And finally, I want to salute William Targ, World's editor, _Books and Printing; a Treasury for Typophiles

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text like =this=. A

letter preceded by the sign ^ indicates a superindex. For instance ^a

represents superindex a.

There are some characters quoted in the text that cannot be reproduced

in the text version of the book.

The sign ſ represents the ancient long s; the sign [ct] represents the

ct ligature and the sign [ffi] represents the ffi ligature.

A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated

variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used

has been kept.

Not all the font families used for the different articles included

in the book were available for the HTML version. The font families

that could be used for the transcription are Times New Roman, Gill

Sans, Garamond, Bodoni MT (instead of Bodoni Book), Baskerville,

Centaur, Perpetua and Bell. Most of the currently available browsers

are compatible with those fonts. However, it is not certain that the

currently available hand-held devices would be able to reproduce the

text with those fonts.

Punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.

Nevertheless, there are some portions where the author quotes text

written in ancient style in which the punctuation rules applicable

nowadays were not followed. Those have been left unchanged.

* * * * *

FORUM [Illustration] BOOKS

_This ebook was created in honour of Distributed Proofreaders

20th Anniversary._

BOOKS

AND PRINTING

A TREASURY FOR TYPOPHILES

_edited by Paul A. Bennett_

[Illustration]

_Forum Books_

THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY

CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK

A FORUM BOOK

Published by The World Publishing Company

2231 West 110th Street, Cleveland 2, Ohio

Revised Edition

First Forum printing February 1963

any form without written permission from the publisher, except for brief

passages included in a review appearing in a newspaper or magazine.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 52-612

Printed in the United States of America. WP263

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful to many friends who have helped in the preparation

of material for this book, and have freely granted permission to

reprint their brain children.

To the Typophiles of New York, and to the individual authors in their

series of Chap Books, I am indebted for including: T. M. Cleland's

_Harsh Words_; W. A. Dwiggins' celebrated "Investigation Into the

Physical Properties of Books," first published for the Society of

Calligraphers and included in _Mss. by WAD_; Evelyn Harter's _Printers

As Men of the World_; and Lawrence C. Wroth's "First Work With American

Types," from _Typographic Heritage_.

To the editors of _The Colophon_, and the three authors, I am indebted

for reprinting the essays of Earnest Elmo Calkins on "The Book and Job

Print," Ruth S. Granniss on "Colophons" and Sir Francis Meynell's "Some

Collectors Read."

To the individual authors, the editors of _The Publishers' Weekly_

and its publisher, R. R. Bowker Company, I am indebted for permission

to include W. A. Dwiggins' "Twenty Years After," the sequel to his

"Investigation"; excerpts from two articles by Robert Josephy; and Will

Ransom's introduction from his _Private Presses and Their Books_.

To Beatrice Warde, who has graciously permitted reprinting her classic

"Printing Should Be Invisible."

I appreciate greatly the counsel of the good friends who made possible

the symposium on "The Anatomy of the Book": Peter Beilenson, Joseph

Blumenthal, P. J. Conkwright, Morris Colman, Milton Glick and Evelyn

Harter, William Dana Orcutt, Ernst Reichl, Carl Purington Rollins,

Bruce Rogers and Arthur W. Rushmore. To Mergenthaler Linotype Company

I am indebted for reprinting the text of the "Anatomy," now slightly

revised, from _The Manual of Linotype Typography_.

To both authors and their publisher, William E. Rudge's Sons, I am

indebted for including the extracts from Bruce Rogers' _Paragraphs on

Printing_ and Merle Armitage's _Notes on Modern Printing_.

To George Macy, and the directors of the Limited Editions Club, I am

indebted for reprinting Porter Garnett's prize-winning essay, "The

Ideal Book." And also for the illustration of the punch-cutting machine

(from _The Dolphin_, No. 2) to accompany Carl Purington Rollins' essay,

"American Type Designers and Their Work," for which permission to

reprint was granted by R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company, Chicago.

To my good friend, James Shand, publisher of _Alphabet and Image_ in

London, I am indebted for including his account of George Bernard

Shaw's relations with his printer (first published in _A & I_ No. 8),

and for assistance in securing electrotypes of the illustrations.

To Oscar Ogg and the editors of _The American Artist_ I owe thanks for

reprinting his "Lettering and Calligraphy," with its illustrations.

To Edwin Grabhorn I am indebted for including "The Fine Art of

Printing," his address to the Roxburghe Club of San Francisco.

I particularly appreciate the assistance of the late Otto Ege, Mrs.

Anne Lyon Haight and Lawrence C. Wroth in revising their essays for

publication here, and the thoughtfulness of Robert Josephy, Will Ransom

and Arthur W. Rushmore in writing postscripts to enhance their essays.

