Books and Printing; a Treasury for Typophiles

by Unknown

VI

Did they print books in those far-away prairie printing offices? They certainly did. One of the rarest items of Western Americana bears a Galesburg imprint. A pioneer of that town, a genius who played the flute and made many inventions, one of them the rotary plow still used to clear snow from the tracks of western railroads, was Riley Root. In 1849 he caught the gold fever and made the trip to Oregon and California over-land in a covered wagon. He had many adventures, and on his return wrote a book that was printed in Galesburg and is now a collector's item. A famous Boston book-seller became excited when he discovered a copy. "Unknown," he wrote in 1932, "to Wagner, Smith, Cowan, or as far as we know to any other bibliographer of the West, and unrecorded in the entire run of American Book Prices Current."

The front wrapper reads:

Journal of Travels / from / St. Josephs to Oregon / with / observations of that country / together with / a Description of California, / its agricultural interests, / and / a full description / of / its Gold Mines. / By Riley Root / Galesburg, Ill. / Intelligencer Print / 1850.

The matter on the wrapper is repeated on the title page with some minor variations. The book is a substantial pamphlet, size 9-1/2 by 6 inches, 144 pages, uncut. The Boston bookman continues:

"Riley Root's Journal has everything that a rare piece of Western Americana should have. In the first place, it looks rare. Like several rare Western items of which only a few copies exist, it was printed in a small mid-Western town. 'Galesburg, Illinois, 1850' is an imprint that has charm for the collector."

It must be excessively rare. The only other copy of which I know, besides the one described, is now appropriately in the Seymour Library of Knox College. Of this copy the librarian said (when he acknowledged the gift to the Library in 1931):

"This little unbound pamphlet was written by Riley Root who came with his family to this prairie country in 1836, when he was 37 years old, and helped to build the houses of Log City, the forerunner of Galesburg.... It was printed in Galesburg in 1850 by the 'Intelligencer Print' and bears in the border of the cover the name of the compositor, Southwick Davis, who graduated from Knox in the first class—that of 1846. This creditable piece of printing was done only about fourteen years after Galesburg was staked out and when Knox College was graduating its fifth class.

"In April 1848 Riley Root left Galesburg to make this over-land journey, crossing the continent by way of the Oregon Trail to Oregon City, a distance of 1846 miles from St. Josephs on the Missouri River, which was regarded as the starting point for the long journey through the Indian Country. Although gold had been discovered at Sutter's sawmill in California on February 10th, 1848, nearly two months before Mr. Root left Galesburg, it is not probable that he learned of that famous event until he reached Oregon in mid-September. The news spread slowly even on the Pacific coast, credible reports reaching San Francisco only in May. Mr. Root says that the excitement ('yellow fever,' he calls it) began in Oregon about the middle of August, and that within one month nearly 2,000 persons left Oregon for the gold fields. The purpose of Mr. Root's over-land journey to Oregon is not stated, but it would seem from an entry in his diary seven months after reaching Oregon City, to the effect that he had been 'roaming up and down the valley, in pursuit of information,' that he was scouting for new lands on a new frontier. Finding himself in the midst of all the gold rush 'commotion' he may very well have been attacked by the 'yellow fever' bug himself. At any rate he left Oregon in April, 1849, just a year after leaving Galesburg, and going to San Francisco and the California gold fields, spent five months, returning to Illinois by way of Panama and New Orleans. He arrived in Galesburg, January 8, 1850.

"This little pamphlet records the details of this epic journey, and if Riley Root's reputation rested on this alone he would take high rank as a historian. It is extremely well done and is a faithful journal of not only the day to day happenings, but of the country and its climate, the wild animals, the Indians, the geology and botany, the mountains, the forests and streams, and many other features that give evidence of the observant eye of the author. One interesting and important chapter relates the harrowing details of the Indian massacre of November, 1847, in which Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife lost their lives. This story was supplied to Mr. Root by eye-witnesses and is said to be its earliest publication in book or pamphlet form."

Among the many changes of ownership of presses in Galesburg, it would be difficult to decide whether the shop in which I learned my trade was a descendant of the Intelligencer Print or not, but it was produced in just such a primitive and resourceful plant.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] Plain Printing Types, Theodore L. De Vinne, New York, 1902.

James Shand
AUTHOR AND PRINTER: G.B.S. AND R. & R. C.: 1898-1948

From Alphabet and Image: 8, Winter, 1948. Copyright by Art and Technics, Ltd. Reprinted by permission of the author and publisher.

Topolski's drawing from
the illustrated Penguin Pygmalion.

Author and printer, publisher and book-seller; these conjunctions flow too easily from the pen. They cover an immeasurable sum of human experience, both melancholy and magnificent, in the long history of the book trade; they should be used with more reserve.

Fortunately for the reader, the writer is no doctor in bibliography expounding the perils and diseases of textual transmission, but a typographical reporter, with an interim case-history of a particular author, a particular printer and a healthy body of work in progress.

Our author is George Bernard Shaw, sometime of Dublin: our printer, R. & R. Clark, now, as always, of Edinburgh. The association is unique in more than a geographical sense; in time it covers fifty years; in space it defies quantitative analysis. Bernard Shaw's quota, if consigned to the Society of Authors, would probably make that body independent of the publishing trade for years to come.

Miss Marjorie Plant has pointed out, in her always readable economic history, The English Book Trade, that there was once a time when "the person who was of no account whatever in the early years of the book industry was the author." At a later period when the printer was dominated by book-seller and publisher, Dr. Johnson wrote in The Gentleman's Magazine in 1739, "We can produce some who threatened printers with their highest displeasure for having dared to print books for those who wrote them!"

In the history of English literature the relations of author, printer and publisher have often been bitter and obscure, posing many problems in bibliography and textual criticism. Dr. McKerrow, introducing the literary student to bibliography, suggests that "the best way of obtaining a clear and lively comprehension of the processes by which the books of Shakespeare's time were produced" would be by actually composing a sheet or two in exact facsimile of an Elizabethan quarto and printing it on a hand-press. "Once he does this," he adds, "he will find that the material book, apart altogether from its literary content, can be a thing of surprising interest."

