A Brief History of Printing in England: A Short History of Printing in England from Caxton to the Present TimeHamilton, Frederick W. (Frederick William)
History
A Brief History of Printing in England: A Short History of Printing in England from Caxton to the Present Time
Hamilton, Frederick W. (Frederick William)
Printing -- Great Britain -- History
Morris designed three types, named from the books in which they were
first employed. The first was the Golden, from the Golden Legend, a
heavy black roman letter with distinct gothic influence. The second was
the Troy, from an edition of Caxton’s Troy book, a modification of a
Koburger gothic of the fifteenth century. The third was the Chaucer, so
called from an edition of some of Chaucer’s work, which was the Troy
reduced in size and slightly modified in face. The initial letters were
designed by Morris in imitation of a set used by Sweynheim and Pannartz.
Unfortunately Morris lived only five years after he began to print and
his press did not survive him. During that period he published
fifty-three books in sixty-five volumes, none of them in large editions.
The influence of Morris, however, was very great. Although he was not
extensively copied directly, he led in a marked revival of the spirit of
the old craftsman and in a renewal of the old conception of the unity
and harmony of the book as a whole. The Kelmscott Press was hardly
closed when Charles Ricketts opened the Vale Press, which operated from
1896 to 1904. Ricketts had much of the spirit and many of the methods of
Morris, but unlike Morris, who approached his type problem from the side
of manuscript, Ricketts conceived his forms as cast in metal. Another
continuer of Morris’s work was the Dove Press, which was started in
1900.
Morris’s influence extended beyond the Atlantic and shows itself in some
of the best American printing, particularly that of Mr. Daniel Berkeley
Updike of the Merrymount Press of Boston and Mr. Bruce Rogers of the
Riverside Press of Cambridge.
The central feature in the history of printing of the last century has
been the development of periodical and commercial printing. Previous to
the last hundred years the particular thing was the book, but book
printing is now only a small part of the industry. A study of periodical
and commercial printing would be extremely interesting, but it lies in
the domain of typography rather than in that of the history of printing.
With the brief consideration which we have made of the so-called revival
of printing under Morris and his successors we may properly take leave
of this branch of our subject.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
William Caxton. By Charles Knight. (Popular and in a few respects
inaccurate, but excellent for its sketch of the life and conditions
of Caxton’s time.)
Life and Typography of William Caxton. By William Blades. (The
standard authority, but suited only for somewhat advanced students.)
A Short History of English Printing. By Henry R. Plomer. (A fairly
good general view of the subject.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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