The Art & Practice of
TYPOGRAPHY
A Manual of American Printing
INCLUDING A SHORT HISTORY THROUGH THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF THE WORK OF EARLY MASTERS OF THE CRAFT, ALONG WITH A PRACTICAL DISCUSSION AND A COMPREHENSIVE DEMONSTRATION OF MODERN TYPEFACE USE AND ARRANGEMENT METHODS.

In the preface to the first edition of “The Art and Practice of Typography,” the author stated that he did not “anticipate again having the pleasure of producing a book as elaborate as this one,” but the favor with which the volume was received made another edition advisable, and in consequence he has had the additional pleasure of enlarging and revising it and of producing a volume even more elaborate and with a better selection of examples.

The task of rewriting and replanning the second edition was near completion when America entered the war against Germany, and now, a few months later, the book is presented to the public. The first edition was published in February, 1910. Work on the new edition was begun by the author in the latter part of 1913, and so great has been the task, in addition to his customary editorial labors, that almost four years have passed.

The extent of the work will be comprehended when it is mentioned that there are twenty-eight chapters, in which the illustrations or typographic arrangements, numbering six hundred and fifteen, include forty full-page specially-printed inserts. Most of these illustrations or typographic arrangements are in color. The text matter, which makes direct reference to the examples, totals nearly one hundred thousand words.

That these examples are mostly high-class and by many of the best typographers in America (Europe also being represented), is due to the fact that the author during his connection with The American Printer has received several thousand pieces of printing, from which selections were made for this work.

Great care was exercised in the choice of examples in order that the book would not become obsolete, and it is believed that most of the type arrangements shown will be considered good for a hundred years to come. That this is possible is proved by the Whittingham titles on page 32, one of which is sixty-eight and the other seventy-three years old at this writing. These titles were set up when most typography was poor, yet few other type arrangements of that time would meet approval today; which indicates that it is not when printing is done, but how it is done that makes it good or bad.

Attention should be called to the plan of this volume. There are two parts, the first having to do with typography of the past and the second with typography of the present. Good printing of the present has a basic connection with that of the past, and for this reason one part is incomplete without the other.

The entire first part should be studied before any of the ideas in the second part are applied to present-day problems, and especially should the chapter on Type-Faces be patiently read and studied. The printer should first know type-faces and then learn how to use them.

In the chapters on Harmony, Tone, Proportion, Ornamentation and other art principles the author does not intend to advocate that his readers shall make pictures with type or build pages that are merely beautiful. The first requirement of typography is that it shall be easy to read; the second is that it shall be good to look at. The efficient typographer studies the copy and arranges it so that the reader’s task is an easy and pleasant one.

In planning the second edition the general style of the first edition was retained. However, an effort was made to change the style, especially of the binding, but so satisfactory was the original that it was again adopted.

The historical chapters in the first part have been revised and slightly altered, but they are practically as before. Extensive changes have been made in the second part. The text has been thoroly revised, and better typographic examples substituted in many cases. These chapters especially have been greatly altered: Booklets, Catalogs, Announcements, Letterheads, Billheads, Business Cards, Posters, Advertisements, Imprints.

The chapter on Type-Faces is all new and has been enlarged from ten to twenty-four pages. New chapters on the following subjects have been added: Package Labels, Blotters, Newspapers, Periodicals, House-Organs. In place of the medley of contest specimens in the appendix of the first edition, there are halftone reproductions of more than one hundred attractive holiday greetings.

No one realizes more than does the author the minor defects in typography, presswork and other details that viiiare present in this volume, yet the effort of a Hercules and the patience of a Job have been expended in making everything as correct as possible. As the book now stands, it is a reaching after the ideal, with human inability to attain perfection. It is needless to point out imperfections; the reader will discover them.

In his selection of examples and recommendation of type-faces the author has been entirely free from pressure from any source. If certain type-faces are favored, it is because the author believes he is doing something for the cause of good printing by favoring them. What has been written has been written with sincerity.

It is well to mention that the “Pilgrim’s Progress” title on page 21 is not genuine. Having seen the book on exhibition at the New York Public Library, the author arranged to have it photographed and included in this work. The sequel to this is interesting and rather humorous. When the chapter on Type-Faces was being written and Caslon types were being studied, the author was startled to find that the types used on the “Pilgrim’s Progress” page were the same as those William Caslon was supposed to have designed forty-four years later. Greatly puzzled, the author made a trip to the library and examined the original. He immediately saw that the type-face used on the body of the book differed from that on the title. Discovering a note on the fly-leaf signed by William Pickering, the explanation dawned on him. The book was probably owned by Pickering in the middle of the last century and the title-page being missing a new one was set up, printed and inserted when the book was rebound. It was Whittingham, Pickering’s printer, who revived the Caslon types about that time, and he naturally used these types as the nearest approach to the English types of the period, 1678, when “Pilgrim’s Progress” was first published.

It is impossible to mention by name all of those who have in one way or another assisted and encouraged the author in the production of this volume. A list of acknowledgments would include typographers of international note and typographers-to-be whose prentice hands need guidance. It would include office associates and those of the workrooms whose interest and attention to technical details helped much in the effort to make the work worthy.

There is one, however, were such a list printed, whose name would lead all the rest, the man who, back in 1903, conceived the idea of this book; without whose business support this elaborate and costly work would have been impossible; whose ideals have been an inspiration; whose confidence and encouragement generated the energy and enthusiasm that have attended the author during the fourteen years in which this work has been building. It is a privilege to pay this tribute to John Clyde Oswald.

The printer and typography—Definitions and derivations of trade words—Printing with separate types practiced between 1450–1455—Books previously written by hand or printed from wood—The Middle and Dark Ages—Latin in written books kept knowledge alive—Meaning of “manuscript”—Writing materials—Arrow-shaped writing of the Chaldeans—Papyrus rolls of the Egyptians—Ink, paper and block-printing supposedly invented by the Chinese—Dressed skins and palm leaves used by Hindoos—The Hebrews wrote upon stones and animal skins—We owe the present Roman alphabet to the Phœnicians—The word “alphabet” derived from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Beta—The bards of Greece—Manuscripts written by slaves—Papyrus imported from Egypt—Development of parchment, and what it is—The great Alexandrian library—Length of rolls—Story of “Septuagint”—Destruction of the Alexandrian library—Rome supersedes Alexandria as an intellectual center—Cæsar credited as the founder of the first newspaper—“Short-hand” writing—The period of Emperor Augustus a memorable one in literature—Producing large editions of manuscript rolls—Books were plentiful and cheap—Elaborate parchment rolls—Origin of flat-sheet books—Hinged waxed tablets—Destruction of the library at Constantinople—Drift of literature toward the East—Transcribing and decorating holy writings in the monasteries of Europe—Monopoly of learning gave power to Church of Rome—Since the seventh century monastery manuscripts in Latin, the official language of that church—Translation of Bible into “Vulgar tongue” forbidden—William Tyndale’s English translation—Martin Luther’s German translation—Making of manuscript books in the Middle Ages—St. Benedict sets the monks to work copying manuscripts—Popularity of cloisters—The scriptorium and the rules governing scribe or copyist—Tools and materials—Rubrics—Illuminating—The copyist at work—A beautiful Irish book—Illuminators’ colors and binding of manuscript books—Missal, Psalter, Book of Hours—Donatus, books associated with the Middle Ages—First types were imitations of current Gothic lettering—Types cut in style of Roman lettering—Ancient Roman writing all capitals—Evolution of Roman capitals into small or lower-case letters—The uncial and half-uncial—Minuscule and majuscule—Development of writing toward both heavy pointed Gothic and the Roman style used by Nicholas Jenson—Cursive, a “script” letter.

The invention of typography marked the beginning of a new civilization—The beginning and end of the Middle Ages—Printing with separate metal types an evolution—Demand for playing cards and sacred pictures—Engraved wood blocks—Block books, and method of printing them—Coloring cards and pictures by means of stencils—The oldest dated specimen of printing—The first block books probably Latin grammars—The “Art of Dying,” the “Bible of the Poor,” and the “Mirror of Human Salvation”—When, where and by whom was typography invented?—The inventor failed to print his name on his product—Almost every European country claimed the honor—All claims disproved excepting those of Germany and Holland—Weight of evidence is with Germany—Typography was practiced by Gutenberg at Mainz some time during 1450–1455—Claims of priority for Coster of Haarlem—Story of the invention by Ulrich Zell the earliest testimony on the subject—Dierick Coornhert’s version—The unfaithful servant—Dignified gray heads point out the house of “the first printer”—Hadrian Junius and his “Coster Legend”—Fashioning the bark of a beech tree in the form of letters—Changing the letters to lead and then to tin—Old wine flagons melted into type—A workman, John Faust, steals the type-making instruments—Cornelis, an old book binder—The story dissected—Peter Scriverius has another version—A clap of thunder—Confusion of dates—A statue erected to Coster in Haarlem—“True and rational account” by one Leiz—Gerard Meerman’s story—The sheriff who printed with wooden types—Robbed by a brother of Johann Gutenberg—Jacob Koning awarded a prize for his essay on the invention—Makes researches in Haarlem archives—Corroborates some details in preceding stories—For many years Coster given equal honor with Gutenberg—Investigations by Dr. Anton Van der Linde—Forgeries and misrepresentations revealed—Haarlem practically surrenders its claim and alters its school books—Records of Louwerijs Janszoon and Laurens Janszoon Coster—Van der Linde goes to Germany, alters his name and writes a book—Hessels translates the book into English, and afterward becomes a Haarlem advocate—Coster proofs are weak—Haarlem claimants unable to agree as to Coster’s identity—Gutenberg a tangible human being, and probable inventor of the art—Parentage of Gutenberg—The family removes from Mainz presumably to Strassburg—Was the new art practiced at Strassburg?—Records of a lawsuit—Gutenberg agreed to teach Andrew Dritzehen certain trade secrets—Fust lends money to Gutenberg and takes a mortgage on his printing office—Fust seizes all types, presses and books—Records of this suit evidence of Gutenberg’s invention—The famous Forty-two Line Bible—Gutenberg again establishes himself as a printer—An appointment from the Bishop of Mainz—Dies about 1468—H. Noel Humphrey’s tribute—Peter Schœffer—Copies books at the University of Paris—Becomes Gutenberg’s assistant—Assumes charge after his master’s death—Marries Fust’s daughter—The new firm publishes a Psalter—First book with a printed date—Features of the book.

The city of Mainz—A conflict between two archbishops—The city is set afire—Fust and Schœffer’s printing office burned—The workmen flee to various parts of Europe—A table of the spread of typography from Mainz—In Germany—John Mentel at Strassburg—Albrecht Pfister at Bamberg—Ulrich Zell at Cologne never printed a book in the German language—Arnold Ter Hoorne first to use Arabic numerals—Gunther Zainer at Augsburg first in Germany to print with Roman characters—Heinrich Keffer at Nuremberg—John Sensenschmidt at Nuremberg and Bamberg—The Bamberg Missal—Anthony Koburger at Nuremberg had twenty-four presses in operation—In Italy—First type printing done in the monastery at Subiaco—Conrad Schweinheim and Arnold Pannartz brought from Germany—Ulrich Hahn first printer in city of Rome proper—John de Spira first typographer at Venice and had exclusive right—Nicholas Jenson comes to Venice and uses a new Roman type-face—Story of his introduction to the art—The first page of displayed type composition—J, U and W not in books printed by Jenson—His office passes to Aldus Manutius—Italic introduced—Aldus reduces the size of books and suggests the printing of a polyglot Bible—Works of Peter Paul Porrus and Augustin Justinian—Aldus xassisted by scholar-refugees from Constantinople—His complete name—Venetian printing offices and their product—Bernardo Cennini at Florence—Johann Numeister at Foligno—In Switzerland—Bertold Ruppel at Basel—This city gave France its first typographers—John Froben at Basel—Erasmus has him print his books—In France—Ulrich Gering, Martin Crantz and Michel Friburger at Paris—Gering becomes rich—Sectional wood border on book printed by Philip Pigouchet for Simon Vostre—Henry Estienne at Paris—First of illustrious family of typographers—Robert Estienne best known and most scholarly—Flees to Geneva, Switzerland, for safety—Dies there after a labor of love—In the Netherlands—A press erected at Utrecht—Colard Mansion and William Caxton at Bruges produce the first book printed in English—Van der Goes at Antwerp—Christopher Plantin at Antwerp gave renown to that city—His printing office now a museum—A polyglot Bible his greatest work—Louis Elzevir, founder of a family of learned printers, at Leyden—The second Louis Elzevir at Amsterdam—Johannes Andriesson at Haarlem—In England—William Caxton the first to set type in that country—Apprenticed to a merchant and goes to Bruges—Becomes Governor—Enters the service of the Duchess of Burgundy—Translates a “Historie of Troye” and learns how to print it—Returns to England and sets up a press at Westminster Abbey—Peculiarities of Caxton’s work—Wynken de Worde succeeds to Caxton’s business—Introduced the Roman letter into England—Richard Pynson at London—Richard Grafton as a printer of English Bibles translated by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale—Tyndale suffers death—Grafton imprisoned for printing the “Great Bible”—Edward Whitechurch his partner—John Daye also imprisoned—Fox’s “Acts and Monuments”—In Scotland—Androw Myllar and Walter Chepman at Edinburgh—In Ireland—Humphrey Powell at Dublin—In North America—John Cromberger at Mexico City—In the United States—Stephen Daye at Cambridge, Mass.

Martyrs in typographic history—Ecclesiastical and political conditions in Europe from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries—A book of treaties on the intended marriage of Queen Elizabeth—Oliver Cromwell encourages printing and literature—First edition of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”—Thomas Roycroft prints Brian Walton’s Polyglot Bible—The first book published in England by subscription—Paper for the work allowed to come in duty free—Cardinal Mazarin discovers a copy of Gutenberg’s Forty-two Line Bible—Chap-books and something about them—Poor representatives of the art of typography—Woodcuts and type battered and worn—Peddled by chapmen—Dicey books—Broadsides—Puritans land at Charlestown and begin to settle Cambridge and Boston—Rev. Jesse Glover solicits money for press and types—Contracts with Stephen Daye to come to new country—Rev. Glover dies—Daye reaches Cambridge with outfit—Begins printing in 1639—The first work—The first book—Poorly printed—President Dunster of Harvard College appoints Samuel Green to succeed Daye—Another press and types added—An inventory—The printing office discontinued—Printing in the colonies of Massachusetts and Virginia—Pennsylvania second English colony to have typography—William Bradford prints an almanac—Bradford arrested in Philadelphia for printing an address—Type pages as evidence—“Pied” by a juryman—Bradford goes to New York—First printshop there—Official printer—Publishes the first New York newspaper—Benjamin Franklin—Indentured to his brother James—The New England “Courant”—James is imprisoned—Benjamin becomes the publisher—The brothers disagree—Benjamin ships to New York—Meets William Bradford and goes to Philadelphia—Secures employment with Samuel Keimer—Leaves for England to buy printing equipment—Goes to work in London—Returns to Philadelphia and starts a printing office—One of the first jobs—Publishes “Poor Richard’s Almanack”—Proverbs widely quoted—Sells his shop to David Hall—Quaintness of Colonial typography—Comments on reproductions—Page from a Caslon specimen book of 1764—The work of Bodoni.

William Morris’s declaration—The first printed book a testimony to genius—The first cylinder press and first linotype were crudely constructed—Typography at its highest point—Italian and German styles contrasted—These styles blended into the Colonial—Franklin as a typographer compared to Aldus and Plantin—Beginning of the nineteenth century—Utility and art—William Nicholson plans a cylinder press—Dr. Kinsley constructs a model—A new roman type-face designed—Ornaments and borders discarded—Style of typography becoming uninteresting—Transition illustrated by four title-pages—Charles Whittingham and William Pickering—Artistic qualities introduced—Punches of Caslon Oldstyle recovered—A page in Colonial style—Punctuation marks omitted—Fifty years ahead of their time—Job printing of modern development—Newspaper, book and job work—Typography should be based upon art foundations—A Book of Common Prayer—Title-pages without ornamentation—Job printers take to fancy typography—Imitations of copperplate engravers’ work—A business card and a bill of fare—Changing styles applied to commercial headings—MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan—A card with apologies—A longing for pictures, color and decoration—Brass rule and tint blocks—Remarkable skill exhibited—The “Modern Renaissance”—Machinery led typography away from art—Printers thought they were doing artistic work—Inspiration wrongly interpreted—Forming of a curious chain of events—The Kelmscott Press—William Morris, artist, poet, designer and craftsman—Franklin and the Franklin stove—Morris and the Morris chair—The influence of Morris on house furnishing and typography—His home—Learned to print and to make paper—Designs type-faces—“Golden”—“Troy”—Draws decorative initials and borders—Additional designs by Burne-Jones—Morris criticised—Revolutionizes typography—Aubrey Beardsley—Will Bradley—A country printer—Studies art in Chicago—The “Wayside Press”—“Bradley: His Book”—Inspired by both past and present—A new typography—Combines with the University Press—Becomes an interesting subject for discussion—An opinion by George French—Attempts another new style of typography—Profuse ornamentation—Works rapidly—Bradley and his clients—His personality—Influence upon the American style of typography—Other influences-Theodore L. De Vinne—Has a college degree—Apprentice in a country printshop—Job compositor with Francis Hart—Takes charge of the business—A writer on printing subjects—Exponent of the conservative and dignified in typography—Should be no conflict between the styles of Morris, De Vinne and Bradley—For different purposes—The compositor must decide—De Vinne a leader in perfecting modern methods—Designs a type-face—Persuades printers to group wording—Charles T. Jacobi—Has done much for typography in England—Responsibilities of the modern typographer—Underrating the value of history—All knowledge is valuable.

[The chapters following are devoted to the consideration of typography as practiced in the twentieth century.]

Typography in the twentieth century—Compared with the past—Perfection not attainable—The spirit of the master craftsman—Inspired work—The necessity of careful preparation—Every printshop should have a layout man—When a building is erected—Quality printing is xinot accidental—Shop style—Layout men in large and small shops—Please the customer—Typography essentially a business vocation—Orders obtained thru “dummies” submitted—Selecting a layout man—Type equipment should be appropriate and sufficient—A working outfit for the layout man—Portfolio of sample sheets—Laying out a small booklet—Paper, margins, type page and size of type—Words to a square inch—Arrangement of title-page—Specimen pages in available body type—Use of crayon and pencil—Dummy submitted to customer—Duplicating it in the workrooms—Dummy sheets for periodicals and large catalogs—Incorporating illustrations in the text matter—Marking copy for machine composition—The average stationery job—A patchwork of typographic styles—Different results if handled by a layout man—Studying color harmony—Determining color combinations—The colder color should predominate—Indicating the finished result—Proofs in the colors and on the stock to be used—Blending paper stock—Laying out advertisements.

“Leit-motif”—The central idea in composition—Harmony and appropriateness—Undervaluing their importance—What is appropriate?—Discriminating judgment required—Discreet selection of type, ink and paper—It makes a difference—As to type-faces—As to inks—As to papers—Simplicity synonymous with good typography—The ideal printshop—Harmonious type-faces, ink colors and paper stock—Certain amount of contrast desirable—All capitals or all lower-case—Harmony of type-faces and borders illustrated—Typographic sins—In typography there should be a motive—“Is it appropriate?”—An architectural motive—In which strength is the motive—Design suggested by an old lock-plate—Typographic motive found in woodcut borders and initials of early printers—A millinery booklet cover—A page severely plain and non-sentimental—A program for a church service appropriate to the environment—A page in keeping with a festive spirit—Typographers should give support to artists—The Colonial arch and a title-page—The better the typographer, the more restraint will he exercise.

A story of white and black—A combination popular with writers, printers and readers—Uniformity of tone or depth of color—A mixture of irregular gray and black tones inexcusable—Art principles too often ignored—Contrast necessary, but uniformity should not be sacrificed—Art makes concession to utility—A right way and a wrong way—Unjust blaming of the customer—A German example of uniform tone—Practical demonstration of uniform tone—Four ornaments, upon which four pages are constructed—Contrast, from the viewpoints of art and utility—Lessening the contrast between print and paper—A compromise—Impressing the print firmly on antique paper—Setting the print daintily upon glossy paper—Lack of artistic feeling responsible for unpleasant contrasts—Great contrast is eccentricity—Mark Twain and contrasts—Cover-page should be darker than title-page—The tone of a massed page—Controlled by spacing—Duplicating the tone of a pen-and-ink illustration—A spotted black tone—Equalizing the tone by using lighter ink—Spaced capitals and open-line illustration—A classic interpretation of uniform tone—Characteristics and tone superbly blended—Initial and headpiece should approach the tone of the type page—Uniform tone between display line and border—Catalog illustrations should stand out in relief—Outline type-faces to obtain gray tone on newspaper page—Letterspacing—All lines should be similarly spaced—An unusual heading.

Symmetry is necessary to beauty—What has art to do with printing?—Two views—The book printer and the job printer—Pleasing the few or being all things to all men—Printing as a business and as an art—Art is essential to printing—Study of art arouses ambition—Unfolds a new world—Proportion—Book pages—The width and length of a page—Position of the page—Margins—The job printer and proportion—Relation of shape of type-face to page—Condensed types for narrow pages—Extended types for wide pages—Architecture as an example—Vertical and horizontal lines—The relation of lines to proportion—A page with ornament, type-face and page design in proportion—Irregularity and when it may be introduced—A type line large or small by contrast—The happy medium—Balance, an important subject—Type lines horizontally centered—Safety from blunders—Out-of-the-center balance—The point of vertical balance above center—Testing balance to the limit—Diagonal arrangements show lack of imagination—Spacing—Its proper apportionment—An important feature when letters are designed—The capital L—Emphasis by means of spacing—The effect of separate lines—Should be an even page tone—Distributing display lines over the entire page—Grouping them at the point of balance—Spaced words in narrow measures—A good sign when one recognizes imperfections.

The human race has a liking for ornamentation—Natural and artificial beauty—Nature furnishes motives for man’s work—The average man giving thought to art—Beautiful things all about—Privileges of museums and art galleries available to printers—Take less thought of food and raiment and these things shall be added—Is ornamentation necessary to art typography?—Paper as embellishment—Covering poor stock with decoration—Ornaments under lock and key—Revising ideas of art—Abstinence—Using ornaments with discrimination—Study of significance and appropriateness—Motive or reason in ornamentation—Italian and German influences—Harmony because of sympathy between arts and crafts—Inharmonious ideas of several persons—Relation of typography to architecture shown in alphabets—Roman and Gothic—Ornamentation both inventive and imitative—Conventionalized ornament—With or without perspective—Things which have inspired the decorator—Artists’ work full of meaning—Leaves, mythical beings, sacred animals—Architectural designs on title-pages—Egg-and-dart and bead ornaments—Results of observation—Designs thousands of years old—Typographic borders—Triple division of taste—The severely plain, Doric—The slightly ornamental, Ionic—The elaborately ornamental, Corinthian—Sturdiness and grace—Difference in ideals and preferences—Some delight in magnificence, others in plainness—The three divisions of taste applied to typography—The style of architecture and home furnishings influence typography—The “mission” style and straight lines—The frivolous rococo style and curved lines—Rococo type ornamentation not successful—A style to please those who like neither the severely plain nor the elaborately ornamental—Ornament secondary—Should not distract attention—Excess of embellishment—Chippendale first made furniture serviceable, then added ornament—Regularity and variety in repetition—Four classes of ornament—Based upon geometrical lines, upon foliage, upon the inanimate, and upon the animate—Initials as means of ornamentation—Corner ornaments—Decoration with a motive—Reversing half of a design—A page with but a single ornament—Present-day preferences are for Gothic rather than for Italian type ornaments—The reason—Ornamentation.

Good taste important in production of books—Judgment perfect in one respect and erratic in others—Good taste and conservatism—Catering to fashion leaves unsalable stock—Conservatives are few—Printed xiithings that please for the moment—Art reasons in book typography applicable to job typography—The job compositor drawing closer to his book brother—The book typographer governed by precedent—The conservative man constructive—The radical destructive—Masterpieces discarded for frivolous things—Morris set out to change book typography—He offered the good things of the old masters—Age not proof of merit—Good typography always good—Book industry in America tremendous—Carnegie at first ridiculed, now acknowledged a benefactor—The need of good books well printed—Majority of books poorly printed—Rarely do reading pages, title-page and cover harmonize—Cover only part given artistic attention—Should be honestly what it seems—A book model in its way—Not a line in capitals—Only two sizes of type on title-page—Chapter headings cling to type page—Margins—Surface covered—Proportion—Bruce Rogers—Designs books for the Riverside Press—Regard for the appropriate—The literary motive the cue—Suggesting a product of the middle nineteenth century—Two pages with faults—Inharmonious typography—The cost of an appropriate title-page ridiculously small—Provide display faces to match machine letters—Artist and typographer and the literary motive—Composite Colonial and modern—Unfinished effect—Books that lend themselves to decoration—Serious books—Typographic results exceptionally good—General use of border—Title page an excellent example—Reading matter close to border—One margin—Style of the modern novel—Modern book composition set on the linotype—An unconventional page—Page from a book written and illustrated by Will Bradley—Harmony between type-face and decoration—Effectiveness of a plain initial—Title-page of classic design—Dignified beauty—Classic feeling in a modern title-page—A serious effort by the Roycrofters—Page from a book by De Vinne—An ecclesiastical book by Updike—Improving typography in America—A book with a French motive—Avoiding commonplace types—Fonts from old matrices—Specially designed faces—Arrangement of a book—Fly leaf, sub-title, title-page, copyright notice, imprint, table of contents and illustrations, preface, frontispiece, dedication, index—Numbering the pages—The space under running titles—Lowering of the chapter headings—The space around initials—Position of a book page—Em-quad or en-quad between sentences?

