  THE SCRIBE AT WORK WHEN BOOKS WERE WRITTENTo 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. ASSYRIAN CLAY TABLET 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 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 Phoenicians 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 Phoenician 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 Phoenicians, 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. ANCIENT ROMAN READING A MANUSCRIPT ROLL 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. ROMAN WAXED TABLET 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 FAMOUS “BOOK OF THE DEAD” 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 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. EVOLUTION OF THE ALPHABET 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. CAPITAL LETTERS OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS 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 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. UNCIAL LETTERS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY 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. HALF-UNCIAL LETTERS 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. GOTHIC LETTERS OF THE FIFTH 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 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. LETTERED PAGE FROM THE “BOOK OF KELLS” Portion of a page (full size) from Fust and Schoeffer’s Psalter of 1457 THE ORIGIN OF TYPOGRAPHYThe 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. FRENCH PLAYING CARD 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. IMAGE PRINT OF 1423 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 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. BIBLE OF THE POOR 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. TEXT PAGE FROM A BLOCK BOOK 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. PAGE PRINTED FROM AN ENGRAVED WOOD BLOCK PAGE PRINTED FROM SEPARATE METAL TYPES 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. 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 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 Schoeffer, 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, Schoeffer 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 Schoeffer, 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. Schoeffer 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 GUTENBERG BIBLE OF FORTY-TWO LINES THE GUTENBERG BIBLE, ILLUMINATED The Venetian style of typography and decoration THE SPREAD OF TYPOGRAPHYThe 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 Schoeffer, 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.
PAGE PRINTED BY KOBURGER 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 Schoeffer, 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. THE FIRST PAGE OF DISPLAYED TYPE COMPOSITION 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 A page (actual size) from the famous Bamberg Missal 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. THE FIRST ITALIC TYPE-FACE 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 SPECIMENS FROM THE FIRST TWO PAGES OF THE POLYGLOT BIBLE IN HEBREW, LATIN AND GREEK. PRINTED BY PLANTIN AT ANTWERP. ABOUT 1569 GOTHIC ORNAMENTAL PIECES 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. 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. PAGE BY ENGLAND’S FIRST PRINTER 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 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. PAGE IN ENGLISH BY JOHN DAYE 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. THE FIRST PSALTER IN ENGLISH 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. A title-page of many words and much type-display TYPOGRAPHY IN COLONIAL DAYSTypography 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. THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN ENGLISH AMERICA TITLE-PAGE OF A SHAKESPEARE BOOK 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 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 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. THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE LONDON “TIMES” UNDER THAT TITLE. 1788 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. FIRST EDITION OF “PILGRIM’S PROGRESS” 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 PAGE FROM A “CHAP-BOOK” 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. PAGE FROM “DESCRIPTION OF TRADES.” LONDON, 1747 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 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. FRENCH SPECIMEN OF 1742 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. CASLON TYPES AND ORNAMENTS 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. FIRST EDITION OF “PARADISE LOST” 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 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. TWO PAGES FROM “POOR RICHARD’S ALMANACK”’ 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 ITALIAN SPECIMEN OF 1776 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. Pages from Bodoni books of 1789 and 1806, showing the first “modern” type-faces Title-page of the “Historyes of Troye” designed by Morris and engraved on wood First text page of “The Story of the Glittering Plain” showing the “Golden” type TYPOGRAPHY IN THE 19th CENTURYIt 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. PLEASING BORDER ARRANGEMENT 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 DESIGN MADE WITH BRASS RULE 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 TITLE-PAGE OF 1810 TITLE-PAGE OF 1847 TITLE-PAGE OF 1872 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. THE TREND TOWARD DAINTINESS 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. BANQUET PROGRAM 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 “IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS” 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.” BUSINESS CARD 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 A BUSINESS CARD OF 1889 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. Stationery composition of 1870 The panel as used in 1893 A neat letterhead of 1897 The type foundries helped the spread of the new typography 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.” AN INTERESTING TITLE-PAGE 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. TITLE-PAGE IN THE COLONIAL STYLE 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. Bradley’s adaptation of the Colonial style as produced by him at the Wayside Press in 1896 De Vinne’s introduction to typography was as an 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. A JACOBI PAGE OF 1892 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. A BRADLEY PAGE 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. 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. A BRADLEY PAGE A DE VINNE PAGE 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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