The surprise of Dr. McKerrow's student trying to disentangle the impositions by which the Penguin edition of more than a million copies of Shaw's plays were produced on modern perfector printing presses and automatic folding machines would indeed be considerable. Nevertheless it is to be doubted whether there are as many bibliographical vagaries and obscurities in Shaw as in the folios and quartos of Shakespeare. Certainly there is something of the same fascination in the printing and production of the "material" books of the later playwright; apart from the literary antics of an ebullient Irish author with that most emotional of all romantic characters: seemingly hard-headed Scots printers.

Since we are presenting the romance of playwright and printer, without benefit of publisher, let us set our characters in their dramatic place and scene. The place is Edinburgh; the scene R. & R. Clark; the principal characters, Edward Clark, Bernard Shaw and William Maxwell; with a faint echo off-stage from that habitual bankrupt, Grant Richards, later deserted for the more solid attractions of a "commissioned" Constable.

Shaw's original shorthand draft of his letter to Maxwell on the centenary of R. & R. Clark in 1946.

Professor G. M. Trevelyan, in one of those two brilliant chapters on Scotland in his English Social History, points out that rapidly developing eighteenth-century Edinburgh "was hardly less important than London in the British field of letters."

Mr. Stanley Morison, speaking in Edinburgh in 1944 on the subject of The Typographic Arts, pointed out that the first history of typography ever written for the instruction of the trade was James Watson's The Art of Printing, published in Edinburgh in 1713.[39] A few years later the Edinburgh book-seller, Alexander Donaldson, who set up shop in the Strand and put Edinburgh printed classics on sale at 30 per cent to 50 per cent below the usual prices, was largely responsible for the creation of a "permanent and enlarged printing and type-founding industry in Edinburgh." Mr. Morison also asserts that in the last quarter of the eighteenth century Scotland led the interest in technicalities of printing.

The first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, printed in Edinburgh in 1771, was brought out by "a Society of Gentlemen of Scotland." John Bell's British Poets and British Theatre were printed at the Apollo Press by Gilbert Martin, an Edinburgh printer of whom Mr. Morison would gladly know more.

"The social, imaginative and intellectual life" of Scotland in the early nineteenth century centred largely in Edinburgh on Burns and Scott, Adam Smith and The Edinburgh Review. The familiar publisher names, Ballantyne, Blackwood, Chambers, Constable, Nelson, were also printers. In type-founding, Miller & Richards' Scotch Roman cut in 1803, and the later Old Style, were widely used throughout the trade, at home and abroad, right up to the present day.

It was in 1846, six years before Alexander Phemister cut the now famous Old Style, that Robert Clark, with a loan of £200, laid the modest foundations of R. & R. Clark. After serving his apprenticeship in Montrose as compositor and pressman (what is called in the Edinburgh trade a "twicer") he sought experience in London as a journeyman, before returning to Edinburgh to start his own business. His London experience must have been of some value to him because it was not long before he and his partner, James Kirkwood, had developed an active business with London publishers: Macmillans, Bentley, John Murray, Smith Elder, A. & C. Black, amongst others.

Robert Clark's policy of providing fine quality, with conscientious service at the highest possible price, no doubt contributed to the financial success of a rapidly developing business which moved to the present printing works at Brandon Street in 1883. Robert Clark's only surviving son, Edward, took over sole control after his father's death in 1894. William Maxwell first appears on the scene at this time, entering R. & R. Clark as a shorthand writer in 1892.

It was in 1892 that Shaw's first play, Widowers' Houses, was produced; 1898 when Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant, published by Grant Richards, were printed by R. & R. Clark.

Few living authors nowadays can claim continuous direct relations with one printer over a period of fifty years. Books are now the product of mechanical composing machines, automatic printing presses, and mechanized binderies. They require expert control by experienced production staffs dealing with many different paper-makers, printers and binders. For this reason alone the printed works of such a productive author as Bernard Shaw are a remarkable exception to the general rule in the highly-organized printing and publishing trades.

Commission publishing is the resort of authors whose reputation guarantees a lucrative circulation and who can afford the necessary capital. Shaw now deals directly with his printer and binder, buying and paying for his own composition, machining, paper and binding.

Shaw had always very definite ideas about the format of his books and, with the complete and friendly co-operation of his present publisher, has dealt continuously with R. & R. Clark since 1898. Clarks are now 102, Shaw 92, Maxwell 75; this unique association of author and printer is also a competition in longevity.

Page from the Standard Edition, which began publication in 1931, in Fournier small pica, 1-1/2 points leaded, large crown octavo, 5x8 inches.

The influence of Bernard Shaw on our time has been profound; in the theatre, in films and in broadcasting. The circulation of his printed works has been immense. His direct collaboration with his printer over a long period is of more than professional interest to publishers, printers and bibliographers. This unique author-printer relationship provides an unusual aspect for us of the wit, vigour and working methods of one of the most successful authors and playwrights of our time; demonstrating also in no uncertain terms the integrity, craftsmanship and mechanical resource of the printing house of R. & R. Clark, so soundly based and flexibly developed over the last hundred years in the solid traditions of the Edinburgh book-printing trade.

In 1946, on the occasion of the centenary of R. & R. Clark, Shaw wrote of that renowned Edinburgh printing firm, "Ever since it printed my first plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant, in 1898, it has been as natural a part of my workshop as the pen in my hand." Few printers can ever have received so eloquent a tribute from so eminent an author.