Misuse of the word “booklet”—Definitions of booklet, pamphlet, brochure, leaflet—Chap-books—The booklet’s mission educational—Users—Ideas of writer and artist should be blended—Harmonious and complete—Printers have many artists to select from—The connecting link between job typography and book typography—Blending the typography with a lettered title-page—Pure typographical effects—Approved faces—Three series only—A page one likes to read—Reluctance to explore the past—Understanding of typography—Type alone can be effective—Good typography to be preferred to poor art work—Distinctive features—Space between sentences—Dignity in lettering and decoration—Title labels—A small amount of reading matter—Placing an illustration that is out of proportion—Care in the details of typesetting—Results of careless typography—Buyers slaves to conventionality—Newness and bright coloring that gets attention—Lower-case letters for capitals—Interesting decorative headings—The initial furnishes a spot of black—No decoration of any kind—Depending on type-faces and paper for results—Swash italic capitals and letterspaced capitals—Chapter heading not sunk—Suggestions from lettered designs—A standard type for old-style effects—Lettering in Caslon style on blue-prints—A memorial volume—Strict typographic harmony—Suggesting such volumes-Japanese paper printed on one side—Simple typography—Living in an artistic atmosphere—Printing journals—Specimen booklets for study purposes—Printers depend too much on artists—Possibilities of type arrangement never exhausted—Working together.

Three branches of architectural virtue applied to the catalog—Act well, speak well, look well—The days when the catalog was a heterogeneous collection of woodcuts and type-faces—Now care and taste shown—The catalog a portable show case—Proper display of goods makes selling easier—Playing up the ordinary—A block of marble, rough and carved—Standardizing the dimensions of catalogs—Engineers recommend standard sizes—Other suggestions—Overlapping covers—Titles on exposed backs—Date—Index card inclosed—Copy should be legible—A dummy should be passed on—Decoration supplemental—Expressing personality—The penalty of being an average typographer—The envy of master printers of old—Horizontal position of illustration—Brass rule well used—A design full of character—Description facing illustration—Small amount of reading matter—Red borders—Variety and interest by simple means—Cover-page built on an illustration—Modern German typographic ideas—Bold type desirable when color is to be shown—An art museum catalog—Securing value from background—Technical details kept orderly—A book-catalog page—Rule border adds decorative quality—Typography seldom receives the attention it deserves—An uncommon catalog page—Tabular treatment for a high-class wine list—The stone rejected by the builder—A dainty German page—A legible ornamental letter—Absence of roman lower-case—Appropriate woodcut—Marginal distribution—Realistic pictures—Gloves well shown—Usual method of selling—Tabular matter.

“Let all things be done decently and in order”—Four classes of programs—Programs of sacred services—Offer opportunity for artistic treatment—Significance an important element—The key to ecclesiastical printing—Rubrics—A modern interpretation of the historic—Pointed Gothic type-face—Uncial rubricated initials—Red lines—A significant device—Prejudices among clergymen—A churchly aspect by rubrication—Arranging numerous small titles—Economizing space—An almost perfect specimen of church program printing—A specialist on church typography—Program of lenten services—A small program, with a page for each event—Arranging a program with little matter—The dance program—Should be dainty—Stock folders—Must “look like a dance program”—A typographic dance card—Centered dots in place of periods—Uniform border treatment on an outing program—An unconventional dance program—Banquet programs and varied treatments possible—Value of the decorative border—Arrangement of type matter—A background in olive—The menu program in small booklet form—Menu dishes in the form of checks—“Hash” and “Rehash”—A bit of fun—A classic menu-page—A style appropriately humorous—Eating in a foreign language—Side hits—Artistic treatment simulating woodcut decoration—A simply constructed menu page—Unique arrangement—Titles at the left—Symmetrical arrangement—Programs for entertainments and exercises—The commonplace program a disappointment—Artistic programs—A refined page by Updike—Features of interest in a page by Rogers—Admirable treatment of a brief program—Appropriate decoration overprinted by type—A page dominated by the Gothic style—List of characters unusually displayed—A neat page in Caslon type—The program containing small advertisements—Theater programs exert influence on public taste.

Publicity essential to success—Announcements the modern representative of the public crier—Not confined to any xiiisize or shape—Often consists of only one page—The most personal of printed mediums of publicity—The printer depended on for suggestions and advice—Confidence of the customer an asset—Imitation engraved announcement the most common—Allows of no original or decorative treatment—The cobbler and tinker—Satisfaction from work well done—The uncommon typographer not governed by usual warnings—An announcement folder of a quality seldom attained—Points of interest in a Caslon page—Black text letter and a generous size of sheet—Sturdy masculine lettering—The human quality of imperfection—A cartoonist’s task—Broad strokes make a liberal showing of color possible—Classic dignity—Ornaments as eye-attractors—A postal-card announcement—One-tenth manual labor and nine-tenths brain exercise—Mistake to make type-face very large or very small—Obtaining variety and emphasis by use of italic and small capitals—Spacing of lower-case—One size of type only—Division into two type groups—A study in tone values—Harmony of type-face and decoration—A brief announcement—Colonial effects—Appropriate typography based on an early newspaper—Lack of margins and absence of print—Heavy- and light-faced rule—Greater legibility when lines are separated—A misplaced initial—A blotter announcement—Printers’ own announcements.

Good results by accident—A good job of printing should be an everyday occurrence—Lack of interest reason for non-development—Any man not interested in his vocation to be pitied—Thought concentrated on typography—Efficiency a guarantee—Accept responsibilities—The first observations of a student—“None perfect, no not one”—Tickets afford practice of art printing—Many themes and styles in typography—Resourcefulness a valuable characteristic—Ticket forms especially designed—One based upon a classic motive—An idea from ancient Rome—Capitals slightly spaced—The historic Gothic or church style—Contrast by the use of color—A modern conception with a masculine motive—The margins of two styles—An odd and striking effect—Modern treatment based upon the Colonial—A bookish effect—An idea for a lecture course—White or colored stock?—A ticket of peculiar interest to women—The geometric or secession style—Enthusiasm over new styles—Building a house in the sands—Square-faced type and square ornaments—An adaptation of the missal style—Inspiration from William Morris and Italian printers—For educational and art functions—A motive from the art workers of the Middle Ages—A modern application of classic type effects—A purely Colonial effect—Dainty, refined treatment and symbolic decoration—Typography that is distinctly masculine—Orange is lighter than black in tone—An arrangement dictated by an ornament—A ticket not easily duplicated—Color background—Corner decoration in keeping with the subject—A motive from early French books—Typographers should go thru the world with eyes open.

Standard sizes—Single leaves and the folded note sheet—Official envelops—Folding the sheets—Printing on fourth page—Society stationery—Ruled sheets seldom called for—Paper and typographical treatment of letterhead and envelops should have relation—Style of professional stationery seldom changes—Simple, neat, refined typography—Color seldom well used—Styles furnished by lithographers and steel-die printers—Work along standardized lines—A letterhead one form of advertising—Two tones of type-face for much copy—Elaborate treatment seldom advisable—All matter in one group—Blank space a factor—Brief copy—Use of a decorative device—A harmonizing border—A meeting announcement—Suggesting an architectural panel—Appropriate to the business—All lines of same length—For a general store—Resetting of a “brick” letterhead—Too literal—Injection of individuality—Something different—Attractive club stationery—Typographic neatness—A copperplate letterhead—Two distinct groups—Italic on a heading—Inclosing type matter in a panel—A line border finishing off the edges of a letter sheet—A spot of decorative color—The cross-line panel—German treatment—Notehead by a book typographer—Humor—Envelops a convenience—Its purpose and use—Advertising possibilities—“After five days return to”—Medieval character—Bringing out the business—An envelop corner that is artistic—Elaborate treatment.

Suitable and dignified type composition—Should correspond in style to that of letterhead—Standard sizes—Allowance for head portion—Window envelops—Change in arrangement—Billheads of a quarter of a century ago—Features of the average billhead or invoice—Composition of a billhead—Transforming a letterhead into a billhead—Classic typography—Typographic art and good taste on a billhead—Stationery of a book dealer—Printing on colored stock—Lower part divided into columns—A decorator’s stationery—Business stated in firm name—Credit bills—Use of the statement—Other forms used in business.

Effectiveness of an attractive package label—Good clothes and the package—Selection of wrapping stock—Appreciation of neat wrapping—Druggists excel—The art of making a good impression—Twine, gummed-paper tape, corrugated board—The printed label as a spot of attraction—The wrapping paper as a background—Two labels of contrasting treatment—Stronger label striking—Labels not usually seen at close range—No standard size—Stock that pastes easily—Hand lettered labels as studies—Italic with a decorative quality—A label design with no border—Suggestion of Italian art—Closely-spaced black-toned lettering—Artistic quality and interest by means of typography—A study in black and white—The Aldine combination—Border, decorative device and lettering in the same key—A label design that could be improved—A Goudy type arrangement—Label with address printed in—Stock labels should be studied.

Courtesies of business—The business card as an introduction—Sizes of cards—White cards predominate—An attempt at standardization in arrangement—A model of dignity—Featuring the individual’s name—Contrast in tone—A specimen of hand lettering—A design of strength and interest—An attractive black monogram—Decorative device in color—An interesting contrast—High-hat and frock-coat treatment in French style—Arrangement in blocked Caslon capitals—Decorative device in tint—Roman capitals with italic—A representative German card—The word “decorators” furnishes the cue—Italic for dainty effects—A strong, simple arrangement—Classic arrangement in one size of type—Much information on a card—Decorative treatment that could be merged with the stock—Horizontal rule lines—A card in Bodoni—More than one right way—Styles available for all likes and dislikes—Character and personality expressed typographically—More individuality now permissible—Copperplate engravers set the style for much business-card printing—How to obtain results.

Business cards and blotters—Less restraint and dignity—Coarseness should be avoided—No longer an experiment—Advertising values—The size—Enameled surfaces—A model typographic blotter with calendar—Treatment should be simple—One design of type-face—Blank space liberally distributed—Natural freedom—Most blotters contain too much xivtype matter—Relief from sledge-hammer advertising—Blotter for personal checkbook—Good taste—For a convention—Pleasing factors—Strong contrasts—Reading the message as the signature is blotted—Masculine treatment—The character of an architectural panel—Pleasure in using—Material that is used and material that is not used—A model of good taste in blotter typography—The test of time—A neat, refined arrangement—The use of large type—The narrow way—Gray features—A touch of appropriateness—Other features.

Poster printing a specialty in large cities—Type equipment well selected, but not elaborate—Blend of type-faces—Standard job faces duplicated—Sizes of posters, car cards and window cards—Color and lettering—What the poster should be—Viewed at closer range—Typographic effects in poster printing—A poster that measures up—A study of composition—Contrast of color—Card in conversational style—Using types in a sane, simple manner—Strong simplicity—Refinement in theatrical printing—A strong poster in gothic and “secession” border—Making the typography appropriate-Shakespearean typography—Decoration reproduced from original sources—Usefulness of a library of books—A hanger in one size of type—The Colonial style of type arrangement—Why cardboard is used—Suggested arrangement for excursion card—Printers and poster printing—The best sale-bill compositor in the country—Work should be done profitably—Poster printing on a large scale.

Advertisements, business men and printers—Blame for ineffectiveness—Treating the advertisement typographically—Study of good type work, advice and judgment—Oratory—A good speaker and a good typographic advertisement—Print too small or too large—Bluntness and forcefulness—Decorative attractiveness—Emphasizing significant parts—The difference between setting type with a stick and setting it with the head—Assuming a new formation—A multiplication of small advertisements—Easily read, conversational style of advertisements—Not much to say—Popularizing zinc—A well-treated signature—One of many clever advertisements—A peculiar department-store advertisement—Problems of the country newspaper—Typography influenced by the article advertised—Text types in advertisements—Harmonious suggestion—A long list of cities and agents—Selling costly automobiles—Suggesting Roman architecture—Text group in upper right corner—Little display—Blank space well used—Interesting country-newspaper advertisement—Classified advertisements well displayed.

Neutral gray—Building suitable and harmonious typographic form—Problem simpler in early days—The ideal newspaper—The title—Distinctive in design—Text letters—Using the ends of titles—Slogans and quotations—Date lines—The text—Small type—Narrow columns—Lengthy excerpts indented—The headings—First newspaper a letter and not set off by headings—Side headings—Wars developed display—Advertising the contents—Condensed type necessary—Harmonious type lines—Italic to overcome monotony—Paneled headings—A four-deck single-column heading—The make-up—A good-looking newspaper—Alternating large and small headings—No advertisements on front page—Position of article of most importance—Paneled news—Editorials—Usual position—The sporting page—Building advertisements from the lower right corner of the page.

Making publications attractive—Letterer and decorator—Circus poster type—The poor always with you—Many periodicals good to look at and easy to read—The dimensions—Nine by twelve inches a favorite with technical publications—Three groups for magazines—Growing larger—Pocket magazines—The front cover—Paintings—Decorative designs—Paid advertisements on the front cover—Appropriate views in halftone—Columns—Number decided by size of type—Wide columns strain the eyes—Gutenberg used two columns—Small type in very wide measures—The margins—Proportions as in good books—Good margins spoiled in bindings—Type-faces for the text—Chosen for legibility in small sizes—Separation with one-point leads because of lack of descenders—Difference in type-faces printed on coated and antique-finished paper—Lines need to be separated by leads—Should be well-formed as well as readable—Thin lines should be cut a trifle stronger—Type-faces for the headings—Same design as type for text matter—Desirable, but not always possible—An instance—Large, black headings should be avoided—Slightly decorative panels—Editorial headings and titles—Make-up of the illustrations—A background of gray—Well balanced—Text matter between illustrations—Same style on facing pages—Arrangement of headings—They sell the contents—A well-advertised story—The captions—Centered under illustrations—In two parts—Lines of same length—The editorial pages—No standard style—Unlike other reading pages—Features—Verse in italic—Restraint necessary—The advertisements—Bold types overshadow text pages—Good taste—Not to be mingled with text matter—Treatment need not be timid or blustering—When advertisers are best served.

Little brother of the periodical and newspaper—Smallest and largest dimensions—Favorite sizes—Self-covers and covers that are separate—Not many pages—Published regularly-Titles—Number of columns—Margins—Type-faces—Headings—House advertising—Illustrations, descriptions and prices—Mistake to use dark types with illustrations—Ideal typographic treatment—Useful and informative—Light matter to maintain interest—Features—Borders and initials—Almanacs—House-organs on blotter stock—In newspaper style—A western printer’s expression—Specimens of actual work—Too much copy—Loose inclosures should not prove a nuisance—Return post cards—Postal regulations.

Type-faces not easily remembered—Naming and numbering—Six representative standard Roman type-faces—Legible and good-looking and possessing character—Caslon Oldstyle—Scotch Roman—Cheltenham Oldstyle—Cloister Oldstyle—Bodoni Book—French Oldstyle—Private type-faces not considered—Permanency and investment—Cloister Oldstyle based on Jenson’s Roman letter—Not the first Roman type—Caslon Oldstyle—A historic American type-face—Approved by good printers as the best and most useful Roman face available—Difficulties in machine composition—Not an entirely new Roman letter—Story of its designing—Ill-treated by modern founders—The revival—Bodoni Book—Refined and legible—Its history—Modern ideas of improvement—Scotch Roman—The link connecting the graceful old-style and the severe modern Roman—French Oldstyle—Capitals especially pleasing—Cadmus, the Mayeur letter—Cheltenham Oldstyle—Designed in America and developed into a numerous family—The space above the line emphasized by long ascenders—Used for narrow booklets—Capitals awkwardly large—Development of the Roman type-face—In the beginning Roman letters were in capitals only—Lower-case letters in formation—Black Letter and White Letter—Jenson fortunate in the selection of a model—Comparisons—A change in form—Moxon’s drawings of the alphabet—Made into type—Baskerville’s xvtypes rival Caslon’s in beauty—Bodoni threw typography out of gear—His types not so dressed up and finished as at the present time—Modernized Oldstyle—Characteristics of Roman type-faces—The serifs—Has a decorative quality—Oldstyles and Moderns distinguished by serifs—Thick and thin strokes—Makes lettering interesting—Their distribution—Characteristics of pen-made letters—Ascenders and descenders—Beauty in the strokes—False logic—Proportion of letters—Old Roman capitals as models—Uniformity in width revealed in typewriter type—Legibility of type-faces—Type matter should be easy to read—Tests for legibility—Printing on a hard-finished paper and a soft-finished paper—Decided contrasts tire the eye—Lower-case more legible than capitals—Space between lines necessary—Space between words—Advantage of close spacing—Possible in machine composition—Words more easily read than letters—Group of words almost as easily read as one word—Length of line—Recommendations—Size and kind of type should be considered—Measuring one and a half alphabet—Technical and optical reasons—Testing newspaper types—Approved type sizes and leading—Dr. Cohn’s measurements—Italic types—The mate of Roman types—Was first cut by Francia for Aldus—Not merely an inclined Roman—Moxon’s Italic letters, including Swash capitals—Text faces—Fashioned after Black Letter writing—Other names—Block types—An unfinished Roman letter—Poster rendering in black tones—Bold types—Many could be dispensed with—Ornamental types—Types for special purposes—The influence of Frederic W. Goudy on typography.

The printer should regularly use his name and device—Neglect and fear of customer’s condemnation—Should mark his product as other craftsmen and manufacturers do—A guarantee of quality—How the innovation could be introduced—A precaution—Imprint should be unassuming and inconspicuously placed—Various uses—First use of a printers’ decorative device—Historical uses of distinguishing marks—Emblems of hospitality—The sign of the Cross—Printers should select a device and attempt to live up to it—The Gutenberg Bible contained neither device nor printed name—Fust and Schœffer’s Psalter first book with imprint—The colophon-A decorative device—Its significance—Imitated—As used by a descendant—The classic Aldus device—Pickering uses it—Others adopt it—Bruce Rogers’s interpretation—The imprint-device of the Venetian Society of Printers—Its significance—Emblem of authority—The most popular of old imprints—Hubbard adopts it—Used on biscuit packages—Other adaptations—Caxton’s imprint device—Resembles a rug—Characters cause discussion—A trade device used by the merchants of Bruges—A merchant’s memorial plate—De Worde adapts the device—Morris’s device resembles De Worde’s—The device of the German master printers—Typothetæ—A modern adaptation—The British printer and the pun—Daye and Myllar—Froben’s imprint—Devices of Bebel, Plantin, the Elzevirs, Tory, Dolet and Estienne—Devices very large in the old days—Ancient motives in two modern devices—The winged Lion of St. Mark—Recent adaptations—Story of the device—A colophon-imprint—Designs with ancient motives—The unique mark of the De Vinne Press—Imprint-devices based upon architectural motives—Initials in monogram form—Representative devices used by commercial printers—Decorative imprints with typefounders’ material—Harmony of type, rule and ornament—Small type imprints—Where should an imprint be placed—On books—On small commercial work—A legitimate opportunity for publicity that should be.

To many persons the words “Printing” and “Typography” are synonymous. The Standard dictionary, in its leading definition of the word “Printer,” says: “One engaged in the trade of typographical printing; one who sets type or runs a printing press; specifically a compositor.”

But in these days there are so many kinds of printers (lithographic printers, steel- and copper-plate printers, linotype printers, textile printers, etc.) that to define the sort of printer who does his work with type the use of the adjective “typographic” is necessary.

The word “typography” is derived from the Greek typos, or type; and graphe, or writing—type-writing. Typography, then, as I shall use it, means printing from movable, or separate, types.

The origin of typography may be open to dispute, but it is an undeniable fact that the art of printing with separate types was practiced at Mainz, Germany, during the years 1450–1455, and from there spread over Europe.

Before that period books were written by hand or printed from crudely engraved blocks of wood.

The thousand years preceding the invention of printing (the fifth to the fifteenth century) are known in history as the Middle Ages, and the first six centuries of this period (the fifth to the eleventh) are called the Dark Ages, because during those years civilization in Europe relapsed into semi-barbarism, and scientific, artistic and literary pursuits were almost entirely abandoned.

Latin had been the language of intellectual Europe up to the time of the fall of Rome (476 A.D.) and one of the influences that led up to this benighted period was that Southern Europe was overrun by so-called barbarians from Germania in the north—the Angles and Saxons, who settled in Britain; the Franks, Burgundians and Goths, who settled in Gaul (now France) and Germany; the Vandals who settled in Spain, and the Lombards, who settled in Italy.

In Italy, Spain and Gaul the Latin-speaking natives far outnumbered the invaders, and the Germanic conquerors were forced to learn something of Latin. The present languages of those countries are the result of that attempt. The language of the Germanic Angles and Saxons was used in Britain after their invasion of that country, but was modified by the French-speaking Normans who conquered England in the eleventh century. Thus Latin as a common language died.

Altho dead to most of the population of Europe, Latin was made the official language of the Christian church, and, during that period of the Middle Ages when French, Spanish, Italian and English were in a state of evolution, it afforded a means of keeping alive in written books the knowledge the world had gained before the dark curtain of ignorance was rung down.

Manuscript books are so-called from the Latin words manu scripti, meaning “written by hand,” and the initials of these two Latin words are frequently used for the word manuscript, i.e., “MS.”

The materials upon which books were written have at various times been clay, stone, wood, lead, skin, papyrus and paper.

Looking back six thousand years to the beginning of recorded time we find the Chaldeans (Babylonians and Assyrians) writing arrow-shaped characters with a sharp tri-pointed instrument upon damp clay, which was then made permanent by baking. In 1845 a library of baked clay tablets was discovered among the ruins of Nineveh. Thousands of these tablets have been collected in the British Museum, the most interesting of which is one which had been broken in eighteen pieces, containing an account of the Flood.

Twenty-five hundred years before the Christian era, when the great pyramids were being built, the Egyptians wrote upon papyrus, a plant growing on the banks of the Nile. The inner portion of the plant was stripped, the strips laid across each other, pressed and dried. The squares of material thus made were then joined together to form a long strip which was rolled around a rod.

Upon papyrus is written one of the oldest “books” in the world, “The Book of the Dead,” now in the British Museum. This is a literary work of a semi-sacred character, and copies were placed in the tombs with deceased 2Egyptians, whence its name. A reproduction of a portion of this book is given on page three.

Supposedly under the patronage of the Egyptian ruler, Rameses II., about thirteen hundred years before Christ, many books on religion, law, medicine and other subjects were written, and a great library was accumulated.

The Chinese wrote with a stylus or brush upon tablets of bamboo fiber. It is impossible accurately to determine the antiquity of Chinese methods, as the extravagant and often unsubstantiated claims of historians antedate those of modern discovery. Ink, paper, and printing from blocks were all supposedly invented by the Chinese early in the Christian era, and even the first use of separate types is credited to Pi-Shing, a Chinese blacksmith. It may be relevant to suggest that the old-time “blacksmith” joke and the printing-term “pi” are derived from this source.

Dressed skins and palm leaves were used by the Hindoos, and writings in Sanscrit were probably done in the temples by the Brahmins, the priests and philosophers of early India. The Vedas, sacred writings as old as 2000 B.C., formed a big portion of the Hindoo literature.

The Hebrews wrote upon stones and animal skins. In this manner they preserved the Old Testament portion of the Bible, and gave to posterity one of the most wonderful books ever written.

The ancient Phœnicians were commercial people, and being such did very little in producing literature; yet it is to them that we owe the present Roman alphabet. The illustration on a following page shows how this transition probably came about. There is a slight resemblance between some of the twenty-one characters in the Phœnician alphabet and certain picture writings of the Egyptians, whose hieroglyphic alphabet consisted of several hundred characters and was as cumbersome as is the Chinese alphabet with its several thousand characters.

The Greeks received their alphabet directly from the Phœnicians, there being a tradition that one Cadmus introduced it into Greece. Some writers claim that “Cadmus” merely signifies “the East” and does not refer to an individual. The names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Beta, are similar to those of many other languages, and the word “alphabet” is derived from these two words.

In Greece, especially at Athens, before manuscripts became numerous, lectures and public readings were important features of intellectual life.

The poems of Homer, supposed to have been composed about 880 B.C., were not put into writing until 560 B.C., and during this period of more than three hundred years they were retained in the memory of bards, by whom they were sung or recited.