I am thankful to Mrs. Caroline Anderson of Los Angeles; my colleague

Jackson Burke at Linotype; to Christopher Morley of Roslyn, L. I., and

Arthur W. Rushmore of Madison, N. J., for valuable suggestions and help

in research.

For assistance in securing illustrative material I am indebted to my

Typophile friends: John Archer, A. Burton Carnes, Lester Douglas,

George L. McKay and William Reydel. To Fred Anthoensen of Portland,

Maine, I am thankful for help in securing electrotypes to illustrate

two articles.

The publisher, and I as editor, acknowledge our appreciation to

the authors of the other essays included, and to their editors and

publishers, for permission to reprint this valuable material, for which

detailed mention of copyright and publication date is printed elsewhere.

And I hope my apologies may be accepted, should there be inadvertent

omission of appreciation to the numerous other individuals who have so

generously assisted me in preparing this book for the printer.

P. A. B.

CONTENTS

BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION _Page ix_

OTTO F. EGE. The Story of the Alphabet 3

LANCELOT HOGBEN. Printing, Paper and Playing Cards 15

RUTH S. GRANNISS. Colophons 31

EDWIN ELIOTT WILLOUGHBY. Printers' Marks 45

A. F. JOHNSON. Title Pages: Their Forms and

Development 52

LAWRENCE C. WROTH. The First Work with

American Types 65

RONALD B. MCKERROW. Typographic Debut 78

EDWARD ROWE MORES. Metal-Flowers 83

JAMES WATSON. The History of the Invention and

Progress of the Mysterious Art of Printing &c. 85

EVELYN HARTER. Printers As Men of the World 88

ANNE LYON HAIGHT. Are Women the Natural

Enemies of Books? 103

BEATRICE WARDE. Printing Should Be Invisible 109

PORTER GARNETT. The Ideal Book 115

W. A. DWIGGINS. Extracts from an Investigation

into the Physical Properties of Books 129

W. A. DWIGGINS. Twenty Years After 145

DESMOND FLOWER. The Publisher and the Typographer 153

WILLIAM DANA ORCUTT, BRUCE ROGERS, CARL PURINGTON ROLLINS,

JOSEPH BLUMENTHAL, P. J. CONKWRIGHT,

ARTHUR W. RUSHMORE, MILTON GLICK, MORRIS COLMAN,

EVELYN HARTER, PETER BEILENSON, and ERNST REICHL.

The Anatomy of the Book: A Symposium 160

ROBERT JOSEPHY. Trade Bookmaking: Complaint

in Three Dimensions 169

WILL RANSOM. What Is a Private Press? 175

ALFRED W. POLLARD. The Trained Printer and the

Amateur: and the Pleasure of Small Books 182

SIR FRANCIS MEYNELL. Some Collectors Read 191

CHRISTOPHER SANDFORD. Printing for Love 212

ARTHUR W. RUSHMORE. The Fun and Fury of a Private

Press: Some Voyages of The Golden Hind 220

EDWIN GRABHORN. The Fine Art of Printing 226

HOLBROOK JACKSON. The Typography of William Morris 233

STANLEY MORISON. First Principles of Typography 239

CARL PURINGTON ROLLINS. American Type Designers

and Their Work 252

ERIC GILL. Typography 257

FREDERIC W. GOUDY. Types and Type Design 267

THEODORE LOW DE VINNE. The Old and the New:

A Friendly Dispute between Juvenis & Senex 274

BRUCE ROGERS. Paragraphs on Printing 281

PAUL A. BENNETT. B.R.--Adventurer with Type Ornament 290

DANIEL BERKELEY UPDIKE. Some Tendencies in Modern

Typography 306

PETER BEILENSON. The Amateur Printer: His Pleasures

and His Duties 313

T. M. CLELAND. Harsh Words 321

OSCAR OGG. A Comparison of Calligraphy & Lettering 337

ALDOUS HUXLEY. Typography for the Twentieth-Century

Reader 344

MERLE ARMITAGE. Notes on Modern Printing 350

JOHN T. WINTERICH. Benjamin Franklin: Printer

and Publisher 352

EARNEST ELMO CALKINS. The Book & Job Print 368

JAMES SHAND. Author and Printer: G.B.S. and R.& R. C.:

1898-1948 381

PAUL A. BENNETT. On Type Faces for Books 402

PAUL A. BENNETT. Notes on the Type Faces Used in This Book 411

_Index_ 421

[Illustration]BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION[Illustration]

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.

Since space was limited, I needed to be. I would have welcomed the

opportunity to include additional essays by D. B. Updike, whose

incomparable _Printing Types: Their History, Forms and Use_; _In the

Day's Work_, and _Some Aspects of Printing: Old and New_, and other

writings on typography should not be missed; by W. A. Dwiggins, the

distinguished American letter artist and designer, who writes as

well as he draws; and by Holbrook Jackson, the great English critic,

literary historian and essayist, whose _Anatomy of Bibliomania_, _Fear

of Books_ and _Printing of Books_ are required reading.