As a young author, Shaw's experiences with publishers had not been exactly encouraging. Between 1879 and 1883, as regularly as clockwork, at the rate of one a year, they rejected all his novels. The climate in publishing at that time is best described by Shaw himself writing to Daniel Macmillan in 1943. The letter is quoted in full in Charles Morgan's The House of Macmillan; a small portion bears reprinting here. After describing how Meredith turned him down for Chatto's without extenuating circumstances; how Blackwood accepted his first novel but reneged; how Smith Elder were polite and asked to see future efforts, Shaw goes on to write: "I am now one of the few who personally remember the Grand Old Men of the publishing world of that day: Alexander Macmillan, Longmans and Bentley. They were so powerful that they held the book-sellers in abject subjection, and were denounced by Walter Besant and his newly-organized Society of Authors as remorseless sharks. When they died and were succeeded by their sons, the hereditary system did not always work as well as it did in Bedford Street; and the book-sellers got the upper hand. John Murray's Byronic prestige was so select that I did not dream of trying him until years later, when I was an author of some note and had already helped to bankrupt three publishers. I offered him Man and Superman. He refused in a letter which really touched me. He said he was old-fashioned and perhaps a bit behind the times; but he could not see any intention in my book but to wound, irritate and upset all established constitutional opinion, and therefore could not take the responsibility of publishing it. By that time I could command sufficient capital to finance my books and enter into direct friendly relations with the printers (this began my very pleasant relations with Clarks of Edinburgh). I took matters into my own hands and, like Herbert Spencer and Ruskin, manufactured my books myself, and induced Constables to take me "on commission."

Sidney and Beatrice Webb sent Shaw to their Edinburgh printer. An informative and amusing correspondence reprinted at length by Grant Richards in Author Hunting reveals how he was ruled and educated by Shaw in the choice of type, "Morris" margins, specimen pages, paper and other details of production. Holbrook Jackson has pointed out in an article in number four of The Fleuron that Shaw's books followed the model of William Morris's Roots of the Mountains, printed in Caslon Old Face at the Chiswick Press in 1892. Shaw, Socialist intimate and admirer of Morris, was also in close touch with Emery Walker, and familiar no doubt with the typographical ideas of Morris, Walker and Cobden-Sanderson, first elaborated in Edinburgh in 1889 at a meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Art, and later published in Arts and Crafts Essays printed in Edinburgh in 1893.

In preliminary discussions of the production of Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant, Shaw insisted on a trade union printer. Grant Richards doubted whether a union house could do justice to his ideal of the book beautiful. "I had few notions of what makes a union house," wrote Grant Richards. "I do not think I had a union house on my list. The problem shifted to the question of fair wages, and R. & R. Clark were approved." Shaw, in a letter to Grant Richards in 1897, observed, "Clark is all right; a first-rate house. I enclose a letter which you can hold as a certificate of compliance with my fair wages clause."...

Edward Clark doubtless also got much entertainment from his dealings with a teetotal, non-smoking, vegetarian, Socialist of an author. There is a story that, on one specimen, Shaw's instructions for close and mechanically-equal spacing between words were so precisely followed by the pragmatical Scots, that at the end of some closely spaced lines the definite article "the" was divided "t-" and "he" turned over, and the indefinite article "a-" with "n" turned over. Shaw's comment when returning the specimen, as Maxwell tells the story, was, "Excellent; but please do not go so far as to prove the author is really a damn fool." Shaw denies the story; nevertheless, true or untrue, it has a Shavian flavour.

Shaw's choice of Caslon for his original edition was inevitable. We know that he picked up the pre-Kelmscott formula ready-made from William Morris; but, unlike the founding fathers of the private press movement, he lacked the unearned income to indulge in a privately-cut type-face. In 1897 we must remember that there were only two text-types available in most book-houses: Old Style or Modern. More often than not, before mechanical type-setting, there was not even any choice. Publisher and author often had to accept the type of which there happened to be, at any given moment, the greatest amount of "dis."

Shaw's original hand-set page in type-founder's Caslon, long primer solid, stood up to thirty years' constant use. To our post-war eyes, conditioned by authorized economy standards, the precise and consistent setting of the plays, with their even Roman small caps, lower-case italics in square brackets, with occasional lower-case Roman words letter-spaced, has considerable nostalgic typographical charm. Here is sense and sensibility in book-making, well ahead of its typographical time. Of course, there are many people, William Maxwell and Bernard Newdigate amongst them, who protested that long primer Caslon set solid was too small and too difficult to read. But Shaw proved faithful to his original style and to his original setting until the plates wore out. He liked a colourful block of letter-press without white "rivers." He complains that modern printing ink is not black enough.

In the middle twenties when the project of a Limited Collected Edition was discussed, Shaw still preferred Caslon, but agreed to a larger size, pica solid, on a larger page, medium octavo. But, and to William Maxwell it was a considerable but, Shaw specified hand-setting. As a disciple of William Morris, Shaw objected to setting his books by machine. Our William from Edinburgh thereafter called on Shaw with two different specimen pages, one hand-set in original Caslon and one "machine-justified" in Monotype Caslon. Both were submitted to Shaw without saying which was which. The suspected Monotype "justification" was preferred. Maxwell triumphed. Emery Walker, consulted by letter, also approved the machine-set page.

What a victory for the machine! Or rather, what a subtle example of Maxwell's typographical tact and persuasiveness! The re-setting of the whole of Shaw by hand would have been an inexcusable and expensive drudgery. Maxwell convinced Shaw that the mechanical composing machine could equal hand-setting in typographical quality and close spacing between words and sentences.

The devotion to Monotype Caslon in the middle twenties seems strange to us now, looking back from a wealth of typographical equipment, including Bembo, Bell and Times. But if we look round the literature of the trade at that time, particularly at The Fleuron, we note that Caslon in its Monotype version had a vogue, almost a kind of typographical Indian summer. The Fleuron number one was set in the "then fashionable" design known as Garamond; number two in Baskerville; numbers three and four reverted to Caslon. When Mr. Stanley Morison took over the editing of numbers five, six and seven, and the printing moved from Curwen to Cambridge, the final volumes were all set in Fournier.

It was about this same time that William Maxwell told Shaw that his old Caslon plates were worn out and suggested complete resettings in a new Standard Edition in large crown octavo in small-pica Fournier 1-1/2-points leaded. In the final choice of type for the Standard Edition, we detect again how Shaw trusted William Maxwell's judgment and accepted his advice. No doubt there was an improvement in readability over the original edition, but my own feeling is that the Standard Edition, as at present printed, has none of the evocative charm of the original edition. It may be that the Sundour binding seems prosaic. But Shaw, disgusted by the fading of his green covers, was converted to Sundour by a Winterbottom director emphasizing that not even the Indian sun could change it.