“Plutarch’s Lives,” one of the best known Greek literary works, was written in the second century, A.D.

The Greek nation is generally acknowledged to have been one of the most intellectual of ancient times, yet it is a peculiar fact that only the boys were given an education, the intellectual development of women being considered unnecessary.

Copying of manuscripts was often a labor of love. Demosthenes, the great philosopher, is said to have transcribed with his own hands the eight books of Thucydides on the history of the Peloponnesian War.

Many of the Greek manuscripts were written by scribes and copyists who were slaves, and some of these slaves developed much talent of a literary kind.

The Greeks imported papyrus as a writing material, until one of the Ptolemies, in the interests of the Alexandrian library, decreed that no papyrus should go out of Egypt. This led to the development of parchment, so named from the city of Pergamus, where it was first made. Parchment is the skin of calves, goats or sheep, cleaned and smoothed.

In the days of militant Greece, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, and in the year 332 B.C. founded Alexandria. When at his death Alexander’s empire was divided among his generals, Egypt fell to the lot of Ptolemy, surnamed Soter. Thus began a dynasty of Egyptian kings known as Ptolemies, ending in 30 B.C. with the death of Cleopatra, the last of the line. The second Ptolemy, surnamed Philadelphus, founded the great Alexandrian library, which accumulated over five hundred thousand rolls of manuscript, mostly brought from Greece. The length of the rolls varied from small ones of two hundred lines to massive scrolls of one hundred and fifty feet when unwound.

There is a legend that Ptolemy Philadelphus was so impressed with the appearance of a roll of parchment containing in gold letters the sacred scriptures of the Hebrews, that, about 270 B.C., he caused their translation to be made into Greek. This, it is said, was done in Alexandria in seventy-two days by seventy-two learned Jews from Jerusalem. Hence the name “Septuagint,” which has always been applied to that Greek version of the Old Testament.

Julius Cæsar, the Roman conqueror, whom Shakespeare designated “the foremost man of all this world,” about the year 30 B.C. visited the city of Alexandria and became interested in Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen. This led to a war with King Ptolemy, and during a fierce battle Cæsar set fire to the Egyptian fleet. Unfortunately the flames extended to the Alexandrian library and destroyed the greater part of its magnificent collection of manuscripts.

Gradually after that, Rome superseded Alexandria as an intellectual center, as Alexandria had previously superseded Athens. The conquest of Greece, over a hundred years before, had been the cause of many Greek scholars and philosophers taking up their abode in Rome. This, with the fact that a great number of scribes and copyists had involuntarily come to the Eternal City because of the fortunes of war, helped to develop in the Romans an interest in literature.

During the period of Roman history identified with Julius Cæsar there were customs in manuscript making that are interesting in their suggestion of modern newspaper methods. In fact, Cæsar is credited with having been the founder of the newspaper.

3He introduced the daily publication of the news of the Roman Senate and People, a radical change from the previous custom of issuing yearly news-letters known as the Annals. The acts of the senate were reported by trained writers known as tabularii, or inscribers of tablets, and were revised and edited before publication by a senator appointed to that duty. Abbreviated forms of writing were used in “reporting,” a sort of short-hand which enabled the scribe to write as rapidly as a man could speak. Cæsar himself wrote his letters in characters which prevented them being read by his enemies.

The “Acts of the Senate” grew into a diary of general news, known as the “Acts of the City,” and it is likely that the educated slaves in the families of public men were called into service to duplicate copies for circulation.

Altho the Emperor Augustus, who reigned in Rome at the beginning of the Christian era, discontinued publishing the Acts of the Senate, he encouraged the writing and copying of books to such extent that the period is a memorable one in literature. The classic authors, Virgil and Horace, wrote at that time, and many other important manuscripts were produced.

Slave labor was utilized for copying, and large editions of manuscript rolls were produced with an ease that rivaled the later method of the printing press. In such instances it was the custom for a reader to read aloud, to, say, one hundred trained writers. The possibilities of this process may be imagined. Horace allowed his slaves rations which were so meager that the entire cost of production, including papyrus and binding, of a small book was equivalent to about twelve cents in United States coin.

Thus it will be seen that in the days of the Roman Empire books were plentiful and cheap because of slave labor, just as they are cheap in modern times because of machinery.

For most of their books the Romans, as had the Egyptians and Greeks before them, used rolls of papyrus wound about rods.

Ordinarily these rods were made of wood, but for highly-prized manuscripts, rods made of ivory with gold balls at the ends were used, and the writing in such cases was on purple-colored parchment, elaborately decorated with gold or red ink.

The present style of flat sheet books might have originated with the use by the Romans of tablets of wood or metal, wax-coated, on which memoranda were scratched with the stylus. Several tablets were hinged together and the wax surface was protected by raised edges in the manner of the modern school slates (see illustration). This led to the use of several leaves of vellum fastened together and enclosed by richly carved ivory covers, a form that came into use about 300 A.D., shortly before Constantine removed the Roman capital to Constantinople. Constantinople naturally became the center of civilization, and the work of transcribing manuscripts was taken up in that city. In the eighth century the reigning emperor, in order to punish the transcribers for insubordination, caused the library at Constantinople to be “surrounded by vast piles of fagots, which being fired at a given signal, the whole building was totally destroyed, along with its twelve scribes and chief librarian and more than thirty thousand volumes of precious manuscripts.” It seems to have been a favorite method of punishment during the Middle Ages for those in authority to destroy valuable manuscripts.

While, as we have seen, with the fall of the Western Empire of Rome, the drift of literature was toward the East, there remained in the West a dim light that was kept burning thru the six hundred years so fittingly called the Dark Ages. This light came from the monasteries of Europe, in which little bands of devoted men were transcribing and decorating the holy writings used by the Christian church.

The Christian church as an organization became powerful after the Roman Empire declined, and the monopoly of learning which the church possessed during the Dark Ages gave it such a superior knowledge and power that the Church of Rome granted authority to kings, and took it away, at its pleasure. A memorable instance of this power took place in the eleventh century, when Hildebrand, who as head of the church was known as Pope Gregory VII., forced Henry IV. of Germany, who had 4offended him, to seek pardon in a most humiliating manner. Henry stood barefoot in the snow for three days, before Hildebrand would pardon him.

On one occasion previous to the event mentioned above, Charlemagne (Charles the Great), king of the Franks, who was crowned by Pope Leo III. and saluted as Emperor of the West, was so mistakenly zealous in extending along with his own kingdom that of the Lowly Nazarene, that he ordered the hanging of more than four thousand prisoners before the Saxons would consent to be baptized and conquered.

Latin as a language is dead, so far as the secular world is concerned, but since the seventh century it has been the official language of the Church of Rome. All manuscripts produced by monks after that time, whether written in Britain, Germany or Italy, are in Latin, and the services of the Roman Catholic Church are conducted in that language even today. In the year 1080, the King of Bohemia asked Hildebrand, the Papal head of the church, for permission to have the services performed in the language of the people. This request Hildebrand refused, saying: “It is the will of God that his word should be hidden, lest it should be despised if read by every one.”

In 1229 a council of the church published a decree which not only strictly forbade the translation of the Bible into a “vulgar tongue,” but also forbade all but the clergy to have copies in their possession.

In spite of these mandates, translations of various portions of the Bible were made into common tongues, but at great risk. William Tyndale set about to translate the Bible into English, vowing that ere many years he would cause the plough-boy to know more of the Scriptures than did the priests. By 1526 he had completed the New Testament, but his books were burned in the public squares as soon as completed. Ten years later Tyndale was burned, as had been his books.

In 1534 Martin Luther completed his wonderful translation into German of the entire Bible, and gave to the people what had previously been denied them.

We will now consider the making of manuscript books in the Middle Ages. In the early days of the Christian church, persecution was so severe that Christians lived in hiding, or secluded themselves from the outer world to worship. This condition led to the existence of a class of men known as monks (from a Greek word monos, meaning “alone”). At the beginning of the sixth century, an earnest, conscientious Christian, now called Saint Benedict, set out to reform the evils then prevalent in monastic life. One of his theories was that the monks should spend their time, not in idleness, but in manual labor, in teaching the youth, and in copying manuscripts. The Benedictine monks, as the followers of Benedict are known, were the main agents in spreading Christianity and keeping learning alive during the Dark Ages. Their mode of living became so popular that, it is said, there were at one time thirty-seven thousand monasteries or cloisters in existence.

One of the occupations of the Benedictine monks was that of copying manuscripts, and in some monasteries a room known as the scriptorium was set apart for such work. The office of scribe or copyist was one of great importance, and stringent rules governed the work. No writing was done by artificial light, talking was prohibited, and none but the scribes was allowed in the room. The tools were quill pens, knives to cut the quills, pumice stone to smooth the surface of the parchment, awls and rulers with which to make guide-lines, and weights to keep down the pages. Parchment and vellum, the former made of the skins of calves, goats or sheep, the 5latter of the skins of unborn lambs and kids, were the materials written upon. Black ink was commonly used for the text of books; and vermilion, an orange-red ink made of red clay, was used for titles and important parts of the text. The portions in red were known as rubrics, from rubrica (red earth.)

Illuminating was done to some extent in the monasteries, but illuminators other than monks were often called upon to assist in this work. This practice led to queer combinations, as sacred writings were frequently decorated with monkeys and other animals and birds, which might have afforded appropriate decoration for an account of the Flood.

After the parchment was prepared and before beginning to write the scribe would scratch his guide-lines upon it with an awl. The position of the page and the lines of lettering were thus indicated, the page guide-lines extending to the edge of the parchment. The scribe’s work was principally that of copying (setting reprint, printers would say) from a book on the reading desk at his side. He was supposed strictly to “follow copy,” and his work was compared occasionally by a person known as a corrector. The black writing finished, the skins were passed to the rubricator or illuminator, if the manuscript was to be elaborately treated.

The colored plate shown as a frontispiece is from an old print and pictures a scribe at work. He is writing the text on a sheet of parchment held in place by a weight. The book from which he is copying is in front of him, above his writing desk, and his copy is indicated by a guide such as printers still use. Ink pots and pens are in place and an elaborate library is evidently at his disposal. The picture is defective in perspective but is withal rather interesting.

The most beautiful and elaborate specimen of the illuminator’s art now in existence is the famous “Book of Kells,” a copy of the Gospels written about the seventh century. It is notable because of the excellence of its decoration, the endless variety of initial letters it contains, and the careful lettering. The scribes and illuminators of Ireland have a lasting monument in this book, as it is supposed to have been produced in the monastery of Kells, founded by St. Colombo.

Gold, red and blue were favorites with the illuminators, the burnished gold leaf adding richness to the brilliancy of the effect.

Manuscript books were ordinarily bound in thick wooden boards, covered with leather, but there are books yet preserved the boards of which are of carved ivory, and others that are inlaid with precious stones.

The books associated with the Middle Ages most familiar to us are the Missal (mass-book), containing the services of the celebration of the mass; the Psalter (book of psalms), containing the psalms used in church services; the Book of Hours, containing prayers and offices for the several hours of the day, and the Donatus, a short Latin grammar, the work of Ælius Donatus, a Roman grammarian of the fourth century.

When printing was invented the first types used were imitations of the current Gothic lettering, known to us as Black Letter, Old English, etc. A few years later, when typography was introduced into Italy, the types 6were cut in imitation of the lettering selected for use by the scribes of the Italian Renaissance, which lettering is familiarly known in our time as Roman. The capitals of this Roman lettering are fashioned after those used in ancient Rome, and the small or lower-case letters are after the Roman writing known as minuscule, of the twelfth century.

The ancient Roman writing was all capitals, and as found on stamps and coins was of the character of the modern so-called “gothic” (plain strokes, without the small cross strokes known as serifs). The more carefully made Roman capitals, as carved on monuments and buildings, are not unlike the present type-faces known as Caslon and French old style.

The evolution of Roman capitals into the small or lower-case letters of the present day is traced in the writing called uncial, in which the letters A, D, E, H, M, Q are rounded and altered in appearance. More changes developed the writing known as half-uncial, in which only the N and F retain the appearance of Roman capitals. The small (lower-case) letters became known as minuscule, as contrasted with majuscule, or capital letters. (See reproductions on preceding pages.)

From this point book writing developed in two directions: one toward the heavy pointed stroke of the churchly Gothic style, and the other, guided by Charlemagne in the eighth century, to the style of Roman letter used by Jenson and other printers of Venice, Italy, in their classic printing of the fifteenth century. Our old-style Roman types are from this source.

Another style, called cursive, was the carelessly executed handwriting used for ordinary purposes, and in that respect may be likened to our own business script.

Thus as the fifteenth century dawned upon Europe we find literature and learning locked in the cells of the monks, while outside, the hosts of people who for ten centuries wandered in semi-darkness had reached an elevation which showed them a new existence coming with the intellectual awakening that was then already upon them.

The invention of typography in the fifteenth century marked the beginning of a new civilization and the end of the medieval thousand years. The Middle Ages may be said to have begun with the capture of Rome by the Vandals in 455 A.D., and to have ended with the production of what is considered the first printed book in 1455.

As has been shown, during most of the thousand years preceding the invention of typography, ignorance and superstition reigned thruout Europe, despite the efforts of Charlemagne and others to revive learning and encourage interest in books. The popular mind had become so perverted that ability to read and write and love for art were considered proofs of effeminacy.

As the medieval period neared its close, the brain of man became more active; he began to reason and to understand much that before had been mystery. Interest was manifested in the problems of science and religion, and notable things were accomplished by artists and craftsmen. It seemed as if the intellect of mankind was awakening from a long sleep, and civilization was being born again.

As the light of the new intelligence shone upon the earth and Europe rubbed its dazzled eyes, Typography, the star that was to light the way to modern knowledge and achievement, appeared.

Printing with separate metal types, while involving a new principle, was to some extent a development of other methods. The evolution from manuscript books to block books, and from block books to books printed from types occurred quietly in the natural course of events; so quietly, indeed, that there is mystery surrounding each change of method.

In the early part of the fifteenth century, when writing was the only agency used for making books, the demand for playing cards and sacred pictures necessitated a method of reproduction more rapid than the old; and thus engraved wood blocks were introduced.

As the desire for knowledge outgrew the productive resources of the russet-gowned scribes, men with a mechanical turn of mind began to engrave pages of books on wooden blocks, a process which, tho extremely tedious, afforded a means of partly satisfying the need, and which became the stepping stone to the invention of printing with separate types. The block books, as they were 8called, sometimes contained whole pages of reading matter, each letter cut in relief on the face of the wood, and frequently the page included a large illustration carelessly drawn and crudely engraved. The early method of printing block books was by placing the paper on the inked surface and rubbing the back. Only one side was printed and a brown distemper ink (a kind of watercolor) was used. Simply constructed presses, prototypes of the modern hand press, were employed by block-book makers in later years. Playing cards and image prints were popular products of the block-book period, and after being printed were colored by means of stencils. A French playing card of the fifteenth century is reproduced on the preceding page, as well as a print illustrating the old legend of St. Christopher carrying the infant Jesus across a river. This last-mentioned print is dated 1423, is 8⅛ × 11¼ inches in size, and is the oldest dated specimen of printing.

The invention of printing really dates from the time books were printed from wooden blocks, altho the more important invention, that of typography (printing with separate types), is also known by the general word “printing.” The first block books, probably Donatuses, may have been printed in Holland. The “Donatus” is a Latin grammar, and received its name from its author, Ælius Donatus, a Roman grammarian of the fourth century. It is a small book of not more than thirty-four pages printed on parchment, and had a large sale.

There is a morbid side to human nature, and it has been with us since the beginning. Today it finds delight in perusing in the sensational newspapers detailed descriptions of murders, train wrecks, and other happenings in which blood is spilled. During the Middle Ages it prevailed, and is reflected in the pictures that have come down to us in the block books. A doleful atmosphere is present in the block book, “Ars Moriendi” (Art of Dying), whose illustrations show weeping angels and leering demons, weird settings that are magnified by the crudeness of the engravings.

The “Biblia Pauperum” ( Bible of the Poor) is another block book very popular in the days preceding the invention of typography. It is a book of about forty pages, consisting principally of illustrations of the important happenings as told in the Scriptures. The book was for the use of illiterate monks and those that did not have access to the elaborate manuscript Bibles.

A book of similar purpose, but more complete than the Bible of the Poor, is called “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis” (Mirror of Human Salvation). This book literally presents the transition from block books to type-printed books, for of the sixty-three pages in one edition twenty are printed from wood blocks and forty-three from separate types (see reproductions herewith). The printed page of the “Mirror” is a trifle larger than the page that is now being read. Almost every monastery in Europe contained copies of the “Speculum.”

When, where and by whom was typography invented? It is surprising that there should be any real uncertainty about the facts connected with the invention of typography, but some uncertainty does exist, and various opinions and conclusions are set forth in books on the subject. The new method of printing was invented in the midst of indifference and ignorance, and for many years but few cared that it had come among them.

The inventor of typography, whether Coster or Gutenberg, was too modest to claim the credit in a substantial way, as he failed to print his name on the first books done by the new method.

This modesty, or whatever else it may have been, opened the way for almost every European country to claim the honor of having been the home of the invention. However, all claims have been disproved excepting those of Germany and Holland, and as the argument now stands the weight of the evidence is with Germany.

C. H. Timperley, in his “Dictionary of Printing” (1839) says that of those who had written on the subject up to his time, one hundred and nine favored Mainz and twenty-four favored Haarlem as the birthplace of typography.

There is indisputable evidence to prove that typography was practiced by Gutenberg at Mainz, Germany, from 1450 to 1455, and that the art spread from that city to all parts of Europe. There is no doubt about that. The only thing which can lose to Gutenberg and Germany the credit of the invention is proof that another man printed from separate types in another country previous to 1450. Certain investigators have attempted to supply this proof, as we shall see.

10The pretensions of Holland are that one Laurens Janszoon Coster (Lawrence, son of John, the sexton or sheriff) printed with separate types about the year 1430 at Haarlem.

The earliest testimony on the subject is a chapter in the “Chronicle of Cologne” (1499) wherein the author speaks of information about the invention of typography received by him from Ulrich Zell, who printed books at Cologne, Germany, as early as 1464. He states that the “art was discovered first of all in Germany, at Mainz on the Rhine,” and that the “first inventor of printing was a citizen . . . named Junker Johann Gutenberg.” This statement is added to by the assertion that the new art “found its first prefiguration in Holland in the Donatuses which were printed there before that time.” It has been argued that the last assertion refers to block books.

An extract from the Cologne-Chronicle account may be of interest:

This highly valuable art was discovered first of all in Germany, at Mainz on the Rhine. And it is a great honor to the German nation that such ingenious men are found among them. And it took place about the year of our Lord 1440, and from this time until the year 1450, the art, and what is connected with it, was being investigated. And in the year of our Lord 1450, it was a golden year, they began to print, and the first book they printed was the Bible in Latin; it was printed in a large letter resembling the letter with which at present missals are printed. Altho the art was discovered at Mainz, in the manner as it is now generally used, yet the prefiguration was found in Holland, in the Donatuses, which were printed there before that time. And from these, the beginning of the said art was taken, and it was invented in a manner much more masterly and subtle than this, and became more and more ingenious.... But the first inventor of printing was a citizen of Mainz, born at Strassburg, and named Junker Johann Gutenberg. From Mainz the art was introduced first of all into Cologne, then into Strassburg, and afterwards into Venice. The origin and progress of the art was told me verbally by the honorable master Ulrich Zell, of Hanan, still printer at Cologne, anno 1499, by whom the said art came to Cologne.

There was printed in the year 1561 an address to the town officers at Haarlem by Dierick Coornhert, an engraver, in which he stated that he was

often told in good faith that the useful art of printing books was invented, first of all, here in Haarlem, altho in a crude way, as it is easier to improve on an invention than to invent; which art having been brought to Mainz by an unfaithful servant, was very much improved there, whereby this town, on account of its first having spread it, gained such a reputation for the invention of the art, that our fellow-citizens find very little credence when they ascribe this honor to the true inventor. . . . And because I implicitly believe what I have said before, on account of the trustworthy evidence of very old, dignified and gray heads, who often told me not only the family of the inventor, but also his name and surname, and explained the first crude way of printing, and pointed with their finger the house of the first printer out to me.

It will be noticed that Coornhert fails to mention the name of the alleged inventor, the location of his house, or the date of the invention. The claim that “the useful art of printing books was invented, first of all, here at Haarlem, altho in a crude way,” may refer to the printing of block books and not to typography.

The claims of Holland were first presented definitely about 1566 in a history of the Netherlands called “Batavia,” the author of which was known in his own tongue as Adrian de Jonghe; in English as Adrian the Younger, and in Latin as Hadrian Junius. The story as written by Junius has been dubbed the “Coster Legend” and it reads in part as follows:

About one hundred and twenty-eight years ago there dwelt in a house of some magnificence (as may be verified by inspection, for it stands intact to this day) in Haarlem, near to the market, and opposite the royal palace, Laurentius Joannes, surnamed Æditus, or Custos, by reason of this lucrative and honorable office, which by hereditary right appertained to the distinguished family of that name. . . . When strolling in the woods near the city, as citizens who enjoyed ease were accustomed to do after dinner and on holidays, it happened that he undertook as an experiment to fashion the bark of a beech tree in the form of letters. The letters so made, he impressed the reverse way, consecutively, upon a leaf of paper, in little lines of one kind and another.... Thereupon he made, by the addition of letters, explanations for pictures on engraved wood. Of this kind of printing, I myself have seen some stamped block books, the first essays of the art, printed on one side only, with the printed pages facing each other, and not upon both sides of the leaf. Among them was a book in the vernacular written by an unknown author, bearing the title “Spieghel onzer Behoudenis” [Dutch edition of the “Mirror of Salvation,” two pages of the Latin edition of which are here shown].... He subsequently changed the beech-wood letters for those of lead, and these again for letters of tin, because tin was a less flexible material, harder and more durable. To this day may be seen in the very house itself ... some very old wine flagons, which were made from the melting down of the remnants of these very types. The new invention met with favor from the public and ... attracted purchasers from every direction.... He added assistants to his band of workmen, and here may be found the cause of his troubles. Among these workmen was a certain John. Whether or not, as suspicion alleges, he was Faust ... or another of the same name I shall not trouble myself to ascertain. This man, altho bound by oath to the typographic art, when he knew himself to be perfectly skilled in the operation of type setting, in the knowledge of type founding, and in every other detail appertaining to the work, seized the first favorable opportunity ... and flew into the closet of the types, and packed up the instruments used in making them that belonged to his master, and ... immediately after slunk away from the house with the thief. He went first to Amsterdam, thence to Cologne and finally regained Mainz.... Within the space of a year, or about 1442, it is well known that he published, by the aid of the same types which Laurentius had used in Haarlem, the “Doctrinal” of Alexander Gallus ... and also the “Treatises” of Peter, of Spain.... I remember that Nicholas Gallius, the preceptor of my boyhood, a man of tenacious memory, and venerable with gray hairs, narrated these circumstances to me. He, when a boy, had more than once heard Cornelis, an old bookbinder and an underworkman in the same printing office when not an octogenarian and bowed down with years, recite all these details as he had received them from his master.

This is the strongest proof the friends of Coster can present, and it has been thoroughly dissected by investigators representing both sides of the controversy. The weak points of the document appear to be:

(1) The date of the experiment with wood letters in the garden (about 1440) does not leave enough time for completion of the invention of separate metal types and the equipment of a large printing office until the theft which Junius says occurred in 1441.

(2) The date of the theft of 1441 does not reconcile itself with the fact that Gutenberg in 1436 was probably experimenting with his invention at Strassburg.

(3) The claim that a Dutch edition of the “Mirror of Salvation” was printed with separate types cut from wood seems doubtful, because even the best modern machinery has not demonstrated that wood type can be made as accurately as is necessary for arrangement of small types in a massed page. When it is considered that the size of types used on the edition mentioned was about fourteen point, and the lines were printed in alignment, the modern printer is sure to question the accuracy of the assertion.

Four editions, two in Latin and two in Dutch, of the “Mirror of Salvation,” are known to exist, all printed from types except twenty pages of the second edition, which are printed from engraved blocks. They are the work of some early printer of Holland; whether his name was Coster or whether the books were printed before or after 1450 will probably never be ascertained.

One Peter Scriverius in 1628 wrote a new version of the invention in which he says that “In the year 1428, Laurens Coster, then a sheriff of Haarlem, strolled into the Haarlem woods. He took up the branch of an oak-tree, cut a few letters in relief on the wood, and after a while wrapped them up in paper. He then fell asleep, but while he slept, rain descended and soaked the paper. 11Awakened by a clap of thunder, he took up the sheet, and to his astonishment discovered that the rain had transferred to it the impress of the letters,” etc.

Junius had placed the date of Coster’s invention at about 1440; Scriverius put it at 1428. The date was again changed, this time to 1420, by Marcus Boxhorn, who wrote on the subject in 1640.

In 1722 a statue of Coster was erected in Haarlem, but no date was placed upon it.