There are other favorites omitted too, for unlike Jackson's remark

about the house of books, "There are many mansions and room for all

trades, whims, and even fads"--this book could comfortably hold no more.

It has not seemed desirable, as it would be possible, to eliminate a

degree of duplication in part among some of the essays. That would have

required an amount of editorial surgery and revision unfair to the

authors concerned. More importantly, it would have assumed that every

reader would read every essay--hardly an attainable ideal.

Nor has any documentation been attempted to reconcile opposing

viewpoints--that of A. W. Pollard and Holbrook Jackson, for instance,

in respect to William Morris as printer and typographer. Happy will

that reader be who finds this and other instances sufficiently

provocative to embark upon further research of his own.

And while it is easier to come upon material in a collection such as

this than to track down each item individually, much of the fun of the

search is missing, along with the memorable thrills of discoveries in

scattered places. There's much gold yet to be found by even moderate

digging.

* * * * *

The greatest area for argument is that within the opposing views of

the modern and traditional approach to book design. It is unrealistic

to oppose the concept that contemporary typography should reflect some

of the differences that mark our time from other epochs. Defining

distinctions and relating them precisely to the arts of the book is

something else again.

In his eloquent _Harsh Words_, T. M. Cleland decries the restless

craving for something new. "This poison is aggravated in printing and

typography," he insists, "by the fact that of all the arts it is, by

its very nature and purpose, the most conventional. If it is an art at

all, it is an art to serve another art. It is good only so far as it

serves well and not on any account good for any other reason.

"It is not the business of type and printing to show off, and when, as

it so frequently does, it engages in exhibitionistic antics of its own,

it is just a bad servant.... Typography, I repeat, is a servant--the

servant of thought and language to which it gives visible existence.

When there are new ways of thinking and a new language, it will be time

enough for a new typography."

The modern designer disagrees. He believes books can be freshened,

made more appealing to eye and hand, and more inviting to read, just

as product-packaging has benefited by the imaginative conceptions of

skilled industrial designers. He concedes that books remain unsurpassed

as a medium for transmitting thought to the reader's mind--and admits

they do it best with a minimum of visual distraction. But, he asks, "is

it not reasonable to remain open-minded and appraise the modern artist

for what he may contribute?

"Books, to be sure, are much more than packages to be styled for

shelf attention and sparkle. Yet it seems reasonable to believe they

also may benefit by traveling the road of visual appeal and design

attractiveness, and that they may be assisted in typographic handling

to convey the author's words with a minimum of reading effort."

It isn't difficult to dismiss the modern approach and call it

uninformed nonsense, but that doesn't lift the curtain and illumine the

problem--or settle the continuing debate.

I recall discussing modern typography some years ago with the late D.

B. Updike, in his library at the Merrymount Press in Boston. A catalog

from the Museum of Modern Art was at hand, designed by Herbert Bayer of

Bauhaus fame.

It looked strange in its all-lower-case typography, and seemed to slow

reading because of that strangeness. To many it was the newest of the

new ... perhaps it would institute a trend? Mr. Updike smiled, reached

to a shelf for a book. It was printed more than a hundred years earlier

in Paris and set throughout in lower-case. "So far as this had any

influence, then or later," he remarked, "the experiment of _Typographie

Economique_ is as dead as Queen Anne."

All of which points up Bertrand Russell's remarks, "On Being Modern

Minded," in his recent _Unpopular Essays_[1]: "The desire to be

contemporary is new only in degree," he declares, "it has existed to

some extent in all previous periods that believed themselves to be

progressive.

"The Renaissance had a contempt for the Gothic centuries that had

preceded it; the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries covered priceless

mosaics with whitewash; the Romantic movement despised the age of the

heroic couplet.... But in none of these former times was the contempt

for the past nearly as complete as it is now.

"From the Renaissance to the end of the eighteenth century men admired

Roman antiquity; the Romantic movement revived the Middle Ages.... It

is only since the 1914-18 war that it has become fashionable to ignore

the past _en bloc_.

"The belief that fashion alone should dominate opinion has great

advantages. It makes thought unnecessary, and puts the highest

intelligence within reach of everyone."

Really thinking through the design potential not only seems the nub

of the matter, but is basically sound typographically. Read Peter

Beilenson attentively as he discusses the amateur printer and the

development of a new style (page 313). "It is simple, but dull, to copy

an old style," he points out. "It is hard, but exciting, to work out

a new one. And while you are working at it, you must expect cynical

observers to give your experiments the adjective 'wacky'; you must

expect certain curious kinds of people to praise your work for the

wrong reasons; and you must expect alternating moods of conceit and

confusion. The proofs you gloat over at night will become commonplace

by dawn....

"You will make misjudgments about the intelligence of ordinary readers.

