andrew1 #ahf ,foulis1 ,robert1 #ahf ,fournier1 ,p4 ,s41 #eg1 #ei1 #fd ,fournier family1 #ib ,fournier type face1 ,shaw's choice of1 #cib ,fox1 ,emmanuel1 #gj1 #gf ,fox1 ,justus1 #fg-gg ,fragment of ,world ,judgment1 #ah ,franois ,i1 #di1 #id-ie1 #ig ,franklin1 ,benjamin1 #bi ,autobiography1 #cff career1 #aja-b2 as printer1 #ceb-fg ,dissertation on ,liberty and ,necessity1 #cei epitaph1 #cff-fg and ,hall1 #cfe imprints1 #ceg1 #cfa1 #cfd1 #cff ,improvement of ,printing ,backwards1 #bbg ,new ,england ,courant1 #cee-ef ,pennsylvania ,gazette1 #cfb ,poor ,richard almanacs1 #cfb-fc ,franklin1 ,deborah ,read1 #cfb ,franklin1 ,james1 #cec-ef1 #ceh1 #cfb-fc imprints1 #ced-ee ,franklin1 ,josiah1 #ceb-ec ,freeman's ,oath1 ,the1 #ig-ih ,froben1 ,johann1 #fb front matter elements of1 #afj-fc1 #aff-fh typography of1 #bdf-di ,fuhrmann1 ,dr4 ,otto1 #bbd ,funk ,wagnalls' ,standard ,dictionary1 #cd ,fust1 ,johann1 #ah1 #ch-ci1 #db1 #di1 #ec1 #ia1 #ib1 #ahc ,galesburg imprint1 #cgh-hj ,galloway1 ,joseph1 #gd ,garamond1 ,claude1 #ib1 #ic1 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,kirkwood1 ,james1 #che ,koberger1 ,anton1 #ib ,koch1 ,rudolph1 design1 #bjg ,knig1 ,friedrich1 #bf ,krantz1 ,martin1 #aed ,kromberger1 ,johann1 #ig ,laboratory ,press1 #agh ,lamb1 ,charles1 #cb ,lane1 ,john1 #aeg1 #aid ,lang1 ,andrew1 ,the ,library1 #ajc-d ,lansbury1 ,george1 #aig-ih ,lasteyrie1 ,count de1 ,typographie ,economique 7#ahcg71 xii1 #cjf ,lawrence1 ,t4 ,e41 #bji1 #bah leading2 see letter-spacing ,lee1 ,marshall1 ed41 ,books for ,our ,time1 xiv ,lee ,priory ,press1 #ahf ,leeu1 ,gerard1 #dj ,le,rouge1 ,pierre1 #ej lettering1 #cch-dc1 #dje-g defined1 #cch letter-spacing1 #bhg-hh leading1 #bdc-dd1 #bhd driving out1 #bej1 #djb ,lewis1 ,w4 ,s41 #ih-ii ligature1 #hj-ha ,linotype1 defined1 #djd list of illustrations1 #afb ,livingston1 ,luther ,s41 ,franklin and ,his ,press at ,passy1 #cfe ,longlond1 ,j41 ,a ,sermon 7#aecf71 #eh ,lowell1 ,amy1 #ajg lower-case letters1 #beg-fa ,lowinsky1 ,thomas1 drawing1 #bjd ,lutetia type face1 #bcb1 #dad ,luther1 ,martin ,to the ,christian ,nobility1 #bi tracts1 #ee ,lydgate1 ,john1 #ec ,lydian type face1 #bee-ef ,mc,culloch1 ,william1 #fi-ga1 #gd1 #gf ,mac,donald1 ,james ,ramsay1 #aig n4 ,machiavelli1 ,nicol1 ,discorsi 7#aeca71 #ed ,mackall1 ,leonard ,l41 ,notes for ,bibliophiles1 #cd ,mc,kerrow1 ,ronald ,b41 ix1 #gh ,introduction to ,bibliography1 #ca1 #ce-cf1 #chb ,macmillan1 ,daniel1 #chg ,mc,murtrie1 ,d4 ,c41 ,the ,book1 #ah-ai1 #bc1 #bg1 #bh ,madan1 ,falconer1 #agf ,maillet1 ,jacques1 #dg1 #ej ,mainz ,diary3 ,new ,light on the ,invention of ,printing1 #bbd ,malory1 ,sir ,thomas1 ,morte d',arthur1 #da ,mansion1 ,colard1 #ai ,manutius1 ,aldus1 #dh-di1 #ej1 #hi1 #ib1 #aef1 #ahe ,bembo's ,de ,aetna1 #dab career1 #ic-id ,marchant1 ,guy1 #dg ,marguerite of ,navarre1 #aje ,marie ,antoinette1 #aje ,martin1 ,gilbert1 #chd ,martin1 ,john1 ,bibliographical ,catalogue of ,books ,privately ,printed1 #age-gf ,martin1 ,william1 #ib1 #dac ,mary ,stuart1 #aje ,massachusetts ,gazette and ,boston ,weekly ,news-,letter1 #ff ,mathews1 ,elkin1 #aeg ,maxwell1 ,william1 #bjf relations with ,shaw1 #cha-dja ,mazarin1 ,jules1 #aje ,mendel1 ,vera2 see ,meynell1 ,vera ,meredith1 ,george1 #aib1 #chg ,meredith1 ,hugh1 #cfj-fb ,mergenthaler1 ,ottmar1 #bg1 #bed ,merry ,england1 #aic-id ,merrymount ,press1 xii1 #aha ,merrymount type face1 #bed metal flower2 see printer's flower ,meynell1 ,alice1 #aib-id ,ten ,poems1 #aig ,meynell1 ,everard1 #aib ,meynell1 ,sir ,francis1 xiv1 #aeh1 #ahi1 #bca ,nonesuch ,press1 #aia-baa ,printer's ,flowers and ,arabesques1 x on type-setting machines1 #bbg-bh ,meynell1 ,vera and ,nonesuch ,press1 #aia1 #aih-ii1 #bja1 #bje1 #bjf-g ,meynell1 ,wilfrid1 #aib-if1 #aii ,middle ,hill ,press1 #agh ,middleton1 ,henry1 #hj ,miller ,richards1 #chd ,miller-,parker1 ,agnes1 #bah missals1 first printed1 #bb-bc ,mitchelson1 ,david1 #ff-fg ,monotype1 #aeh1 #ahi defined1 #djd ,montagu1 ,lady ,mary ,wortley1 #baa ,montague ,press1 #bia ,de ,guerin's ,the ,centaur1 #dad ,monticello type face1 #djc specimen1 #dai ,moore1 ,george1 #aic ,ulick and ,soracha1 #bjf ,mores1 ,edward ,rowe1 ix1 #hc1 #cgj ,morgan1 ,charles1 ,house of ,macmillan1 #chg ,morgan1 ,gwenda1 #bah ,morison1 ,stanley1 x1 xiii1 #ii1 #aaf1 #aeh1 #aif1 #chd on calligraphy1 #cch ,first ,principles of ,typography1 #bci ,times ,roman1 #dbj ,morris1 ,william1 xi1 #agi1 #cij achievement and influence1 #ahg-hh1 #bbg1 #bbh-bi1 #bcj1 #bec career1 #ajj-a ,note on ,his ,aims in ,founding the ,kelmscott ,press1 #ahj ,roots of the ,mountains1 #bcf1 #bch1 #chh typography of1 #bcc-ch1 #bge1 #bgh see also ,kelmscott ,press ,mountjoye type face1 #djc ,moxon1 ,edward1 #hc1 #aeg ,moxon1 ,joseph1 #eg ,murray1 ,john1 #aeg1 #chg-hh ,musurus1 ,marcus1 #id ,nash1 ,john1 #bah ,national ,association for the ,advancement of ,art1 #chh ,nelson1 ,george1 xiv ,new ,colophon1 ,the1 xv ,new ,england ,courant1 ,the1 #cee-ef ,new ,york ,herald ,tribune1 #cd ,newdigate1 ,bernard ,h41 #aha1 #cij ,niccolo1 ,simon di1 #da ,nichols1 ,dr4 ,charles ,l41 ,justus ,fox1 #gj ,nonesuch ,press1 #aeh1 #aha1 #ahi1 #bbh history of1 #aia-baa ,nonesuch ,press1 imprints1 #aie1 #bjj1 #bjd-e1 #bjg1 #bji-aj press mark1 #aii and ,random ,house1 #bjh ,shakespeare1 #bji ,nuremberg ,chronicle1 ,the1 #da1 #ia1 #ib ,o',connor1 ,john1 #bah ,ogg1 ,oscar1 ix1 #ccg ,olpe1 ,j4 von1 #ia ,orcutt1 ,william ,dana1 ,manual of ,linotype ,typography1 #afj-fe ,original ,old ,style type face 7,italic71 #bbc ornament2 see type ornament ,oswald1 ,john ,clyde1 ,benjamin ,franklin1 ,printer1 #ceh ,oxford ,english ,dictionary1 #cd-ce ,oxford type face1 #bef ,oxford ,university ,press1 #ea1 #gi1 #aeh1 #ahd n41 #ahe1 #aif ,palmer1 ,samuel1 #ceh-ei ,pannartz1 ,arnold1 #gh1 #aec paper1 #af-ah1 #bf-bg ,chinese invention of1 #ag dampening of1 #bbi esparto grass1 #bf mills1 #ag-ah1 #bf-bg papyrus1 #ag rag1 #bf texture of1 #aai wood pulp1 #bf ,patmore1 ,coventry1 #aic1 #aid ,pelican ,press1 #aih ,pelliot1 ,paul1 #be ,pembroke1 ,countess of 7,mary ,herbert71 #ajf ,penguin ,books1 #aeh editions of ,shaw1 #cha-hb1 #cie ,pennsylvania ,gazette1 ,the1 #cfb-fc ,pennsylvania ,mercury1 ,the1 #fe1 #fh1 #ga-gd types for1 #gd-gf ,perpetua type face1 #djc specimen1 #dai ,peter ,pauper ,press1 #afe ,petit1 ,jean1 #da ,phillips1 ,fred1 ,old-,fashioned ,type ,book1 #bee pi1 derivation of name1 #cgj pica1 derivation of name1 #cgj ,pickering1 ,william1 #aef-eg1 #bcd1 #cah ,pigouchet1 ,phillipe1 #aed ,pio family1 #id ,plant1 ,marjorie1 ,english ,book ,trade1 #chb ,plantin1 ,christopher1 #fj1 #if playing cards1 #ba-bb ,pleydenworff1 ,wilhelm1 #da ,poe1 ,e4 ,a41 ,the ,gold ,bug1 #h point system1 x1 #cfi ,poliphilus type face1 #bjj1 #djc specimen1 #dbj ,pollard1 ,alfred ,w41 xi1 #ce1 #cf-cg1 #agf1 #ahb ,essay on ,colophons1 #cc1 #cg-ch1 #dj-da ,pollard1 ,graham1 #gh n4 ,pompadour1 ,mme4 de1 #aje ,poulton1 ,t4 ,l41 #bjf preface1 #afb-fc printer1 amateur1 #ahb-ij see also private press printer's flower1 #eg-ei1 #hc-hd1 #aef-eg see also type ornament printer's mark1 #de-ea printing development of1 #ae-cj importance of1 #he-hg principles of1 #bbf-cb restricted in ,england1 #ahe-hf private press defined1 and aims of1 #age-ha1 #ahb influence of1 #ahf-ij principles and pleasures of1 #cac-bj types of1 #agg-gi see also printer1 amateur ,proctor1 ,robert1 #ahh ,proctor's ,greek type face1 #ahh ,psalter 7,mainz1 #adeg71 #ch-ci1 #di1 #ahc punch-cutting machine1 ,benton pantograph1 #beb-ed punctuation marks1 #ha-hb1 #bhe1 #bhi ,pterschein1 ,dr4 ,herman1 #bbd ,pynson1 ,richard1 #ec ,pythagoras1 #ab ,rabelais1 ,franois1 ,pantagruel1 #ie ,radin1 ,simon1 #da ,random ,house1 and ,nonesuch ,press1 #bjh ,ransom1 ,will1 ix1 #bed ,private ,presses1 #age1 #cfe ,ratdolt1 ,erhard1 #ec1 #ee ,ravilious1 ,eric1 #bah ,rawlinson1 ,sir ,henry ,c41 #c ,read1 ,herbert1 ,grass ,roots of ,art1 #aee1 #aeg ,recuyell of the ,histories of ,troye1 #ai1 #di ,regiomontanus 7,mller1 ,j471 ,calendar1 #ec ,reichl1 ,ernst1 xiv1 #afd-fe1 #afh ,reinheckel1 ,andreas1 #db ,reuchlin1 ,johann1 #id ,richards1 ,grant1 #chd1 #che ,author ,hunting1 #chh ,ricketts and ,shannon1 #ahh ,riverside ,press1 #bca1 #bia1 #daa ,rochester ,press1 #agg ,rodenberg1 ,julius2 see ,simon1 ,oliver ,roeder1 ,ralph1 #ic ,roffe1 ,edwin1 #agg ,rogers1 ,bruce1 xiii1 #afd1 #afe1 #ahh1 #bbj1 #cah1 #daa ,centaur1 #bee1 #dad designs1 #bij-cje influence1 #bca ,paragraphs on ,printing1 #aha1 #bha-hi1 #djc ,world ,bible1 #cjb-d ,rollins1 ,carl ,purington1 xiii1 #ih1 #afd1 #aff1 #beb1 #bia1 #cah1 #dad ,b4 ,r4--,america's ,typographic ,playboy1 #cjj-a ,romney ,street ,press1 #aif-ig ,root1 ,riley1 ,journal of ,travels 7,galesburg1 #ahej71 #cgi-hj ,rose1 ,aquila1 #cef-eg ,routledge1 ,george1 #bf ,rudge1 ,william1 #bca ,rudge ,press1 #bie running head1 #bde ,rushmore1 ,arthur ,w41 ix1 #afd1 #afg-fh1 #bbj ,russell1 ,bertrand1 #aih ,unpopular ,essays1 xii-xiii ,ruzicka1 ,rudolph design1 #ea ,fairfield1 #bee1 #daf ,sandford1 ,christopher1 ,cockalorum1 #bab sans serif type face1 #ccb-cc1 #dag specimen1 #dag ,sassoon1 ,siegfried1 #aih ,savonarola1 ,girolamo1 tracts1 #ec ,sawyer1 ,c4 ,j41 and ,darton1 ,f4 ,j4 ,h41 ,english ,books #adge-aejj1 #agf ,schffer1 ,peter1 #ch-dj1 #db1 #di1 #ec1 #ia1 #ahc ,school ,press1 #agi ,scotch ,modern type face1 #bhd1 #bhg1 #dac ,schwartz1 ,joseph1 xv ,schwartz1 ,miriam1 xv serifs1 #bee1 #dje-g ,shand1 ,james1 xiv1 #cha ,shaw1 ,g4 ,b41 xiv editions1 #che-hh1 #cia-ib1 #cie1 #cih-ii filmscripts1 #cic-ie letters quoted1 #chc1 #chg-ij proof correction1 #cic-id1 #cif-ig1 #cih1 #djj relations with ,r4 ,r4 ,clark1 #cha-dja shorthand1 #chc1 #cid type preferences1 #cia-ib ,shaw1 ,mrs4 ,g4 ,b41 #cii ,ship of ,fools1 ,the 7#adid71 #ia ,sidney1 ,sir ,philip1 ,arcadia1 #ajf1 #bjc ,simon1 ,oliver1 #aed1 #aeh and ,rodenberg1 ,julius1 ,printing of ,today1 #cdd n4 ,sitwell1 ,sir ,osbert1 #bjh1 #bac ,smithers1 ,leonard1 #aeg ,sower1 ,christopher1 ,jr41 #fg-gj1 #gb1 #gd-ge ,sower1 ,samuel1 #gf ,sparrow1 ,john1 #bjf ,spiral ,press1 #afe1 #daf ,squire1 ,sir ,john ,c41 #aib ,steele1 ,robert1 ,revival of ,printing1 #aha ,stevenson1 ,r4 ,l41 #g ,stiles1 ,rev4 ,ezra1 ,literary ,diary1 #ga-gb1 #beb ,stckel1 ,wolfgang1 #ec ,stone1 ,reynolds1 #bah design1 #ajb ,strawberry ,hill ,press1 #agf1 #ahf ,strozzi1 ,piero1 #ajf ,sutton1 ,hannah1 #ajg ,sweynheim1 ,conrad1 #gh1 #aec table of contents1 #afb1 #afg ,targ1 ,william1 xv ,making of the ,bruce ,rogers ,world ,bible1 #cjd ,tatham1 ,elizabeth1 #ajg ,tauchnitz1 ,bernhard1 #bcd ,tennyson1 ,alfred1 ,lord1 ,in ,memoriam 7#ahej71 #aeg ,thomas1 ,isaiah ,additions to ,thomas's ,history of ,printing1 #fi-gj1 #gd ,specimen of ,printing ,types1 #fc ,thompson1 ,francis1 #aib-id ,times ,roman type face1 #djc specimen1 #dbj title page ,bagford collection1 #fd development of1 #db-dc1 #eb-fd engraved1 #eg-fj type ornaments1 #eg-fj typographic1 #fj-fd typography of1 #afa1 #afg-fh1 #bdf-dg woodcut1 #ec-eg ,tomkinson1 ,g4 ,s41 ,select ,bibliography of ,modern ,presses1 #aha ,topolski1 ,feliks1 #cii drawing1 #cha ,tory1 ,geoffroy1 #fj1 #fb1 #ib1 #aed1 #ahe1 #bge ,tournes1 ,jean de1 #ee1 #ie ,trautwein1 ,joseph1 xv ,trenholm1 ,george1 #bed ,trevelyan1 ,g4 ,m41 ,english ,social ,history1 #chd ,tschichold1 ,jan1 #aeh type faces modern1 #agj-ga1 #agd1 #djd-f old style1 #djd-e principles of design1 #bfg-gc transitional1 #djd-f used by