A “true and rational account of the invention” was published at Haarlem by one Leiz in 1742, which gives in detail the supposed events of Coster’s life as a printer, from the cutting of the wood letters on the tree bark in 1428 to his death in 1467, but does not reveal the source of information.

Gerard Meerman, a learned but impractical writer of Rotterdam, in 1765 published a book, “Origines Typographical,” and comes to the conclusion that typography was invented by Louwerijs Janszoon, known as Laurens Coster, who was sheriff at various times between 1422 and 1434, and who died between 1434 and 1440; he used separate wooden types about 1428 or 1430, and did not (as Junius had claimed) use lead or tin types; he was robbed on Christmas night 1440 by Johann Gensfleisch (elder brother of Johann Gutenberg), who carried the art to Mainz; he printed one edition of the “Mirror” from wooden types.

In the early part of the nineteenth century a scientific society of Holland offered a prize for the best treatise on the subject of the invention and in 1816 Jacob Koning was given the award for his essay, “The Origin, Invention and Development of Printing.” Koning was the first writer on the subject to make researches in the Haarlem archives and in his book he claimed to have carefully collected from the registers, account books, and other official data all the entries that could throw light on the subject, and to have got together all the documentary evidence to be found.

The investigations of Koning, as reported by himself, corroborated some of the details of the stories of those who preceded him, and he found that Louwerijs Janszoon lived at Haarlem from 1370 to 1439, when he died.

For many years the discussion stood as Koning had left it and Coster was universally given equal honors with Gutenberg as the inventor of typography; but for several years previous to 1869 rumors of errors and defects in the Haarlem claim were in circulation in Holland.

Dr. Anton Van der Linde took up the task of investigating these rumors and the results of his labors were given in a series of articles in the Dutch Spectator during 1870. These articles were revised and issued in book form under the title, “The Haarlem Legend of the Invention of Printing.”

Van der Linde showed how Coster’s cause had been bolstered by Koning and others with misrepresentations, evasions and even forgeries, and Holland practically surrendered its claims and altered its school books to meet the new conditions.

The town records revealed no mention of printing in connection with Louwerijs Janszoon, the sheriff, who died in 1439, or with Laurens Janszoon Coster.

Van der Linde went to Germany as librarian of the royal library at Wiesbaden, became Von der Linde and in 1878 published an enlarged edition of his former book under the title “Gutenberg,” in which he argued that Gutenberg was the inventor of typography.

In 1879 J. H. Hessels, who had translated into English Van der Linde’s first book, was asked to write a review of the new book, “Gutenberg,” and in doing this he became so interested in the subject that he began a careful investigation into the question. He afterward declared in the preface of his book, “Gutenberg” (1882). “Had I myself been able to realize beforehand the time, the trouble, and the expense that this Gutenberg study would cost me, I should have abandoned the subject at the outset.” But the work was so infatuating that in 1887 he published another book: “Haarlem, the Birthplace of Printing; not Mentz.”

To demonstrate the fickle workings of the human mind it may be interesting to note that in his book of 1882 Mr. Hessels wrote, “I have never made any thoro examination of the Haarlem question, but such inquiries as I have made have led me to believe that the Haarlem claim cannot be maintained.” Contrast this with the title of his book of 1887: “Haarlem, not Mentz,” and notice his change of base.

While Mr. Hessels had come to believe in Haarlem, Van der Linde’s faith in the cause of Gutenberg was so strong he forsook his native land, and in America Theodore L. De Vinne in his book “The Invention of Printing” (1876) had reasoned out the tangle in a way to satisfy himself and many others that Gutenberg, and not Coster, was the inventor of typography.

It is impossible here to go into detailed discussion of the points at issue, and only because the burden of proof is upon the Holland advocates has so much space been given to Coster.

While there may be some truth in the Coster story, the proofs are weak, and Haarlem claimants do not seem able to agree as to the identity of the man Coster.

Gutenberg, on the contrary, is shown by records too numerous to here mention separately, to have been a real, tangible human being, one who printed with separate metal types, and the probable inventor of the art.

It is believed that Gutenberg was born at Mainz, Germany, about the year 1399. His parents were Frielo Gensfleisch (goose-flesh) and Else Gutenberg (good-hill). The boy Johann took the last name of his mother, in accordance with the German custom of perpetuating a name.

Because of civil strife in Mainz, the Gensfleisch family left that city about 1420 and took up residence presumably at Strassburg.

There is a possibility that typography spent its infant days at Strassburg. Gutenberg lived there in 1439 and was practicing a secret art, which resulted in a lawsuit. The records of the case had lain, with other records of the time, in an old tower, and were not found until about 1740. They were removed to the Library of Strassburg, remaining there until the Franco-Prussian War (1870), when they were destroyed by soldiers.

This suit against Gutenberg was brought by the relatives of Andrew Dritzehen, one of his workmen, whom Gutenberg had agreed to teach certain things connected with the business in which he was engaged. The testimony of the several witnesses includes references to secrets which Gutenberg would not impart to his associates: four pieces lying in a press (which De Vinne claims was a type-mould); lead, melted forms, work connected with printing, etc.

It is argued that Gutenberg could not have printed in such a perfect manner at Mainz in 1455 if he had not devoted many of the years before to perfecting the new art, and for this reason Strassburg may reasonably claim to be the birthplace of typography.

Gutenberg’s greatest misfortune, the seizure by Fust of his printing office and the just completed edition of the famous Forty-Two-Line Bible, furnishes a strong link in the chain of evidence that goes to prove him the inventor of printing.

The story has been often told how Johann Gutenberg, in need of cash to finance his invention, went to Johann Fust, a citizen of Mainz, and obtained a sum of money for which he mortgaged his printing office. This was in 121450. Five years later we find Fust appearing before a public notary in the convent of the Bare-Footed Friars to enforce his claim. Fust evidently caught Gutenberg unawares, for the courts decided against the inventor, and all types, presses and books in the possession of Gutenberg were taken to the house of Johann Fust.

The records of the agreement and lawsuit just mentioned are proof that Johann Gutenberg printed with separate metal types at Mainz, Germany, during the years 1450–1455. While he did not print his name on any of the products of his printing office, there are specimens of Mainz printing such as Indulgences, Donatuses, etc., which corroborative evidence shows to have been done before 1455.

The greatest achievement of Gutenberg, the culmination of his efforts in the new art, was the famous Forty-Two-Line Bible. There are a number of copies of this book in existence, some printed on vellum, some on paper. It consists of almost thirteen hundred pages, about twelve by sixteen inches, two columns to the page, the columns containing for the most part forty-two lines, whence the name by which the book is known. The types in size are equivalent to the present-day twenty-point, and in style are a copy of the book-Gothic letters of the fifteenth century.

The reproduction of an illuminated page of the Bible herewith is less than one-half the size of the original, which is in the British Museum, but will give an idea of the style of treatment accorded what is probably the first type-printed book. The text portion was printed in black ink only. The illuminators put a dab of red on the initial beginning each sentence, and filled all blank spaces with decoration, with which the initials I and P are cleverly blended. The smaller reproduction shows two pages from the copy that was sold for fifty thousand dollars in 1911.

Johann Gutenberg, after his printing outfit was taken by Fust, did not entirely lose heart, but again established himself as a printer, altho he never afterward produced the equal of his great work, the Forty-Two-Line Bible. In 1465 he was appointed a gentleman of the court of the Bishop of Mainz, as a reward either for his invention or for political activity.

Gutenberg died about 1468 and his printing material and equipment went to one Conrad Humery, who had some rights of ownership in them.

Among Gutenberg’s workmen in 1455 was a young man about twenty-five years of age named Peter Schœffer, who previously had copied books while a student at the University of Paris. He was a valued assistant to Gutenberg, and when Fust took over the equipment forfeited by the inventor, Schœffer assumed charge, married Fust’s daughter and became a partner in the business.

Two years later the new firm published a Psalter, which has become, along with Gutenberg’s Bible, one of the great books of historic printerdom. Seven copies are known to exist. The Psalter consists of one hundred and seventy-five vellum leaves nearly square. The Psalms are in types of about forty-point body, twice the size of those used on Gutenberg’s Bible and of a similar style. The features of the Psalter are the large printed two-color initials, generally credited to Schœffer, altho some authorities have declared that they originated with Gutenberg.

This Psalter was the first book with a printed date, the colophon at the end containing “August 14, 1457.”

The portion of a page shown in this connection, being full size and in colors, should convey an idea of the appearance of the Psalter. The four cross lines are for the music notes, which were inserted by hand.

Fust died about 1466 from the plague while at Paris arranging for the sale of books. Schœffer continued to print, and many books came from his presses. The last book he printed, just before his death (about 1502), was, a fourth edition of his Psalter.

The city of Mainz is in the western part of Germany, on the banks of the river Rhine, and even at the present time is heavily fortified. In the year 1462, seven years after Gutenberg’s first Bible was completed, it was the scene of a terrible conflict between two archbishops, Diether and Adolph II., who contended for the office of elector. The elector had a vote in the selection of the king or emperor, and Mainz was one of seven principalities entitled to such an officer.

Diether was the choice of a majority of the citizens of Mainz, but Adolph had the support of the pope in his claims and made war to establish himself in the office. One night in October, 1462, there was an uprising of the followers of Adolph within the city and hundreds of the inhabitants were murdered. The soldiers of Adolph then entered Mainz and set it afire. Most of the citizens fled, and industry and business were paralyzed.

Gutenberg was not affected by these events, as his new shop was outside of the city proper, in the village of Eltville, a short distance away.

The printing office of Fust and Schœffer, however, was burned, and the workmen, fleeing for safety from the distressed city, took up residence in various parts of Europe. Thus was the new art of typography spread and its secrets made common property.

As an introduction to the consideration of the spread of typography, the accompanying table may be of value. The information is as accurate as can be given after carefully consulting numerous authoritative books on the subject. Most writers disagree as to the years in which typography was introduced into many of the cities of Europe, and for that reason in cases where such doubt exists one of the later dates has been chosen for the purpose of this table.

In Germany, before the capture of Mainz, John Mentel at Strassburg and Albrecht Pfister at Bamberg, were printing books by the new process. With this fact as a basis, both Mentel and Pfister were once proclaimed inventors of typography by over-enthusiastic students of printing history.

Of the printers driven from Mainz by the sacking of the city, Ulrich Zell is probably the best known, because of his connection with the Coster-Gutenberg controversy. Zell became rich as a printer and publisher at Cologne, conducting an office there for more than forty years. During all that time he never printed a book in the German language. He had as business competitors twenty-one other master printers, one of whom, Arnold Ter Hoorne, was the first to make use of Arabic numerals.

Gunther Zainer began to practice typography at Augsburg in 1468 and was the first printer in Germany to print a book in Roman characters. He was also one of the first printers to encounter restrictions by labor unions. Zainer illustrated his books with woodcuts, and this the block-printers’ guild objected to. They induced the magistrates to pass a law against typographers using woodcuts, but this law was afterward modified to allow the use of woodcuts when made by regular engravers.

Heinrich Keffer printed at Nuremberg about 1470 under the direction of John Sensenschmidt, who in 1481, at Bamberg, published his famous Missal, printed with large Gothic types of about sixty-point body. Keffer had been a witness for Gutenberg in his law suit of 1455.

Anthony Koburger opened a printing office at Nuremberg in 1473, and later also conducted offices at Basel in Switzerland, and at Lyons in France. Koburger was one of the most successful of the early printers; he had twenty-four presses in operation at Nuremberg alone and is said to have printed twelve editions of the Bible in Latin and one in German.

In Italy the first printing done with separate types was in the year 1465 in the monastery at Subiaco, a village on the outskirts of Rome. The cardinal in charge of the monastery, impressed with the importance of the new art and anxious to have it introduced into Italy, persuaded Conrad Schweinheim and Arnold Pannartz to come from Germany for the purpose. In 1467 these two printers removed to the city proper and there printed more extensively. Many classical works were produced, but five years later they complained that a large portion of the product had not been sold and that they were in distress.

Ulrich Hahn was the first printer in the city of Rome proper, having opened an office there soon after Schweinheim and Pannartz began work at Subiaco.

John de Spira (born in Spire, Germany) was the first typographer at Venice, the Italian city famous for the excellence of its printed books. Setting up a press in 1469, his work was of such quality as to obtain for him exclusive right to print by the new process at Venice. De Spira died in 1470 and the privilege was forfeited.

Nicholas Jenson, who came to Venice in 1470, is known as the originator of the Roman type-face. Schweinheim, Pannartz, Hahn and De Spira, all had used type-faces based upon the letters of Italian scribes, but the types had Gothic characteristics. Nearly all Roman type-faces of the present day trace lineage, as it were, to the types of Jenson.

With the exception of Gutenberg, Fust and Schœffer, and perhaps Aldus, who succeeded him, Jenson is the most conspicuous figure among the early printers. The story of his introduction to the art is interesting: Charles VII., King of France, in the year 1458 decided to send an emissary to Mainz to learn the new art, which was supposed to be a secret, and Jenson, then an engraver and master of the royal mint at Tours, was selected for the mission. Three years later he returned to Paris with a full knowledge of typography, but found the king had died and that his successor was not interested in the matter. This condition of affairs seems to have discouraged Jenson, for he did not begin to print until 1470, and then at Venice, Italy. (A typographical error in a printed date of one of his books makes it read 1461 instead of 1471, and encourages some writers to claim that Jenson was the first Venetian printer.) The death of John de Spira opened the field for other printers in Venice, and Jenson was one of the first to take advantage of it.

Jenson cut but one set of punches for his Roman type-face, the cutting being done so accurately that no changes were afterward necessary. The Roman types, being less decorative and more legible than the Gothic letters of the Germans, allowed the use of capitals for headings. A colophon, the forerunner of the modern title-page, was set by Jenson entirely in capitals with the lines opened up by liberal space. This colophon, which was probably the first page of displayed type composition, is reproduced below.

It is an interesting fact that the books of Jenson do not contain the letters J, U and W, these characters not having been added to the alphabet until some years later. To satisfy a demand he also cut and used a round Gothic face. The product of Jenson’s presses represents the highest attainment in the art of printing. His types were perfect, the print clear and sharp, paper carefully selected, and margins nicely proportioned.

Jenson died in 1481, honored and wealthy. His printing office passed first to an association and then to one whose fame as a printer perhaps surpasses that of Jenson.

Aldus Manutius was a learned Roman, attracted to printing about 1489 by the pleasures it afforded in the publishing of books. He introduced the slanting style of type known as italic, so named in honor of Italy and fashioned after the careful handwriting of Petrarch, an Italian poet. Italic at first consisted only of lower-case 15letters, small upright Roman capitals being used with them. The reproduction below shows this combination and also the peculiar style of inserting a space after the capital letter beginning each line.

Aldus also introduced the innovation of considerably reducing the size of books from the large folio to the convenient octavo. The size of a folio page is about twice that of this one, which is known as a quarto, and an octavo page is half the size of a quarto.

Aldus was the first to suggest the printing of a polyglot Bible. The word polyglot means “many tongues” and here refers to a book giving versions of the same text or subject matter in several languages. The polyglot Bible of Aldus was to have been in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, but got no further than a few specimen pages.

The first polyglot work ever printed was a Psalter of eight columns, each a different translation, from the press of Peter Paul Porrus, at Genoa, Italy, in 1516. This Psalter was the literary work of Augustin Justinian, a Corsican bishop, who later also arranged an entire Bible on similar plans.

Aldus is honored wherever books are known, not only on account of the excellence of his productions, but because of the sincerity of his purpose and his love of printing. In the first book printed by him at Venice he declares for himself and co-workers: “We have determined henceforth to devote all our lives to this good work, and call God to witness that our sincere desire is to do good to mankind.” In the production of classical works Aldus was assisted by many scholar-refugees from Constantinople, which city had been captured by the Turks. Aldus’s fame spread thruout Europe, and many visitors came to Venice to see him. This annoyed him to such an extent that he had a notice placed above the entrance to his printing office which in part read: “Whoever you are that wish to see Aldus, be brief; and when business is finished, go away.” It can thus be seen that the present-day motto cards popular in business offices are not a new idea.

Aldus’s complete name was Aldus Pius Manutius Romanus, the first word of which is abbreviated from Theobaldus.

There were more than two hundred printing offices in Venice before the year 1500 and two million volumes were produced. These figures may surprise the average modern reader, who is not inclined to concede extensive production to the past.

Bernardo Cennini, a goldsmith, introduced typography into Florence, Italy, in the year 1471. It is claimed that he made his tools, cast his types and printed without instruction from German typographers, depending upon verbal reports of the process and examination of printed books. Cennini produced only one book.

Johann Numeister, who had been a pupil of Gutenberg, after the death of his master journeyed toward Rome, but for some reason stopped at the little Italian city of Foligno and began to print there in 1470. He used both Roman and Gothic types.

In Switzerland the new art was first practiced at Basel about 1468 by Bertold Ruppel or Rodt, who had been one of Gutenberg’s workmen. Basel was an important printing center in the days when the art was young, and gave to France its first typographers.

John Froben, who set up a press at Basel in 1491, is perhaps the best known of the printers of that city, and because of his use of the then new italic letters was called the “German Aldus.”

In those days lived the famous Dutch philosopher and theologian Erasmus, one of the brightest minds of Europe. Erasmus, having heard of Froben, came to Basel to arrange for the printing of his books, and thus began a friendship which lasted many years. Erasmus became a guest at the house of Froben, and his presence was a big factor in that printer’s success. Erasmus once said of Froben that he benefited the public more than himself, and predicted that he would leave his heirs more fame than money. (A book of one of the works of Erasmus, printed by Hieronymus Froben, son of John, recently sold for fifteen hundred dollars at a sale in New York.)

In France typography might have been introduced as early as 1461 had not the death of Charles VII. interfered with the plans of Jenson and caused him to go to Venice. As it was, in the year 1470 Ulrich Gering, Martin Crantz and Michel Friburger, three German printers who had been working at Basel, Switzerland, settled at Paris and began to print under the patronage of two members of the University of Sorbonne. The early books of this press were printed from a Roman type-face. The quality of the work of these printers is said not to have been good. Types were defective and presswork deficient, many of the printed letters needing retouching by hand.

Gering became rich and upon his death left much of his fortune to the university within whose walls he had first printed upon coming to Paris.

In order to demonstrate the success of the early printers in decorating their books without the aid of illuminators, a page is reproduced, printed about 1486 by Philip Pigouchet for Simon Vostre, a bookseller of Paris. The decorations were printed from wood blocks, engraved 16in the style of the Gothic period, with stippled backgrounds, and are interesting to the printer because they show early use of the pieced border, a method now familiar.

Henry Estienne settled in Paris in 1502 and was the first of an illustrious family of typographers. The Estiennes flourished until 1664, during that time printing many remarkable books. A grandson of Henry Estienne was the first to apply the system of numbered verses to the entire Bible.

Robert Estienne, a son of Henry, was the best known and most scholarly of the Estiennes. He was patronized and favored by the King of France, and his press may be said to have been the beginning of the celebrated Greek Press of Paris.

Robert Estienne’s ambition, the printing of de-luxe editions of the classics, was his undoing as well as his making. The priests of the Sorbonne, upon the appearance of a polyglot Bible in Hebrew and Greek from the Estienne press, became enraged and Robert had to flee to Geneva, Switzerland, for safety. There was little demand in that city for elaborate books, but Estienne patiently worked there until his death in 1559. His life had been spent in a labor of love, for he had scorned money as a reward for his work.

In the Netherlands typography was not practiced so far as is known until 1473, when a press was erected at Utrecht. While it is supposed that printing was done before that time at Bruges, there is no direct evidence to support the supposition. It is known, however, that Colard Mansion printed at Bruges in 1474, and that he taught typography to William Caxton, with him producing the first book printed in the English language.

There is a book with the date 1472, printed at Antwerp by Van der Goes, but this date is supposed to be a misprint, as in the case of Jenson’s book of 1471.

Christopher Plantin, a Frenchman, who began to print at Antwerp in 1555, gave to that city the renown which it enjoys in the printing world. Plantin printed on a magnificent scale, his luxurious notions extending to the casting of silver types. His printing office was considered one of the ornaments of the city and is today used as a museum for the display of paintings and typographical work. Plantin retained a number of learned men as correctors of his copy and proofs, and the story is told that his proof sheets, after undergoing every possible degree of correction, were hung in some conspicuous place and a reward offered for the detection of errors. Plantin’s greatest work was his polyglot Bible of 1569, a portion of which is reproduced above.

17Louis Elzevir, founder of the family of learned printers of that name, first printed in 1595 at Leyden. The second Louis Elzevir opened an office at Amsterdam in 1640. The product of the Elzevirs was of such quality as to make them famous thruout Europe as printers of the classics, and their books were extensively imitated and counterfeited.

While Haarlem is claimed to have been the birthplace of typography, a book cannot be produced printed in that city with a date earlier than 1483, when Johannes Andriesson had an office there.

In England the name of William Caxton is one to conjure with among typographers, for Caxton was the first to set type in that country, the event taking place about the year 1477. Perhaps the thing that endears Caxton to the hearts of English printers is that he was born in England. The first printers of Italy, Switzerland and France were Germans, but Caxton was English; we have his own words to prove it: “I was born and lerned myn englissh in Kente in the weeld where I doubte not is spoken as brode and rude englissh as it is in ony place in englond.”

Caxton had been apprenticed when a young man to a merchant, and after his master’s death took up residence at Bruges in the Netherlands, with which city England did considerable trading. There he prospered and as governor of the Merchant Adventurers had control over all English and Scotch traders in the Low Countries. The device later used by Caxton for his imprint is supposed to have been copied from some trading mark of the Bruges merchants.

Caxton resigned as governor and entered the service of the Duchess of Burgundy, who encouraged him in literary work. Under her patronage he translated (1469–1471) a “Historie of Troye.” The demand for this work was an incentive for Caxton to learn how to print it. This he did with the assistance of Colard Mansion who had started a printing office at Bruges.

Shortly afterward, Caxton returned to England and set up a press in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey, then on the outskirts of London. The first book with a date printed by him is “The Dictes and Sayinges of the Philosophers,” completed in November, 1477. His type-faces are copies of those of Mansion, who in turn imitated the letters of Dutch copyists. A type-face based on Caxton’s letter is now made by an American foundry.

The product of Caxton’s press during his life is estimated at eighteen thousand pages, nearly all of folio size. Caxton did not print de-luxe editions as did other of the early printers of Europe, but his productions were no less interesting. On his first books the lines were 18not spaced to the full length. This gave to the right side of the page a ragged appearance, as in modern typewritten letters.

Caxton did not devote a separate page to a book title until late in his life, when he printed a title alone in the center of the first page. The reproduction (on the preceding page) of a part of Caxton’s “Fables of Esope” shows how the title was arranged at the page head.

Wynken de Worde, a native of western Germany, was a workman under Caxton and upon the latter’s death, about 1491, succeeded to the business of his master. He continued to print in Caxton’s house for several years, afterward removing to “Fleet-street at the sygn of the Sonne,” in London proper. Old English black-letter, which is now so popular, was used by De Worde to a great extent, and he was the first printer to introduce the Roman letter into England.

Richard Pynson, another of Caxton’s workmen and friend of De Worde, set up a press in Temple Bar, London, about 1492, and printed many useful books.

Richard Grafton is famous as a printer of English Bibles during the troublous times of the Reformation. The church authorities believed it was not good for the people in general to read the Sacred Scriptures, and the Bible, translated into English by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale, and printed anonymously by Richard Grafton at Antwerp, was the object of much concern to the ecclesiastics. The Bishop of London complained that “Some sons of iniquity have craftily translated the Holy Gospel of God into our vulgar English.” After a long imprisonment Tyndale suffered death by strangulation and burning. Grafton was imprisoned in 1540 for printing a large folio Old and New Testament known as the “Great Bible.” This tremendous task of printing was accomplished by Grafton in partnership with Edward Whitechurch at Paris and London.

Shortly after this the prejudice against an English translation was partly overcome, and in 1543 Parliament passed an act allowing the Bible to be read by certain classes, but forbidding women, apprentices, journeymen, husbandmen or laborers to read it privately or openly.

John Daye, who first printed about 1546, was another English typographer to suffer imprisonment on account of activity in the Protestant cause. Many important books were printed by Daye, and in character and accomplishments he has been likened to Plantin who printed during the same period at Antwerp.

The best known of the books printed by Daye is Fox’s “Acts and Monuments,” on the subject of wrongs and persecutions in the days of the Reformation. Dibden says it was “a work of prodigious bulk, expense and labor.”

In Scotland printing was introduced in 1507 at Edinburgh by Androw Myllar, in partnership with Walter Chepman, under a patent granted by King James IV.

In Ireland a prayer book was printed by the new process in 1551 at Dublin by Humphrey Powell.

In North America typography was first practiced in 1540 at Mexico City, Mexico, by John Cromberger.

In the United States, or rather the territory now included under that name, typography was introduced in 1639 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Stephen Daye.