When Shaw first saw Maxwell's specimens for the new Standard Edition in various type-faces, Caslon, Baskerville, Scotch Roman, Old Style and Fournier amongst others, he replied, "I like them all but I'll stick to Caslon until I die: and after I am dead you can do what you like." Fortunately, Shaw is still alive and the Standard Edition is in Fournier.[40]

I cross-examined William Maxwell closely and at some length on this switch from Caslon to Fournier. His persuasive and peculiar ability to get his own way, even in face of such a do-or-die statement of Shaw's, must be remarked here. I am afraid, however, the only light I can throw on this, the greatest typographical conversion of all time, is that Maxwell himself is very fond of Fournier italics. Maxwell is no hard-headed Scot. He comes from the soft Hyperborean north, where the Gulf Stream makes the fuchsias grow six feet high. When he confesses to an affair with an elegant French type there isn't much chance for even an Irish author, much less the English public, to break up the "auld alliance." Thus Shaw's Standard Edition, now running into some thirty-five volumes, began publication in Fournier in 1931 and has steadily reprinted in this type and format at intervals ever since.

In an article on "Author and Printer" in the eleventh impression of the ninth edition of Collins's Authors' and Printers' Dictionary Dr. R. W. Chapman observes: "The prolixity of modern writing, fostered by cheap paper and print, by the habit of making books out of articles and lectures, by the use of typewriters and stenographers, is a positive evil."

Shaw's meticulous proofreading is indicated by this heavily-corrected proof of On the Rocks, with a complete retyping of the passage below.

Shaw's method, probably verging on the diabolical to Dr. Chapman, is to write everything first in shorthand. A double-spaced typescript then becomes his working copy, to be sent to the printer only after careful emendation and revision, in Shaw's always clear hand.

The manuscripts, typescripts, galley, page and final press proofs, indeed the whole apparatus of the Shavian "workshop" in William Maxwell's collection, show the great pains Shaw takes in writing and revising before setting. His meticulous proof reading is as characteristic as the clarity of his proof correction. William Maxwell tells me that Shaw's first-proof corrections are often heavy, sometimes involving considerable re-setting and re-make-up. But wherever lengthy excisions or additions are made in final proofs, Shaw is always careful to supply the exact number of words; sometimes in shorter corrections counting individual letters in substituted words in order to avoid over-running and re-justification.

By all the standards of Horace Hart and Howard Collins, Shaw would qualify as an admirable and expert author in the technical aspect of his relations with his printer—except, perhaps, for Dr. Chapman's scholarly strictures on prefatorial prolixity and diabolonian authorship.

Shaw's plays are drafted in what he calls Author's Shorthand (simplified Pitman); typed by his secretary; revised; printed; and passed for press after two more revisions. For rehearsal, fifty copies are struck off as "By a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature." If more are required they are "By Bernard Shaw." These sets are "privately printed." Alterations and additions in rehearsal and during the run of the play are incorporated as final corrections before publication.

One of the most interesting Shaw exhibits in William Maxwell's possession is the original of the filmscript of Pygmalion. Shaw allowed no hand but his own on the scripts of his films. The corrected copy of the play, with alterations in dialogue and time scheme for the screen and the additional scenes and sequences, is in itself remarkable visual evidence of Shaw's nimble-witted inventiveness. Few playwrights at the age of eighty-five have tackled so successfully the transition into another medium, cooperating with director and producer to present in all its freshness and verve the authentic Shavian touch on both sound-track and screen.

The original edition, the Limited Collected edition, the Standard edition, form the bulk of Shaw's printed works; his printed ephemera are not my concern here. There are, however, various editions of what we might call out-of-the-run-plays-and-prefaces books: The Intelligent Woman's Guide, Everybody's Political What's What, the two-column quarto editions of the Prefaces and The Complete Plays, the illustrated Black Girl, the illustrated Good King Charles's Golden Days (there was also an illustrated edition of Geneva printed by the Chiswick Press) and the illustrated Penguin edition of Pygmalion. "Omnibus" editions of the Plays and Prefaces have been published by Odhams, cheap editions by Penguin; and Back to Methuselah by the Oxford University Press in World's Classics. The Odhams omnibus was reprinted from Shaw's plates; the Penguin editions were re-set in Times.

The Intelligent Woman was instructed in Caslon on a page dimension decided by William Maxwell; a binding design by Douglas Cockerell; and a four-colour half-tone jacket from an original drawing by Eric Kennington of a nude female Intelligencer looking down a well. She, needless to add, had a much less shapely figure than the Black Girl.

The typography of The Intelligent Woman's Guide (1928) is in the Caslon formula. We need only note in passing that the drop initials at the beginning of chapters are tightly fitted and spill over into the margins. The binding suggests that too much Cockerell can spoil a trade binding. The jacket was regrettable: the externals of this book seem out of character with the rest of Shaw's production. A more acceptable popular edition, printed from the same plates, with reduced margins in small demy octavo, was published a year later in 1929.

Shaw's note on the corrected Pygmalion filmscript in which he altered the dialogue and time scheme, providing additional scenes and sequences for the film as shown in the two pages following.

The two-column edition of the Complete Plays, set in Scotch Roman in quarto, is a skillful piece of book-making; a pleasant, readable page, which William Maxwell can appropriate entirely to his own credit. For size, weight and general colour the Scotch Roman was eminently successful for all the plays in one volume, not too heavy in the hand, in a format which makes for easy reference and re-reading.

The contrast of the two-column Fournier setting of the Prefaces with the two-column setting of the Complete Plays in Scotch Roman is to the advantage of the Scotch Roman. The small pica Fournier is too large in relation to the width of the column and, to my eye, does not look at all happy in this two-column setting.

