FOREWORD TO THE THIRD EDITION
Years ago, I prepared what seemed to me a splendid Foreword to my first novel, and was much chagrined when I was urged to leave it out. At the time, the comment that came with the advice seemed a bit brutal: “A Foreword is an admission on the part of an author that he has failed to tell his story, or is an insult to the intelligence of his readers.” Since then my own feelings have come in such complete accord that the request of my publishers for a Foreword to this Third Edition comes as a surprise. But, after all, this is not my story, but the story of the Book, so, as recorder, I must recognize my responsibility. I have claimed that this story was Romance, but since writing it, Romance has allied itself to Drama, for the Gutenberg Bible, a copy of which sold in February for a record price of $120,000, in September achieved the stupendous value of $305,000! Surely the Book has come into its own!
After devoting a lifetime to printing as an art, I have naturally been gratified to discover that so large and friendly an army of readers exists to whom books mean something more than paper and type and binders’ boards. To many of my readers, the ideas advanced in this volume apparently have been novel, but appealing: “I have been over the books in my library,” writes one, “and find many that now take on new significance.” Another says, “I feel that I have missed much, all these years, in not knowing how fascinating the story of the Book itself really is.” Then there are those who are good enough to say that the story of my adventures has helped to place the art of printing where it rightfully belongs.
Some of my reviewers and some correspondents seem seriously to think that I believe the Quest to be ended. Think of the tragedy of having so alluring an adventure become an accomplished fact,—even granting that it were possible! Where is the Perfect Book to be found? In the words of the author or in the heart of the reader? In the design of a type or in the skill of the typographer or the binder? In the charm of the paper or in the beauty of the illumination or illustration? It must, of course, be in the harmonious combination of all of these, but the words of an author which find a place in one reader’s heart fail to interest another; the design of a type that is appropriate to one book is not equally expressive in all.
The word perfection has no place in our language except as an incentive. To search for it is an absorbing adventure, for it quickens our senses to perceive much that would otherwise be lost. If perfection could become commonplace, the Quest would end,—and God pity the world! Until then each of us will define the Perfect Book in his own words, each of us will seek it in his own way.
A writer may be born who combines the wisdom of Solomon, the power of analysis of Henry James, the understanding of Plato, the philosophy of Emerson, and the style of Montaigne. This manuscript may be transformed into a book by a printer who can look beyond his cases of type, and interpret what Aldus, and Jenson, and Etienne, and Plantin saw, with the artistic temperament of William Morris and the restraint of Cobden-Sanderson. There may be a binding that represents the apotheosis of Italian, French, and English elegance. A reader may be developed through the evolution of the ages competent to appreciate the contents and the physical format of such a volume, “for what we really seek is a comparison of experiences.”
Until then the Quest will continue, going constantly onward and upward. Its lure will keep us from slipping back upon false satisfaction and a placid but—shall I say?—a dangerous contemplation of the humanistic idyll.
William Dana Orcutt
CONTENTS
| [I.] | IN QUEST OF THE PERFECT BOOK | [1] |
| Gutenberg | ||
| Aldus Manutius | ||
| Guido Biagi | ||
| Ceriani | ||
| Pope Pius XI | ||
| Sir Sidney Colvin | ||
| [II.] | THE KINGDOM OF BOOKS | [35] |
| Eugene Field | ||
| John Wilson | ||
| Mary Baker Eddy | ||
| Bernard Shaw | ||
| [III.] | FRIENDS THROUGH TYPE | [73] |
| Horace Fletcher | ||
| Henry James | ||
| William James | ||
| Theodore Roosevelt | ||
| T. J. Cobden-Sanderson | ||
| [IV.] | THE LURE OF ILLUMINATION | [109] |
| Byzantine Psalter | ||
| Lindisfarne Gospels | ||
| Alcuin Bible | ||
| Golden Gospels of St. Médard | ||
| Psalter of St. Louis | ||
| Queen Mary’s Psalter | ||
| Bedford Book of Hours | ||
| Grimani Breviary | ||
| Antiquities of the Jews | ||
| Hours of Francesco d’Antonio | ||
| Hours of Anne of Brittany | ||
| [V.] | FRIENDS THROUGH THE PEN | [151] |
| Maurice Hewlett | ||
| Austin Dobson | ||
| Richard Garnett | ||
| Mark Twain | ||
| Charles Eliot Norton | ||
| William Dean Howells | ||
| [VI.] | TRIUMPHS OF TYPOGRAPHY | [191] |
| The Beginnings. Germany—The Gutenberg Bible | ||
| Supremacy of Italy | ||
| Nicolas Jenson: Augustinus: De Civitate Dei | ||
| Aldus Manutius: Hypnerotomachia Poliphili | ||
| Supremacy of France | ||
| Robert Étienne: The Royal Greeks | ||
| Supremacy of the Netherlands | ||
| Christophe Plantin: The Biblia Polyglotta | ||
| The Elzevirs: Terence | ||
| Supremacy of England | ||
| John Baskerville: Virgil | ||
| Supremacy of France (second) | ||
| The Didots: Racine | ||
| Supremacy of England (second) | ||
| William Morris: The Kelmscott Chaucer | ||
| Cobden-Sanderson: The Doves Bible | ||
| [VII.] | THE SPELL of the LAURENZIANA | [271] |
| INDEX | [301] |