job printers in #ahhj's1 #cfi-gb see also typography1 and under individual names type founding1 early history of1 in ,u4 ,s41 #fe-gg type ornament1 #eg-ei ,cleland's designs1 #big1 #bii ,rogers's designs1 #bij-cje see also printer's flower typographer1 and publisher1 #aec-ei ,typographie ,economique2 see ,lasteyrie1 ,count de typography ,bauhaus1 #cjf-g characters in early ,english1 #gh-hj defined1 #bci-dj in modern trade books1 #afi-gd of ,william ,morris1 #bcd-ch old vs4 modern1 #bgd-hj typography1 principles of1 #aji-ad1 #afj-fh1 #bci-ea1 #beg-ff problems in modern1 #cdd-di1 #djb-g tendencies in modern1 #cjf-ab1 #cba-cf see also type faces ,typophiles1 ,the1 #ajb1 #abi ,ulhard1 ,philip1 #db ,updike1 ,daniel ,berkeley1 xii1 xiii1 #ib-ic1 #ie1 #ahh1 #bbc1 #bhh n41 #cah1 #djc1 #dad1 #dai ,in the ,day's ,work1 x1 #aeh ,notes on the ,merrymount ,press1 #aha ,printing ,types1 x1 #hh ,some ,aspects of ,printing1 x1 #aha1 #cjf ,vale ,press1 #ahh ,valry1 ,paul1 ,les deux vertus d'un livre1 #abb ,van ,doren1 ,carl1 #aja ,van ,hoesen1 ,h4 ,b41 ,bibliography1 #cf ,vascosan1 ,michel de1 #fj ,vele1 ,abraham1 #ec1 #fa ,verrue1 ,countesse de1 #aje ,vico1 ,enea1 #fj ,vincentino1 ,lodovico1 #ed ,vorsterman1 ,willem1 #ej ,vostre1 ,simon le1 #aed ,book of ,hours1 #bgh ,waflard1 #ib ,walker1 ,emery1 #ahh1 #bbh1 #bbi1 #chh ,walpole1 ,horace1 #ih-ii1 #agh1 #ahf ,walter1 ,f4 ,k41 ,bibliography1 #cf ,wang ,cheng1 #be ,warde1 ,beatrice1 xiii1 #aji ,warde1 ,frederic1 #dad ,warton1 ,thomas1 ,history of ,english ,poetry1 #cg ,watson1 ,james1 ix ,art of ,printing1 #he1 #chd ,watts1 ,john1 #cei ,waugh1 ,evelyn1 #bac ,way ,williams1 #agg ,webb1 ,beatrice1 #chh ,webb1 ,clifford1 #bah ,webb1 ,sidney1 #chh ,webster's ,dictionary1 #ce ,week-,end ,book1 ,the1 #aii ,weekly ,register1 ,the1 #aid ,weiditz1 ,hans1 #ee ,westcott and ,thomson 7,philadelphia71 xv ,westminster ,press1 #aid ,wheeler1 ,monroe1 #cai ,whitnash ,press1 #agi ,whittingham1 ,charles1 #aef1 #cah ,wiebking1 ,robert1 #bed1 #bgc1 #dad ,wight1 ,john1 #ej ,williams1 ,iolo1 ,elements of ,book-,collecting1 #cf ,willoughby1 ,edwin ,eliott1 #de ,wilson1 ,alexander1 #hi ,winship1 ,george ,parker1 #hh-hi ,sailor ,narratives1 #bia ,winterich1 ,john ,t41 xiv1 #agf ,early ,american ,books and ,printing1 #ceb ,wolff1 ,h41 ,co41 #afe ,wolgemut1 ,michael1 #da ,wollaston1 ,william1 ,religion of ,nature ,delineated1 #ceh-ei women1 as bibliophiles1 #ajc-h wood-block printing ,chinese origins1 #ba ,heiligen1 #be playing cards1 #ba-bb ,worde1 ,wynkyn de1 #eg1 #eh ,wordsworth1 ,william1 ,prelude 7#ahej71 #aeg ,world ,publishing ,co41 xv ,world ,bible1 #cjb-d ,wroth1 ,lawrence ,c41 #fe ,yeats1 ,w4 ,b41 #aib ,young1 ,thomas1 #c ,this book was composed in twenty-two different type faces by ,westcott ,thomson1 ,inc41 ,philadelphia4 ,typography and design by ,jos4 ,trautwein4