IN THE DECADE FOLLOWING the establishment of his press in 1757, John Baskerville introduced important innovations into several aspects of book production, including press construction, ink and paper-making, and type and typographic design—the simplicity, elegance and clarity of which fulfilled his ideals of proportion and precision. However, his ambition to print ‘books of Consequence, of intrinsic merit, or established Reputation … in an elegant dress’, was not generally well received in England, and his attempts to sell his stock of type failed. Between 1764 and 1768, Baskerville turned his back on printing and entrusted the enterprise to his foreman Robert Martin, who during the next three years published several books with Baskerville type. Following the printer's death in 1775, his widow Sarah continued to publish with the Baskerville type, as did several local printers who obtained their stocks from a sale in 1776. The remaining Baskerville punches and type were sold by Sarah Baskerville in 1779 to the French dramatist Beaumarchais, who used them to produce an important edition of the complete works of Voltaire. Between 1767 and 1790, a few English printers used versions of Baskerville's type with varying degrees of success. This chapter explores the nature and quality of their publications and where examples of their work can be found.

Apart from John Baskerville himself, Robert Martin was the only other printer to use Baskerville type during the printer's own lifetime, the first book with his imprint being The chase: a poem(1767) by the Warwickshire poet William Somervile. The quality of the composition, which emulates Basker-ville's characteristic precise spacing of verse quatrains and generous margins, is so good that most probably it had already been set by him before Martin took over the project. The book was sold in the Strand at the London shop of Alexander Donaldson, a Scottish bookseller. In the same year, Martin also published A catalogue of words of only one syllable. This duodecimo was printed and numbered on rectos only to facilitate notes on the versos, so its purpose was evidently practical.