Illustrated books -- Bibliography; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
Coming back to England, we may note the beginning of the Chiswick Press
in 1789, the year of the French Revolution. Charles Whittingham was then
only twenty-two (he had been born at Coventry in 1767), and for his
first years as his own master he was content to print hand-bills and do
any other jobbing work that he could get. He began issuing illustrated
books in 1797, and after a time the care he took in making ready
wood-blocks (the use of which had been revived by Bewick) for printing
gained him a special reputation. From about 1811 to his death in 1840 he
left one branch of his business in the city under the charge of a
partner, while he himself lived and worked at Chiswick, whence the name
the Chiswick Press by which the firm is still best known.
His nephew, Charles Whittingham the younger, was born in 1795, was
apprenticed to his uncle in 1810 and worked with him until 1828. Then he
set up for himself at Tooks Court off Chancery Lane, and came rapidly to
the front, largely from the work which he did for William Pickering, a
well-known publisher of those days.
On his uncle's death in 1840 the younger Whittingham inherited the
Chiswick business also. Four years after this, in 1844, he led the way
in the revival of old-faced types. The examples of Baskerville at home
and of Bodoni and other printers abroad had not been without effect on
English printing. Brilliancy had been sought at all costs, and in the
attempt to combine economy with it the height of letters had been
increased and their breadth diminished so that, while they looked
larger, more of them could be crowded into a line. The younger
Whittingham had the good taste to see that the rounder, more evenly
tinted type, which Caslon had made before these influences had come into
play, was much pleasanter to look at and less trying to the eyes. He
was already thinking of reviving it when he was commissioned by Longmans
to print a work of fiction, _So much of the Diary of Lady Willoughby as
relates to her Domestic History and to the Eventful Period of the Reign
of Charles the First_, and it occurred to him that the use of old-faced
type would be especially in keeping with such a book. A handsome small
quarto was the result, and the revival of old-faced type proved a great
success.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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