in England, but the enactment of severe laws, such as prohibiting any
one attending the ministry of clergymen who were not of the established
religion, gave rise to dissenters derisively called Puritans because
they wished to establish a form of worship based on the “pure” word of
God. It was by these so-called Puritans that printing was introduced
into English America. Elizabeth reigned until 1603 and was the last of
the Tudor family of sovereigns. The first of the Stuart Kings, James I.
(son of Mary Queen of Scots), then ruled until 1625, when he was
succeeded by his son Charles I. Charles was a despot and claimed that
the people had no right to any part of the government. A civil war
resulted, Charles was beheaded (1649) and a form of government known as
the Commonwealth was established. Oliver Cromwell shortly afterward
became Lord Protector with more power than the king had possessed.
Cromwell was a Puritan, but of the radical element known as
Independents, differing from another element of Puritans known as
Presbyterians. The Independents have come to be known as
Congregationalists. Under Cromwell’s severe Puritanic rule, sculpture
and painting were declared as savoring of idolatry and public amusements
were sternly put down. However, Cromwell encouraged printing and
literature. He was an intimate friend of John Milton, the blind author
of “Paradise Lost” (see title-page reproduced on a following page),
which book was published in 1667, the year following the Great Fire.
Milton was Latin secretary to Cromwell, and published a book which
argued against royalty, for which, on the accession of Charles II., he
was arrested.
In 1657 (the year before Cromwell died) was published the sixth and last
volume of the London Polyglot Bible, compiled by Brian Walton and
printed by Thomas Roycroft. In this Bible there were used nine
languages: Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic,
Persian and Latin. The work took four years in printing, and was the
first book ever published in England by subscription. Cromwell
encouraged the undertaking by allowing paper to be imported into England
duty free, and by contributing a thousand pounds out of the public money
to begin the work.
In those days the Puritans presented a curious contrast to the
Royalists. The Puritan, or “Roundhead” as he was also called, wore a
cloak of subdued brown or black, a plain wide linen collar, and a
cone-shaped hat over closely-cut or long, straight hair. The Royalist,
or “Cavalier,” wore clothes of silk or satin, a lace collar, a short
cloak over one shoulder, short boots, and a broad-brimmed beaver hat
adorned with a plume of feathers.
The period designated as the Restoration, long celebrated by the Church
of England, began soon after Cromwell’s death, when in 1660 Charles II.
ascended the throne. This period brought with it a reaction from the
Puritanic conditions that previously existed and all sorts of excesses
were practiced. Cromwell’s body was taken out of its grave in
Westminster Abbey, hanged on a gallows and beheaded.
It was during the reign of Charles II. (1665) that the Great Plague
killed one hundred thousand people in London, a terrible experience
followed by one equally terrible the next year: the Great Fire, which
consumed thirteen thousand houses.
In 1688 there was another revolution; the people passed a Bill of
Rights, and set a new King (William III.) on the throne.
George I., the head of the dynasty now represented in England by King
George V., came to the throne in 1714. He was a German, could not speak
English, and was the grandfather of George III., the “villain” in the
great drama of the American Revolution.
In France the Protestant Huguenots were persecuted by Cardinal
Richelieu, whose strong personality dominated King Louis XIII. from 1622
to 1642, and many of them left for America. In 1643 Louis XIV. became
King of France and his long reign of seventy-two years is renowned
because of the magnificence which found expression in sumptuous
buildings, costly libraries, splendidly-bound books, and gorgeous dress.
Cardinal Mazarin, in whose library was later discovered a copy of
Gutenberg’s Forty-Two-Line Bible, acted as advisor while Louis XIV. was
under age.
* * * * *
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries many mechanics in England
worked for a shilling a day; their chief food was rye, barley and oats;
and one-fifth of the people were paupers. Teachers taught their scholars
principally by means of the lash, masters beat their servants and
husbands their wives. Superstition was strong and children and grown
folks were frightened with lugubrious tales into being “good.” This
spirit is especially noticeable in the chap-books that were sold during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A title to one of these
chap-books (dated 1721) reads:
A Timely Warning to Rash and Disobedient Children; being a strange
and wonderful Relation of a young Gentleman in the Parish of
Stepheny in the Suburbs of London, that sold himself to the Devil
for twelve years to have the Power to be revenged on his Father
and Mother, and how his Time being expired, he lay in a sad and
deplorable Condition to the Amazement of all Spectators.
