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A Short History of the Printed Word
is a book that will inform the layman and give pleasure
to the typophile. In it the aesthetic and technical considerations
basic to the art and process of printing, from the earliest
formulation of the letters of the alphabet to recent developments
in twentieth-century graphic technology, are made clear
through a lucid and lively narrative interspersed with more
than 200 pertinent illustrations -- calligraphy, typefaces,
great books and their pages, presses and workshops -- all
carefully chosen and fitted into the text in such a manner
as to make this not an art book but a book about an art.
Here is the evolution of the printing press.
Here are the ingenious and imaginative contributions of
the great printers and the art of the inspired typographers
from Gutenberg and his 42-line Bible to Philippe Grandjean,
William Caslon, and Giambattista Bodoni, to the great twentieth-century
Americans Updike, Rogers, Goudy. And always the interaction
between printing and the society and culture in which it
grew is underlined. Mr. Chappell shows how the creation
of movable type led to the dissemination of news, to the
invention of the magazine, to the concept of "publishing";
how it affected the very nature of authorship as writers
became journalists and pamphleteers -- Addison and Steele,
Defoe, Swift and Voltaire. He shows how the speed and mass
production necessary to newspaper and magazine publishing
changed the methods of printing; how the demand for illustrations
led to engraving and lithography -- techniques which greatly
influenced the course of modern printing.
To this short history Warren Chappell brings
a long experience of the subtleties of printing as well
as his devotion to its highest standards. His book will
awaken in all who read it a new sensitivity, a new ability
to judge the art (or lack of art) surrounding us as we are
surrounded by the ubiquitous printed word.
Warren Chappell, letterer, calligrapher,
type designer, book designer, illustrator, and ("I
do not consider myself a writer -- I'm a draftsman")
writer of memorable typographic essays and books for children,
was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1904. After being graduated
from the University of Richmond, he pursued his professional
studies at the Art Students League of New York and the Colorado
Springs Fine Arts Center -- subsequently teaching at both
schools -- an in Germany. He has lectured at New York University
and Columbia and other colleges and at professional meetings
around the country.
Since his first sortie into book design
and illustration -- his beautiful edition of Swift's A
Tale of a Tub -- his fine eye and
hand have lent distinction to many books, most of them published
by Alfred A. Knopf, and he has contributed articles, some
of them since anthologized, to Horn
Book, The
Dolphin, and The
Virginia Quarterly Review. His
own books for children include The
Nutcracker, They
Say Stories, and Sleeping
Beauty, for each of which he wrote
the narrative, drew the illustrations, and designed the
format and typography. A Short
History of the Printed Word is
his first book dealing with the profession he graces since
his Anatomy of Lettering
was published in 1934.
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