You will make mistakes of taste. You will find it too easy to get an

effect by means of shock, and you will forget that any book, even a

twenty-first-century book, must be a coherent unit. And you will often,

since there are no highway markers for the explorer, feel lonely and

discouraged and want to go back to the old familiar, well-traveled

roads again....

"You can be subtle or bold, as you feel the urge ... you can advance

your own work by looking to other fields of creation, enjoying and

profiting by the experiments going on in them. You can feel yourself

part of the whole forward-looking culture of today ... and if you

do strike a vein with the least glitter of real gold in it, you

will become rich indeed. For you will have become a creator in a

new sense; your duty done as an amateur will be compensated with a

twenty-four-carat satisfaction...."

There's sense in that essay, as there is in the views of Merle

Armitage, T. M. Cleland, Porter Garnett, Eric Gill, Frederic W. Goudy,

Edwin Grabhorn, Robert Josephy, Aldous Huxley, Stanley Morison, Bruce

Rogers, Carl Purington Rollins, D. B. Updike and Beatrice Warde on

related topics. Admittedly, some are in opposition--yet that very

quality of provocativeness may help in dispelling the fog.

* * * * *

Whether we like it or not, the factor of competition affects the

sale of books and their reading. Because so many elements compete for

reading time, we frequently forget that they comprise the obvious:

sports and the allure of the outdoors, newspapers and magazines, the

theater and movies, radio and television, as well as social and family

distractions.

These elements are real, measurable to a degree, and materially

affect the reading of books and consequently their sales. To the

trade publisher and printer they affect the business future and may

be considered opponents. To them, the question of whether the modern

approach is more effective than the traditional is no academic matter.

We have indicated the problem at length, though only in part, because

of its consuming interest. For a comprehensive and sympathetic account

of the modern view, see _Books for Our Time_. That illustrated record

of the exhibition sponsored by the American Institute of Graphic Arts

(recently published by Oxford University Press), was designed and

edited by Marshall Lee, and has essays by Merle Armitage, Herbert

Bayer, John Begg, S. A. Jacobs, George Nelson and Ernst Reichl.

It was Henry Watson Kent who sagely pointed out that the collector who

has affection for the book's format is not necessarily indifferent to

its soul--"the thought enshrined in it." And so, as the one may proudly

discuss his Kelmscott, Doves or Ashendene items and their literary

background, so the other--more knowledgeable in graphic arts lore--may

find equal pleasure in his discoveries: John Winterich on Franklin as

printer and publisher, possibly, or Sir Francis Meynell on collectors

who also read, or James Shand's revealing account of G.B.S., his

interest in typography and his relations with his printers.

Instead of asking the fine press enthusiast to show his Doves Bible,

his B. R. _Pierrot_, Nonesuch Dickens, or Grabhorn _Leaves of Grass_,

the collector who reads about the making of books may get even more

satisfaction in discussing his favorite essays or his most recent

"find."

That the one can be as satisfying as the other is quite definite in my

mind. In fact, I am certain that the collector who learns to appreciate

book-making details will find the greater pleasure: his knowledge

becomes a part of him as prized items on his shelves never can; he will

enjoy looking _in_ books even more than looking _at_ them.

* * * * *

A concluding typographic note: Excepting for strictly type specimen

material, and the degree of typographic expression attempted in Parts

six and seven of _The New Colophon_ for a different reason, I don't

recall any other book set in such a variety of distinguished body

types. Yet that seemed so natural and sensible an idea for this that it

has been stimulating to work it out.

Much of the detail and burden has fallen to the willing hands of

Joseph Trautwein, the able designer responsible for this format, and

the continuing interest of Joseph and Miriam Schwartz of Westcott

and Thomson, the superior Philadelphia typesetters, whose wealth of

typographic resources is evidenced in these pages.

Some of the reasons for coupling specific essays and types are detailed

in the final chapter, which includes also a brief specimen of each face

with a note on its attribution.

And finally, I want to salute William Targ, World's editor, for

inviting me to put this miscellany together, and for his patience

in watching the book develop. That hasn't proved anything like the

challenging experience I envisioned, but instead became a spare-time,

weekend pleasure I've enjoyed for months. Indirectly, of course, this

is related to the great fraternity of book-makers and typophiles,

rich in its friendships and international in scope, that I have been

privileged to enjoy through the years. As I scan the contents again,

I see not only the names of many good friends and the rewarding

associations they bring to mind, but also some of their best writing.

My chief regret is that there just wasn't room for more of it in this

collection. But that's a different adventure--and possibly another book.

PAUL A. BENNETT

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Bertrand Russell, _Unpopular Essays_ (New York: Simon and Schuster,

1950).

[Illustration]BOOKS AND PRINTING[Illustration]

[Illustration]OTTO F. EGE[Illustration]

_The Story of the Alphabet_

ITS EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT

permission of the author.

