The “Golden” type of the Kelmscott Press was copied freely in America and sent back to the country of its birth under several different names. In somewhat debased forms it had a vogue for a time as a “jobbing” fount amongst printers who knew little or nothing of the Kelmscott Press; but the heaviness of its line and also its departure from accepted forms kept it from coming into general use for printing books. The interest awakened by the books printed by William Morris at Hammersmith tempted many more to set up private presses or to design private founts of type when the work of the Kelmscott Press came to an end after Morris's death, which took place in 1896. Most of such founts and the best of them followed more or less closely the letter of the early Italian printers, which, as we have seen, are the prototypes of our book letter of to-day. Even before the founding of the Kelmscott Press Mr. Charles Ricketts had designed books, using some of the “old style” faces which were in general use. When the Kelmscott Press books appeared, he too was won over by what he called the “golden sunny pages” of the early Italian printers, and designed for himself the “Vale” type. In weight and general appearance it bears considerable likeness to Morris's “Golden” type, and in some ways is an improvement on it. Mr. Ricketts afterwards had the same letter cast in a smaller size for his edition of Shakespeare, whence its name of the “Avon” type. He also designed another letter, the interest of which lies in certain experiments towards the reform of the alphabet which it embodies. In the “King's” type, as Mr. Ricketts called it, many of the minuscule letters, such as e, g, t, are replaced by small majuscules. Such a departure from traditional use is too violent to give pleasure, and only two or three books were printed in this letter. The three Vale Press founts and also the punches and matrices were destroyed when the Press ceased publishing.
Mr. T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and Mr. Emery Walker set up the Doves Press at Hammersmith in 1900, and designed and got cast for themselves a fount of type which follows Jenson's Roman type very closely. It differs from it chiefly in the greater regularity of its lines, and also in the squareness and brick-bat shape of some of the serifs, which are, however, less conspicuous than in Morris's “Golden” type. The Doves Press books, unlike those of the Kelmscott Press, are entirely free from ornament or decoration, and owe their remarkable beauty to what Morris styled the architectural goodness of the pages and also to the fine versal and initial letters done by Mr. Edward Johnston and Mr. Graily Hewitt. Later on we shall have something more to say about the work of these men and their school.
The type of the Ashendene Press (p. 23) is modelled from that in which Sweynheim and Pannartz printed books at Subiaco, and which, as we have seen, they replaced by a purer Roman letter more in accord with the humanistic taste of their day. Morris himself designed, but never carried out, a fount of letter after the same fine model. It is a Roman type, with many Gothic features. The folio “Dante,” the “Morte Darthur,” the Virgil and the other books which Mr. St. John Hornby has printed from it in black and red, with occasional blue and gold, are superb examples of typography.
Mr. Lucien Pissarro's little octavos have a certain personal charm of their own distinct from anything that is found in the more weighty volumes which have issued from the other private presses. The first books which he produced at his Eragny Press were printed from the Vale type belonging to his friend Mr. Ricketts. In 1903 he began printing from the “Brook” type (pp. 25 to 29), which he had designed. Although in this article we are concerned chiefly with his types, it is impossible to withhold a tribute of praise for the graceful beauty of these little books, which they owe even more to the admirable way in which their different elements have been combined—type, wood-engraving, colour, printing and binding, all of them the work of Mr. and Mrs. Pissarro themselves—than to the individual excellence of any one of them.
Mr. C. R. Ashbee's “Endeavour” type was designed by him for use at the Essex House Press, which he first established at Upton in the eastern suburbs of London and afterwards removed to Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire. It owes nothing to the types of the early printers, and taken by itself is not pleasing; but it makes a very handsome page when printed in red and black, as in the Campden Song Book. The type was also cut in large size for King Edward's Prayer Book, one of the most ambitious ventures of any private press.
Mr. Herbert P. Horne has designed three founts, all of them inspired by the Roman letter of the early Italian printers. The “Montallegro” type (p. 265), the first in order of date, was designed for Messrs. Updike and Co., of the Merrymount Press, Boston, and hardly falls within the scope of this article. In 1907 he designed for Messrs. Chatto and Windus a fount called the “Florence” type (p. 31), from which editions of “The Romaunt of the Rose,” “The Little Flowers of St. Francis,” A. C. Swinburne's “Songs before Sunrise,” R. L. Stevenson's “Virginibus Puerisque” and also his Poems have been printed at the Arden Press on behalf of the publishers. It is a letter of a clean, light face, and in many ways might serve as a model for a book type for general use. The capital letters used in continuous lines, as Aldus and other great Venetians delighted to use them, are especially charming. Mr. Horne's Riccardi Press type (pp. 33 and 35) was designed for the Medici Society, and many fine editions, amongst them a Horace, Malory's “Morte Darthur,” and “The Canterbury Tales,” have been printed from it. It is a little heavier in face than its predecessor, the “Florence,” and is a little further removed from the humanistic character. The type has also been cast successfully in a smaller size.
To the number of privately owned founts of type we must add the “Ewell” (p. 37), designed by Mr. Douglas Cockerell for Messrs. Methuen and Co., who will shortly publish the first book to be printed from it, an edition of the “Imitatio Christi.” It is a heavy but very graceful letter, based on one used by the Roman printer Da Lignamine.
One of the most interesting of the privately owned founts is the “Otter” Greek type designed by the late Mr. Robert Proctor, and shown in the page from the Odyssey printed on page 43. The Greek letter from which most of our school classics are printed is a descendant of the cursive type introduced by Aldus at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and has the merit neither of beauty nor of clearness. The majuscules are especially ugly, being nearly always of the “modern” type which we owe to Bodoni. Proctor took as his model the finest of the old Greek founts, which was that used in the Complutensian Polyglot printed in 1514.
Amongst the types sold by the founders for general use none have enjoyed such successive favour as Caslon's “Old-Face” in its various sizes; and it is a splendid tribute to the excellence of this letter that at this day, nearly two centuries since it was first cut, it is being used more than any other face of type for printing fine books. This Special Number of The Studio is printed from Caslon's “Old-Face” type, as well as the pages, set up at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, which are shown on pages 45 and 47. The fame of Caslon's letter brought other rivals into the field besides Baskerville. One of these was Joseph Fry, a Bristol physician, who took to letter-founding in the year 1764, and cut a series of type somewhat like Baskerville's. A few years later, however, the Caslon character seems again to have recovered its old ascendancy, and Fry put on the market a new series in acknowledged imitation of Caslon's. Both these series of Fry's have been reissued within the last few years by Messrs. Stephenson and Blake, of Sheffield, who, in 1906, bought the type-founding business of Sir Charles Reed and Son, to whom Fry's business had eventually come. Like the revived Caslon “Old-Face” in 1843, these founts were cast from the old matrices, or from matrices struck from the old punches, so far as these had survived.
Since the “old-style” founts were designed about the middle of last century, what new book types have been cast by the founders for use by the printing trade generally have as a rule been mere variations of letter already in vogue. The founders have drawn but little on the wealth of beautiful book types which in the early printed books of Italy are offered to anyone who has the good taste and the skill to adapt them to modern needs. Messrs. Shanks and Sons, the type-founders of Red Lion Square, have, however, gone to this source for their “Dolphin” series (p. 41), which has many features of beauty to commend it. It is based on Jenson's Roman letter, somewhat thickened in the line. The punches were cut by Mr. E. P. Prince, who also cut the Kelmscott type and many others of the private founts.