Everybody's Political What's What provides us with an interesting example of the close collaboration in proof-reading between William Maxwell, his press-readers and Shaw. Shaw, to illustrate some argument, asserted erroneously that so many codfish were being caught at one period that great quantities were being thrown back into the sea. Maxwell pointed out that codfish were never thrown back into the sea; they are salted, dried, preserved and disposed of in many other ways. Shaw, hazy about varieties, intended fish in general and not codfish in particular.

Also in this book, Shaw mentioned that when an outsider wins a race, book-makers lose. William Maxwell, no mean expert in the making of these other kinds of "books" and having absorbed, no doubt, from Edward Clark some knowledge and appreciation of "the sporting spirits," questioned this; and innumerable letters from punters and bookies overloaded Shaw's letterbox. He re-worded the passage to silence the rule-of-thumb practitioners.

We have all been afflicted from time to time in prefaces and authors' notes with the names of odd people who have also "read the proofs." There can be few authors who get the benefit of skilled press-reading and skilled scrutiny from a managing director so knowledgeable about fish and about "bookies." The codfish and "bookie" stories are an interesting indication of how every page of Shaw's goes through a double sieve at Brandon Street, such is the passion of Scots for accuracy in type-setting. The Scots' passion for perfection in press-work comes to light in this association with the production of The Black Girl.

Some time prior to 1932, Shaw asked Maxwell to suggest an engraver-illustrator for this Voltairean tale; Maxwell suggested John Farleigh. With that thorough attention to detail characteristic of the Scot, he not only ensured that Shaw should have an illustrator capable of interpreting his ideas, he also took care that the engravings, paper and ink should all be happily matched and tested. By accepting full responsibility for the typography of the illustrated page, he undoubtedly produced an illustrated Shaw of a quality and at a price which was a credit to author and printer.

My typographical feelings about The Black Girl are mixed. The engravings seem rather too heavy for the Fournier setting; it may be an odd observation to make about a Shaw book, but the illustrations overload the text of this slim book; the binding is too much and too black. Shaw's own wash drawings of the Black Girl are much more subtle in suggestion than John Farleigh's white line. But there was little doubt about the success of The Black Girl with a large public. It is an interesting and successful example of a short book with text and illustrations printed at one impression, and without any complications in binding.

The contrast between Farleigh's sharp white line and Topolski's loose black squiggle in the illustrated edition of Good King Charles's Golden Days demonstrates what I mean by the rigidity of The Black Girl page. Shaw as an author is impossible to illustrate; he can only be annotated and decorated. There is an engaging light-hearted quality about Topolski's cosmopolitan draughtsmanship which seems to suit Shaw better than Farleigh's engravings.

Maxwell's earliest recollection of meeting Shaw is of going to see Mrs. Shaw at the Adelphi about the printing of her translations of some plays by Brieux, the author of Damaged Goods. Shaw had written an introduction to them.

In the centenary letter to William Maxwell in November 1946, Shaw wrote: "I remember Edward Clark very kindly and very well; but it was with you that our business relations developed into a cordial personal relationship which has been of inestimable value to me as an author...."

Correction in popular edition of The Intelligent Woman's Guide showing careful count of words and letters for exact fit of substituted passage.

William Maxwell at an early stage in his career became aware of the printer's responsibility to the author. Clark's work for Robert Louis Stevenson must often have been recollected and discussed. Many other authors have passed through Brandon Street on their way. It is one of the doubtful pleasures of a book-printing establishment to deal direct with authors. Maxwell has had his full share of that kind of mixed pleasure and responsibility with Hardy, Kipling, the Webbs, Sir James Frazer, Hugh Walpole, Virginia Woolf, Charles Morgan, Osbert and Edith Sitwell.

I began with an Edinburgh book-printer; I conclude with an honorary LL.D. of Edinburgh University. In 1947 that ancient University conferred on William Maxwell that honour which he values above any personal recognition. It was a deserved compliment to R. & R. Clark and to Scottish printing as a whole.

No man is self-made; but so far as any one individual can by his own efforts raise the standard of his trade, the renown of his firm and add to the lustre of his native city, Dr. William Maxwell has done so by his devoted and sedulous years in the service of many authors and many publishers....

This inadequate typographical report is in no sense intended to be either accurate or inclusive. Nor do I make any claim for startling innovations in graphic design or any particularly noteworthy contributions to typography. This productive association has covered fifty of the most inventive years in the mechanical development of book-printing; Bernard Shaw himself wrote, "I have not had to think about my printing. I have left it to do itself, which means that R. & R. Clark had to do it." All the same he thought a lot about it.

I may well conclude with the final paragraph of Shaw's letter to William Maxwell of November 1946. "Long may you and R. & R. Clark Ltd. flourish after we have said our last farewell which we shall both, I hope, be still too busy to attend to."

---

COMPOSED IN CALEDONIA TYPES

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Two excerpts are included in this book, see pages 86 and 87.

[40] A specimen page from The Devil's Disciple is shown on page 386.

PAUL A. BENNETT

On Type Faces For Books

It is simple enough to understand that type, paper and ink are components of book printing. But not so easy to comprehend the reasons for the variety of papers available, nor the many dozens of type faces offered for book composition.

The reasons for this great variety are partly functional, partly aesthetic, and competitive. Papers differ in many ways—color, finish, opacity, strength and bulk are some of them.

Type faces differ, too, and for equally valid reasons. There are the important design and style differences that comprise the old style, transitional and modern faces suitable for books. And distinctions in weight or "color"; distinctions in roundness, in degree of compactness, and distinctions in legibility, and in size.

To the designer of books, type face selection is important in relation to the character of the text to be printed. The size of type selected, and the amount of "leading," or space between its lines, has a bearing upon the number of pages the manuscript will make.

Some shorter manuscripts, for instance, need to be "driven out" or padded, to make the book appear greater in content than it actually is, to justify its price. Others need every possible degree of compression to get the manuscript into a lesser number of pages, which, in turn, means fewer "forms" to print, fewer "signatures" to bind, and less paper to use.

To turn from the functional use of type to the aesthetic, and also make a rather loose analogy, one may think of the type face as a garment with which the designer dresses the author's words.