[Illustration:
THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE LONDON “TIMES” UNDER THAT TITLE. 1788
The heading mentions that logotypes were used in the composition of
this newspaper
]
Children in those days were either devilishly bad or ridiculously good.
Read this title-page:
The Children’s Example; shewing how one Mrs. Johnson’s Child of
Barnet was tempted by the Devil to forsake God and follow the Ways
of other Wicked Children, who us’d to Swear, tell lies, and
disobey their Parents; How this pretty innocent Child resisting
Satan, was Comforted by an Angel from Heaven who warned her of her
approaching Death; Together with her dying Speeches desiring young
Children not to forsake God, lest Satan should gain a Power over
them.
[Illustration:
FIRST EDITION OF “PILGRIM’S PROGRESS”
Title-page (actual size) of Bunyan’s well-known book, London, 1678
]
Jack the Giant Killer, the hero of our childhood days, was a favorite
subject for chap-book exploitation. There is shown on the following page
the title of such a “history.”
Chap-books are poor representatives of the art of typography in Colonial
days because they were to the book industry then what reprint books are
to the trade in our time. Today it is customary for some publishing
houses to buy up old electrotype plates of obsolete editions of
dictionaries and other popular books. The plates having already been put
to extensive use, are battered and worn, and impressions from them
cannot be accepted as criterions for determining the quality of modern
printing. Neither are the chap-books true printing representatives of
their times. The woodcuts, crudely drawn in the first place, were also
worn and battered by repeated use.
[Illustration:
PAGE FROM A “CHAP-BOOK”
Probably a Dicey product of the eighteenth century
]
In the early part of the seventeenth century chap-books were 8vos.
(sixteen pages of about 5 × 8 inches), but later were reduced to 12mos.
(twelve or twenty-four pages of about 4 × 6½ inches). The stories were
condensed to fit these small penny books, which were peddled by chapmen.
A chapman is described in a “Dictionarie” of 1611 as “A paultrie Pedlar,
who in a long packe, which he carries for the most part open, and
hanging from his necke before him hath Almanacks, Bookes of News, or
other trifling ware to sell.”
Many of the chap-books of the eighteenth century were printed and
published at Aldermary-Church-Yard and Bow-Church-Yard, London, by
William and Cluer Dicey, afterward C. Dicey only. The Dicey books were
better productions than those of their imitators. It is not possible to
determine the exact year in which the majority of chap-books were
printed, as many title-pages merely read “Printed and sold in London,”
etc., or “Newcastle; printed in this present year,” without the
formality of the date.
There were also other cheap productions known as broadsides, single
sheets about 12 × 15 inches, in most cases printed broadwise of the
paper and on one side only.
On December 21, 1620, there landed at Plymouth Rock, in what was
afterward the colony of Massachusetts, a band of Puritans from England.
These non-conformists, unable conscientiously to obey the laws of their
native country, had come to America to worship God in their own manner.
Ten years later Governor Winthrop with one thousand Puritans landed at
Charlestown, and in the following year these immigrants began to settle
Cambridge and Boston. A building for an academy (now Harvard University)
was erected at Cambridge in 1638, and in 1639 Stephen Daye began to
print there.
For the establishment of this, the first printing office in what is now
the United States, Rev. Jesse Glover, a Puritan minister of some wealth,
was chiefly responsible. Himself contributing liberally, he solicited in
England and Holland sufficient money to purchase a press and types, and
June 7, 1638, entered into a contract with Stephen Daye, a printer, to
accompany him to the new country. Rev. Glover (with his family, Stephen
Daye and the printing outfit) embarked on a vessel for New England, but
on the voyage across the ocean he was taken ill and died.
[Illustration:
PAGE FROM “DESCRIPTION OF TRADES.” LONDON, 1747
Showing use of decorative bands to separate subjects
]
The press and types having reached Cambridge were finally placed in
charge of Stephen Daye and printing was begun in 1639. The first work
produced was “The Freeman’s Oath,” probably a single sheet, and the
first book (1640) was the “Booke of Psalmes,” familiarly known as the
“Bay Psalm Book.” (The reproduction on the first page of this chapter is
from one of these books preserved in the public library, Forty-Second
Street, New York.) This book of Psalms is a revision of Ainsworth’s
version of 1612, and was in use in New England for upwards of a century,
more than fifty editions having been published. The size of the
type-page of the first edition is 3¼ × 6¼ inches.