_Do you know your A B C's? Each Letter Character Has a History and a

Reason for Its Present Form. Have you Ever Questioned the Origin and

Significance of the Alphabet?_

Our transition from barbarism to civilization can be attributed to the

alphabet. Those great prehistoric discoveries and inventions such as

the making of a fire, the use of tools, the wheel and the axle, and

even our modern marvelous applications of steam and electricity pale

into insignificance when compared with the power of the alphabet.

Simple as it now appears after the accustomed use of ages, it can be

accounted not only the most difficult, but also the most fruitful of

all the achievements of the human intellect.

Man lived by "bread alone" and without the alphabet untold ages,

and with a practical alphabetic system not more than 3,000 years.

So important and wonderful was this step deemed by those who lived

nearer the time of its inception--in the time before the wonder of its

extraordinary powers had been blunted by long possession and common

use--that its invention, as well as that of writing, was invariably

attributed to divine origin.

Modern investigation always seeks sources other than mythological

ones, and thus the science of ancient hand-writing, paleography, came

into existence. In the last hundred and twenty-five years the writing

of the ancient Egyptians, which was a "sealed book" for nearly twenty

centuries, has been deciphered through the efforts of Champollion

and Young; the mysterious cuneiform characters of ancient Assyria

and Babylon have been interpreted by Grotofend and Rawlinson, and

the "missing link" to connect our present alphabetic system to these

ancient ones is being partly completed by Sir Arthur Evans, who is

compiling and analyzing Cretan characters and pre-Phoenician writing.

The story, however, will probably never be told in its entirety.

* * * * *

The forms of our letters, with the exception of G, J, U, W, reached

their full development two thousand years ago. The Roman letter was

the parent of all the styles notwithstanding the diversity that has

appeared in Europe since the beginning of the Christian era. With a

little imagination it is not difficult to note the resemblance between

similar letters of the old Roman capitals and those following that

have been designated as script, Italic, Old English or black-letter,

versal, uncial and an endless list of alphabet families. The desire for

speed, and the influence of the tool, pen, reed, chisel, brush, were

the determining factors in the change of form. Curiously enough instead

of being archaic, the Roman alphabet, which is now 2,000 years old,

is still the most useful because of its legibility, and also the most

beautiful.

We derived twenty-three of our letters from the Romans. They had taken

probably eighteen of these from the Greeks about the fourth century

B.C. and afterwards borrowed elsewhere or invented seven more. Instead

of giving them names as the Greeks did, they simply called them by

the sounds for which they stood: A (ah), B (bay). They introduced the

curve wherever possible, whereas the early Greek letters were all

angular--what an interesting analogy is evident in the architecture of

those two peoples, the temple pediment and angularity of the Greeks as

contrasted with the dome and arch of the Romans.

The Greeks, in their contact with those great traders and "Yankees

of ancient time," the Phoenicians, saw the value of their alphabetic

writing and inaugurated its use about the time of the first Olympiad,

776 B.C. Three or four centuries before they gave it to the Romans the

ancient Greeks found use for fifteen of the Phoenician letters and then

conceived enough to round out an alphabet of twenty-four characters.

The changes that took place in the shape of their letters can be

attributed to their sense of order; the letters are balanced better and

the parts better related.

The Greeks were interested in the sound value only, not in the picture

value of the symbol, and, therefore, they probably did not notice that

A, for instance, had ever been a picture of the head of an ox and that

it was now drawn upside down; and that the Phoenician name "Aleph"

meant ox and that they mispronounced the sound in calling it "Alpha."

The Romans borrowed from the Greeks and the Greeks had borrowed from

the Phoenicians, but where did the Phoenicians obtain their letters?

Did they invent them? To what extent were these letters influenced by

earlier systems of writings as those employed by the Cretan, Assyrian

and Egyptian civilizations? These are questions that probably will

never be answered satisfactorily. Many arguments and theories are

advanced. We can, however, trace back with certainty a number of our

letters to the Phoenician alphabet of 1000 B.C. Beyond this all is, at

present, a matter of conjecture.

The Phoenician alphabet consisted of twenty-two pictures of familiar

objects. These pictures were rudely and simply made, for writers

and readers soon recognized the fundamental characteristics and all

unnecessary details were eliminated. The great advance that can

be credited to them is that they realized that a small number of

sound-expressing characters, if well selected, are sufficient to

express any word. Other races at this period had phonetic systems

but they consisted of numerous symbols and cumbersome appendages of

non-alphabetic characters--"eye pictures" side by side with "ear

pictures." No doubt earlier Phoenician writing passed through the

stages of development traceable in so many countries:

1. The pictures or characters suggesting the thing or incident

(picture writing).

2. The pictures or characters symbolizing the thing or idea

(ideographic or symbolic writing).

3. The pictures or characters representing the sound of the thing or

idea (phonograms).

