The writer was curious to see how these letters of Moxon’s made up into type, and for this purpose had the outlined alphabets inked in and reproduced in smaller size (Examples [479-A] and [480-A]).
When William Caslon, in 1720, cut his first Roman letter he may have had Moxon’s Roman alphabet before him. There are some resemblances, but that he did not slavishly follow the Moxon letters may be seen by comparing both type-faces (Examples [465-F] and [465-G]).
We could be more familiar with the types of Baskerville than we are, but now that the typefounders are reproducing them (Example [483]) we shall come to a realization that they rival the letters of Caslon in beauty and readability. John Baskerville, the English typefounder and printer, spent six years and thirty thousand dollars in designing and cutting his first font of type. In 1758 he had cut eight fonts of Roman, but other printers would not buy his types, preferring those of Caslon. Two years later he attempted to sell his types and retire from the printing business. After his death, in 1775, his widow sold all his type and type-making material and they were removed to Kehl, near Strassburg. There is a legend that the types finally reached France and were melted into bullets for the French Revolution. It is a pity that Baskerville’s original punches are not available, like those of Caslon, so that printers of today could make use of the splendid type-faces that were unappreciated in his lifetime. However, Baskerville Roman is a satisfactory reproduction of the types of John Baskerville.
Like Caslon Oldstyle, however, it should be printed on other than gloss-surfaced paper (Example [463]), as then, especially in the smaller sizes, the good qualities of the letter are brought out and it is made more legible.
When Mrs. Henry Caslon, in 1796, “Bodoni-ized” the types of William Caslon the first, she was probably influenced as much by the types of Baskerville as by those of Bodoni. This is borne out by the comparisons in Example [484]. In “A” is shown an alphabet of Baskerville Roman as now made in America, and in “B” Mrs. Caslon’s Modern Roman. The third type-face (C) is Scotch Roman, one of the six selected representative type-faces (Example [467-D]).
John Baptist Bodoni made some very good type-faces, but it is not difficult to lay at his door the responsibility for throwing typography out of gear for almost a century. Thru his influence and the desire of Scotch typefounders to improve on his work, the nineteenth century was inflicted with those stiff “Modern Romans” (Example [488]) that in all their inhuman “perfection” yet abide with us and are still liked by Victorian persons of staid tastes. Many of our school children are being brought up on them, and in lighter form (Example [489]) they are being fed to millions of Americans thru the homely typography of most newspapers. This double influence works for a lowering of typographic taste among printers and buyers of printing that for many years will keep the general standard of printing below what it should be.
To return to Bodoni. This Italian typefounder’s types, as a rule, were not so faultlessly finished as are the recent types that bear the name. There may be seen in Example [487] the alphabet of a type-face cut by Bodoni in 1790, together with an alphabet recently cut in America. The Bodoni type of the American foundry is a clever copy of the original, yet there is in the copy much of the modernization of the Scotch founders of the nineteenth century. Bodoni Book is a better-looking and more readable type-face.
EXAMPLE 491
(A) Optical changes caused by adding Vs at end of strokes. (B) Appearance of vertical stroke altered by adding small horizontal strokes, or serifs, and by joining both with curved line. (C) Cross strokes or serifs added to E