Typography has been an important factor in the development of modern civilization. In the battle for civil and religious liberty, in both Europe and America, the man with the pen and he of the composing-stick have been together on the firing line. With Paul they could well boast that they had been “in perils of waters, in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst.” William Tyndale died at the stake, Richard Grafton and John Daye suffered imprisonment; Robert Estienne became an exile from his own country; Jesse Glover on his way to America found a grave in the waters of the Atlantic; Stephen Daye set type in a wilderness; James Franklin, William Bradford and John Peter Zenger were imprisoned, and Benjamin Franklin suffered hunger and privation.

As ecclesiastical and political conditions in Europe strongly influenced the practice of typography during the days of the American colonies, I will briefly review the events of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that the reader may better understand and appreciate the subject.

In the year 1521, when Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms in Germany, the English people were ardent Roman Catholics. Henry VIII. was King of England and the great Cardinal Wolsey was in high authority. Henry, in the early part of his reign, was exceedingly loyal to the Catholic Church; he published a book in answer to the attacks of Luther, for which the pope gave him the title “Defender of the Faith.” However, when Henry wished to divorce his wife that he could marry Anne Boleyn, the church authorities did not approve. This so angered the king that he took from Wolsey his office and possessions, denied the authority of the pope over the Church of England, and had himself declared the supreme head of that organization. The king was excommunicated by the pope and in return Catholics were persecuted and put to death, and their monasteries, colleges and hospitals broken up. Henry repeatedly changed his religious opinions, and for many years both Catholics and Protestants were put to death for differing with him.

For six years after Henry’s death in 1547, during the reign of his son Edward VI., the Protestants were in power. Then for five years under Mary the Catholics controlled the religious affairs of the country, and the flesh of “heresy” was toasted at the stake.

Elizabeth, who began to rule in 1558, was proud of the appellation “Virgin Queen” and gave the name “Virginia” to the English colony in America. She never quit spinsterhood, but about the year 1570 considerable correspondence was carried on between the English and French courts regarding her 20intended marriage. This resulted in the accumulation of over three hundred letters, which eighty-five years later were collected and printed as a 442-page quarto. (The title-page is reproduced full size as an insert in this chapter.) A poor Puritan named Stubbs and a poor bookseller named Page published a pamphlet against the marriage of Queen Elizabeth to the French king’s brother, and tho the queen herself had said she would never marry, these unfortunate subjects were punished for their audacity by having their right hands cut off.

Under Elizabeth, the “Protestant” religion was permanently established in England, but the enactment of severe laws, such as prohibiting any one attending the ministry of clergymen who were not of the established religion, gave rise to dissenters derisively called Puritans because they wished to establish a form of worship based on the “pure” word of God. It was by these so-called Puritans that printing was introduced into English America. Elizabeth reigned until 1603 and was the last of the Tudor family of sovereigns. The first of the Stuart Kings, James I. (son of Mary Queen of Scots), then ruled until 1625, when he was succeeded by his son Charles I. Charles was a despot and claimed that the people had no right to any part of the government. A civil war resulted, Charles was beheaded (1649) and a form of government known as the Commonwealth was established. Oliver Cromwell shortly afterward became Lord Protector with more power than the king had possessed.

Cromwell was a Puritan, but of the radical element known as Independents, differing from another element of Puritans known as Presbyterians. The Independents have come to be known as Congregationalists. Under Cromwell’s severe Puritanic rule, sculpture and painting were declared as savoring of idolatry and public amusements were sternly put down. However, Cromwell encouraged printing and literature. He was an intimate friend of John Milton, the blind author of “Paradise Lost” (see title-page reproduced on a following page), which book was published in 1667, the year following the Great Fire. Milton was Latin secretary to Cromwell, and published a book which argued against royalty, for which, on the accession of Charles II., he was arrested.

In 1657 (the year before Cromwell died) was published the sixth and last volume of the London Polyglot Bible, compiled by Brian Walton and printed by Thomas Roycroft. In this Bible there were used nine languages: Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Persian and Latin. The work took four years in printing, and was the first book ever published in England by subscription. Cromwell encouraged the undertaking by allowing paper to be imported into England duty free, and by contributing a thousand pounds out of the public money to begin the work.

In those days the Puritans presented a curious contrast to the Royalists. The Puritan, or “Roundhead” as he was also called, wore a cloak of subdued brown or black, a plain wide linen collar, and a cone-shaped hat over closely-cut or long, straight hair. The Royalist, or “Cavalier,” wore clothes of silk or satin, a lace collar, a short cloak over one shoulder, short boots, and a broad-brimmed beaver hat adorned with a plume of feathers.

The period designated as the Restoration, long celebrated by the Church of England, began soon after Cromwell’s death, when in 1660 Charles II. ascended the throne. This period brought with it a reaction from 21the Puritanic conditions that previously existed and all sorts of excesses were practiced. Cromwell’s body was taken out of its grave in Westminster Abbey, hanged on a gallows and beheaded.

It was during the reign of Charles II. (1665) that the Great Plague killed one hundred thousand people in London, a terrible experience followed by one equally terrible the next year: the Great Fire, which consumed thirteen thousand houses.

In 1688 there was another revolution; the people passed a Bill of Rights, and set a new King (William III.) on the throne.

George I., the head of the dynasty now represented in England by King George V., came to the throne in 1714. He was a German, could not speak English, and was the grandfather of George III., the “villain” in the great drama of the American Revolution.

In France the Protestant Huguenots were persecuted by Cardinal Richelieu, whose strong personality dominated King Louis XIII. from 1622 to 1642, and many of them left for America. In 1643 Louis XIV. became King of France and his long reign of seventy-two years is renowned because of the magnificence which found expression in sumptuous buildings, costly libraries, splendidly-bound books, and gorgeous dress.

Cardinal Mazarin, in whose library was later discovered a copy of Gutenberg’s Forty-Two-Line Bible, acted as advisor while Louis XIV. was under age.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries many mechanics in England worked for a shilling a day; their chief food was rye, barley and oats; and one-fifth of the people were paupers. Teachers taught their scholars principally by means of the lash, masters beat their servants and husbands their wives. Superstition was strong and children and grown folks were frightened with lugubrious tales into being “good.” This spirit is especially noticeable in the chap-books that were sold during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A title to one of these chap-books (dated 1721) reads:

A Timely Warning to Rash and Disobedient Children; being a strange and wonderful Relation of a young Gentleman in the Parish of Stepheny in the Suburbs of London, that sold himself to the Devil for twelve years to have the Power to be revenged on his Father and Mother, and how his Time being expired, he lay in a sad and deplorable Condition to the Amazement of all Spectators.

Children in those days were either devilishly bad or ridiculously good. Read this title-page:

The Children’s Example; shewing how one Mrs. Johnson’s Child of Barnet was tempted by the Devil to forsake God and follow the Ways of other Wicked Children, who us’d to Swear, tell lies, and disobey their Parents; How this pretty innocent Child resisting Satan, was Comforted by an Angel from Heaven who warned her of her approaching Death; Together with her dying Speeches desiring young Children not to forsake God, lest Satan should gain a Power over them.

Jack the Giant Killer, the hero of our childhood days, was a favorite subject for chap-book exploitation. There is shown on the following page the title of such a “history.”

Chap-books are poor representatives of the art of typography in Colonial days because they were to the book industry then what reprint books are to the trade in our time. Today it is customary for some publishing houses to buy up old electrotype plates of obsolete editions of dictionaries and other popular books. The plates having already been put to extensive use, are battered 22and worn, and impressions from them cannot be accepted as criterions for determining the quality of modern printing. Neither are the chap-books true printing representatives of their times. The woodcuts, crudely drawn in the first place, were also worn and battered by repeated use.

In the early part of the seventeenth century chap-books were 8vos. (sixteen pages of about 5 × 8 inches), but later were reduced to 12mos. (twelve or twenty-four pages of about 4 × 6½ inches). The stories were condensed to fit these small penny books, which were peddled by chapmen. A chapman is described in a “Dictionarie” of 1611 as “A paultrie Pedlar, who in a long packe, which he carries for the most part open, and hanging from his necke before him hath Almanacks, Bookes of News, or other trifling ware to sell.”

Many of the chap-books of the eighteenth century were printed and published at Aldermary-Church-Yard and Bow-Church-Yard, London, by William and Cluer Dicey, afterward C. Dicey only. The Dicey books were better productions than those of their imitators. It is not possible to determine the exact year in which the majority of chap-books were printed, as many title-pages merely read “Printed and sold in London,” etc., or “Newcastle; printed in this present year,” without the formality of the date.

There were also other cheap productions known as broadsides, single sheets about 12 × 15 inches, in most cases printed broadwise of the paper and on one side only.

On December 21, 1620, there landed at Plymouth Rock, in what was afterward the colony of Massachusetts, a band of Puritans from England. These non-conformists, unable conscientiously to obey the laws of their native country, had come to America to worship God in their own manner. Ten years later Governor Winthrop with one thousand Puritans landed at Charlestown, and in the following year these immigrants began to settle Cambridge and Boston. A building for an academy (now Harvard University) was erected at Cambridge in 1638, and in 1639 Stephen Daye began to print there.

For the establishment of this, the first printing office in what is now the United States, Rev. Jesse Glover, a Puritan minister of some wealth, was chiefly responsible. Himself contributing liberally, he solicited in England and Holland sufficient money to purchase a press and types, and June 7, 1638, entered into a contract with Stephen Daye, a printer, to accompany him to the new country. Rev. Glover (with his family, Stephen Daye and the printing outfit) embarked on a vessel for New England, but on the voyage across the ocean he was taken ill and died.

The press and types having reached Cambridge were finally placed in charge of Stephen Daye and printing was begun in 1639. The first work produced was “The Freeman’s Oath,” probably a single sheet, and the first book (1640) was the “Booke of Psalmes,” familiarly known as the “Bay Psalm Book.” (The reproduction on the first page of this chapter is from one of these books 23preserved in the public library, Forty-Second Street, New York.) This book of Psalms is a revision of Ainsworth’s version of 1612, and was in use in New England for upwards of a century, more than fifty editions having been published. The size of the type-page of the first edition is 3¼ × 6¼ inches.

In quality of presswork this first book of Stephen Daye affords a decided contrast to the Bible of Gutenberg, near which it lies in the cases at the public library. The print on the pages of the Psalm Book is uneven in color and impression, while that on the pages of the Bible is dense-black and firmly and evenly impressed. The reproduction of the title-page of the Psalm Book does the original no injustice. It is difficult to determine whether the shoulders of the border printed the angular lines, or whether these are a part of the design. It is interesting to note how in the word “Whole,” Daye formed a W by combining two Vs, his font of types being one evidently intended for Latin work only.

Daye continued in charge of the printing office for about ten years. Jesse Glover’s widow had married Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard College, and Dunster, for his wife and as president of the college, managed the printing office and received such profits as were made. For some reason Daye in 1649 ceased to be master printer and Dunster appointed Samuel Green to the position. Green had come from England in 1630 with Governor Winthrop, but was not a printer at that time.

The commissioners of the united colonies, who had in charge the propagation of Christianity among the Indians, added another press to the one already at Cambridge, together with types, etc., for the purpose of printing the Bible and other books in the Indian language. In 1662 Green gave to the commissioners the following “account of utensils for Printing belonging to the Corporation:”

The presse with what belongs to it with one tinn pann and two frisketts.

Item two table of Cases of letters with one ode Case.

Item the ffont of letters together with Imperfections that came since.

Item one brasse bed, one Imposing Stone.

Item two barrells of Inke, 3 Chases, 2 composing stickes, one ley brush, 2 candlestickes one for the Case the other for the Presse.

Item the frame and box for the sesteren.

Item the Riglet brasse rules and scabbard the Sponge 1 galley 1 mallett 1 sheeting sticke and furniture for the chases.

Item the letters that came before that were mingled with the colledges.

In 1670 the commissioners presented this equipment to Harvard College. Green continued to print until he was very old, and upon his death in 1702 the printing office was discontinued.

Before 1740 more printing was done in Massachusetts than in all the other colonies. Printing was not introduced into the colony of Virginia until about 1727, principally because the authorities deemed it best to keep the people in ignorance.

Pennsylvania was the second English colony in America in which typography was practiced. The charter of this colony was granted to William Penn in 1681 and in 1687 William Bradford at his printing office “near Philadelphia” printed an almanac. This was a sheet containing the calendar of twelve months (beginning with March and ending with February, as was customary in the seventeenth century). In England, Bradford had worked for a printer who was intimately acquainted with George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers). This influenced Bradford to adopt the principles of that sect and he was among the first to emigrate to Pennsylvania in 1682.

Bradford became involved in a quarrel among the Quakers of Philadelphia and in 1692 was arrested for printing a pamphlet. The sheriff seized a form of type pages to be used as evidence, and it is said that Bradford later secured his release because one of the jurymen in examining the form pushed his cane against it and the types fell to the floor, “pied” as it is technically expressed. The trouble into which Bradford found himself in Philadelphia very likely influenced him in 1693 to leave that city and establish a printing office in New York “at the sign of the Bible” (the site at 81 Pearl Street is now marked by a tablet), his being the first printshop in New York and the only one for thirty years. He was appointed in 1693 official printer to the government. In 1725, when Bradford was sixty-one years old, he began the publication of the first newspaper in New York (the Gazette).

No review of Colonial printing would be complete without an account of Benjamin Franklin, whose birthday (January 17) is each year widely celebrated. Franklin’s father was an Englishman who came to New England about 1685, and Benjamin was born in Boston in 1706, the youngest but two of seventeen children. He came near being a minister, a seaman, a tallow-chandler or a cutler, but love of books caused him finally to be indentured to his brother, James Franklin, who had opened a printing office in Boston. Benjamin was twelve years of age when indentured and was to serve as apprentice until his twenty-first birthday. Making an arrangement with his brother to be allowed to furnish his own board, Franklin provided himself with meals “often no more than a biscuit or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins, or a tart from the pastry cook’s and a glass of water,” using the money thus saved for the purchase of books. In 1721 James Franklin began to print a newspaper (the New England Courant) and Benjamin tells how some of his brother’s friends tried to dissuade him from the undertaking, “one newspaper being, in their judgment, enough for America.” Some articles in this newspaper giving offense to the Assembly, James Franklin was imprisoned for a month, and on his discharge was forbidden to publish the Courant. To evade this order Benjamin’s name was substituted for that of James Franklin as publisher.

A short time afterward (1723) the brothers disagreed, and Benjamin left Boston, coming by ship to New York. Here Franklin offered his services to William Bradford, then the only printer in the city, but he could give him no work. However, he suggested that Franklin go to Philadelphia where Andrew Bradford, his son, had a shop. Franklin did not succeed in getting work with Andrew Bradford, but was more fortunate with Samuel Keimer. The printing house of Keimer, as described by Franklin, consisted of an old damaged press, a small worn-out font of types, and one pair of cases. Here Franklin worked until he left for England to select an equipment for a new printing office to be established by him in Philadelphia. At that time there was no type foundry or press manufactory in the United States. Franklin had been encouraged by Governor Keith with promises of financial assistance, but the trip to London proved a fool’s errand and Franklin went to work in a printing office there as a journeyman, first at the press, later in the composing-room. (It is told that forty years afterward when Franklin was residing in Great Britain, he went into this printing office and with the men there drank “Success to printing.”) He returned to Philadelphia, worked as a foreman for Keimer, and then with a partner, Hugh Meredith, opened a printing office.

One of the first jobs done by the new firm was forty sheets of the history of the Quakers, set in pica and long primer. Franklin tells how he “composed a sheet a day and Meredith worked it off at press; it was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had finished my distribution for the next day’s work. But so determined I was to continue doing a sheet a day that one night, when, having imposed my forms, I thought my day’s work over, one of them by accident was broken and two pages reduced to pi, I immediately distributed and composed it over again before I went to bed.”

In 1732 (for the year 1733) Franklin first published 25“Poor Richard’s Almanack.” For this purpose he used the name of Richard Saunders, an English astrologer. This almanac continued to be published by Franklin for twenty-five years, nearly ten thousand copies being sold annually. The two pages here reproduced are full size, and as it is likely that Franklin gave close attention to the typography it will be interesting to study their arrangement. They are good examples of title-page and tabular composition of Colonial days.

Franklin considered this almanac a proper vehicle for spreading instruction among the common people, and filled the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences. These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, were latter gathered together as a harangue of a wise old man under the title “The Way to Wealth,” and the familiar phrase “As Poor Richard says” is often repeated therein.

In 1748 Franklin took as a partner David Hall, the firm name being Franklin & Hall until 1766, when Hall became sole proprietor.

Quaintness is the chief characteristic of Colonial typography. While the treatment lacks the artistic quality, the refinement, and the dainty finish of the productions of Aldus, Froben and other printers of classics, it has natural simplicity, human interest, and an inexpressible something that makes it attractive to the average printer of today.

The title-page of the “Compleat Ambassador,” showing the actual size of the original, is constructed in a severely plain manner, a style known as the “long and short line,” with catchwords.

The “Midsommer Nights Dreame” title-page is one of the most artistic of Colonial pages, printed when Shakespeare was in the midst of his famous literary labors (1600). To get contrast the compositor alternated lines of roman with lines of italic. The spacing material could not have been accurate, and two capital V’s were used for a W, as in the Daye title-page.

The “Paradise Lost” title-page is a poor specimen of composition and presswork. It was common in Colonial days to surround the type-page with a double rule border, and in this specimen the rules are bent and battered. Printed in 1667, it is a part of the first edition of Milton’s famous book.

The London Times heading is interesting, representing as it does the first number, under the new name, of a newspaper which has since become world-famous. The 26heading mentions that the Times was printed “logographically.” Logotypes (two or three letters cast together) were being experimented with to facilitate type composition, but did not prove successful.

The printers “At the Peacock in the Poultrey near Cornhil” surely were good workmen. The “Pilgrim’s Progress” title-page is a finished bit of printing.

The custom of using decorative border units to make printed books attractive was seemingly practiced thruout Europe. The Italian page of 1776 is an example of this, as is also the French specimen of 1742.

The page from the Colonial book, “Description of Trades,” exhibits the use of the decorative band for dividing subjects, which idea has possibilities in the direction of general job printing that make it worthy of experiment.

Because Caslon types and ornaments were extensively used by Colonial printers I have reproduced on a previous page specimens of types and ornaments from the type-specimen book of W. Caslon & Son, printed in 1764. The Caslon type-face was original in the sense in which the type-face cut by Jenson was original; both had characteristics which identified them with their designers, but both also had a general resemblance to type-faces previously used. The Roman face cut by Caslon bears a marked similarity in its capitals to the type-faces used by Thomas Newcomb on the title-page of the “Compleat Ambassador” (see insert).

There are shown here two specimens of type-faces designed by Bodoni, which were the first of the so-called “modern” romans. The letters reveal a thinning of the lighter lines and a thickening of the heavier lines. The serifs are straight and sharp. The design of the letters was such as to afford the typefounders of the nineteenth century a model upon which to base their efforts at mechanical accuracy in the cutting of type-faces. As a result of the introduction of Bodoni’s new type-face there was not a type foundry in the world in 1805 making the old-style roman type-faces. Giovan Battista (John Baptist) Bodoni was a printer-typefounder of Parma, Italy.

The illustrations in this chapter were in most instances photographed from originals in the New York Public Library, the library of the New York Typothetæ, and the private library of The American Printer.

It was near the close of the nineteenth century when William Morris, the distinguished exponent of strength and simplicity in art, declared that “no good printing has been done since 1550.” According to this statement one hundred years after its invention typography forfeited its place among the esthetic arts, and then for three hundred years remained below the standard set by its inventor. By setting his date at 1550 Morris overlooked the achievements of such eminent printers as Plantin and the Elzevirs, but his arraignment probably had some justification. Posterity had defaulted in its administration of the legacy left by Gutenberg.

The first book printed from separate types, as an example of artistic arrangement and careful workmanship, is a remarkable testimony to the genius of the inventor, especially when the completeness of the invention is compared with the initial productions of later inventors. The first cylinder press and the first linotype machine were both crudely constructed.

Typography attained its highest point toward perfection in Italy in the days of Jenson and Aldus. The Italian style of lettering and decoration differed greatly from the German. There were dignity, refinement, a dainty neatness, in the printed pages of the Venetians, and their type-faces were precise and of a dark-gray tone. The German page, with its bold Gothic letters arranged in masses of black, was characteristic of the religious fidelity and sturdiness of the dwellers on the banks of the Rhine.

As the art of printing spread, the German and Italian styles became mingled, finally resulting during Colonial days in a style of typography which represented the Italian modified by the German just enough to make it interesting. But typography as an art was in a state of deterioration. Even Franklin, called by the printers of America their “Patron Saint,” as a typographer lacked the artistic perception of Aldus and Plantin, altho he was a superior mechanic and a shrewd business man.

The beginning of the nineteenth century found the practice of typography leaning more than ever toward utility and away from art. William Nicholson, an Englishman, had planned a cylinder printing press, and Dr. Kinsley, of Connecticut, had constructed a model of one. A roman type-face on severe, mechanical lines had been designed, and picturesque old romans such as the Caslon were going out of use. Ornaments and borders were being discarded, and the style of typography was getting uninteresting and losing the personal element.

To illustrate this transition there are reproduced four representative title-page arrangements. The first is that of a book on printing published in 1810, containing several lines of the then new roman type-face. In arrangement this page is similar to the 28“Queen Elizabeth” page inserted in the chapter on Colonial typography which is perhaps the source from which came the “long-and-short-line” and “catch-word” style of the average title-page of the nineteenth century. The second example of the group shows a displayed page of 1847 similarly treated, and the third is a reproduction of the title-page of a printer’s manual of 1872. This last-mentioned example is the product of a prominent type foundry of that time and very likely was arranged in the style then accepted as good typography. A more uninteresting page could hardly be conceived, especially in a book intended for printers.

The fourth example is a reproduction of the title-page of MacKellar’s well-known manual, “The American Printer” (now out of print), and presents what to the head of the most prominent American type foundry was probably an ideal arrangement. While revealing the long-and-short-line characteristics of the previously mentioned pages, as a whole the effect is more interesting to printers. In this page may be noticed the trend toward delicate, characterless typography.

A printer, Charles Whittingham, of the Chiswick Press, and a publisher, William Pickering, of London, England, furnish an example of effort made in the middle of the nineteenth century to raise the practice of typography to a more artistic standard. These men, both lovers of books, and artists in temperament, had become intimate friends, and together endeavored to introduce into their publications simplicity, appropriateness, and other artistic qualities.

Desiring to use an old-style face on one of their books, Whittingham inquired of the Caslon type foundry if any of the punches cut by the first William Caslon were in existence. The original punches being recovered after years of disuse, fonts of type were cast and used on a book, “The Diary of Lady Willoughby,” printed in 1844. The title-page of this book is reproduced on a following page, and it will be seen that Whittingham arranged the typography in the Colonial style to harmonize with the literary motive of the book. So well was this done that one has to look twice at the date to satisfy himself it is not 1644. Other typography from these men is not quite so radically different from that of their contemporaries, but is more refined, artistic and tasteful, as may be seen by the “Friends in Council” page further on in this chapter. An innovation by Whittingham was the omission of punctuation marks excepting where needed to make clear the significance of the wording.

Whittingham and Pickering, in the field of artistic typography, were fifty years ahead of their time, as printers in general were not ready to accept the good things offered them. The modern renaissance came later.

Job printing as a distinct department is of modern development. Typographers of old were primarily book and pamphlet printers, and in many cases interest was chiefly centered in publishing newspapers or almanacs; job printing was incidental. This caused similarity in the typography of newspaper, book and job work, a condition 29that today exists only in a small degree. Now these three classes of work are generally separated into departments, each with its own rules, styles and practices, job composition being less restrained by customs and rules than any of the other departments.

Attractiveness is as necessary to the typography of the general job of printing as dignity and legibility are to a law brief, but, endeavoring to get attractiveness into their work, job printers often go astray. They wrongly labor under the impression that to have a job distinctive it must be made freakish. Typography is not good unless based upon art foundations.

Ideas in plenty could have been plucked by the printer of the nineteenth century from old books, especially from those printed for religious organizations, such as the “Book of Common Prayer.” A handsome edition of a book of this kind was printed in London by John Murray in 1814. Each pair of pages is different in decoration and typography, the designs being by “Owen Jones, architect.” The decorative treatment of the page of Psalms reproduced from this book is worthy of study and adaptation.

About the time of the Civil War the job printer was less fettered than ever by the customs of the book printer. While title-pages of books were being composed without ornamentation in severe-looking modern romans, the job printer, influenced by the typefounder, took a liking to fancy typography, for the production of which there were shaded, outlined, rimmed and ornamental letters, in imitation of the work of the copperplate engraver. The business card on the next page, and the “bill of fare” here shown, are specimens of such work.

The changing styles of typography as applied to commercial headings are well set forth by the group on the fifth page of this chapter. The first specimen is a “plain” billhead of 1870. The second is a billhead of 1893, when the compositor was taught to corral all excess wording in an enclosure of rules at the left side of the heading proper. In this specimen there is a touch of ornamentation and a showing of seven different type-faces, one of which is the then conventional script for the date line. The third specimen of the group, a letterhead which won first prize in a contest held in 1897, reveals further development of simple typography. Only one face of type is used (Tudor black) and there is no ornamentation excepting a few periods on each side of the word “The.”

