(Download) "Books and Printing: A Treasury for Typophiles" by Various Authors # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Books and Printing: A Treasury for Typophiles
- Author : Various Authors
- Release Date : January 12, 2021
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 10673 KB
Description
Labeling these observations "introductory" isn't to confuse the purist. He knows that the terms preface, foreword and introduction become mixed frequently, he doesn't like it and he much prefers retaining the proper distinctions.
"An introduction," he will insist, "should be solely concerned with the subject of the book, and introduce or supplement its text. And the preface or foreword should properly deal with the book's purpose, and define its limitation and scope. Let's keep things that way."
Unfortunately, there isn't one term that covers comment which flows from one division to the other in a miscellany like this. At times—and at the risk of editorial modesty—I may seem something of a typographic barker, singing the praises of certain essays and pointing up different attractions. At others, the text will be supplemented with an explanatory note, or amplified to bring it up to date, as in the Josephy, Ransom and Rushmore articles.
It amounts to an assist in getting back to purpose: that of informing on matters typographic, and on books, their printing and some of the fascinating steps along the way. In selecting material of appeal to the collector, printer, typographer and student, I have not overlooked the professional curiosity of editors and technicians. That's the thinking behind the inclusion of extracts from McKerrow and Mores and Watson, among other scholarly contributions.
Where there was a choice, the preference was for the author with a point of view and the ability to express it interestingly. Four articles indicate this approach. "Printing, Paper and Playing Cards," the brilliant survey of Lancelot Hogben, illumines the birth and spread of writing and printing as nothing else I know. Otto Ege's brief account of the development of our alphabet, with its memorable letter-diagrams, has a different, not less valuable appeal, as does Oscar Ogg's comparison of "Lettering and Calligraphy," with its specimens of his own distinguished hand. And in "Printers As Men of the World," Evelyn Harter writes of a number of great printers as men of intellect, at home in the world of ideas. Her stimulating text suggests the compensation of looking at the background of printing in relation to world events.
There was no preconceived attitude to consider in evaluating the essays included: no restriction by country of origin; no fixation about the traditional or modern in typographic approach; no desire to slant, or plant, ideas; no intent other than to select much of the best writing in English by authors of substance. That the gathering may provide riches to be added to "the savings account of your memory" is my hope.
In a quite real sense, the experience has been something like spending many long weekends with friends in good, solid talk—some of it controversial, much of it illuminating and informing. The re-reading has not only opened "doors and windows for a welcome flood" of ideas, it has suggested new trails and made for valuable comparisons of favorites first met with years ago.
It has been difficult to resist the temptation to include more essays of historic and technical appeal to typographers and printers. Many of the present generation, I presume, may not know De Vinne's authoritative account of the development of the American Point System, which occurred in the late eighties and is detailed at length in his Plain Printing Types; or the invaluable Meynell and Morison essay on "Printer's Flowers and Arabesques," with its fascinating reproductions, from The Fleuron. I have omitted these two with reluctance, and have used the space they would occupy for a half-dozen shorter essays not less worthy in themselves, but on different topics.