4. The sign suggesting the various sounds of the language (alphabetic

system).

To free this last stage from the others was the great Phoenician

contribution.

Why is A the first letter? It represents one of the commonest vowel

sounds in ancient languages. Naturally the Phoenician alphabet makers

selected a familiar object in the name of which this particular vowel

sound was emphasized. Since food is of primal importance, it is not

surprising to find that he chose the ox--"Alef" (ah´lef), or rather the

head of the ox, for the characteristics of animals are chiefly embodied

in the head. Not only was the ox important as food but also as a beast

of burden, for the ox had been harnessed to the plow centuries before

the horse was domesticated. Thus one of the earliest and most important

of man's friends among the brute creatures was honored.

In making this letter repeatedly and rapidly they became careless

and instead of crossing the letter V they tried to make it with one

continuous scratching, hence when the Greeks became acquainted with

it three to five centuries after its invention, the picture had

deteriorated almost beyond recognition. They introduced balance and

the V was inverted, and the cross-bar was retained between the lines.

Unknowingly they were drawing the ox head upside down; and it remains

so with us to this day. The Greeks called the first letter alpha,

the Romans called it A (ah) and we call it A (ay), a sound it never

possessed in Latin.

The second letter of the alphabet represents a crude house, roughly

outlined. After food, shelter is an important consideration and this

fact was expressed by the early alphabet maker. The Greeks again were

ignorant of the picture and careless or indifferent as to the exact

name of the character, and thus two triangles instead of the square

supporting a triangle were made and the name changed from "beth" to

"beta" (ba´ta). Combine the Greek names for the first two letters and

we have (alphabeta) "alphabet." The Romans shortened the name "beta,"

calling it B (bay) and introduced the curved loops. The original name

is familiar to us through names found in the Scriptures: Bethel (house

of God) and Bethlehem (house of bread).

C-G

The "ship of the desert," the camel, gave its name to the third letter.

Our name for this animal is traceable back to the Phoenician "gimel"

(ghe´mel) or "gamel" (gah´mel). The long neck and the peculiar angle

of the neck in relation to the head could easily be represented. The

Greeks made changes similar to those in other letters--they improved

the shape and changed the name to "gamma." The Romans did not forget

the curve and gave it both the hard and soft sounds (kay and gay).

Later on, about the third century A.D. to distinguish the "g" sound

from the "k" sound they added a little bar below the opening. Thus we

get both C and G from the picture of the camel.

Stevenson said that when he was a child the capital G always impressed

him as a genii swooping down to drink out of a handsome cup. Kipling's

story of the invention of the alphabet is filled with similar

delightful stories of the picture origin of letter forms.

The next letter, D, came from a representation of a door--"daleth"

(dah´leth). It probably pictures the door of a tent. A custom that

prevails among the Arabs and in a number of countries gave particular

importance to the door of a tent--a stranger, or even an enemy, if

he entered through the door of a tent must receive food, drink and

shelter. "Daleth" became "delta" with the Greeks and D (day) with the

Romans, who, of course, rounded the angle.

The house picture gave us B, the door, D, and the window, E. "He" (hay)

meant to look, to see, or window, and one writer asserts our familiar

street cry "hey, there" can be traced to these ancient times. One side

bar of the window was lost early.

The Greeks at first used this sound for the long "e" (epsilon) but

afterwards employed the character H or "eta" for the long sound. The

Romans at first made no change except to call it "eh."

This is the letter that occurs so frequently in English words, and

many no doubt recall the interesting use that Poe makes of this fact in

his story "The Gold Bug."

Our letter order does not agree with that of the Phoenicians or the

early Greeks. Our sixth letter, F, is missing in classical Greek,

but it is found in earlier writings. It comes from a Phoenician

representation of a hook or nail (?) "vau." The Hebrew form resembles

the latter object. The nail was important in shipbuilding, a common

industry of the early traders. When the Greeks used this letter they

called it "digamma" (double gamma) and its form represented one "gamma"

(Greek c) superimposed over the other. The Romans called it F (ef) and

during the reign of Emperor Claudius the consonant V was represented by

the F inverted. This was done because the Latin alphabet had but one

character to represent U and V and OCTAVIA became OCTAℲIA.

Two fence posts and three horizontal boards gave us our eighth letter,

H. The fence was called "cheth" (haith). The Greeks omitted the upper

and lower boards thus making it like our H, and called it "eta" (ata).

The Romans gave it a soft sound H (hah) just as we do today.

I-J

The parts of the human body also played an important part in giving

form to the letters of the alphabet. The early peoples recognized the

value of the hand and the head and these members gave rise to the

letters I and K, and Q and R respectively. The hand in profile bent at

the knuckles and wrist gives us the character "yod" (the hand) as used

by the Phoenicians. The Greeks, who always liked to have their words

end in vowels, added "a" and called it "Iota" (e-o´ta). When the Romans

received it, it was simply a vertical stroke, I (ee) which represented

the same long "e" sound as it did with the Greeks, but later they used

it both as a consonant and vowel, differentiating the consonant by

making the letter I longer, J; but they did not give a distinct letter

form for the capital J until the sixteenth century.