During the nineteenth century no type foundry did more toward influencing the typography of the general job printer than the one known at the time of its absorption by the American Type Founders Company as MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, of Philadelphia. The reproduction of a few clippings from its specimen book of 1885 may recall memories to the printer now of middle age.

The Free Press business card has peculiar interest to the author. It was set and printed by him during dull hours about the year 1889, when his thinking apparatus was controlled by influences from the underworld of typographic practice.

There is another phase of late nineteenth-century typography which should be mentioned. It seems that printers had developed a longing for pictures, color and 30decoration. The process of photo-engraving not having been perfected, job printers shaped brass rule into representations of composing-sticks, printing presses, portraits and architectural designs, and cut tint blocks from patent leather and other material. The skill exhibited by many printers is remarkable; beautiful combinations of tints were produced. It will be difficult for many persons to believe that the “Boston Type Foundry” design (shown on a preceding page) was originally constructed with pieces of brass rule, but such is the fact. It was composed by C. W. L. Jungloew in 1879, and is truly a wonderful example of the work of the printer-architect. The perspective obtained by the designer is a feature. Black, gold, and several tints were used in the printing.

Interesting as are these wonders of the curved-rule period, they are not artistic in the true sense of the word; examples of skill indeed, but not art as it is today understood.

We now come to one of the most interesting periods in the history of printing, a period which may well be termed the “Modern Renaissance.” As was intimated earlier in this chapter, the invention of printing machinery served to lead typography away from art. The printers of that time thought they were doing artistic work when they set their jobs in fancy type-faces, twisted brass rule, or printed in many colors. They did not know that art-printing was simplicity—and something else. The apprentice was taught to set type as was his journeyman instructor before him. Any inspiration he received came from the typefounders, and even that was often interpreted wrongly.

Ten years before the close of the nineteenth century display typography was in a chaotic state so far as art was concerned. Printers who before had not doubted the appropriateness and quality of their own typography, began to realize that it lacked something they were not able to supply, and were ready to follow a Moses who could lead them to better things. Then began to form a curious chain of events that was to have a revolutionary influence upon commercial typography as well as upon commercial art. The first link in this chain was the establishing of the Kelmscott Press in England by William Morris.

William Morris was an artist, a poet, a designer and a craftsman. Partiality for things medieval showed itself early in his life, and before he took up printing he manufactured artistic house furnishings in the ruins of an old abbey.

Years ago if the average American citizen were asked what great thing Benjamin Franklin did, his answer might have been, “He invented the Franklin stove.” The average person of today would connect the name of Morris with the Morris chair. As the application of art principles to typography has caused the compositor to turn from rule curving, to set his lines straight, and to seek paper and ink without luster, so the influence of Morris led to a distaste for gilt and polish and trimmings, and created a demand for subdued colors and straight lines in home furnishings. He who can influence others to think and act in manner different and better than they have done before, is truly great.

Morris lived in a picturesque old manor-house in Kelmscott on the Thames in England, and it was there at the age of fifty-seven years that he began to print. He was not a printer by trade, but before a type was set he studied the art from the beginning. He even learned to make a sheet of paper himself. Kelmscott Press paper was made by hand of fine white linen rags untouched by chemicals. Morris as a handicraftsman had an abhorrence for machinery. It is doubtful if he would have used even a hand-press if results equally good could have been obtained without it.

Morris’s idea seems to have been to take up good typography where the early printers left off. When he wanted types for the new printshop he had enlarged photographs made of the type pages of Jenson, Koburger and other printers of the fifteenth century, and from these photographs designed his type-faces, arranging the details of the letters to conform to his own ideas.

His roman type-face he called “Golden,” probably because of its use on the “Golden Legend.” This type-face was afterward reproduced by foundries in America as Jenson, Kelmscott, and other type-names. Morris was wont to say that he considered the glory of the Roman alphabet was in its capitals, but the glory of the Gothic alphabet was in its lower-case letters. He also designed a type-face characteristic of the Gothic letters used by Koburger and other fifteenth-century printers, and, probably because of its use on the “Historyes of Troye,” called it Troy. This type also was reproduced by type foundries, and printers knew it as Satanick and Tell Text.

The space ordinarily assigned to the page margins Morris covered with foliage decoration in the manner of the early Italian printers, large decorative initials blending with the borders. These initials and borders, with few exceptions, were drawn by himself and engraved upon wood by W. H. Hooper. Compare the right-hand page of the two pages here reproduced with the Venetian specimen in the chapter on “The Spread of Typography.”

One of Morris’s books, an edition of Chaucer, was additionally enriched by upward of a hundred illustrations by Burne-Jones, a noted British artist.

In both England and America Morris was the subject 31of much criticism. Men who as art printers were not fit to touch the hem of his garment were loud in condemnation of his work. Others, more fair, pointed out the excellence of his printing, but claimed that neither his type-faces nor his style of typography would be used many years. This last prediction has proved partly true. The Jenson, or Kelmscott, type-face was used so frequently and so generally that despite its virtues it finally tired the public eye, and is now seldom seen. Satanick, the “Troy” type-face, as made by the American Type Founders Company, is not now displayed in that company’s specimen book.

However, the work of William Morris, tho not accepted as the model for general use, was the cause of a revolution in modern typography. Instead of the delicate and inartistic type-faces and ornamentation of 1890, the contents of type-foundry specimen books revealed strong, handsome, artistic letters and common-sense art borders and ornaments. Morris’s experience as a printer did not cover five years, yet his name will always live because of the good he did typography in the nineteenth century.

Decorative artists were wielding a big influence in the revival taking place in the field of typography. Contemporary with Morris in England was a young artist, Aubrey Beardsley, prominent in a new school of art which saw merit in the flat masses of color as found in the seemingly grotesque designs of the Japanese.

Here in America the work of Morris and Beardsley found favor in the eyes of Will Bradley, who was destined to lead the forces in the typographic revolution on American soil. Bradley had been a country printer; as apprentice, journeyman and foreman he had tasted both the joys and sorrows of practical work in the printshop. However, Bradley was more than printer; he had artistic tendencies which finally influenced him to go to Chicago to study art. There he frequented the art galleries and public libraries, and developed into a poster artist of exceptional merit. There were those who called him the “American Beardsley.”

The year 1896 found Bradley with a studio at Springfield, Mass., where his love of printing influenced him to open a printshop which he called the “Wayside Press.” In May of the same year he issued the first number of “Bradley: His Book,” a unique publication for artists and printers. The type-faces used were Jenson, Caslon and Bradley, and almost every page contained decoration. There were many odd color combinations and Bradley must have stood close to his presses when this first number was printed. Purple-brown and orange, olive-green and orange-brown, orange-yellow and chocolate-brown, purple-red and green-blue—these were some of the color harmonies.

The Christmas number of “Bradley: His Book” was set entirely in Satanick, the American copy of Morris’s “Troy” type, and bright vermilion was nicely contrasted with dense black print.

While Morris was a medievalist, and received his inspiration from the printed books of the fifteenth century, Bradley was inspired by both past and present. Printers know him particularly because of his adaptations of the styles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He demonstrated how Colonial printers could have done their work better. In presenting the Colonial specimens which are here reproduced from the November, 1906, “Bradley: His Book,” Bradley wrote:

Antique and deckle-edge papers enter so largely into the making of books today that printers cannot do better than to study the styles of type-composition that were in vogue when all books were printed upon hand-made papers. A knowledge thus gained should prove of great value, especially in the setting of title-pages.... The only face of Roman type which seems appropriate to antique paper is that which is known as Caslon. When types were fewer, and the craft of printing less abused than it is now, this was the only type used in bookwork; and some of the title-pages in our earlier books are extremely interesting and suggest motifs which may well be carried out today. Taking suggestions from these books we have set a few pages, using as subjects the titles of some modern works. There seems to be an unwritten law which we are supposed to follow in this class of composition; and yet one should be a little brave and daring, purely for the joy of getting out of the old beaten track.

The type foundries helped the spread of the new typography 32by supplying a series of Bradley’s decorations, known as “Wayside Ornaments.”

Bradley discontinued the Wayside Press in 1898 and combined his printshop with that of the University Press at Cambridge, Mass. There a battery of presses was kept busy during the continuance of the extraordinary interest in Bradley booklets.

In 1905 Bradley impaired the strength of his following by attempting for the American Type Founders Company the introduction of a new style of typography, the prominent feature of which was profuse ornamentation. While this effort supplied job printers with many valuable ideas in type arrangement and color treatment, happily the style as a whole was not adopted by printers generally or typographic conditions might have become as unfortunate as they were previous to 1890.

Frank B. Berry, associated with Bradley during his engagement with the American Type Founders Company, tells in these words of the construction of a thirty-two-page pamphlet of specimens entitled “The Green Book of Spring”: “Starting in on this about half-past ten one morning Bradley made up a dummy, prepared the copy and laid out the work—specifying the size and style of type to be used, the form of display and designating the exact position of each ornament with the required spacing. This was in effect practically furnishing reprint copy for the compositors. Then, to ‘give good measure,’ as he expressed it, copy was prepared for the cover, and the work was ready for the printers before half-past one.”

In the few years succeeding the establishment of the Wayside Press, Bradley’s style of typography was closely followed by many printers, and all the printshops of America were more or less influenced by it, but at this date his ideas and Morris’s ideas are merged more or less with those of De Vinne, Jacobi, Updike, Rogers, Cleland, Benton, Kimball, Goudy, Goodhue, Winchell and others. From Germany, too, have lately come suggestions in decoration that are visibly influencing general typography.

In recent years Bradley devoted his talents to the make-up of magazine pages. His characteristic decoration has added interest to the text sections of several leading magazines. He dictated the make-up and drew the cover design and department headings for the twenty-fifth anniversary number of The American Printer issued July, 1910.

This versatile artist-printer also accomplished the unique task of applying business and industrial methods to the making and selling of art work. He had a staff of working artists, one of whom acted as foreman. Bradley had a book in which he pasted his sketches of decorative borders, ornaments and illustrations. These were classified and numbered, and when a design was to be drawn he gave instructions to the working artist indicating which sketches were to be worked up. In this manner he eliminated the manual labor so far as he was concerned and was able to accomplish much more than if he had attempted to do everything himself. He also planned a series of decorative units and illustrations and offered a quick art-service to advertisers and printers.

Fred W. Goudy, who designed such type-faces as Pabst, Powell, Forum, Kennerley and Goudy Old Style, has influenced printing styles in the direction of classic effects. Goudy as a student of Roman architecture and letter-carving has dignified the printing industry and enriched typographic art.

This lesson would not be complete without a tribute to the work of Theodore L. De Vinne, who had the distinction of being the only printer but one in America to receive a college degree for accomplishments as a printer.

De Vinne’s introduction to typography was as an 33apprentice in a country printshop. He went to New York in 1847 and worked at the case and press in several offices before accepting a position as job compositor with Francis Hart. Upon the death of Mr. Hart in 1877, Mr. De Vinne took charge of the business, which is now known as the De Vinne Press.

As a writer on printing subjects, perhaps his greatest work is “The Invention of Printing,” published in 1876. I have examined and read most of the books on the subject of the invention, and De Vinne’s book is the most reasonable, fair and understandable of all.

De Vinne had always been an exponent of the sane, conservative and dignified in typography. The work of his shop was precise, exact and thoro. While giving credit to Morris and Bradley for their accomplishments, he had little sympathy for the styles of either. De Vinne properly claimed that a writer’s words are of more importance than the decoration of a designer. Morris intended his books for the shelves of the book collector; De Vinne looked upon a book as something to be read. However, there need be no conflict between the styles of Morris, De Vinne and Bradley. The typographer should learn to discriminate, to choose wisely when selecting a style for a book or a piece of job work. For editions de luxe in limited numbers, and for booklets on art or literary subjects, the Morris style is appropriate. For books on scientific or legal subjects, and for booklets of conservative and dignified nature, there is nothing better than the De Vinne style. For booklets which are to attract attention and for job work that is to be distinctive, Bradley shows the way.

With De Vinne beckoning to us from the point of conservatism and Bradley from the point of radicalism, the typographer anxious to do work properly must decide for himself how to treat it. I have seen a jeweler’s booklet cover so filled with ornamentation by Bradley that it was almost impossible to read the wording, and I have also seen a children’s Bible typographically treated by the De Vinne company in a style as severe as if it were a book of legislative acts.

De Vinne had always been a leader in the perfecting of modern methods. He was one of the pioneers in the use of dry paper and hard press-packing, and gave much thought to modern type-faces. The type-face known as Century was designed after his suggestions as a model roman letter.

De Vinne did much in persuading printers to group the wording of title-pages instead of equally separating the type lines as was done in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Charles T. Jacobi, of the Chiswick Press, London, as an instructor and writer on printing subjects has done much for typography in England. He is not wedded to a particular style of typography, but advocates the adaptation of any style that is good when by so doing clients are pleased and the principles of art are not violated. The title-page reproduced in this connection is unusual in arrangement. The type groups and the device are all squared and their angularity is enhanced by the exclusive use of capitals. Realizing that a page or design is defective if it presents the appearance of disjointed sections, Mr. Jacobi has avoided such results in this instance by arranging the page in the form of a letter Z.

34With this chapter the history of typography is brought down to the twentieth century. The modern typographer has great responsibilities. Upon him depends the solution of the problem whether or not our beloved calling is to be ranked with the esthetic arts. Shall the product of the village printer be only of the standard of that of the village blacksmith? Every typographer, regardless of the nature of the work that is his to do, should cultivate a love for the artistic and enlarge his knowledge of the things that make for good printing. The chapters that follow will help to this end.

Because printing as now practiced is in a great degree dependent upon principles and styles developed during the early days of the art, the student should not neglect carefully to read and digest the historical facts and reproductions that have been presented. Too many typographers underrate the value of a knowledge of history. “I do not care what printers of old did; I want to know what the printer of tomorrow is going to do.” This is almost a literal quotation of the remark of a printer who prides himself on his progressiveness, and he is only one of many who imagine that to be up-to-date it is sufficient to use new type-faces, ornaments and borders, caring little if the resulting jobs lack appropriateness, harmony, color, tone, and other elements that are essential to perfect typography.

He who labors without a knowledge of history is much like the young man who started to work on a job press. He was allowed to make ready a form, and after a while the pressman went over and examined the work. On the back of the form he found something that looked like an underlay, but could discover no reason for its use. Mystified, he inquired what it was all about, and was told that the apprentice was doing only what he had seen the pressman often do before—cut out several pieces of paper and place them under the form. It had never occurred to the young man to ask why this was done. Thus it may be with the typographer. He arranges a job of type composition in the style of something good he has seen, but fails to get the quality of the original because he does not comprehend just what has served to produce that quality.

Morris was a student of ancient printing. His thoughts were back in the fifteenth century with Jenson, Aldus and Koburger, and when he began to print, he printed understandingly. There was a well-defined plan, and there was harmony in ornament, type, ink and paper. When the “up-to-date” printer began to imitate Morris he did it with the same degree of comprehension possessed by the young man who made the “underlay.”

Will Bradley would not today be as famous as he is in printing circles if he had labored under the false idea that it was useless to know history. Bradley knows printing history and loves old books, and this knowledge and affection are expressed in his work. The printer who succeeds is the one who looks upon all knowledge as valuable and has a good reason for everything he does.

How does the work of the typographer of the twentieth century compare with productions of the past? In the belief of some the good typographer, like the good Indian, is dead. The truth is that much of the printing done during the first four hundred years was not well done. While the same proportionate result still prevails, the ancient did not have the excuse of the modern—lack of time; nor has the modern the excuse of the ancient—lack of facilities. However, while poor work in any century or any industry is explainable, it is not excusable.

Someone said, “The man who attained his ambition did not aim high enough.” Perfection is not attainable, but it should be the goal in our race. Many typographers are doing good work, altho each is doing it differently. No one is producing perfect typography; but when perfection is the pacemaker no result can be commonplace.

The good typographers of the past had the spirit of the master craftsman and their product was inspired. The modern printer to succeed needs only the inspiration that comes of study, hard work and love of his trade.

Inspired work, however, is generally the result of preparation.

Artists and advertising men realize the necessity of careful preparation for the process of printing, but typographers as a class evidently do not. If they did they would do even better work and make bigger profits possible. Every printshop should have a “layout” man.

In spite of the fact that much good printing is done today, fully nine-tenths of the product is partially unsatisfactory because of lack of preparation. When a business man decides to erect an office building he does not immediately go to a building contractor and tell him to build it. He first consults an architectural engineer, examines drawings and exchanges opinions, and when the building contractor starts his work everything has been planned and specified.

Should printing be done in a less thoro manner? Is not the making of a book, catalog or business card each proportionately as important and as well entitled to proper attention as the larger undertaking? Good typography cannot be produced if preparation is slighted.

Quality printing is not accidental. Shops famed for the artistic excellence of their product have maintained their “shop style” despite changes in the force of workmen and executives, and this individuality, or “shop style,” as it is termed, has been obtained and retained only because the copy has been carefully prepared and the work has been intelligently laid out by some qualified person (artist, ad-writer or typographer) who understands shop preferences in the matter of style. It is the “institutional idea.”

In printshops extensive enough to allow of the expense, one or more layout men should be employed, and in the smaller concerns the head job compositor or foreman could do the work. Solicitors, when artistically fitted, could in special cases lay out their own jobs of printing, as personal contact with the customer peculiarly fits them to do it satisfactorily. The important thing, anyway, is to please the customer. While the art side of the practice of typography is important, it is not all important. Typography is also a business.

If the customer’s tastes and prejudices were ascertained beforehand, many of the changes now made after jobs are in type, frequently causing inharmonious arrangements, could be avoided. The average printer rarely parallels the experiences of a few fortunate printing concerns which, 36when receiving an order for a booklet or catalog, are told the amount of the appropriation and given carte blanche.

Orders for much of the better class of work are obtained thru “dummies” submitted by printers or solicitors. The customer advises a certain number of such persons that he is in the market for a booklet and would like to receive suggestions. Each competitor prepares a “dummy” on the stock and in the binding intended for the completed booklet. The cover design is roughly sketched or otherwise indicated and the inside pages prepared to represent the finished job.

Let us imagine ourselves in a printshop of medium size, which cannot afford the regular services of an artist. From the composing-room force take the most artistic and practical job compositor and install him at a desk. If there is not sufficient desk work to occupy his full time, arrange with him to fill in spare time at the case. In selecting a man for the position it should be remembered that few typographers have qualifications combining artistic perception and thoro workmanship. It is in a great measure true that a nervous, artistic temperament unfits a typographer for thoro, finished work at the case or stone, while on the contrary, a calm, precise, methodical disposition is often accompanied by lack of imagination. 37Each workman should have opportunity to do that which he can do best. He of the artistic temperament should lay out the jobs, and he of the mechanical turn of mind should construct them.

The proprietor or other person in authority should discuss with the layout man the subject of shop style in typographical arrangement. The matter of type equipment should also be gone over, as nothing hinders the layout man so much as to be compelled to use type-faces selected by another having ideas widely different. It is important that the type equipment be appropriate and sufficient for the class of work done. An equipment of a half dozen harmonizing faces of type is far better than one of two dozen ill-assorted faces. Good typography is to a large extent dependent upon the type-faces used.

The layout man should make a study of the personality and tastes of a customer. He should meet all such that come into the office, and arrange to call once upon each of the regular customers. He must keep in close touch with conditions in the composing-room, so that in the discharge of his duties he does not call for type-faces already set out of the cases, or not a part of the equipment.

The mechanic and the artist, to do satisfactory work, must have a certain working outfit. The layout man is no exception; while he could perhaps manage with only a lead pencil and foot rule, it would be foolish to do so. His work will be expedited if he has an assortment of good crayons; hard, medium and soft lead pencils; a pair of shears, a T-square, a gelatine triangle, a type-line gage, a table for giving the number of words to an inch in the various size type bodies; and a library of books and periodicals on printing, especially of those showing examples of type designs. To provide him also with a set of water colors, a jar of Chinese white, a bottle of gold paint, a bottle of india ink and several brushes would not be extravagance.

It would be economical and wise if several sample sheets of each kind of stock were kept near his desk in a portfolio or convenient drawer. Book papers could be cut in quarters, cover papers in halves, and cardboard in various convenient sizes, all ready to be used at an instant’s notice. Several each of ruled headings, cut cards and other standard goods should also be included. In laying out jobs, especially large runs, he should make them of such size as will cut from the sheet with little or no waste. If an order is to be rushed, he should ascertain if the stock may be had without delay.

For an example of the workings of the layout system we will suppose that the principal of a local business college has brought in typewritten copy of about a thousand words to be made into a small booklet. A little questioning brings out the information that the customer desires something attractive, refined, and of good quality. He does not want a cheap job, and neither has he money to spend upon expensive de luxe booklets.

The layout man looks over his sample papers and finds that there is on hand a ten-cent white antique paper 25 × 38 inches in size. Taking a quarter sheet he folds it repeatedly until the leaf appears to be about the proper size. Measuring it he finds it to be 4¾ × 6¼ inches. The leaf is then trimmed to 4⅜ × 5⅞ inches (thus allowance should always be made for trimming the edges after binding).

For the cover the layout man selects from his samples a medium gray antique stock of good quality. The cover stock should harmonize in finish with the paper on the inside. In this instance an antique finished stock is selected to cover the antique finished paper on the inside. Many are the booklets that would have been improved by attention to this rule of harmony. However, a rough finished cover stock and a smooth inside paper is not as inartistic a combination as a smooth cover stock and a rough inside paper.

The cover stock selected in this instance is 20 × 25 inches in size, and an eighth of this sheet folded once gives a leaf 5 × 6¼ inches. Deciding to have the cover lap three-sixteenths of an inch over the edges of the inside leaves, it is trimmed to 4⁹⁄16 × 6¼ inches.

On one of the inside leaves a page is penciled off, the layout man judging how much of the paper should be covered by print. For cheap work it is generally necessary to crowd the matter into the least possible number of pages, and in such case narrow margins are allowed. For the better quality of work, liberal margins are necessary to proper results. A page should set toward the top and binding edges, the margins at these places being each about the same. The margin at the right edge should be a little more than at the top and back, and the margin at the bottom should be a little more than at the right edge. For the booklet now supposed to be in course of preparation, 2¾ × 4 inches has been determined as the proper size of the type-page. Each page thus requires eleven square inches of type-matter. The layout man refers to the table (Example 7) which gives the number of words to a square inch and ascertains that eleven square inches of ten-point type, the lines separated by two-point leads, should accommodate one hundred and seventy-six words. Multiplying this number by six, allowing two pages at the front of the booklet for the title, etc., he finds the booklet will take 1,056 words, about the number of words in the copy supplied.

For a booklet of this kind the type should be no smaller than ten-point. Instead of stinting margins and sacrificing legibility, as is often done in endeavoring to force copy into a limited number of pages, additional leaves should be added.

The cover and inside papers having been prepared in the proper size and number of leaves, the dummy is stitched with wire or sewed with silk floss as may be desired. The arrangements of the title-page, the first text-page and a page entirely text matter are indicated in proper position by means of pencil and crayon; or for booklets of a large number of pages it is well to set the first text-page in type and paste a proof of it in the dummy, getting by this means the customer’s approval of both type-face and general effect.

The appearance of the printed page may be anticipated by pasting in position a type-page cut from another booklet already printed. (Examples 2 and 3.) In a shop where much booklet work is done, it would be a convenience to the layout man if a number of specimen pages, set in the available body type (both solid and leaded), were printed for use in preparing dummies. These specimen pages should be about 5½ × 7 inches, a size that would make them usable for most purposes.

The cover arrangement was sketched on the gray stock 39(Example 1), the border being represented by the gray lines of a hard lead pencil. The type line was indicated by means of a soft black lead pencil and an orange crayon. Ornaments are not specified because they are better omitted on booklets where dignity is the principal feature.

The dummy booklet thus completed is submitted to the customer and when approved goes to the workrooms with the copy. The compositor, make-up man, stockman, pressman and binder have no excuse for any misunderstanding, as, generally speaking, they have merely to duplicate the dummy. The labor of the estimate man, too, is lessened, as the dummy booklet affords a substantial basis upon which to figure the cost.

The plan of making a dummy booklet, just explained, can be adapted to many jobs, but of course it should be varied to suit special requirements.

In cases of periodicals and voluminous catalogs, dummy sheets should be printed with the outlines of the page indicated by light-faced rule. With such sheets the layout man is enabled quickly to paste in position prints of the illustrations and text matter from the galley proofs. Getting his instructions in such methodical manner the make-up man can do his work without confusion of orders, and the proofreader’s task is made easy.