In quality of presswork this first book of Stephen Daye affords a
decided contrast to the Bible of Gutenberg, near which it lies in the
cases at the public library. The print on the pages of the Psalm Book is
uneven in color and impression, while that on the pages of the Bible is
dense-black and firmly and evenly impressed. The reproduction of the
title-page of the Psalm Book does the original no injustice. It is
difficult to determine whether the shoulders of the border printed the
angular lines, or whether these are a part of the design. It is
interesting to note how in the word “Whole,” Daye formed a W by
combining two Vs, his font of types being one evidently intended for
Latin work only.
[Illustration:
FRENCH SPECIMEN OF 1742
(Actual size)
]
Daye continued in charge of the printing office for about ten years.
Jesse Glover’s widow had married Henry Dunster, the first president of
Harvard College, and Dunster, for his wife and as president of the
college, managed the printing office and received such profits as were
made. For some reason Daye in 1649 ceased to be master printer and
Dunster appointed Samuel Green to the position. Green had come from
England in 1630 with Governor Winthrop, but was not a printer at that
time.
The commissioners of the united colonies, who had in charge the
propagation of Christianity among the Indians, added another press to
the one already at Cambridge, together with types, etc., for the purpose
of printing the Bible and other books in the Indian language. In 1662
Green gave to the commissioners the following “account of utensils for
Printing belonging to the Corporation:”
The presse with what belongs to it with one tinn pann and two
frisketts.
Item two table of Cases of letters with one ode Case.
Item the ffont of letters together with Imperfections that came
since.
Item one brasse bed, one Imposing Stone.
Item two barrells of Inke, 3 Chases, 2 composing stickes, one ley
brush, 2 candlestickes one for the Case the other for the Presse.
Item the frame and box for the sesteren.
Item the Riglet brasse rules and scabbard the Sponge 1 galley 1
mallett 1 sheeting sticke and furniture for the chases.
Item the letters that came before that were mingled with the
colledges.
[Illustration:
CASLON TYPES AND ORNAMENTS
From the specimen book of W. Caslon and Son, London, 1764
]
In 1670 the commissioners presented this equipment to Harvard College.
Green continued to print until he was very old, and upon his death in
1702 the printing office was discontinued.
Before 1740 more printing was done in Massachusetts than in all the
other colonies. Printing was not introduced into the colony of Virginia
until about 1727, principally because the authorities deemed it best to
keep the people in ignorance.
Pennsylvania was the second English colony in America in which
typography was practiced. The charter of this colony was granted to
William Penn in 1681 and in 1687 William Bradford at his printing office
“near Philadelphia” printed an almanac. This was a sheet containing the
calendar of twelve months (beginning with March and ending with
February, as was customary in the seventeenth century). In England,
Bradford had worked for a printer who was intimately acquainted with
George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers). This influenced
Bradford to adopt the principles of that sect and he was among the first
to emigrate to Pennsylvania in 1682.
[Illustration:
FIRST EDITION OF “PARADISE LOST”
Title-page (slightly reduced) of Milton’s famous book, London, 1667
]
Bradford became involved in a quarrel among the Quakers of Philadelphia
and in 1692 was arrested for printing a pamphlet. The sheriff seized a
form of type pages to be used as evidence, and it is said that Bradford
later secured his release because one of the jurymen in examining the
form pushed his cane against it and the types fell to the floor, “pied”
as it is technically expressed. The trouble into which Bradford found
himself in Philadelphia very likely influenced him in 1693 to leave that
city and establish a printing office in New York “at the sign of the
Bible” (the site at 81 Pearl Street is now marked by a tablet), his
being the first printshop in New York and the only one for thirty years.
He was appointed in 1693 official printer to the government. In 1725,
when Bradford was sixty-one years old, he began the publication of the
first newspaper in New York (the _Gazette_).