The small j came into being nearly a century later. The dot over the i

was first introduced in a thirteenth century manuscript.

[Illustration: Genealogy of Our Letters from the Phoenician Alphabet

1300 B.C.

Until the 3rd Century B.C. the character _c_ represented

the sounds of both _g_ and _k_ when a slight modification of the

character _c_ was made for the _g_ sound.

In a table of this sort, dates, forms, and even meanings must be

arbitrary. For instance, _Koph_ can be spelled _Goph_ or _Qoph_; He may

have no meaning; _Lamed_ (_Lamedh_) may mean _teacher's rod_; _Samech_

(_Samekh_) may mean _fish_ or _fulcrum_; _Zayin_ may mean _olive_ or

_balance_.]

The silhouette of the open hand, with its radiating lines, discloses

the origin of the letter K, "kaph," which signified hollow or palm. We

know that palmistry was practiced by the ancients, and probably the

association of reading the hand and writing influenced the inclusion of

this character. The Greeks added their favorite vowel sound, "a," again

and thus obtained their "Kappa." The Romans had no need for this letter

at first, as C furnished the same sound. When they did accept it, they

made no change.

The ox goad or whip lash, "lamed" (lah´med) gave rise to the next

letter. Herding oxen and sheep was the important occupation of the

slaves of the Phoenicians and hence the last, an object so unfamiliar

to us, was easily recognized by them. The Greeks again added an "a"

and called it "lambda" and made it in the form of an inverted V. The

Romans, strangely, adhered more closely to the original form than did

the Greeks.

M-N

The Phoenicians were lovers of the sea, and from this source two

letters were derived, M and N. They explored not only all of the

Mediterranean shore at an early date, but they also sailed boldly

through the gates of Gibraltar, and "beyond the world" where they found

Britain. They were the first navigators that sailed by night and it is

said they discovered the north star. Therefore it is not surprising

that water "mem" (maim) is the source of M and that fish, "nun" (noon)

the source of N. The letter M has changed but little in form, it is

the Greek letter "Mu" and the Roman M (em). The head of the fish, from

which the letter N is pictured, was simplified even more than the head

of the ox, in A. It no doubt represents the fisherman's viewpoint--not

a swimming fish but a suspended one. The Greeks reversed the stroke and

called it "Nu" and the Romans did not change its form but called it N

(en).

In Phoenicia, as in Egypt, China and Mexico, the eye is one of the

commonest elements found in the writing. It was called "Ayin" (ah-yin).

The Greeks used it for two sounds now designated by "Omicron," little

"o," and "omega," great "o," the letter which, strangely, was placed at

the end of the Greek alphabet. We find in the Bible: "I am the Alpha

and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." How

many today would think of using the alphabet for such an important

illustration? It is easy to trace the Roman O (oh) from its Greek

parent, "omicron."

Many letter pictures run in pairs--finger and hand, water and fish--and

now after eye we find mouth "pi" (pe) which represents the lower lip.

The Greeks made little change in the name or shape at first, but later

they introduced the angles and made the downward strokes equal. The

Romans formed the letter by continuing the curve farther than the

Phoenicians and called it "pe" (pay).

Q-R

Now we come to Q and R, the letters which were mentioned above as those

probably coming from the head. Whether Q (koph) was derived from the

picture of the back view of the head and neck, or whether it represents

a knot, which, no doubt, was as important to navigators then as it is

now, is a mooted question. The Q sound is guttural and the tail of

the letter is supposed to indicate the throat sound. The Greeks soon

discarded "koppa," as it was called, and the Romans went back to the

original source for their Q (koo).

The back view of the head is the unusual one, for as we look at the

drawing of the early races, or memory pictures, or the delineations of

a child of seven or eight we find they are almost without exception

profile pictures. The Phoenician "resh" represents the profile and

shows very little resemblance to a human being, although at first the

features may have been more clearly indicated. The Greeks, as was to be

expected, turned the letter around, and later, oddly enough, introduced

a curve making it exactly like the Roman letter P. The extra stroke

which we find in the Roman letter was no doubt due to the carelessness

in copying. They pronounced it R (air).

There is a common legend explaining S, the letter with the hissing

sound. Because of its curved shape and its hissing sound many people

believe it to be derived from a snake. Its real history is easily

followed from Phoenician "shin" or "sin" (teeth) to the present day.

Its form closely resembled our W. The Greeks made it perpendicular for

their "sigma" and the Romans simplified and curved it giving S (ess).

