Prefaces

Preface to the First Edition

The Lectures on which this book is based were delivered as part of a course on the Technique of Printing in the Graduate School of Business Administration of Harvard University, during the years 1911—1916, and since then I have recast the material into a form suitable for publication. Each season that the talks were given I saw the necessity for amplification and abridgment of matter, and for modification of judgement, the results of which have been incorporated in these volumes; and now that my task is finished, I realize that further emendations could be continued with profit almost indefinitely. But while such a book can never, in any strict sense, be complete, it must be completed, though even the measure of perfection hoped for may not have been reached. It has been written in town and in country, amid the interruptions of business and in intervals of leisure—and “in time of war and tumults” that at moments made its subject, and all like subjects, seem trivial and valueless.

The chapters on Spanish printing are new—not having been part of the series of lectures. Outside Spain, little attention has been paid to its typography, and what has been written is devoted chiefly to the period of the incunabula. From 1500 to 1800 its typographical history is, to the general student, “terra incognita”; to these pages may give some information not heretofore available to the English reader. Other chapters dealing with this period—especially those upon French and English printing—have been amplified and virtually rewritten in the light of new material, or in an effort to improve the examples of printing selected—a field that affords endless opportunity for revision.

Mr. Roudolph Ruzicka of New York, Dr. Charles L. Nichols of Worcester, and Mr. John Bianchi have read my manuscript and given me the benefit of much helpful criticism. I am indebted for suggestions and corrections in certain chapters to Mr. William Addison Dwiggins, Miss Alice Bache Gould, Mr. S. Byington, Mr. Anselmo Bianchi, Miss Ruth S. Granniss, Librarian of the Grolier Club, New York, and Professor E. K. Rand of Harvard University. To Mr. J. W. Phinney, Mr. H. L. Bullen, and to many other friends and associates who have aided me in many ways, I am most grateful.

The chief part of the illustrative material has been taken from books in Harvard College Library, to the officials of which I am under particular obligation for the assistance and privileges they have so freely given me. Illustrations have also been reproduced from books and broadsides in the Boston Public Library and the Boston Anthenæum; the John Carter Brown Library, Annmary Brown Memorial, and Public Library, Providence; the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester; the Library of Congress, Washington; and the Typographic Library of the American Type Founders Company, Jersey City. I have to thank all the officials of all these libraries for their generous coöperation. To Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan I am indebted for permission to reproduce pages from his remarkable Caxtons and from other exceedingly rare books in his library; and to Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears, Dr. Charles L. Nichols, Mr. C. E. Lauriat, Jr., and Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company, who have placed at my disposal books that could not readily be found elsewhere. More detailed acknowledgements are made in the list of illustrations. Where no credit is given, the illustrations are from books in my own collection.

The index is the work of Mr. George B. Ives. In some early researches, Mr. George L. Harding, now of Tacoma, helped me effectively; and a member of our staff, Mr. W. H. Smallfield, has been of the greatest assistance in the exacting task of seeing the work through the press. But perhaps the students who listened to the lectures, and who, by their interest and questions, encouraged—or obliged—me to better them, are those whom I should hold in most grateful remembrance; for they have most suffered for the truth’s sake!

D. B. Updike

The Merrymount Press, Boston
May-day, 1922

Preface to the Second Edition

I. Revisions

The first edition of Printing Types was published in 1922, and after its issue many letters brought new material to my notice or—what was less flattering but more salutary—called attention to the mistakes. Most of these points were corrected in the second printing of 1923, which, since it contains important divergencies, should have been called a second edition. In 1927 a third printing was called for, in which a few corrections also were made. The present edition is, therefore, the third in fact, though the second in nomenclature, and accordingly supplies a basis for that kind of confusion so exciting to collectors, so puzzling to bibliographers, so annoying to publishers, and to the printer of no significance at all!

Since Printing Types was written many valuable investigations have been made, but to embody their results in my pages would mean re-writing the entire book. In the text of this edition I have made a number of minor changes—some of major importance—but rely on my notes to cover points needing full explanation. Even so I do not pretend to bring the volume up to date, or correct all my misstatements or errors. These I should like to excuse (to quote Dr. Johnson’s Preface to the Dictionary [vols. 1, 2]) as the “wild blunders, and risible absurdities, from which to work of such multiplicity was ever free,” if I did not remember that the Doctor when asked by a lady why he defined pastern as the knee of the horse, also replied, “Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.”

The new material—apart from the Preface and those changes in the plates of the book already alluded to—is embodied in notes at the end of each volume, and consists in corrections and additions which cover later research by others, or change of opinion by me; references to the most important books bearing on my subject which have appeared since 1922; and additional facsimiles of the Garamond and Bell types. One value of Printing Types has been to provoke interest in a subject generally considered dull and to tie the typography of various times to the life about it; but its chief value is its use as a spring-board from which more adventurous souls have plunged into deeper waters than I have enough skill, patience, or knowledge to embark upon. Vivat sequens.

