At the turn of the century, after saying a sad farewell to fond hopes
and feeling older at thirty-two than is now true at eighty-two, I
finally gave up trying to be a publisher and printer. While covers
for _Collier’s_ were bridging an awkward gap Edward Bok appeared on
the scene and commissioned the laying-out of an editorial prospectus
for the _Ladies’ Home Journal_, the printing to be done at the Curtis
plant. For this I used a special casting of an old face not then on the
market, Mr. Phinney of the Boston branch of ATF telling me it was to be
called Wayside. When the prospectus was finished Mr. Bok invited me
to his home just outside Philadelphia and there it was arranged that I
design eight full pages for the _Journal_--eight full pages of house
interiors. These were followed by a series of house designs. Finding it
difficult to keep to merely four walls I added dozens of suggestions
for individual pieces of furniture--this being the “Mission” period
when such designing required no knowledge of periods, only imagination.
Then Mr. Bok suggested that I move to Rose Valley, start a shop to make
furniture and other forms of handicraft in line with designs shown in
my _Journal_ drawings; and assume art editorship of _House Beautiful_,
which he was considering buying. But having failed in one business
venture, there was little excuse to embark on another.
The roman and italic face, used later for _Peter Poodle, Toy Maker
to the King_, was now designed for American Type Founders; and while
building a home in Concord, adjoining Hawthorne’s “Wayside,” and
working every day in the open, regaining lost health, the story,
_Castle Perilous_, was written--also outdoors. These activities were
followed by a request from Mr. Nelson, president of American Type
Founders, that I undertake a campaign of type display and publicity
for the Foundry, with a promise to cut any decorative or type designs
that I might supply, also to purchase as many Miehle presses as might
be required for the printing--an invitation to which I replied with an
enthusiastic “Yes!” [In this way Bradley’s famous set of _Chap Books_
was inaugurated--Ed.]
During this type-display and foundry-publicity period _Castle
Perilous_, as a three-part serial, with illustrations made afternoons
following mornings spent with American Type Founders at Communipaw, was
published in _Collier’s_; and in 1907 I became that publication’s art
editor. Sometime during the intervening years--I can’t remember where
or when--time was found for designing several _Collier’s_ covers.
From 1910 to 1915, again with my own studios, I took care of the
art editorship of a group of magazines: _Good Housekeeping_,
_Century_, _Metropolitan_ and others, also an assignment from the
Batten Advertising Agency and, as recreation, wrote eleven _Tales of
Noodleburg_ for _St. Nicholas_.
[Illustration]