By Theodore L. De Vinne.
To the hasty observer printing seems the simplest of arts or crafts.
The small boy who has been taught to spell can readily arrange
lettered blocks of wood in readable words, and that arrangement is
rated by many as the great feature of printing. With his toy
printing-press he can stamp paper upon inked type in so deft a manner
that admiring friends may say the print is good enough for anybody.
The elementary processes of printing are indeed so simple that they
might have justified Dogberry in adding typography to the
accomplishments of the "reading and writing that come by nature." With
this delusion comes the desire for amateur performance. Men who would
not undertake to make a coat or a pair of shoes are confident of their
ability to make or to direct the making of a book.
In real practice this apparent simplicity disappears. Commercial
printing is never done quickly or cheaply by amateur methods. The
printing-house that undertakes to print miscellaneous books for
publishers must be provided with tons of type of different faces and
sizes. It needs type-making and type-setting machines of great
complexity, printing-presses of great size and cost, and much curious
machinery in the departments of electrotyping and bookbinding; but
these machines, intended to relieve the drudgery of monotonous manual
labor, do not supplant the necessity for a higher skill in
craftsmanship. They really make that craftsmanship more difficult.
The difficulty of good book-making is greater now than ever.
Improvements made during the last century in processes of engraving
and the making of ink and paper and the increasing exactions of
critical readers and reviewers, compel a closer attention to the petty
detail of manufacture. The novice soon finds that some of the methods
recently introduced are incompatible with other methods. For the
production of a superior book practical experience and theoretical
study of all processes are needed to harmonize their antagonisms. One
has but to read over the headlines of the foregoing table of contents
to note how many different arts, crafts, and sciences are required in
the construction of a well-made book. A reading of these articles
makes one understand the scope and limitations of each art and the
necessity for its proper adjustment in its relation to the
workmanship of other crafts with which it may be associated.
For this purpose this book has been prepared. It is believed that a
compilation of the experience of men eminent in their respective
departments will be a useful guide to the amateur in authorship or the
novice in publication.