When illustrations are provided to be incorporated in the text matter there is more or less trouble in making up the pages. To center all illustrations so as to avoid changing the width of the type lines is easy but not always artistic. It is economical to have plates made the full width of type matter, but the printer is seldom consulted until after the plates are made. However, various sizes of illustrations may be attractively grouped on facing pages and the type-matter filled in around them. This method may appear difficult because the text matter is often composed on machines; but it is not difficult if prepared in this manner: Take the prepared body-type sheets, cut them to the required page size, paste them to the dummy sheets, and upon the pages of text matter thus presented fasten the prints of the illustrations in proper positions. The body-type sheets need not be used on pages for which there are no illustrations; in such instances merely the number of lines to a page is ascertained. Example 4-a demonstrates how the print of the illustration is placed over the body-type page, and the “step” shape of the pencil lines shows how the boundaries of the type lines are made to fit the outline of the illustration. The length of type lines should always be ascertained with the pica (twelve points) as the unit of measurement.

Supposing Examples 2, 3 and 4 to be dummies of pages, the composition of which is to be done on the linotype or monotype machine, the layout man with his pica measure starts at the initial letter T and measures and counts the lines, noting the results in the margins. (See Example 4-a. The page as shown is slightly reduced, hence the lines do not measure as set forth.) The figures are copied from the margins onto a slip and will then appear as shown in Example 4-b.

This plan emphasizes the necessity of a layout man as a member of the executive staff in the modern printshop. It may be a simple procedure to reset run-around matter at the moment it is needed by the make-up man, but it is an expensive habit.

The average stationery job is sometimes given scant attention in the larger printshops where long runs on cylinder presses overshadow it in importance. This condition leads to unsatisfactory results and the customer is the sufferer; his stationery as a whole is likely to be not only inartistic but a patchwork of typographic styles and arrangements. To illustrate this: A dealer in artists’ materials orders at various times letterheads, business cards and package labels, and the copy is sent to the workrooms with no instructions about style. Assuming that a different compositor gets each order, the jobs are composed as shown in Examples 8, 9 and 10. These specimens 40are above the average in arrangement, but are faulty in that they have no relation to each other in appearance; have nothing distinctive in their typography that identifies the business card with the letterhead or the label.

How different the results had an artistic layout man prepared each order before it was given to the compositor. Examples 11, 12 and 13, roughly sketched with pencil and crayon, demonstrate what could have been done. With stationery thus harmoniously treated a business house would be given credit for individuality and progressiveness.

In a printshop doing a good class of work (every printshop should endeavor to do that) the layout man ought to make a study of color harmony. Not that it is necessary for him to attend an art school or devote most of his time and attention to experimenting with prisms and light rays; charts and tables which help to solve the color problem are easily obtainable. After a little study and practice he will learn that while red, yellow and blue (the primary colors) harmonize with each other, mixtures of two or all three give shades that are more pleasing. Olive-green (an art shade) substituted for blue, in combination with orange, produces an artistic blend in place of the gaudiness which otherwise would prevail. This because olive-green is a mixture of blue and orange; a relationship in color composition is established and contrast lessened.

A black page increases in interest with the addition of a touch of red, and for this purpose vermilion is recommended. The vermilion shade of red is approximated by mixing white with orange-red.

The colored crayons with which the layout man should be supplied are exceedingly useful in determining color combinations. The eye is a reliable guide in this matter, if it is carefully trained to recognize color harmonies. It should be easy to distinguish the right from the wrong color treatment in Examples 5 and 6. The colder color should always predominate; backgrounds of bright red and bright yellow are difficult to harmonize with any color of ink excepting black.

From the insert (Examples 16 and 17) will be seen how a color combination may be roughly sketched on the actual stock to be used and the finished result indicated without setting a line of type or inking a roller.

When the page is set in type it is well to have the proofs in the colors and on the stock to be used, but it is unnecessary to separate the design into several forms to do so. For a job such as Example 15, for instance, two proofs may be pulled, one in black and one in orange, and the initial cut out of the sheet printed in orange and pasted in position on the sheet printed in black. Another and a more satisfactory way is to ink the entire page with black, then clean the black from the initials, and ink them with orange by means of a finger. It may be relevant to suggest that the human skin is ideal for inking purposes, and that a printer’s composition roller is an imitation of its qualities.

The layout man, in addition to the study of ink harmony, should learn to blend colors and tints of paper stock. He should know that a buff or cream inside paper reflects the color of a yellow-brown cover stock, and hence makes a prettier combination than white inside paper and brown cover stock. Another important point is the color blending of a tipped-on illustration and the stock acting as a background. The prevailing shade in a color illustration should be matched by the background or by a surrounding border, or by both.

When laying out advertisements or other display pages the size of the type-face should be written in the margin (Example 14). Practice will enable the layout man intuitively to approximate the size needed.

In music there is that which the Germans call “Leit-motif”—the guiding theme in the construction or interpretation of musical compositions. The “Leit-motif” finds a parallel in the central idea or motive governing the composition of a building, a painting, a book or a job of printing. If Gothic is selected as the style of architecture for a building, every detail from the arches to the smallest bit of ornamentation is kept in harmony with the central idea of construction. If the building is to be Colonial, every detail is made appropriate to the Colonial motive.

The person is legion who undervalues the importance of harmony and appropriateness. Houses are furnished without regard to a general plan and furniture is added because it strikes the fancy at the moment of purchase. A Morris chair in dull-finished wood, a Louis XV table with dainty curves and gilt luster, and a mahogany or ebony piano case are gathered in motley discord on an oriental rug. And when this same person has printing done, or does it himself, there is again revealed an utter disregard for the things that make for harmony.

What is appropriate? There are times when it is difficult to give an unprejudiced answer, especially when an idealistic art interpretation of the appropriate is combatted by the homely reasoning of a tiller of the soil. As a finishing touch to the classic architecture of the agricultural building at Washington the words Fructus, Cereales, Forestes and Flores were carved in suitable places on the structure. The secretary of agriculture noticed the Latin words and forthwith ordered the architect to have them recarved in the English—Fruits, Grains, Woods and Flowers. Now there are those who say the words as modified suggest a sign on a country store. The architect probably reasons that the words as originally carved were purely decorative, and in their English form are not only unnecessary but are about as poetic as a page of stock quotations in a newspaper or a package of little pig sausages.

It requires a discriminating judgment to distinguish between the appropriate and inappropriate. The plain people of one of the new sections of New York City were astounded recently to find the street signs bearing such names as Socrates, Horatius, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Pericles and Seleucus. Names such as Wall Street, Broadway, Bowery and Fifth Avenue are unobjectionable, but Seleucus Street and Pericles Street—!

Typographers frequently go wrong in the use of the old Roman V. The V as part of the words PVBLIC LIBRARY on a stone building excites no comment; it seems appropriate and in good taste; but as part of the words PVRE MILK on a grocer’s letterhead it tempts the risibility in our natures. After all, good judgment is one of the most valuable assets a man can possess.

Harmonious and appropriate results in printing are brought about by discreet selection and use of these three elements: type, ink, paper. It is one thing to ink the type and pull an impression on paper, and it is another thing to do it properly. It makes a difference what type is used, what ink is used, and what paper is used. There are hundreds of type-faces, many colors and qualities of inks, and a variety of finishes and qualities of papers.

As to type-faces: Printers of law briefs and legal blanks need the formal, legible modern romans. Printers making a specialty of commercial stationery, wedding invitations and calling cards need scripts and engravers’ romans. Printers whose chief product is high-class announcements and booklets cannot do without old-style romans, italics and text faces. When everything in printing from the diminutive calling card to the massive 42catalog is solicited many styles of type-faces are needed.

As to inks: There are inks ground in strong varnish for bond papers, inks ground in soft varnish for coated papers, and heavy opaque inks for dark cover papers, and it makes a deal of difference if they are not used appropriately. And then, in the matter of harmony of colors there is a subject for much study. The wise printer will use good black inks and enliven his jobs with mere touches of orange or vermilion. Black and orange are always pleasing in combination and look well on most papers. There are pitfalls in the use of numerous colors, and until the subject of color harmony is understood by the printer he will wisely adhere to black and orange.

As to papers: Wove and laid antique papers, white and buff tinted, are appropriate for announcements and booklets in combination with old-style type-faces and black and orange inks. Dainty papers of linen finish in combination with delicate engravers’ type-faces, are appropriate for milliners, florists, jewelers and others catering to the esthetic tastes of women. Dull-finished coated papers are considered more artistic than highly enameled ones, and there are those who prefer it as being more restful to the eyes.

It is a stupendous undertaking, in face of the multitudinous elements that are part of the production of printed work to point out a path that will lead to good typography. There are many printers doing good work and each of them has probably arrived at his point of attainment by a different route. There is no royal road to learning. The student may be assisted, but whether he succeeds depends to a great degree upon himself. He must have an open mind, good judgment, and a liking for simplicity.

Simplicity is synonymous with good typography and its path is a straight and narrow one. He who would do worth-while typography must decide wisely when accepting the good things offered by his friends, the paper man, type man and ink man. They are generous in their offerings and willingly assist the doubting one in deciding; but confidence in his own judgment is a necessary qualification for the typographer who would attain success.

The ideal printshop is that one which contains only harmonious type-faces, ink colors and paper stock. This ideal condition being impossible except in a small shop, the best alternative is to have all type-faces as nearly harmonious as possible. It would be wise to build upon the body type as a foundation. Choose a body face that will be suitable for most purposes, and then select a series or family of display types that harmonize with it. If Caslon Old Style is chosen as the body letter, Caslon bold, Caslon italic and Caslon text will afford variety in display while retaining harmony. (Of course the large display sizes of the Caslon Old Style should be included.) The Cheltenham family probably provides the greatest variety of harmonizing faces. Scotch Roman is a dignified and legible letter, and supplemented by its italic and the larger display sizes is a satisfactory face for many purposes. Old Style Antique is a useful letter where a black tone is desired and is pleasing in its original form. There are many artistic letters now to be had that give the effect of hand-lettering, which are admirable for distinctive advertising literature.

While harmony of type-faces is essential, yet a certain amount of contrast is desirable. At one time it was customary to alternate a line of capitals with one of lower-case. This arrangement gave contrast, but not harmony. The best results are obtained by the use of either all capitals or all lower-case. As explained in the chapter “When Books Were Written,” our alphabet in its original Roman form consisted of capital letters only. Lower-case letters, also known as minuscules, are the result of evolution, and in form differ materially from the capitals. Custom decrees that a capital letter be used to begin an important word otherwise in lower-case, but with this exception either kind is better used alone.

Example 19 illustrates harmonious combinations of type-faces and borders and also presents several incongruous features.

Section A is an all-capital scheme enclosed in a border of heavy and light rule. A border such as this owes its origin to the panels used by the Romans to surround inscriptions on stone, and as these inscriptions were in capital letters only, the appropriateness of the treatment is manifest. As the letter is also formed of heavy and light strokes the harmony is enhanced.

In section B there is harmony from both the historic 44and artistic viewpoints. The black text face, representing as it does the direct result of the evolution from capital letters, is appropriately used only in its lower-case form. The use together of text capitals is objected to on the ground of illegibility. This black text face (correctly called Gothic) is historically associated with ecclesiastical printing, and the border, consisting of pointed crosses of black tone, blends with the pointed black letters of the type-face.

Section C shows a plain letter of modern cut known erroneously as gothic. Containing no serifs, it lacks a feature which has always been considered necessary to beauty in type-faces. As a harmonious border for this face there is nothing better than a plain rule of the width of the type strokes.

The next three panels demonstrate such harmony as may exist between type-faces of different series:

D.—This panel shows Caslon bold in combination with Caslon roman, and demonstrates the close harmony existing between type-faces of the same family.

E.—Another demonstration of the harmony of the family types.

F.—Harmonious, to a certain extent.

The type and rule in the next panel do not harmonize for these reasons:

G.—The border is too black and square in form. Italic, because of the slant of its letters, looks better not surrounded by a border, but when one is used it should be light and contain some of the characteristics of the italic.

In all cases where ornamental borders are used more finished results are obtained if a rule separates the border from the type, as in Section B.

The next two panels present the “horrible examples,” which are defective for these reasons:

H.—The type-face of the upper group has nothing in common with that of the lower group. That of the upper group is a distinctive old-style roman, with serifs, and is set in lower-case, while that of the lower group is a plain black modern letter, without serifs, and is set in capitals. The main display should never be lighter in tone than the less important type matter.

I fails to harmonize because the type-face of the lower group is slightly extended and the one of the upper group is condensed. The shape of the letters of a type-face should conform to the shape of the page, and so far as possible to the shape of the companion letter, when one is used. Condensed letters should be avoided except for pages that are long and narrow, and an extended letter should not be used except on a wide page.

There are more typographic sins committed thru violation of the laws of appropriateness than in any other way. In this regard it would not be difficult to make out cases against the best of typographers, whose sins are washed away by good work in other respects. As in architecture, where one part of a building bears relation to all other parts, so in typography there should be a motive that blends all elements in serving one well-defined purpose. The phrase “Is it appropriate?” prominently displayed above the type cabinets, over the presses, in the stock-room, and over the layout man’s desk, would help to keep in mind this important requirement.

An architectural motive was suggested by the copy for Example 20, and type-face and decorative border were selected that the motive should be emphasized. The architecture of the Romans was frequently embellished with inscriptions (see Example 24), and in modern architecture the panel of Roman lettering is a feature; the lettering is generally all capitals of the same size, of a style near that of the ancient lettering; and the panel 45is outlined with molding, plain or decorative. Serving a purpose equivalent to the architect’s panel molding, the type or rule border is a valuable addition to a page of type. A page of display type or a halftone not surrounded by a border is like an oil painting without a frame. The egg-and-dart border around Example 20 is historically associated with architecture. The type-face is a Roman capital letter designed by Fred. W. Goudy from an inscription found in the ancient Forum at Rome.

Bismarck was called the “Iron Chancellor” because of his great strength of character and unbending will. Strength instantly associates itself with the mention of iron or steel, hence the motive for the construction of Example 22. It may be interesting to know that the design of this page was further suggested by the old lock-plate (Example 23). A printer with imagination can absorb ideas from many sources. The lock-plate is not literally reproduced in type, but a few of its features, including the key-hole, were borrowed and conventionalized. An artist-designer does not copy his models closely; they serve the purpose of suggesting shape and treatment and his imagination does the rest.

For the cover of a small catalog listing rare books, a typographic motive is found in the woodcut borders and initials of the early printers. Example 25 shows what may be done with type-foundry material on such a cover. The border is of black tone and the type and initials are given the strength that harmonizes with it.

Old books suggest discolored leather, dusty shelves and plain men, and it is an abrupt change to the subject of millinery, with its bright colored feathers, ribbons and delicate finery. The milliner ornaments his salesroom with vines and flowers and dainty colors, and the printer gets his typographic motive from such sources. Example 21 illustrates a booklet cover treated thus appropriately. The page size is unconventional, the coloring is dainty, and the type lines are neatly diminutive.

As a millinery store is unlike an office in which are maps and blue prints and legal documents, so typography for these two purposes should be unlike. Example 26 is a page severely plain and non-sentimental. The types are merely to tell something in a blunt manner. There is needed no touch of decoration or color to interest the reader, because those who read it would do so whatever the treatment. This is the only example in the present chapter in which the advertising element is unimportant. The page may be commonplace because it need not be anything else, altho it is well to do good work even here.

From the surveyor’s office our journey of instruction takes us into a church during an elaborate Easter service. Light filtered of its brightness by stained glass windows; high-placed Gothic arches pointing toward the sky; soft organ-music—all these create an atmosphere 46of solemnity and harmony. A program or pamphlet for use during a church service should be as appropriate to the environment as a Book of Common Prayer or Bible. Typographic treatment good as shown in Examples 22, 26 or 28 would be ridiculous for a church program. Example 27-a shows a page historically appropriate. The type-face is peculiarly fitting because of its pointed form, and also for the reason that a letter of similar design was used by medieval scribes on ecclesiastical books (see Example 27-b). The crossed rules, which should be printed in orange-red, are adapted from the guide lines as made by the scribes for marking the position of a page on the sheet.

When a holiday crowd is gathered, dignity is put aside and all enter into the festive spirit of the occasion. Here is the motive for the typographic treatment of a booklet or catalog of decorative materials as presented by Example 28. It would be excessive emphasis of appropriateness to print such a page in a combination of bright red and blue. The colors should be softened. The page would look well printed in a deep blue with a flat blue tint overprinting the star border.

There is room for improvement in the support typographers give artists in the production of booklets and catalogs. In many cases title-pages are constructed with no regard to the motive suggested by the design on the cover. Bibliophiles judge a book not only by the excellence of its execution, but by the harmonious unity that may be expressed in every detail, from the literary contents to the last bit of tooling worked on the cover. The type, ornamentation, paper, ink, margins, leather, the arrangement of the title-page and the cover treatment, all must be selected and utilized in expression of a dominant central motive. The same rule presents the key to good typography in job work. Example 29 shows the Colonial arch adapted as the border of a booklet cover. The artist gives this treatment to the cover because of the motive suggested by the name “Colonial Trust Company,” and when the title-page is set it would be a mistake not to use some Colonial arrangement. Example 30 blends with Example 29 and is modified from the old Colonial title-page treatment just enough to give it a modern appearance without sacrificing the old-time atmosphere. The border suggests both the widely-spaced rules of the Colonial printers and the architectural pillars of Example 29. No letter spacing is used, despite the temptation offered.

Discussion of the subject of harmony and appropriateness could be extended much further than is allowed by these limits. Pages could be filled with descriptions of instances in which the compositor had erred in treating typography and ornamentation inharmoniously or with an unimaginative appropriateness. The use of angelic ornaments on Y. M. C. A. printing, where something more substantial is desirable; the double-meaning that may be read into the use of a horseshoe ornament on a printer’s letterhead; the placing of illustrations of live fish, lobsters and animal food on banquet programs—these are a few of the things that might be mentioned.

High-class catalogs have been marred by the use of stock decorative initials which were at variance with the other decoration. In order to save a few cents both printer and customer are inclined to use stock decoration that happens to be on hand at the moment. Hundreds of dollars are spent on the work and then for the sake of saving thirty cents (the cost of a harmonious initial or ornament) many dollars in effectiveness are sacrificed. Another way of injuring the appearance of a book is to use a type-face on the title-page that does not harmonize with that used for the body matter and the sub-headings. In order to secure complete harmony even the lettering on the cover should blend in style with that used for the title-page, sub-headings and text pages.

Altho strict adherence to the laws of harmony and appropriateness is necessary in the production of good work in any field of endeavor, Americans seem to be really proud when they violate such laws. We all know the person who dresses in a slouchy manner because he read somewhere that Horace Greeley dressed that way. And there is the modern politician who wears a slouch hat and constantly carries a quid of tobacco in his mouth because Henry Clay did so. There are also house-organ publishers who use inharmonious and inappropriate type-faces and decoration because Elbert Hubbard thus treats the cover of the Philistine.

It is not a question of the sort of clothes a person actually needs to go from one end of a street to another—Lady Godiva reached her destination with no clothes at all—yet we often admire a person dressed harmoniously and in good taste without knowing the reasons for our admiration. As there is art in tailoring and in the selection of clothes, there is also art in printing, and he who investigates will find that the great natural laws of beauty apply even to typography, which some by their work seem to think requires no more thought than ditch-digging.

This chapter is a story of the alpha and omega of color—white and black. Since the creation of the world, when light first illumined the darkness, these two colors (if I may call them colors) have been emblematic of extremes—white, the symbol of purity and goodness, black of impurity and evil. White and black represent extremes in color. Mixing of all the color rays of the solar spectrum produces white, and mixing of all the colors in the solid form of printing ink produces black. From this contrast of white and black maybe drawn a lesson in color. (Example 31.) Light represents warmth, darkness cold. As the colors are toward light they are warm; as they are toward darkness they are cold. Red becomes warmer as it takes on an orange hue, and colder as it takes on a purple hue. A warm color should be contrasted with a cold color—as orange with black. The further in tone the color is from black the more it contrasts with the black. As an illustration: Orange is more pleasing than a deeper shade of red as a companion color for black. Blue, purple or green, selected to be used with black, must be lightened with white ink to get the desired contrast.

White and black as a combination are and ever have been popular with writers, printers and readers. Fully nine-tenths of the newspapers, books, catalogs and other forms of reading matter are printed with black ink on white stock. It is coincident that optical necessities require for best results in reading a black-and-white combination, and black ink and white paper are more cheaply and easily produced than other colors of ink and paper.

This chapter is also an illustrated sermon on uniformity of tone or depth of color, in which is pointed out the necessity of bringing many spots of black or gray into harmonious relation. The esthetic importance of uniformity of tone is universally recognized. Choirs are robed in white and black; fashion has its uniform clothing for the hours and functions of the day and night; theater choruses and the soldiery are living masses of uniform tone and color. As uniformity is important in these things, so is uniformity important in the tone of a page of printing. A type-page exhibiting a variegated mass of black and gray tones is not unlike a squad of recruits in different styles of clothing marching irregularly; while on the contrary a type-page of uniform tone and arrangement maybe likened to a uniformly equipped regiment of soldiers marching with rhythmic tread.

A page of display typography composed of a mixture of irregular gray and black tones is inexcusable in the sight of the art-loving reader. As combinations of inharmonious type-faces are wrong, equally so are combinations of incongruous tones. For the sake of contrast and variety in typography, art principles are too often ignored, the printer confessing to ignorance or lack of ingenuity. Contrast is necessary, but it may be had without sacrificing uniformity. Again making use of a military simile: soldiers are marched in platoons, companies, battalions and regiments that the monotony of solid formation may be broken; type is arranged in groups and paragraphs for similar reasons. While an absolutely solid page of type may present a pleasing tone, a slight break in the regularity is desirable for reading purposes. Thus art makes concession to utility, but such concession should always be granted reluctantly. There is classic authority for the arrangement of the type lines in Example 20 of the preceding chapter, but on the majority of printing jobs it is necessary to compromise with utility and emphasize important words, as in Example 19-a of the same chapter. The secret of producing artistic typography in these practical times is to pilot the ideas of the customer into artistic channels; emphasize the words he wants emphasized, but do it in a way that will result in creditable typography. There is a right way and there is a wrong way 48of arranging type, and too many typographers arrange type the wrong way and unjustly blame the customer for the result.

The effectiveness of uniformly black tone on a background of white is well illustrated on the beautiful book title shown as Example 32, in which even depth of color is consistently maintained. There is not a weak spot on the page; border, ornament and lettering are of equal tone, and the white background is reflected thru the black print in agreeable contrast. The Germans are masters in their treatment of contrast and uniform tone, and he who bewails the limitations of black and white printing should ponder over the results shown by this specimen from over the sea.

Here is a practical demonstration of the workings of the theory of uniform tone in typography. Example 33 displays four ornaments, each of a different tone or depth of color. One of the customs when constructing a booklet cover-page to be ornamented, is first to select an ornament that is appropriate in design and of proper proportions. Upon this ornament the page is constructed, and it dictates the characteristics of the border and of the type-face; its tone determines the tone of the entire page. This is also true of a trademark furnished by the customer, altho such plates are frequently so inartistic that a compromise is necessary.

Assuming that a cover-page is to be designed and that ornament A has been selected for use on the page, a rule border is chosen with triple lines approximating the strength of those in the ornament. (Example 34.) The lines are very thin, and white space is a large factor in producing a tone that is light and dainty, in keeping with the subject of the illustration. A perfect result would be obtained with a type-face of very thin strokes, yet Caslon capitals, slightly separated to let in white space, give good results.

The ornament shown as B has been formed of lines darker than those used in the first ornament, and a mass of white forms a spot of contrast. Rules of the proper tone are selected and a border unit adopted that reflects the spot of white in the ornament. (Example 35.) Cheltenham capitals maintain the tone scheme. In this case, as in others, the type-face is a trifle stronger in tone than ornament and border. This is well. Type-lines on a cover are usually of more importance than the decoration.

Ornament C differs from ornament A in that it is composed of light lines contrasted with solid blacks. A border is made of a light line and a dark one, and the Bodoni type-face, containing light and heavy strokes in contrast with a white background, assists in producing a decidedly pleasing medium black tone (Example 36).

This combination of ornament, type and rule demonstrates there is considerable tone beauty in a well-selected contrast of light and dark lines when set off by liberal white space between lines and in the background.

The dense black tone of ornament D is duplicated in the dark-line border filled with black decorative units (Example 37). The black-printing Chaucer Text reflects not only the tone but the decorative characteristics of ornament and border. The tone of this example approximates that of the German page (Example 32).

These four examples afford an interesting study in uniform tone.

As the tone or depth of color increases from the light gray of Example 34 to the dense black of Example 37, it will be observed that the contrast between the print and the paper background also increases. This leads to the subject of contrast. What amount of contrast is needed on the ideal job of printing? There is conflict between art and utility on this question, but there need be none. Art demands that the print be a part of the paper upon which it is impressed, much as the plant is a part of the earth in which its roots are buried, and utility demands that the print shall be strong and clear that reading may be made easy. The artist-printer lessens the contrast between print and paper by printing with gray ink on gray stock, brown ink on light brown stock, and so forth. The utility printer gets the maximum of contrast by printing with black ink on white stock. As printing is both art and business some compromise must be made, and it is this: On two-color printing have all reading matter in the stronger color and subdue the color of the decoration so that the contrast between the paper and the print of the reading portion of the page is softened by this intermediate tone. Black print on white paper is made artistic by impressing the print firmly on antique paper. This roots the print to the paper, and the result is more idealistic than that presented by the print daintily set upon the surface of glossy, enameled papers.

