Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T12:13:42.184Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

29 - The old English letter foundries

from THE BUSINESS OF PRINT AND THE SPACE OF READING

By
Nicolas Barker
Edited by
John Barnard  and
D. F. McKenzie
With
Maureen Bell
John Barnard
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
D. F. McKenzie
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Maureen Bell
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access

Summary

I have been with all the Letter-founders in Amsterdam, and if I would have given *** for matrices could not persuade any of ’em but the last I went to, to part with any. so far from it that it was with much ado I could get them to let me see their business. the Dutch Letter-founders are the most sly and jealous people that ever I saw in my life. However this last man (being as I perceived by the strong perfume of Geneva waters a most profound sot) offers to sell me all his house for about *** I mean the matrices: for the punchions with them he will not sell for any money. but there being about as much as he would have *** for, Hebr. and other Oriental languages, such as Syrian Samaritan and Russian characters, I would not consent to buy ’em. but the rest consisting of about 17 sets of Rom. and Ital. capitals and small letters, and about 5 sets of capital letters only, and 3 sets of Greek, besides a set or two of Black with other appurtenances, these I design to buy. he is not very fond of selling them because it will be a great while before he can furnish himself again. however I believe I shall have ’em for less than *** a matrice, which as he says is cheaper than ever they were his; but having most of the punches he can sink ’em again and so set himself to rights with little trouble and less charge.

Thomas James, son of the Reverend John James, vicar of Basingstoke, after serving his apprenticeship with Robert Andrews, set up on his own in 1710. For that purpose, he went to Holland to buy equipment, whence he wrote letters to his brother, of which this, dated from Rotterdam, 22 June 1710, is the first: ‘the account of his expedition is entertaining’, wrote Rowe Mores, who preserved and published the letters, in his characteristic under-capitalized style. So it is, but in this passage he also touches on some of the perennial problems that faced typefounders and their customers in Britain from the outset. In considering these it is difficult to avoid the assumption, often made by bibliographers anxious to attribute unsigned work to an identifiable printer, that types were made as well as used by printers.

Keywords

Jacob SabonParisian foundryFrançois Guyot at AntwerpEnglish punchcutterblack letter
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
, pp. 602 - 619
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Briels, J. G. C. A. 1974 Zuidnederlandse boekdrukkers en boekverkopers, Nieuwkoop.Google Scholar
Carter, H. 1967 Sixteenth-century French typefounders: the Le Bé memorandum, ed. Carter, H., Paris.Google Scholar
Carter, H. 1969 A view of early typography, Oxford.Google Scholar
Coyecque, E. Recueil d’actesnotari´s rélatifs á l’histoire de Paris et ses environs au XVIe siécle (Paris 1923–5).Google Scholar
Craig Ferguson, W. 1989 Pica Roman type in Elizabethan England, London Google Scholar
Dickins, B. 1949–53 ‘The Irish Broadside of 1571 and Queen Elizabeth’s types’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 1.Google Scholar
Digges, , A boke named Tectonicon (London, 1556).Google Scholar
Dreyfus, J. (ed.) 1963, Type specimen facsimiles, 1, London.Google Scholar
Eccles, M. 1957 ‘Bynneman’s books’, The Library. Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 5th ser., 12.Google Scholar
Enschedé, C. 1978 Typefoundries in the Netherlands from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, Carter, H., Hoeflake, N. and Hellinga, L. (eds.), Haarlem.Google Scholar
Greg, W. W. and Boswell, E. (eds.) 1930 Records of the Court of the Stationers’ Company, 1576 to 1602, from Register B, London.Google Scholar
Haimann, G. 1983 Nicholas Kis: a Hungarian punch-cutter and printer 1650–1702, trans Hoch, E. et al., San Francisco.Google Scholar
Hart, H. 1968 Notes on a century of typography at the University Press, Oxford, 1693–1794, Oxford.Google Scholar
Hellinga, L. 1999 ‘Printing’, in Hellinga, and Trapp, 1999.Google Scholar
Isaac, F. 1932 English and Scottish printing types, 1535–58, 1552–8, London.Google Scholar
Isaac, F. 1936 English printers’ types of the sixteenth century, Oxford.Google Scholar
Kirk, E. F. and , R. E. G. ed. Returns of aliens, (London, 1900–8), II.Google Scholar
Kruitwagen, B. Fr. 1923 ‘De incunabeldrukker en lettersteker Henric Pieterssoen die lettersnider van Rotterdamme, c. 1470–1511’, De Gulden Passer, 1.Google Scholar
Lane, J. A. 1991 ‘Arthur Nicolls and his Greek type for the King’s Printing House’, The Library. Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 6th ser., 13.Google Scholar
Lane, J. A. 1992 ‘The origins of Union Pearl’, Matrix, 12.Google Scholar
Lane, J. A. 1995 ‘Arent Corsz Hoogenacker (c. 1579–1636): an account of his typefoundry and a note on his types. Part two: the types’, Quaerendo, 25.Google Scholar
Lynam, E. W. 1924 ‘The Irish character in print’, The Library. Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 4th ser., 4.Google Scholar
Maddison, R. E. W. 1958 ‘Robert Boyle and the Irish Bible’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGuinne, D. 1992 Irish type design, Dublin.Google Scholar
McKenzie, D. F. 1966 The Cambridge University Press, 1696–1712: a bibliographical study, 2 vols., Cambridge.Google Scholar
Mores, E. R. 1961 A Dissertation upon English typographical founders and founderies [1778], ed. Carter, H. and Ricks, C., London.Google Scholar
Morison, S. 1931 Ichabod Dawks and his newsletter, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Morison, S. and Carter, H. 1967 John Fell, the University Press and the ‘Fell’ types, Oxford.Google Scholar
Moxon, J. 1962 Mechanick exercises on the whole art of printing, 2nd edn (ed.) Davis, H. and Carter, H., London.Google Scholar
Nashe, T. Have with you to Saffron Walden (London, 1596).Google Scholar
Nichols, J. 1812–20 Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century, 9 vols., London.Google Scholar
Oastler, C. L. 1975 John Day, the Elizabethan printer, Oxford.Google Scholar
Reed, T. B. 1952 A history of the old English letter founders with notes historical and bibliographical on the rise and progress of English typography [1887], rev. and enlarged Johnson, A. F., London.Google Scholar
Renouard, (Imprimeurs et libraires Parisiens du XVIe siécle (Paris, 1964).Google Scholar
Treadwell, M. 1980/1 ‘The Grover typefoundry’, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, 15.Google Scholar
Vervliet, H. D. L. 1968 Sixteenth-century printing types of the Low Countries, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Worman, E. J. 1906, Alien members of the book trade during the Tudor period, London.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×