In this instance the designer selects a type face to develop an "allusive" format—to reflect something of the style of the period of the manuscript. Bruce Rogers, the greatest master of allusive book-making, in his "Paragraphs on Printing" points out that in a small way this is "like planning the stage setting for a play.

"An up-to-date style for an ancient text would compare with staging Hamlet in modern dress. However novel and effective in its own way, you feel it to be strange, and this sense of strangeness is an annoying distraction; you are forced to think of the setting and the designer rather than the text."

It is easier to suggest a feminine appeal with types like Estienne or Fairfield or Garamond, than with less decorative faces such as Baskerville, Bodoni or Janson. Yet it is foolish to go too far in this direction. Strictly speaking, there are no definitely feminine or masculine types—the way type is handled has much to do with the mood it evokes. And it is dangerous to pin labels on types without knowing a great deal of their background and derivation.

The idea of using many distinguished types for the composition of this book was deliberate: The intent was to demonstrate, on a uniform paper surface and under identical printing conditions, the "behavior" of twenty of the finest types of our time.

And to afford a basis for comparison that might not only illumine some of the points mentioned, but also provide reference specimens of these notable book faces. To that end, a complete alphabet showing in caps and lower-case of each face is included, with a brief account of its background and development.

Not every essay will be equally appealing, typographically. Yet the variety of faces used in setting them seems more successful than would be the less sensitive treatment of uniform typography. Reading the articles and studying the performance of the individual types should provide an increased appreciation of the part typography plays in developing the book's format.

In this present instance, the designer has chosen one basic "background" face, Janson, for the majority of the essays. And has "interleaved," so to speak, many of the essays set in different types. This treatment lessens any tendency toward uneven color and spottiness, and minimizes some of the potential "scrap book" feel of many differing type specimens.

The problem of coupling face with essay was carefully considered. There could be none but the obvious selection of the author's own design in connection with five of the essays: Electra for W. A. Dwiggins' "Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books"; Perpetua for Eric Gill's "Typography"; Times Roman for Stanley Morison's "First Principles of Typography"; Deepdene for Frederic Goudy's "Types and Type Design"; and Centaur for the extracts from Bruce Rogers' Paragraphs on Printing.

Some background on the type selections for other essays may be of interest: Monticello, a recutting of one of the earliest American types, was a natural and excellent choice for Lawrence Wroth's "First Work with American Types," as was Bembo, one of Beatrice Warde's favorite faces for her "Printing Should Be Invisible." Bell, which Mr. Updike was one of the first to use with distinction—he called it Mountjoye when he acquired it in 1903—was the choice for his "Some Tendencies in Modern Typography."

The selection of Poliphilus for Sir Francis Meynell's "Some Collectors Read" seemed appropriate in recognition of the many fine Nonesuch books he had set in English Monotype faces; while that of Baskerville for John Winterich's essay on Franklin as printer and publisher was because Baskerville was a type Franklin greatly admired. Caledonia, an original Dwiggins face influenced by Scotch Roman, was the more subtle choice for Scot printer James Shand's revealing account of George Bernard Shaw's relations with his printer—more appropriate to Shand's preference and background, than would have been the choice of Caslon or Fournier, in which Shaw's books have been set.

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The brief mention of old style, transitional and modern faces may need amplification. And also the descriptive terms Linotype and Monotype, which are trade-marked words that indicate methods of composition.

In Linotype, the product is an actual line of type, called "slug" in printer's parlance. This is produced by one machine, from matrices assembled through finger action on a keyboard. In operation, the assembled line moves to the mold for casting and the matrices are then returned (distributed) to their channels in the magazine for use in other lines.

In Monotype, the product is individual pieces of type—letters and spaces assembled into a line of many elements, as in hand type. The Monotype machine consists of two units: the keyboard (which resembles a type-writer) punches holes in a roll of paper, not unlike that in a player piano. This roll is then fed into the casting unit, where it functions by controlling levers which bring the matrix of each character into position for casting letters and spaces in sequence in the lines.

The distinctions between type faces called old style, transitional or modern,

are apparent at a glance to the technician. Just as, for instance, you distinguish instantly between a Scandinavian, a Latin-American, or a Mongolian. Analysis may indicate that the chief factor in your instant recognition of these types is memory of features.

So too in type faces. Here the differences are more minute, and essentially a matter of design distinctions: the weight and relation of thick and thin strokes, the treatment and stress of curves, and the handling of "serifs." There is little difference in the actual shapes of letters, which is as it should be.

One of the more lucid accounts of the development of letter forms is W. A. Dwiggins' "The Shapes of Roman Letters," included in his Mss. by WAD. Illustrations from this minor classic are used here by permission.

Remember that most of the letter forms we meet are modifications of written letters, shaped by pen action. Some differences in the details of serif treatment are indicated by these Dwiggins drawings:

a b c d

a shows a commonly designed serif detail, much better handled by natural pen action in b. The arch of a letter, frequently handled in type as c, is more crisp and attractive in d, the natural pen form.

In type, serifs help carry the eye in a horizontal direction, a designer friend points out, setting up a "flow" from letter to letter within the word, and from word to word across the line.

e f

Contrast the "degenerate, commonly used" form of o shown in e, with the more attractive pen form in f. Here is graphic distinction in the treatment and stress of curves.

The two most common classes of type faces are "old style" and "modern." The "transitional," a merging of the old style form into the modern—is typified by the illustration of Bulmer, between the Janson and Bodoni specimens used for the visual presentation on page 404.

Our old style faces descend from the early Italian Roman types and differ in minor details and "national" characteristics. Among the old style faces used in this book are Bembo and Centaur, which reflect the Italian form; Estienne, Granjon and Garamond, which reflect the French form; Caslon and Janson, typical of the English-Dutch form; and Fairfield and Times Roman, as differing expressions of contemporary old style types.