II. New Typographic Discoveries

When I wrote Printing Types the Egenolff-Berner specimen-sheet of 1592 was not known to me, though discovered by Herr Mori in 1920. Its value historically lies in the fact that the names of the designers of its types are given, and thus it supplies us with authentic reproductions of fonts cut by Garamond and Granjon. A copy of the 1621 specimen-book of Jean Jannon of Sedan—though listed in Bigmore and Wyman’s Bibliography of Printing in 1880—was, about 1927, found by Mrs. Beatrice Warde in the Biliothèque Nationale. Her examination of it has quite upset the attribution to Garamond of the types called caractères de l’Université by the Imprimerie Nationale and has proved that they were cut by Jannon. Mr. Stanley Morison’s papers in The Fleuron have thrown new light on the origin of an independent school of italic types not derived form Aldus. Mr. A. F. Johnson in his book, Type Designs, has gathered into a consistent whole much hitherto unrelated typographic history. He and Mr. Thomas and Mr. Lyell have prepared some useful books in the series “Periods of Typography,” while Mr. Morison’s book on John Bell, Mr. Keynes’s volume on Pickering, and Mr. Marrot’s study of Bulmer and Bensley have added new knowledge about the types then used. Further discoveries concern the earliest date of Caxton’s arrival in England, the German origin of Janson’s so-called Dutch type, and the placing of Buell as the first American type-founder.

As their value as documents has been realized, founders’ specimen-sheets and books have received more careful attention. An important work about them was Birrell & Garnett’s Catalogue of Typefounders’ Specimens, etc., covering over a hundred Italian, French, German, Dutch, and British items. This appeared in London in 1928. The Catalogue of Specimens of Printing Types by English and Scottish Printers and Founders, 1665–1830, by Berry and Johnson is a more ambitious effort and a valuable book; while Audin’s Livrets Typographiques des Fonderies Françaises créées avant 1800 does admirably for French, what the former book does for English, type-founding. In Germany much research has been made, among the most notable results being Herr Gustav Mori’s hand-list of the exhibition of German specimens (1479 to 1840) held by the Society of Associated German Typefounders at Frankfort in 1926, and his papers on the Berner Specimen of 1592, on the Brothers Voskens, and the Egenolff-Luther Foundry. Appreciation of the value of such specimens is reflected in the reissue by Messrs. Tregask is of the 1693 Oxford specimen of the Fell types; the facsimiles of Plantin’s Index Characterum of 1567, Pierre Cot’s specimen of 1707, and Fournier le jeune’s specimen of Sedanoise and Nonpareille of 1757 all issued by Mr. D. C. McMurtrie; and the Connecticut Columbiat Club’s excellent reprint of the 1809 and 1812 specimens of Binny & Ronaldson. It is evident that in recent publications, says English critic,

Mr. Updike’s historical approach has been transformed into a scientific one. There has been a conscious attempt during the last fifteen years to evolve sound canons of criticism, whether of type design or the disposition of types in book production or other work, and the beginnings of an exact terminology have been established.

In this effort to classify early type-forms scientifically, the Germans have adopted a number of terms which indicate certain subdivisions of type-design better than the more general designations, lettre de forme, lettre de somme, and lettre batarde; and Mr. Morison and Mr. Johnson have also proposed a precise terminology applying chiefly to fifteenth and sixteenth century types. I have not considered it necessary or desirable, in a book of this general character, to adopt any more minute classification or discard the terms I have already used; for early type-forms to not much concern the reader of this book, which is intended to show what types have survived for modern use. And since doctors disagree on the exact terms to employ, I leave them to decide if fere-humanistica is preferable to gotico-antiqua or whether some yet undcoined word is better than either! The only objection—and that a minor one—to all this is, that one sometimes cannot see the wood for the trees. But far be it from me to discourage the arboriculturist—or even the botanist!

III. Modern Typography Debated

It is often asked if modern types still exhibit qualities significant of their time, and whither modern tendencies in typography lead? To the first question the answer is, that printing always reflects the tendencies of its period in forms of art and aims in life. But the question for the thoughtful printer is, how admirable is the life of to-day? Shall he be carried away by a phase which is transitory, or hold fast to certain principles that modern life ignores? It is urged that present-day printing should be dynamic rather than static—expressive of motion rather than rest, and that the tempo of typography must be in keeping with the life about it. This is a confusion of ideas. Adequate craftsmanship—like great art—should convey a sense of order, security, and peace: not of restless excitement. One is automatically either a critic or an enthusiast of modern trends in literature, music, art, and daily living, so we unconsiously govern our printing by the kind of life we approve.