No review of Colonial printing would be complete without an account of
Benjamin Franklin, whose birthday (January 17) is each year widely
celebrated. Franklin’s father was an Englishman who came to New England
about 1685, and Benjamin was born in Boston in 1706, the youngest but
two of seventeen children. He came near being a minister, a seaman, a
tallow-chandler or a cutler, but love of books caused him finally to be
indentured to his brother, James Franklin, who had opened a printing
office in Boston. Benjamin was twelve years of age when indentured and
was to serve as apprentice until his twenty-first birthday. Making an
arrangement with his brother to be allowed to furnish his own board,
Franklin provided himself with meals “often no more than a biscuit or a
slice of bread, a handful of raisins, or a tart from the pastry cook’s
and a glass of water,” using the money thus saved for the purchase of
books. In 1721 James Franklin began to print a newspaper (the New
England _Courant_) and Benjamin tells how some of his brother’s friends
tried to dissuade him from the undertaking, “one newspaper being, in
their judgment, enough for America.” Some articles in this newspaper
giving offense to the Assembly, James Franklin was imprisoned for a
month, and on his discharge was forbidden to publish the _Courant_. To
evade this order Benjamin’s name was substituted for that of James
Franklin as publisher.
A short time afterward (1723) the brothers disagreed, and Benjamin left
Boston, coming by ship to New York. Here Franklin offered his services
to William Bradford, then the only printer in the city, but he could
give him no work. However, he suggested that Franklin go to Philadelphia
where Andrew Bradford, his son, had a shop. Franklin did not succeed in
getting work with Andrew Bradford, but was more fortunate with Samuel
Keimer. The printing house of Keimer, as described by Franklin,
consisted of an old damaged press, a small worn-out font of types, and
one pair of cases. Here Franklin worked until he left for England to
select an equipment for a new printing office to be established by him
in Philadelphia. At that time there was no type foundry or press
manufactory in the United States. Franklin had been encouraged by
Governor Keith with promises of financial assistance, but the trip to
London proved a fool’s errand and Franklin went to work in a printing
office there as a journeyman, first at the press, later in the
composing-room. (It is told that forty years afterward when Franklin was
residing in Great Britain, he went into this printing office and with
the men there drank “Success to printing.”) He returned to Philadelphia,
worked as a foreman for Keimer, and then with a partner, Hugh Meredith,
opened a printing office.
One of the first jobs done by the new firm was forty sheets of the
history of the Quakers, set in pica and long primer. Franklin tells how
he “composed a sheet a day and Meredith worked it off at press; it was
often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had finished my
distribution for the next day’s work. But so determined I was to
continue doing a sheet a day that one night, when, having imposed my
forms, I thought my day’s work over, one of them by accident was broken
and two pages reduced to pi, I immediately distributed and composed it
over again before I went to bed.”
In 1732 (for the year 1733) Franklin first published “Poor Richard’s
Almanack.” For this purpose he used the name of Richard Saunders, an
English astrologer. This almanac continued to be published by Franklin
for twenty-five years, nearly ten thousand copies being sold annually.
The two pages here reproduced are full size, and as it is likely that
Franklin gave close attention to the typography it will be interesting
to study their arrangement. They are good examples of title-page and
tabular composition of Colonial days.
Franklin considered this almanac a proper vehicle for spreading
instruction among the common people, and filled the little spaces that
occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial
sentences. These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many ages and
nations, were latter gathered together as a harangue of a wise old man
under the title “The Way to Wealth,” and the familiar phrase “As Poor
Richard says” is often repeated therein.
In 1748 Franklin took as a partner David Hall, the firm name being
Franklin & Hall until 1766, when Hall became sole proprietor.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
Quaintness is the chief characteristic of Colonial typography. While the
treatment lacks the artistic quality, the refinement, and the dainty
finish of the productions of Aldus, Froben and other printers of
classics, it has natural simplicity, human interest, and an
inexpressible something that makes it attractive to the average printer
of today.
[Illustration:
TWO PAGES FROM “POOR RICHARD’S ALMANACK”’
Printed by Benjamin Franklin in 1732
]
The title-page of the “Compleat Ambassador,” showing the actual size of
the original, is constructed in a severely plain manner, a style known
as the “long and short line,” with catchwords.
