Virtual Issue for 2019
Guest Editor: Paul Nash
The study of printer’s type, it could be argued, is the root of bibliography. It was the invention of moveable type that made the printed book as we know it possible, an invention rather more important, I think, than the press or printers’ ink or even paper. Once invented, the craft of manufacturing type became an art, the design of letterforms developing into a means to express imitative or original, provincial or internationalist, traditional or experimental artistic sensibilities. The names of many of the great punch-cutters and type-founders of the hand-press period are honoured today, not least in the names of the ‘fonts’ we use every day (including Garamond, Baskerville, Van Dijck, and Caslon), although we may know relatively little about the lives of those craftsmen, and many of the historical creators and casters of type are not known to us even by name.
Since 1892, the Transactions of the Bibliographical Society and The Library have been rich resources for the type-historian, and for the bibliographer who acknowledges the place of type in the discipline. Choosing a selection of articles to represent the subject has been difficult (how could it not be?), and I have chosen some which represent particular authors—the giants of the subject both for their knowledge and ability to write clear, elegant prose—as much as they do important contributions. The study of type has made rapid advances in the past century or so, but some of the early contributions to The Library remain important, indeed often seminal, while having been superseded in some details. For example Victor Scholderer’s brief essay of 1939 on Adolf Rusch and the earliest roman types rightly identifies Pannartz and Sweynheim as (probably) the first printers to use a type with significantly roman characteristics, although a good deal more is now known about the printing of Rusch (who was once called, from the appearance of his ur-roman type, ‘the R-printer’ or ‘printer with the curious R’). There are other articles by Scholderer I might have chosen. The same is true of Stanley Morison, whose essay on the same subject (the origins of roman type) from 1943 I have selected as typical of his thorough work and austere style. John Dreyfus is a similarly important figure, and I have allowed myself the indulgence of choosing two of his essays, one on Baskerville’s punches from 1950 and the other published nearly twenty-five years later on the origins of the types used at the Kelmscott and Doves Presses. I would have liked to have included more of Dreyfus (especially his pleasing essay on ‘The invention of spectacles and the advent of printing’ from 1974, although this is really rather more about spectacles than it is about printing). Of the work of the two great twentieth-century Carters of bibliography—John and Harry—I have been able to include only one representative, John’s essay on William Ged and the invention of stereotyping, a vitally important subject, the pre-industrial history of which remains to be written. Harry should have been present too, perhaps with his ‘Types of Christopher Plantin’ of 1956, a short and elegant overview of the subject, based on material available at the Plantin-Moretus Museum. The subject of Spanish type-design—particularly innovative in the eighteenth century—is recognized by Albert Corbeto’s article of 2009 which was, I think, the first in the English language to bring due attention to this subject. Probably the most influential and learned living type-historian, Hendrik Vervliet, is represented by his thorough study of Robert Estienne’s types published in 2004.
All these essays concern the design and manufacture of type and other printing surfaces, but the study of its use, in a technical, practical, and artistic sense, is also well-covered in The Library. Here I have chosen two representatives, both recent, and both of which look closely at small but fascinating details of printing history. Katherine Butler’s study of the ornamental borders used by Thomas East covers two type-related subjects—the use and supply of typographical fleurons, and the printing of music with type—while Peter Blayney’s sharp essay describes the ‘invention’ of the press-figure. He begins by casting an eye back over the work of earlier writers on the subject who have reached slightly different conclusions on the meaning of these printed numerals (and indeed other conclusions can be reached, as it seems the precise meaning and purpose of press-figures varied somewhat between printing-offices), and describes Thomas Marsh’s use of something resembling a press-figure in the 1550s.
Overall there are a great many other Library essays that might have been included here, but I hope this selection gives an indication of the scope and range of scholarship published in the journal, presenting many of the bibliographical aspects of the study of type and typography, as well as those authors who have added so much to our knowledge of the subject.
Contents
- Adolf Rusch and the Earliest Roman Types
Victor Scholderer
The Library, iv, 20 (1939), 43–50 - Early Humanistic Script and the First Roman Type
Stanley Morison
The Library, iv, 24 (1943), 1–29 - The Baskerville Punches 1750–1950
John Dreyfus
The Library, v, 5 (1950), 26–48 - William Ged and the Invention of Stereotype
John Carter
The Library, v, 15 (1960), 161–92 - New Light on the Design of Types for the Kelmscott and Doves Presses
John Dreyfus
The Library, v, 29 (March 1974), 36–41 - Robert Estienne’s Printing Types
Hendrik D. L. Vervliet
The Library, vii, 5 (2004), 107–175 - Eighteenth Century Spanish Type Design
Albert Corbeto
The Library, vii, 10 (2009), 272–97 - Printed Borders for Sixteenth-Century Music or Music Paper and the Early Career of Music Printer Thomas East
Katherine Butler
The Library, vii, 19 (2018), 174–202 - Thomas Marshe Invents the Press Figure
Peter W. M. Blayney
The Library, vii, 19 (2018), 455–68