As to modernism in typography, apart from mere ignorance, forgetfulness, pose, and fashion, there are those who sincerely accept it as a new gospel; but in the remote past there were current gospels now styled apocryphal, and by the learned long since thought mere curiosities. Rousseau’s revolutionary doctrine of a “return to Nature” influenced the landscape gardening of his day, but ended in a return to something much more natural. In printing, years ago, the Art Nouveau precariously flourished, but it never grew old. I should be disturbed by a few modern attempts “to blow up the whole of English typographical tradition,” if not already familiar with the phenomenon of cast-off principles. What has become of those tenets so earnestly propounded some years since by designers and printers who assert with equal vehemence now the exact opposite of what they said then? Trajan’s column was then much the mode. At present asymmetric tendencies seem to be the vogue; based, perhaps, on the leaning power of Pisa which, to those who ascend it, produces that acute sensation of motion which we are told is desirable in modern typography. Not very long since it was a canon of book-making that illustrations should be on good terms with type—and that books should show illustrative and typographic team-play. We are now warned that type must not inhibit the freedom of an illustrator. The result is a divorce between the two, analogous to the reason for other divorces—that one must at no cost be prevented from self-expression! Slowly but unconsciously these aims lead back to the “table-book” of the ’sixties—which unwittingly displays the characteristics now thought modern, and which—ad interim—has been so thoroughly discredited.

The influx of foreign type-forms, markedly national in their character, have, both in England and the United States, been unfortunate for typography. For instance, some of the German types which since 1914 have been so constantly produced, while in many cases admirable in themselves, are in their national idiom Teutonic, and as many of those who affect them most have but little Anglo-Saxon tradition behind them, the result is unhappy. A New England philosopher once said, “What you are, speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say,” and that is what many modern German, French, Italian, and other Continental types do. Per contra there are types which seem of international appeal and use—such as the modern Leutetia or the ancient Janson. Then, too, many types in present use, especially those employed for display—to one familiar with types pf a hundred years ago—are mere revivals of an era of bad taste in typography. This search for foreign type-designs, the revival of discarded types, and efforts at their eccentric arrangement represent a revolt against tradition in the restless struggle for novelty in a changing world. But we must remember that reactions are often as violent and one-sided as that from which they re-act. As Mr. Morison says, “Typographic tradition is the embodiment of the common-sense of generations,” and Royal Cortissoz writes, “Tradition is not a formula. It is the tribute which every true artist pays to the great men who have gone before him.” Finally, to quote Santayana, “The merely modern man never knows what he is about…Fidelity to tradition, I am confident, has an will have its reward…New ideas in their violence and new needs in their urgency pass like a storm; and then the old earth, scarred and enriched by those trials, finds itself still under the same sky, unscarred and pure as before.”

English and American printing—especially book-printing—will not, in the long run, be much affected by temporary fashions; and while for a time they seem to obscure the horizon, it is but for the moment. Fresh viewpoints are never useless, but the degree of utility that they possess cannot be evaluated until years have passed, and the pendulum swings back—for pendulums behave that way. Thus I believe that for those who use the English language the great stream of normal printing will continue in the Anglo-Saxon tradition.

I am grateful to the many who have valued a book written without thought that it would have even limited popularity. When first published its price placed it beyond the means of many of those who needed it most. In this edition, the difficulty has been remedied, though it has restricted the extent of my annotations. Perhaps its appeal now, as in the past, is because (to slightly paraphrase Lord Bacon), “I do not endeavour to convince neither by triumphs of confutation, or pleadings of antiquity, or assumption of authority,…Nor do I seek to enforce men’s judgements, but to lead them to things themselves and the concordances of things, that they may see for themselves what they have, what they can dispute, what they can add and contribute to the common stock.”

D. B. U.

Acknowledgements: 1937

I desire to acknowledge with many thanks the help given me by Messrs. Henry L. Bullen, W. H. Ivins, Jr., Douglas C. McMurtrie, Stanley Morison, and A. W. Pollard, who called my attention to errors in the first edition of 1922.

In preparing this edition I am under further obligations, for suggestions and corrections, to the late Mr. Leonard L. Mackall, and to Messrs. James F. Ballard of the Boston Medical Library, Ernst F. Detterer of the Newberry Library, Chicago, A. Ehrman, London, Karl Küp of the New York Public Library, Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt of Columbia University Library, New York, J. P. R. Lyell, London, Albert Matthews, Boston, William Davis Miller, Wakefield, R. I., Steward Michell of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Edward M. Moore, Warrenville, Illinois, Gustav Mori, Frankfort, David T. Pottinger of the Harvard University Press, Carl Purington Rollins of the Yale University Press, Lawrence C. Wroth of the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rudolph Ruzicka, Dobbs Ferry, Professor E. K. Rand of Harvard University, Miss Alice Bache Gould, Boston, Miss Ruth S. Granniss of the Grolier Club, New York, and to Daniel B. Bianchi for valuable assistance in reading my proofs.

I am also most grateful to Mr. Milton E. Lord of the Boston Public Library, Mr. Walter B. Briggs of the Harvard College Library, and Miss Elinor Gregory of the Boston Athenæum—to the latter in particular for help in solving some puzzling questions.

D. B. U.