Lack of artistic feeling among typographers and customers is responsible for unpleasant contrasts in tone. A dense black illustration or initial will be set in a page of light gray reading matter, or type of black tone will be used on a page with an illustration of light lines. Great contrast in any detail of typography is not art but eccentricity; this statement may be made plain by a comparison. One winter’s day when the conventional folk of New York were wearing clothing of a somber hue, they were startled by the appearance among them of Mark Twain in a suit of white. Six months later the humorist’s garb would have excited no comment, but the black clothed mass of humanity around him emphasized the whiteness of his attire, and the conspicuousness thus produced separated him from his surroundings and made him an object of curiosity. Such things are done by great men to show their disregard for custom and by others because they are foolish or are advertising something; but it is common-sense right from Cervantes to do when in Rome as the Romans do (meaning that printed work which both attracts and repels by its gaudy, unconventional appearance is not nearly so good or desirable as the more conventional printed work which 51tastefully and quietly presents its message in subdued tones). One man will become widely known because he has dived from a big bridge or gone over Niagara Falls; another because he has painted a great picture or modeled a great statue. The one thrills, the other impresses. It may be easier to produce typography which attracts attention by contrast, but such results do not bring the lasting satisfaction that comes from typography thoughtfully and artistically designed.

Several other points are suggested by Examples 34 to 37. A page for a cover should be of darker tone than a page to be used as a title inside the book; this where the body-type of the inside pages is of the customary gray tone. A cover placed upon a book to protect it suggests strength, and the typography of the cover should conform to this suggestion. The reason for the uniform tone presented by each of the four examples above mentioned is another important point. Were the border darker than the ornament and type lines, the ornament darker than the border and type lines, or the type lines darker than the ornament and border, there would not be uniformity of tone, and a consequent loss in the effectiveness that comes from tone harmony.

The tone of a massed page is of vital importance in the typography of a book, and a happy medium is somewhere between the under-spaced black type-page of Morris and the over-spaced hair-line type-page against which the Morris page was a protest. Examples 38 and 39 show the manner in which the tone of a page may be controlled by spacing. In Example 38 the page is moderately spaced between words and lines and in Example 39 the page is liberally spaced, presenting two extremes and vividly picturing the manner in which spacing influences the page tone.

The tone of the pen-and-ink outline illustration in Example 40 is admirably duplicated in the typographical treatment accorded the page. The result would not have been so satisfactory if there had been no quad lines to break the solidity of the page.

The spotted black tone of the decorative border in Example 41 is reflected in the typography of the page, a result obtained by using a bold-faced body-type and separating the words with a liberal amount of space. However, the tone would not be equal printed in one color, but by printing the border in a lighter color the tones are equalized. Here is a suggestion for obtaining even tones. Where one portion of the page is bolder than the other, print it in a lighter shade of ink, or if any part of a type-page must be printed in a lighter color, set that part in a type-face of darker tone (Example 47).

Job printers should be interested in Example 42, as it is a good presentation of the theory of uniform tone. The effect of the open-line illustration is duplicated in the spaced Jenson capitals and cross lines. The result would have been even better had the small groups on both sides of the illustration been slightly letterspaced and the line at the bottom spaced less.

Example 43, on the insert, is a classic interpretation of uniform tone. The architectural design is formed of lines about the same strength as the strokes of the type-face and the massed capital letters admit sufficient light to give them a tone near to that of the open-spaced border.

Example 44 (insert) is a pleasing blend of tone and characteristics. The delicate light-gray tone of the Camelot type-face is closely matched in the decoration and border, and altogether this is an almost perfect exemplification of the subject of this chapter. It is seldom that an artist so carefully considers the characteristics of a type-face and reproduces these characteristics in so admirable a manner as was done in this instance.

Initials and headpieces should approach closely the tone of the type-page of which they are parts. Example 45 shows such a combination, with the tone of the decoration just a trifle darker than that of the text portion. An initial has other duties to perform than merely to look pretty; it must direct the eye to the beginning of the reading matter. In the manuscript books of the Middle Ages, written without paragraphs, the starting point of a new thought was denoted by an initial more or less elaborate. The utilitarian purpose thus served by the initial 52is reason for making it a trifle darker than the remainder of the page. However, if there is great contrast in tone, the page will be difficult to read because of the initial claiming too much attention. The effect would be much like attempting to listen to one speaker while another is calling and beckoning.

Every rule has its exception and I wish to record one in the matter of uniform tone. On a page composed of display lines and a large amount of reading matter it is an offense against legibility to set the reading matter in a type-face of black tone to correspond with the display lines, considerable contrast being necessary in such cases to make reading easy. (Example 48.) Notwithstanding this exception in the case of reading matter, uniform tone should be retained between display lines and border.

If a catalog is illustrated (and the majority are) it is important to have the illustrations prominent on the page, sacrificing tone to utility if necessary. Sometimes the illustrations are printed in dense black and the remainder of the page in gray or brown. While this causes the illustrations to stand out in relief—an important point when machinery is depicted—it should not be forgotten that the type matter must be read.

In advertising composition it is seldom possible to have an even tone on the entire page. The New York Herald advertising pages are unique in this respect. Outline type-faces are used, and all illustrations are redrawn in outline before they are published. This serves to give a uniformly gray tone to the pages, but the advertisers are not enthusiastic over the effects. While other newspapers may not be able to maintain uniform page tone, it is possible at least to have each advertisement present a tone uniform in its displayed parts and border, and the good typographer will secure such effects. The gray shaded type-faces now available should enable printers and publishers to obtain tone uniformity where gray effects are desired and large type sizes used.

Irregular letterspacing has been the cause of many pages of unsatisfactory tone. In a displayed page where one line is spaced between letters, all lines should be similarly spaced. Example 49 presents a decidedly unconventional letterhead by reason of the letterspacing, and it illustrates the point that all lines should be spaced equally. It may be well to warn job compositors inclined to imitate the style of this heading that there are few customers who would concede any merit to such an arrangement, and it should be used sparingly. Unconventional treatment, even tho good along the lines of the style chosen, is not always appreciated.

Symmetry is necessary to beauty. This law of esthetics is as applicable to typography as to sculpture and architecture. Proportion and balance—the things that make for symmetry in typography—are obtained only by giving the work more attention than seems necessary to the average producer and buyer of printing.

Why should the printer worry about esthetics—about symmetry? What has art to do with printing, anyway? Questions such as these find too frequent voice in the printing trade, coming from the employee whose interest and ambitions end when he “gets the scale,” and the employer who is satisfied merely to deliver so many pounds of paper and ounces of ink for so much money. Pity the man whose work is drudgery and who denies that art and beauty are meant for him. He has his antithesis in the man who, appreciating the higher blessings, neglects to give value to the more common and practical things.

There have always been two opposing classes—in religion, politics, art, music, business. On all questions one portion of humanity is “for” and the other “against,” mostly because of the influence of environment upon tastes and interests. Mozart’s and Beethoven’s music charms and enthuses and also lulls to sleep. One class should try to understand the other. Each has good reasons for its preferences, but none at all for its prejudices. The painter Rubens, gathering inspiration in the courts of royalty, portrayed luxury and magnificence. Millet, painting in a barn, pictured poverty, sorrow and dulled minds. What pleased one found little sympathy in the other. During the Middle Ages learned men talked, wrote and thought in Latin, and when it was proposed to translate the Scriptures into the language of the masses these men held up their hands in horror.

Not so many years ago the book printer looked upon the job printer as the Roman patrician looked upon the plebeian, but the job printer has absorbed dignity and typographic taste from the book printer. While the book printer’s highest ideal is a volume with uncut leaves ornamenting the book shelves of the collector, the job printer’s mission is to be all things to all men. He prints the refined announcements of art schools one day and another day finds him placing wood type to tell the story of a rural sale of articles “too numerous to mention.”

There should be more sympathy between the book printer and the job printer, and also between the printer who regards his calling as a business and the printer who regards it as an art. The employer and employee who consider printing only a means to an end and that end money, are as near right and as near wrong as they who produce art printing for art’s sake and forget the pay envelop and the customer’s check. The first starve their souls, the last their bodies.

The printer who does things artistically in an economical manner “strikes twelve” (in the slang of Elbert Hubbard). Printing need not be shorn of beauty to be profitable to both printer and customer, tho beauty too conspicuous turns attention from the real purpose of the printed job—which, in the case of a booklet, is the message the words convey. An equestrian statue of Napoleon should feature the great conqueror, not the horse, but would be impossible with the horse left out.

Art is essential to printing; so are Uncle Sam’s specimens of steel engraving. The more art the printer absorbs the larger should grow his collection of these engravings. Study of art arouses ambition; ambition brings better and harder work. It reveals in the typographer the difference between mere lead-lifting and the artistic selection and arrangement of types. The boy who sweeps the floor and does his best is nearer art-heaven than he who sets type and cares not how he does it.

The printer who determines to learn about art—who 54makes continued effort to find the reason why one man’s work is good and another’s is not, will be surprised and gratified at the new world that unfolds itself as he studies. He will find that altho having eyes, he has really seen only as he has appreciated. There is no easy road to the appreciation of the beautiful. Art does not consist merely of a set of rules to be observed; there are few beacon lights placed by those who have trod the road. Beyond a certain point the novice must depend upon intuition or “feeling.” Great painters have been asked their method of producing masterpieces, and have been unable to explain.

In introducing the subject of “Proportion” it is well first to dispose of book pages. In olden times the sizes of books were known by the number of folds to a sheet of paper about 18 × 24 inches. A book made from such sheets, folded once into two leaves, was known as a folio volume and measured about 12 × 18 inches. Folded twice into four leaves, a quarto, measuring 9 × 12 inches. Folded three times into eight leaves, an octavo, measuring 6 × 9 inches. Paper is now made in a variety of sizes, which allow of individual preferences being satisfied. For the sizes of catalogs 9 × 12 and 6 × 9 are becoming standard. The sizes do not depart far from the rule of proportion which holds that the width of the page should be two-thirds its length.

Examples 50 and 51 illustrate two widely-used methods of determining page lengths. By the first method (Example 50) the page should measure diagonally twice its width. In this instance the width being eight picas, the diagonal measurement is sixteen picas. By the second method the length of the page should measure fifty per cent more than its width. Here the width being eight picas, the length is twelve picas. These measurements may or may not include the running titles or folios.

If only small margins are possible, the page (exclusive of running title) should be about centered, with a slight inclination toward the head and back. But when margins are reasonably ample the page should set liberally toward the head and back; the margins of the head and back (exclusive of the running title) should be about the same, the outer side margin should be fifty per cent more than the back margin, and the foot margin one hundred per cent more than the back margin. Various explanations of this rule have been put forward, a few of which are: The old book-owner making marginal notations as he read, needed wide margins for the purpose. Early manuscript books were bound on wood, and this wood was extended at the foot and used to hold the book when reading. Two pages being exposed to view were treated as one page, much as double columns are now treated. As book illuminators required room for their handiwork the margins may have thus originated. The principal reason why we should observe such margins is that the arrangement has the sanction of long usage and the approval of the best bookmakers since books were written.

The job printer, it is reasonable to suppose, is more interested in proportion as it refers to display typography. He asks: What relation has type, in the shape of its face, to the page of which it is a part? And the answer is: A type-face should conform in the proportion of its letters to the proportion of the page. Let us thoroly understand this. In Example 52 there are shown three widths of type—condensed, medium and extended. The type of medium width is more used than the condensed or extended kind, and most pages have a proportion such as Example 55. From viewpoints of both economy and art, the type-face of medium width should be given preference when selecting type equipment. Condensed types are properly proportioned for use as headings in the narrow columns of newspapers and for narrow folders and booklets.

Many of the laws that are necessary to good typography also govern the other arts. As an instance, in architecture it is requisite that a tall and narrow building contain a preponderance of vertical lines, a feature most noticeable in church buildings of Gothic style (Example 54). Because the extent of vertical lines is greater than that of horizontal ones in a condensed type-face, such a face is proper for a long and narrow page (Example 53). The proportion of page shown by Example 55 is about that met with most frequently in printing production. Here the vertical lines are in a slight majority, but it is interesting to observe that in Example 56 where the page is more wide than long, horizontal lines are more numerous than vertical ones.

It is not always possible to follow out in every detail the requirements of proportion. Architects must sacrifice much in the interests of utility and in deference to the wishes of their clients. Printers must do likewise, but as a rule they travel farther from true art principles than do architects. Consider the contrasting proportions of the structures in Examples 54 and 57. In Example 54 notice that the openings have been made to conform to the general proportions, and that vertical lines have been multiplied to emphasize narrowness and hight. As a contrast, in Example 57 observe the width of the openings; how it blends with the general proportion of this structure. Now to ascertain that typography parallels architecture compare Example 53 with 54, and 56 with 57.

An exaggerated idea of the relation of lines to proportion is furnished by Examples 62 (see insert) and 63. The vertical lines of Example 62 run with the length of the page as smoothly as a canoe floating down stream. The horizontal lines of Example 63 are irritating in their disregard of proportion. For the eye to take in at a glance both the page lines running vertically and the rules running horizontally is as difficult as watching a three-ring circus. Examples 59 and 60 also illustrate this point.

I have prepared in Example 58 (see insert) a page in which not only are ornament, type-face and page-design in proportion, but the characteristics of the ornament are reflected in the border, and the tone is uniform.

Irregularity of form is valuable in breaking monotony, and in some forms of art may be essential, but as contained in Example 61 this feature is inharmonious. Before experimenting with variety or becoming agitated about monotony the typographer should perfect himself in the things that make for regularity. When he learns to set a page that is harmonious and in proportion then it may be well to introduce irregularity—in homeopathic doses.

There is much uncertainty manifested among typographers as to the proportionate strength of display lines on a page. A type line is proportionately large or small as it contrasts with its environment. Gulliver was a giant when among pigmies. The foremost citizen of a country town is considerably reduced in importance when he rubs elbows with the big men of the cities. The homely adage that “a big frog in a small puddle is a small frog in a big puddle,” is applicable to typography. A display line surrounded by other type lines (Example 64) must be made larger or by strengthened strokes made bolder than when alone on the page (Example 65). The old City Hall in New York is claimed to be the most beautiful work of architecture in the city, but is ridiculously out of proportion with the towering office buildings surrounding it.

Examples 66, 67 and 68 are studies in the proportion of a type-face to the page of which it is a part. In Example 66 the page is largely covered with type, treatment that is necessary on poster, dodger and other printed matter that must force its presence upon the public. In Example 67 the page consists mostly of blank space, the type standing modestly 56and apologetically in the midst of that space. This treatment is proper on dainty works of poetry or when the demands of extreme refinement are to be satisfied. Example 68 is the “happy medium,” the compromise—a strength of display that will be satisfactory in almost every case. This method of arriving at correct treatment emphasizes the need in the typographer of a judicial as well as an artistic temperament. The wise judge knows that truth is about midway between the claims of opposing counsel.

Balance is another important subject, as it has a big share in making typography good or bad. The builder works with plumb-line and spirit-level that his walls may be in perfect balance, tho sometimes he is tempted, as the printer is tempted, to work away from the center of gravity. In Italy there is a building, an architectural curiosity—the leaning tower of Pisa (Example 73) in the construction of which gravity has been defied to the limit, and in Canada only recently a bridge in course of construction on this gravity-defying principle, fell in a mass into the river. In typography, safety from blunder lies in type lines horizontally centered. Typographic experts experimenting with out-of-the-center balance, both succeed and fail. Compositors imitating them generally fail. Example 76 is an out-of-the-center arrangement that is fairly successful. Balance is saved by the type-lines in the upper left corner and by the border surrounding the page. Examples 69 and 75 show out-of-center balance adapted to a business card and a booklet cover.

While horizontally the center is the point of perfect balance, vertically it is not. Stick a pin thru the very center of an oblong piece of cardboard and twirl the card; when movement ceases the card may not hang uprightly. Mark off the card in three equal sections and stick the pin thru the horizontal center of the line separating the upper two thirds. After being twirled the card will cease to move in a perfectly upright position. Example 71 shows a word placed in exact center, yet it appears to be low. Example 72 shows a line above center at the point of vertical balance. On a title-page, business card, and on most jobs of printing 57the weight should come at this point. The principal line, or group, should provide strength necessary to give balance. Example 70 presents a page with type group and ornament placed unusually high. The typographer responsible was undoubtedly testing balance to the limit.

Sometimes the customer gets a notion he wants a type-line placed diagonally across the page in a manner like Example 74. Such arrangements generally show lack of imagination and are crudely freakish. There are so many orderly ways of arranging type that such poorly balanced specimens are deplorable.

Spacing is seemingly one of the little things—merely incidental to the mechanical practice of typography. When the apprentice compositor is told to divide his spaces evenly among all the words in a line; not to thin space one line and double-thick space another; to transpose a two-point lead, or make some other what to him may appear to be trivial alteration in spacing, he judges his instructor to be over-particular. Yet the proper apportionment of space on a page determines the tone and the balance and aids in giving proportion and emphasis.

In type-making, when a font of type is designed, not only is each letter considered separately, but in combination with every other letter of the alphabet, that when the letters are assembled into words space may be evenly distributed. The designers of the best type-faces have given attention to this feature and have demonstrated that legibility is increased with proper space distribution. Because of the excessive open space it contains, the capital L gives the most trouble of any letter used as an initial. As part of the word “Millinery” the irregularity of spacing is particularly prominent (Example 79-a). Partly to overcome this irregularity the companion letters should be spaced as shown in 79-b. When the letters A T occur together, and the space between them should be decreased, it is necessary to file the metal in the upper right of the type A and the metal in the lower left of the type T.

With roman type-faces, important words are usually emphasized by italics or small capitals. The Germans, using for body purposes a text letter which has no italic or small capitals, space the letters to get emphasis (Example 80-a). Letter-spaced words thus used are perhaps as neat as italic, and the idea may well be adapted to roman types (Example 80-b).

The relation of lines to proportion, 58as illustrated by Examples 62 and 63, is also to be considered in the composition of plain reading pages. Example 77 shows how the effect of horizontal lines is given by narrow spacing between the words and wide spacing between the lines. This gives a result, like that of Example 63, contrary to the principles of proportion. How this may be overcome is illustrated in Example 78, which contains the same amount of space between the words as is between the lines. This treatment not only gives better proportion, but improves the tone of the page.

Adapting this principle to display composition, Examples 81 and 82 are enlightening. Example 81 shows the manner in which some years ago display lines were erroneously distributed over the entire page, presenting in effect the faults of Example 77. The manner of rectifying these faults is demonstrated in Example 82, where main lines are grouped at the point of balance in the upper part of the page.

The narrow measure to which these words are set necessitates letterspacing. The resulting appearance is far from satisfactory yet it enables illustrations to be grouped pleasingly and makes possible a squaring of the pages which could not be done otherwise.

It is not always that results are as perfect as we desire them. In New England there is a printer who, in the opinion of those fortunate to have viewed his work, is producing typography classically perfect; yet this man goes from his work at the close of the day almost discouraged because of the faults that are evident to his trained eye. The artist’s ideal always eludes him and the chase seems a hopeless one, yet he continues on lest he lose sight of it altogether. It is a good sign when one recognizes imperfections; it means that he is gaining ground on success.

Offer a child the choice of two toys, alike excepting that one has a flower painted upon it, and he will doubtlessly select the ornamented one; proving that the human race has a natural liking for ornamentation. When the old-time trader visited savage countries, he took with him colored glass and brought back gold. The glass soon after ornamented the somber bodies of the savages, and the gold became rings and bracelets worn by the whites. There are those in this day who love the trees and the flowers and hear music in the brooks, but more find pleasure in artificially ornamented ball-rooms with music blown and sawn and hammered from brass and catgut and sheepskin.

Man was created in a garden of flowers and trees pleasant to the sight, yet he has ever been yearning for a new Eden of pure gold, garnished with precious stones, forgetting that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like the lily of the field. Nature is the great artist, and man’s ornamentation at best is a poor imitation of natural things. The trees of the forest gave the motive for the stone columns and ornamental capitals of architecture, and the plant and animal world furnished themes for talented calligraphers in the days when books were literally written. The blue vault of the skies inspired Michelangelo to plan the great dome of St. Peter’s at Rome, as the sun furnished a model for the Indian while decorating his tepee, and the flowers of the field have provided inexhaustible color harmonies.

In the early days of this country most of the inhabitants devoted their working hours to the struggle for existence, and it has been only within recent years that the average man has given thought to art. Many a one has thrown off his lethargy to discover beautiful things all about which he had never before noticed.

Art galleries and libraries all over the United States are aiding greatly in the cultivation of taste for art, and the printer to whom these privileges are accessible, yet who does not avail himself of their advantages, is much like the man who was lost in the Adirondacks, not knowing he was but a half-mile from a railroad. China, who could conquer the world if she only knew her power, has been sleeping for centuries, while a little handful of intelligent people on a small island of Europe wields an influence that is felt wherever the sun shines.

The printer and he of an allied vocation should take less thought of food and raiment and devote more thought to learning the things of today and yesterday with which he may be but little acquainted. If one knows just enough to “make a living” he will never make more than a living. A study of art, of history, of the larger things in the printing business, will result in the good things of the earth being added.

Is ornamentation necessary to art-typography? Ask one good printer and he will answer, yes. Ask another and he will answer, no. One of the meanings of ornament as given by the Standard dictionary is: “A part or an addition that contributes to the beauty or elegance of a thing.” A paper may be so pleasing in texture as to give beauty or elegance to an otherwise plain page of 60printing; in fact, it is sometimes a mistake to use type ornaments or other embellishment on a richly finished hand-made paper. On the contrary, a stock poor in quality or color had better be covered with decoration to divert attention from the paper.

There are printshops in which all ornaments are kept under lock and key; a compositor wishing to use decoration must present good reasons before he gets it. Customers have become suspicious of type ornamentation because of the peculiar use to which printers sometimes put it. A young man some years ago became possessed of a desire to do artistic printing and had a number of type ornaments purchased with which to express his ideas. When one proof after another came from the customer with ominous blue marks upon the cherished ornaments, he realized the necessity of revising his ideas of art. For fully a year after that he worked without voluntarily using an ornament, meanwhile developing all the possibilities of good type-faces and appropriate paper stocks and color combinations. It has been claimed that fasting has a beneficial effect on the body; be that as it may, our friend certainly improved his artistic taste by his abstinence. When he again began using ornaments it was with discrimination and after study of their significance and appropriateness.

This leads to the subject of motive or reason in ornamentation. The styles of typography may be generally divided into two classes, one dominated by Roman or Italian influence and the other by Gothic or German influence. During the Middle Ages the Gothic influence was felt chiefly because the pointed style of architecture and embellishment was sanctioned by the Christian church. As art was practically dead outside the church, the art-workers absorbed the Gothic style.

When typography was invented Gutenberg’s first book was based upon the Gothic style—the type-face a pointed black letter, such as was then used on manuscript books, and the ornamentation pointed foliage (done by hand). It was some years after this that typography came under the influence of the Italian Renaissance, and both type-faces and decoration assumed the Roman style. In the old days there was sympathy between the various arts and crafts, and it worked for harmony in effects. Building-decoration, metal-carving and wood-engraving were governed by the same artistic motive, and were often done by the same man, much as the printer at one time was compositor, pressman, binder, typefounder, ink-maker and paper-maker, all in one. Now, many a piece of printing goes wrong because the ideas of several people, inharmonious from lack of relation, are injected into the work during the several stages necessary for its production.

The relation of typography to architecture is plainly shown in the formation of the Roman and Gothic alphabets. The letters of the Roman alphabet, dignified in their straight strokes and symmetrical in their rounded lines, suggest features of Roman architecture (Example 106; also see Example 43 of a previous article). In the interesting picturesqueness of the pointed black Gothic letter may be seen reflections of the graceful arches of the cathedral pointing upward like hands in prayer—and of the pointed leaf ornamentation of the Gothic period. (Example 107.)

61Ornamentation is both inventive and imitative. An ornament purely inventive or one purely imitative is seldom artistic. A child may make a jumble of lines that altho original means nothing; when it is older it may draw a flower so realistic and imitative that little is left to the imagination. When a flower or plant is used as a model in designing an ornament it is “conventionalized,” that is, it is blended with its environment. A flower in a garden surrounded by other vegetation should be as the other flowers, but as an ornament on the flat surface of paper it should be without perspective. Example 108-a shows how commonplace an ornament looks when its details are carefully shaded in perspective. Examples 108-b and 108-c show how more decorative an ornament is when either outlined or filled in. Sometimes shadows are merely suggested, as on the fruit basket and book ornaments in Example 113.