Modern faces, the result of a swing of taste in the opposite direction, stemmed from an effort to copy in type the letters of eighteenth-century copper-plate engravers. Bodoni, the classic form of the modern, is included in its lighter rendering, named Bodoni Book. The first English modern, named Bell, is also included; together with two contemporary moderns, the Dwiggins-designed Electra and Caledonia faces, cut by Linotype. All three are less severe than Bodoni and retain elements of the transitional form in some letters.

The two really transitional faces included are the classic Baskerville, and Monticello, which verges somewhat more to the old style character.

"Letters," as Mr. Dwiggins illustrates graphically, "are made out of thick 'stems,' thin 'hair-lines,' loops and 'serifs,' or finishing strokes."

How the variations that produce the different styles of Roman types actually came about is easily understood by seeing how the nib of the pen is slanted to write an old style letter like Caslon (g), as against holding it at right angles to the written line for the modern letter, such as Scotch (h):

g h

Differences in curve and finish are a natural result of these two pen positions.

As Mr. Dwiggins explains: "In writing lower-case 'a,' for example, the stroke begins at the little bulb at the upper left-hand corner, passes over the arch at the top, descends to form the straight stem, and finishes with an upward flick; a second motion forms the loop. As the line moves, it swells and thins in accordance with the shape of the pen and the direction of the movement.

i j

"In the Caslon letter (i), the swelling at the top begins at the bulb or dot; the arch expands throughout its whole curve; the loop has a decided tilt, as has the finishing stroke.

"In the Scotch letter (j), the arch is a thin line; the expansion does not begin until the downward stroke of the stem; the swelling of the loop is at right angles to the line of writing, and the letter ends with a perpendicular flick.

"In the 'b,' one notices the difference in the loops and in the serifs at the tops of the letters.

k l

"The typical 'old style' serif at the top (k) tilts as the pen is tilted; the loop is a tilted sweep of the slanted pen; while the serif and loop of the 'modern' letter (l) partake of the perpendicular position of the pen. These characteristics of tilt or perpendicularity appear in all the lower-case letters and to a limited extent in the capitals."

To check the distinctions in different characters in the following twenty types, a magnifying glass will be helpful.

"The artistic quality of a type letter," Mr. Dwiggins concludes, "is determined by its degree of grace of line and proportion. The standards of grace and proportion are to be looked for in the natural motions of the pen. But the quality called art is dependent, too, upon the artist's appreciation of the material in which he works—namely metal. The draughtsman does not attempt to copy exactly the form of his pen-written model, but modifies the pen form to a shape suitable to its final state—that of a metal punch."

NOTES ON THE TYPE FACES
USED IN THIS BOOK

By Paul A. Bennett

NOTE: The following specimens are set in a 10 point type size, except Centaur, in 14 point, and Eldorado, in 11 point, which were the only sizes available for this book.

BASKERVILLE, the fine transitional face named for the eighteenth-century English printer, is available in several contemporary versions. The Linotype cutting used here, most faithful to the original Roman, was produced from a complete font cast from the original matrices, exhumed at Paris in 1929. For twenty years Baskerville has been a favored type with American book-makers.

BASKERVILLE was used for setting Benjamin Franklin: Printer and Publisher, pp. 352-367.

BELL, the fine English transitional-modern, was cut by Richard Austin about 1788 for John Bell, a leading English book and newspaper publisher. The English Monotype version used here was reproduced in 1931 from the original punches, then in possession of the Stephenson-Blake foundry in Sheffield. Bruce Rogers used the type (calling it Brimmer) for many fine Riverside Press books.

BELL was used for setting Some Tendencies in Modern Typography, pp. 306-312.

BEMBO, the fine Venetian old face, is a revival by English Monotype of one of the earliest Aldine romans. That was cut before 1500 by Francesco Griffo of Bologna, the designer responsible for the first Italic type a half-dozen years later, and named for Pietro Bembo, the humanist scholar (later Cardinal and secretary to Pope Leo X), whose De Aetna was printed by Aldus in 1495.

BEMBO was used for setting Printing Should Be Invisible, pp. 109-114.

BODONI BOOK, a light weight rendering of the popular A.T.F. Bodoni, is widely used in the United States for book and periodical composition. Introduced in 1910, it is not a copy of the types of the great Italian, Giambattista Bodoni, but rather a version retaining his principle of modern letter design. The lessened degree of contrast between its thick and thin lines make it gain in reading ease.

BODONI BOOK was used for setting Harsh Words, pp. 321-336.

CALEDONIA, a contemporary Linotype face designed by W. A. Dwiggins, was inspired by the work of Scotch type-founders, in particular by a lighter weight, more slender transitional face cut by William Martin for Bulmer around 1790. Christened for its forebears, Caledonia resembles neither—though it has touches of both Bulmer's Martin and Wilson's Scotch, and also "something of the simple, hard-working, feet-on-the-ground quality of Scotch Modern."

CALEDONIA was used for setting Author and Printer: G.B.S. and R. & R.C., pp. 381-401.

CASLON, the great eighteenth-century English old style, has suffered more from "improvement and refinement" by succeeding generations of type founders than most celebrated types. A development based on Dutch models rather than an original creation, Caslon has been eloquently termed "the finest vehicle for the printed conveyance of English speech that the art of the punch-cutter has yet devised." Monotype's excellent rendering used here (No. 337) reflects the essential qualities of the original.

CASLON was used for setting Typographic Debut, pp. 78-82 and Metal-Flowers, pp. 83-84.

CENTAUR, a distinguished Italian Renaissance face designed by Bruce Rogers, was cut by Robert Wiebking of Chicago in 1914, in the 14 point size. Its first use by BR was in a limited edition of De Guerin's The Centaur, printed at Carl Rollins' Montague Press. The face, recut by English Monotype in 1929, seemed to D. B. Updike to be "one of the best Roman founts yet designed in America." The Italic is Arrighi, designed by Frederic Warde, used since there is no Centaur Italic.

CENTAUR was used for setting Paragraphs On Printing, pp. 281-289, and B.R.: Adventurer With Type Ornament, pp. 290-305.