The “Midsommer Nights Dreame” title-page is one of the most artistic of
Colonial pages, printed when Shakespeare was in the midst of his famous
literary labors (1600). To get contrast the compositor alternated lines
of roman with lines of italic. The spacing material could not have been
accurate, and two capital V’s were used for a W, as in the Daye
title-page.
The “Paradise Lost” title-page is a poor specimen of composition and
presswork. It was common in Colonial days to surround the type-page with
a double rule border, and in this specimen the rules are bent and
battered. Printed in 1667, it is a part of the first edition of Milton’s
famous book.
The London _Times_ heading is interesting, representing as it does the
first number, under the new name, of a newspaper which has since become
world-famous. The heading mentions that the _Times_ was printed
“logographically.” Logotypes (two or three letters cast together) were
being experimented with to facilitate type composition, but did not
prove successful.
[Illustration:
ITALIAN SPECIMEN OF 1776
Showing use of decoration
]
The printers “At the Peacock in the Poultrey near Cornhil” surely were
good workmen. The “Pilgrim’s Progress” title-page is a finished bit of
printing.
The custom of using decorative border units to make printed books
attractive was seemingly practiced thruout Europe. The Italian page of
1776 is an example of this, as is also the French specimen of 1742.
The page from the Colonial book, “Description of Trades,” exhibits the
use of the decorative band for dividing subjects, which idea has
possibilities in the direction of general job printing that make it
worthy of experiment.
Because Caslon types and ornaments were extensively used by Colonial
printers I have reproduced on a previous page specimens of types and
ornaments from the type-specimen book of W. Caslon & Son, printed in
1764. The Caslon type-face was original in the sense in which the
type-face cut by Jenson was original; both had characteristics which
identified them with their designers, but both also had a general
resemblance to type-faces previously used. The Roman face cut by Caslon
bears a marked similarity in its capitals to the type-faces used by
Thomas Newcomb on the title-page of the “Compleat Ambassador” (see
insert).
There are shown here two specimens of type-faces designed by Bodoni,
which were the first of the so-called “modern” romans. The letters
reveal a thinning of the lighter lines and a thickening of the heavier
lines. The serifs are straight and sharp. The design of the letters was
such as to afford the typefounders of the nineteenth century a model
upon which to base their efforts at mechanical accuracy in the cutting
of type-faces. As a result of the introduction of Bodoni’s new type-face
there was not a type foundry in the world in 1805 making the old-style
roman type-faces. Giovan Battista (John Baptist) Bodoni was a
printer-typefounder of Parma, Italy.
The illustrations in this chapter were in most instances photographed
from originals in the New York Public Library, the library of the New
York Typothetæ, and the private library of _The American Printer_.
[Illustration:
Pages from Bodoni books of 1789 and 1806, showing the first “modern”
type-faces
]
[Illustration:
Title-page of the “Historyes of Troye” designed by Morris and engraved
on wood
]
[Illustration:
First text page of “The Story of the Glittering Plain” showing the
“Golden” type
The Morris style of typography and decoration
]
[Illustration]
TYPOGRAPHY IN THE 19th CENTURY
It was near the close of the nineteenth century when William Morris, the
distinguished exponent of strength and simplicity in art, declared that
“no good printing has been done since 1550.” According to this statement
one hundred years after its invention typography forfeited its place
among the esthetic arts, and then for three hundred years remained below
the standard set by its inventor. By setting his date at 1550 Morris
overlooked the achievements of such eminent printers as Plantin and the
Elzevirs, but his arraignment probably had some justification. Posterity
had defaulted in its administration of the legacy left by Gutenberg.
The first book printed from separate types, as an example of artistic
arrangement and careful workmanship, is a remarkable testimony to the
genius of the inventor, especially when the completeness of the
invention is compared with the initial productions of later inventors.
The first cylinder press and the first linotype machine were both
crudely constructed.
Typography attained its highest point toward perfection in Italy in the
days of Jenson and Aldus. The Italian style of lettering and decoration
differed greatly from the German. There were dignity, refinement, a
dainty neatness, in the printed pages of the Venetians, and their
type-faces were precise and of a dark-gray tone. The German page, with
its bold Gothic letters arranged in masses of black, was characteristic
of the religious fidelity and sturdiness of the dwellers on the banks of
the Rhine.