“Are all the workmen in your establishment blank fools?” an irate publisher demanded of a printer after a particularly aggravating error.
“If they were not,” was the patient rejoinder, “they would not be engaged in making books!”
There is an intangible lure that keeps all those associated with the book under subjection. There is a mysterious fascination in being a party to the perpetuation of a human thought that yields something in addition to pecuniary returns. To the author, the inestimable gratification of conveying a message to the world makes him forget the tedious hours of application required before that message can be adequately expressed. To the publisher, the satisfaction of offering the opportunity for occasional genius to come into its own more than balances the frequent disappointments. To the book architect, the privilege of supplying the vehicle for thought, and of creating the physical form of its expression, yields returns not altogether measurable in coin of the realm.
In 1891, during my apprenticeship at the old University Press, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, John Wilson, its famous head, permitted me to sit in at a conference with Eugene Field and his friend and admirer, Francis Wilson, the actor, booklover, and collector. The subject under discussion was the manufacture of a volume of Field’s poems, then called A New Book of Verses, which later became famous under the title of Second Book of Verse.
Field’s personal appearance made a deep impression that first time I saw him. I was then an undergraduate at Harvard, and this was a live author at close range! He entered the office with a peculiar, ambling walk; his clothes were ill-fitting, accentuating his long legs and arms; his hands were delicate, with tapering fingers, like a woman’s; his face was pallid; his eyes blue, with a curiously child-like expression. I remember my feeling of respect, tinged somewhat with awe, as I saw the pages of manuscript spread out upon the table, and listened eagerly to the three-cornered conversation.
Autograph Page of Eugene Field Manuscript
From Second Book of Verse, New York, 1892
In considering the manufacture of his book, Eugene Field had clearly defined ideas of the typographical effect he wished to gain; John Wilson possessed the technical knowledge that enabled him to translate those ideas into terms of type. The examination of the various faces of type, the consideration of the proportions of the page, the selection of the paper, the plan for the design of the cover and the binding,—all came into the discussion.