DEEPDENE, designed and cut by Frederic W. Goudy in 1927, was named for his estate at Marlboro-on-Hudson. In his A Half Century of Type Design, Mr. Goudy mentions the face was "suggested by a Dutch type (the Lutetia of Van Krimpen) which had just been introduced ... but as with some of my previous designs, I soon got away from my exemplar to follow a line of my own." The Monotype recutting, done later, is used here.

DEEPDENE was used for setting Types and Type Design, pp. 267-273.

ELDORADO, the latest Linotype face designed by W. A. Dwiggins, was developed through the war years and completed in 1951. It was suggested by an uncommonly compact and distinctive eighteenth-century face used in Madrid by the Spanish printer, DeSancha. In no sense a copy, Eldorado retains in its letter anatomy something of the treatment of curves, arches and junctions that brought distinction to its antecedent, as well as flavor of Spanish typographic tradition.

ELDORADO was used for setting What is a Private Press, pp. 175-181.

ELECTRA, an original modern, designed for Linotype by W. A. Dwiggins, reflects the warmth and distinction of his personal lettering. The effort was to work into Electra letter shapes, where possible, some of the twentieth-century spirit: electricity, high-speed steel, streamlined curves, the readers' familiarity with newspaper and type-writer faces ... to develop letters filled with energy, human warmth and personality. Electra is available with either an oblique Roman lower-case companion form, or the more familiar cursive.

ELECTRA was used for setting the Investigation Into the Physical Properties of Books, pp. 129-144 and Twenty Years After, pp. 145-152.

EMERSON was designed by Joseph Blumenthal and cut by Monotype in England in 1934. The face is a duplicate of his Spiral Press type, designed several years earlier and cut for him by Louis Hoell in Frankfort, Germany, in 1931. This face was initially used for a limited edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay on Nature, printed on a hand press at Croton Falls in 1932, and privately published. The accompanying Emerson Italic was designed in 1936.

EMERSON was used for setting Typography of William Morris, pp. 233-238.

FAIRFIELD, a slightly decorative, original and contemporary old style, was designed for Linotype by Rudolph Ruzicka, the distinguished American wood engraver. Sharply cut, as though the letters came from the artist's graver rather than pen, Fairfield was designed for reading by "one of the most knowledgeable men in the country about letter forms and their style." To invite continuous reading, the designer feels, "type must have a subtle degree of interest and variety of design."

FAIRFIELD was used for setting The Fun and Fury of a Private Press, pp. 220-225.

GARAMOND was introduced in America by ATF in 1919, when their cutting, based on the caractères de l'Université of the Imprimerie Nationale, appeared. Since, at least eight other versions have been made: by the English and American Linotype and Monotype, by Intertype, Ludlow, and the Stempel foundry. A documented article considering the XVI and XVII sources of the Garamond types, by Paul Beaujon, appeared in The Fleuron, V. This version is the American Monotype.

GARAMOND was used for setting Colophons, pp. 31-44.

GILL SANS, designed by Eric Gill in 1928, was patterned after lettering done for the Douglas Cleverdon book-shop in Bristol. First offered by English Monotype as a titling font (caps, figures and points only), the lower-case was added as the face grew in favor. Today, Gill is the most popular sans serif in England. It ranges through a variety of weights, including light, normal, heavy, extra heavy, and shadow and outline display and condensed versions.

GILL SANS was used for setting Notes on Modern Printing, pp. 350-351.

GRANJON was designed for Linotype by the late George W. Jones, one of England's greatest printers. It is neither a copy of a classic face nor an original creation, but rather something between the two, with its basic design stemming from classic Garamond sources. An exceedingly compact and useful old style, Granjon is exceptionally clear in small sizes. Its space-saving virtues are important in the book and periodical field.

GRANJON was used for setting Printers as Men of the World, pp. 88-102.

JANSON, the distinguished seventeenth-century old style face, is presumed Dutch in origin. It was issued by Anton Janson, a Leipsic punch-cutter and type-founder, between 1660 and 1687. Little is known of Janson to supplement his first type specimen issued in 1675. The original matrices, bought in Holland from the heirs of Edling, Janson's successor, are possessed by the Stempel foundry in Frankfort, Germany. The Linotype recutting of Janson was made from type cast from the original matrices.

JANSON was used for setting all the essays in this book excepting those indicated in other faces.

MONTICELLO is a recutting of the famous Binny & Ronaldson Roman No. 1, a distinguished early American face cut in 1796 in Philadelphia. Type cast from the original matrices by A. T. F. has been favored for years by such discriminating printers as D. B. Updike, Fred Anthoensen and the Grabhorns. Linotype's remodeling of the type for modern use was named for the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, a fifty-volume publishing project by Princeton, for which the face was adopted.

MONTICELLO was used for setting the First Work With American Types, pp. 65-77.

PERPETUA was designed by Eric Gill, the eminent English sculptor and maker of letters with pen, chisel and graver. Mr. Gill's account of his type (cut in England): "from drawings made by me. Those drawings were not made with special reference to typography—they were simply drawn with brush and ink. For the typographical quality of the fount, as also for the remarkably fine and precise cutting of the punches, the Monotype Corporation is to be praised."

PERPETUA was used for setting Typography, pp. 257-266.

POLIPHILUS is a literal reproduction of the Aldine Roman used in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in 1499, cut by Francesco Griffo. The recutting, by the English Monotype organization in 1923 (from sheets of the book) was attempted with the thought of providing a type to convey an old-world atmosphere appropriate for reprinting fifteenth-century classics. The accompanying Italic, named Blado, was the first of a number of Chancery italics to come from European type-founders.

POLIPHILUS was used for setting Some Collectors Read, pp. 191-211.

TIMES ROMAN was designed by Stanley Morison for the London Times, and first used in that great newspaper. Its masculine simplicity, directness of design and excellent color makes it exceptionally useful for periodicals and general commercial work. The basic design objective of maximum legibility in minimum space has resulted in the larger letter-structure that makes each point size seem the equivalent of a size larger in most other types.

TIMES ROMAN was used for setting The First Principles of Typography, pp. 239-251.