Our twentieth letter, T, is particularly interesting because it is

derived from "tahv" a mark or cross made by people who could not

write, and no doubt their signature frequently resembled it. We must

not forget that even Charlemagne and other kings of the middle ages

had to make their mark or trace their initials through stencil plates.

The only change of "tahv" to Greek "tau," and to Roman T (tay) was the

raising of the cross-bar.

U-V-Y

The letters U, V and Y were all taken from the letter "Upsilon," and

it may have been derived from the queer Hebrew form of "Ayin" which

closely resembles Y. The letters U and V were interchangeable. Upsilon,

known as the "Samian letter," was used by Pythagoras as an emblem to

represent the parting of the ways--the young man making a choice in

life.

Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers contributed two letters, W (wen) and

another often confused with Y, called "thorn." These were introduced

during the thirteenth century. The French always called the former

letter double vay, and in English it may be said to represent double U,

as its name indicates. The letter "thorn" had the value of the digraph

"th," and "ye" in old English should be pronounced "the" like the

definite article.

X-Z

Although we have no direct need for the letter X, for Z can be

substituted for it when it is used as an initial letter, and "ks" when

used elsewhere, it has remained in the alphabet since its frequent

use by the Greeks. It came from the Roman X (eex) which may have been

derived from the Greek "ksi." The latter resembles the Phoenician

character "samech," meaning a post or support.

The dagger "zayin" from which we obtain our Z must have been

important in the daily lives of the Greeks, Hebrews and Phoenicians

for it occupies the sixth place (Zeta) and the seventh in the latter

alphabets. The Romans did not change its name or shape, but although

there has been little change in 2,000 years we see little resemblance

to the short sword in the letter the Romans gave to us.

* * * * *

Many slight changes that have occurred in the formation of the letters

of the alphabet may be accounted for. At first the Greeks wrote from

left to right in one line and from right to left on the next line--a

mode of writing which has been termed "boustrophedon" because it runs

as an ox plow does in a field, up one furrow and down another. It is

due to this fact that many letters were reversed from their original

prototypes. It is interesting to note that recently books for the blind

have been embossed in this manner.

The small letters of the alphabet, sometimes called "lower case"

letters because printers keep them in a case below the capitals, or

"minuscule letters" in contrast with "majuscule," or capital letters,

illustrate further changes due to rapid writing of capitals in a

cursive or running hand.

The few characters selected by the Phoenicians, the great traders,

artificers and farmers of the ancient world, not only influenced Greek

literature and life, Roman and modern nations in Europe, but also

spread eastward to the very walls of China. The Hebrews copied them as

a whole and retained the original names with only slight variations.

They did change the shapes because a different writing instrument was

employed.

According to a legend, Jehovah gave the letters to Moses, hence all the

left curves in Hebrew letter form turn upward--as symbols of a finger

pointing heavenward.

The Phoenician alphabet is also the parent of the Arabic, Indian,

Javanese, Corean, Tibetan, Coptic syllabaries and alphabets. No small

country ever gave such a great gift to humanity; no large country could

have given a greater gift.

THIS ARTICLE COMPOSED IN JANSON TYPES, AS ARE THOSE

ARTICLES FOLLOWING FOR WHICH NO OTHER

TYPE FACE IS INDICATED.

[Illustration]LANCELOT HOGBEN[Illustration]

_Printing, Paper and Playing Cards_

by The Chanticleer Press. Reprinted in abridged form by permission of

author and publisher.

Twenty thousand years or more separate the way of life of the

Aurignacian hunters, who contributed the first pictures to the modern

symposium of human communications, from the beginnings of settled

community life and the beginnings of a priestly script. Fully three

thousand years separate the way of life of the first Semitic trading

folk who had an alphabet from the vast expansion of knowledge which

occurred in Northern Europe after the spread of printing from movable

type during the half century before the voyages of Columbus. Civilised

mankind had to surmount many hurdles before it was possible to exploit

to the fullest extent the considerable economy signalised by the

introduction of alphabetic writing.

At first, there were few people who had any use for the art of writing

except as a convenience of commercial intercourse. There was in fact

no incentive to adapt the art of writing with letters to the flexible

uses of daily speech.... An age-long popular tradition of community

singing and community dancing lies back of Aeschylus, Euripides and

Aristophanes; but it was one which could assume so novel an aspect only

in the trading communities of the islands in the Mediterranean, where

constant interchange of personnel promoted conditions less propitious

to the dominance of a priestly class of avaricious landed proprietors

than under the earlier dynasties of Egypt and the near East. Thus and

there, at an early date, a segment of tribal ritual crystallises as a

secular pursuit; and where there is a flourishing drama there is also a

motive for writing, equally aloof from association with the repetition

of sacred texts or from the limited requirements of the counting-house.

There is, in fact, an incentive to write down what is more than a

ceremonial password, an epitaph or a bill of goods, an incentive to

record in writing what living people actually speak.