In his selection of examples and recommendation of type-faces the author has been entirely free from pressure from any source. If certain type-faces are favored, it is because the author believes he is doing something for the cause of good printing by favoring them. What has been written has been written with sincerity.
It is well to mention that the “Pilgrim’s Progress” title on page [21] is not genuine. Having seen the book on exhibition at the New York Public Library, the author arranged to have it photographed and included in this work. The sequel to this is interesting and rather humorous. When the chapter on Type-Faces was being written and Caslon types were being studied, the author was startled to find that the types used on the “Pilgrim’s Progress” page were the same as those William Caslon was supposed to have designed forty-four years later. Greatly puzzled, the author made a trip to the library and examined the original. He immediately saw that the type-face used on the body of the book differed from that on the title. Discovering a note on the fly-leaf signed by William Pickering, the explanation dawned on him. The book was probably owned by Pickering in the middle of the last century and the title-page being missing a new one was set up, printed and inserted when the book was rebound. It was Whittingham, Pickering’s printer, who revived the Caslon types about that time, and he naturally used these types as the nearest approach to the English types of the period, 1678, when “Pilgrim’s Progress” was first published.
It is impossible to mention by name all of those who have in one way or another assisted and encouraged the author in the production of this volume. A list of acknowledgments would include typographers of international note and typographers-to-be whose prentice hands need guidance. It would include office associates and those of the workrooms whose interest and attention to technical details helped much in the effort to make the work worthy.
There is one, however, were such a list printed, whose name would lead all the rest, the man who, back in 1903, conceived the idea of this book; without whose business support this elaborate and costly work would have been impossible; whose ideals have been an inspiration; whose confidence and encouragement generated the energy and enthusiasm that have attended the author during the fourteen years in which this work has been building. It is a privilege to pay this tribute to John Clyde Oswald.
Edmund G. Gress.
New York, July, 1917.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
PART ONE