Chapter IX: Part ONE: The Scribe at Work (2)

Less than half the size of the original which is in the British
Museum. Not all pages in the book were decorated like this, and
copies in other collections are illuminated in a different style.
From Humphrey
]

The Venetian style of typography and decoration
]

THE SPREAD OF TYPOGRAPHY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

┌──────────────────────────────┬───────────┬──────────────────────┐
│ CITY AND COUNTRY │ YEAR THE │ BY WHOM │
│ │ ART WAS │ │
│ │INTRODUCED │ │
├──────────────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────┤
│Mainz Germany│ 1450 │Johann Gutenberg │
│ │ │ │
│Strassburg Germany│ 1460 │John Mentel │
│Bamberg Germany│ 1461 │Albrecht Pfister │
│Cologne Germany│ 1464 │Ulrich Zell │
│Rome Italy│ 1465 │Conrad Schweinheim │
│ [Subiaco] │ │ Arnold Pannartz │
│Basel Switzerland│ 1468 │Bertold Ruppel │
│Augsburg Germany│ 1468 │Gunther Zainer │
│Venice Italy│ 1469 │John de Spira │
│Nuremberg Germany│ 1470 │Heinrich Keffer │
│ │ │ John Sensenschmidt │
│Paris France│ 1470 │Ulrich Gering │
│ │ │ Martin Crantz │
│ │ │ Michel Friburger │
│Florence Italy│ 1471 │Bernardo Cennini │
│Utrecht Netherlands│ 1473 │Nicholas Ketelaer │
│ │ │ Gerard de Leempt │
│Bruges Netherlands│ 1474 │Colard Mansion │
│London England│ 1477 │William Caxton │
│ [Westminster] │ │ │
│Barcelona Spain│ 1478 │Nicholas Spindeler │
│Oxford England│ 1478 │Theodoric Rood │
│Leipzig Germany│ 1481 │Marcus Brand │
│Vienna Austria│ 1482 │John Winterberger │
│Stockholm Sweden│ 1483 │John Snell │
│Haarlem Holland│ 1483 │Johannes Andriesson │
│Heidelberg Germany│ 1485 │Frederic Misch │
│Copenhagen Denmark│ 1493 │Gothofridus de Ghemen │
│Munich Germany│ 1500 │John Schobzer │
│Edinburgh Scotland│ 1507 │Androw Myllar │
│Mexico City Mexico│ 1540 │John Cromberger │
│Dublin Ireland│ 1551 │Humphrey Powell │
│Cambridge, Mass. [U.S.]│ 1639 │Stephen Daye │
└──────────────────────────────┴───────────┴──────────────────────┘

THE SPREAD OF TYPOGRAPHY FROM MAINZ

PAGE PRINTED BY KOBURGER

Combination of woodcuts and typography in a book of 1493
]

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE FIRST PAGE OF DISPLAYED TYPE COMPOSITION

Arranged by Jenson at Venice in 1471
]

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 letters, small upright Roman capitals being used with them. The reproduction below shows this combination and also the peculiar style of inserting a space after the capital letter beginning each line.

A page (actual size) from the famous Bamberg Missal

Printed by Sensenschmidt in 1481
]

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

Page printed by Aldus at Venice in 1514
]

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 in the style of the Gothic period, with stippled backgrounds, and are interesting to the printer because they show early use of the pieced border, a method now familiar.

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

Book of Hours, printed for Simon Vostre at Paris in 1486
]

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

PAGE BY ENGLAND’S FIRST PRINTER

How Caxton arranged a book title in 1483
]

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 not spaced to the full length. This gave to the right side of the page a ragged appearance, as in modern typewritten letters.

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

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

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

PAGE IN ENGLISH BY JOHN DAYE

From Fox’s famous “Acts and Monuments,” London, 1560
]

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

Printed at London about 1565 by Christopher Barker
]

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

(Actual size and color treatment)
]

TYPOGRAPHY IN COLONIAL DAYS

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

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

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

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

THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN ENGLISH AMERICA

By Stephen Daye at Cambridge, Mass., 1640. (Page slightly reduced)
]

TITLE-PAGE OF A SHAKESPEARE BOOK

Printed in 1600, while Shakespeare was in the midst of his literary
labors
]

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 intended marriage. This resulted in the accumulation of over three hundred letters, which eighty-five years later were collected and printed as a 442-page quarto. (The title-page is reproduced full size as an insert in this chapter.) A poor Puritan named Stubbs and a poor bookseller named Page published a pamphlet against the marriage of Queen Elizabeth to the French king’s brother, and tho the queen herself had said she would never marry, these unfortunate subjects were punished for their audacity by having their right hands cut off.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE LONDON “TIMES” UNDER THAT TITLE. 1788

The heading mentions that logotypes were used in the composition of
this newspaper
]

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”

Title-page (actual size) of Bunyan’s well-known book, London, 1678
]

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 and worn, and impressions from them cannot be accepted as criterions for determining the quality of modern printing. Neither are the chap-books true printing representatives of their times. The woodcuts, crudely drawn in the first place, were also worn and battered by repeated use.

PAGE FROM A “CHAP-BOOK”

Probably a Dicey product of the eighteenth century
]

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

Showing use of decorative bands to separate subjects
]

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 preserved in the public library, Forty-Second Street, New York.) This book of Psalms is a revision of Ainsworth’s version of 1612, and was in use in New England for upwards of a century, more than fifty editions having been published. The size of the type-page of the first edition is 3¼ × 6¼ inches.

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

FRENCH SPECIMEN OF 1742

(Actual size)
]

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

From the specimen book of W. Caslon and Son, London, 1764
]

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”

Title-page (slightly reduced) of Milton’s famous book, London, 1667
]

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

TWO PAGES FROM “POOR RICHARD’S ALMANACK”’

Printed by Benjamin Franklin in 1732
]

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 heading mentions that the _Times_ was printed “logographically.” Logotypes (two or three letters cast together) were being experimented with to facilitate type composition, but did not prove successful.

ITALIAN SPECIMEN OF 1776

Showing use of decoration
]

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

The Morris style of typography and decoration
]

TYPOGRAPHY IN THE 19th CENTURY

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

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

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

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

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

PLEASING BORDER ARRANGEMENT

Letterpress imitation of the decoration of double-column pages on
early books. From the “Book of Common Prayer,” London, 1814
]