A Specimen of Printing Types, by William Caslon, Letter-Founder to His Majesty.

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Creator

William Caslon (1692–1766)

Title

A Specimen of Printing Types, by William Caslon, Letter-Founder to His Majesty.

Coverage

London

Publisher

Printed by Galabin and Baker

Date

1785

Subject

Octavo

Description

Caslon worked as an engraver, including engraving words and names on gun barrels. Such experience would serve him well when he turned his attention to punchcutting and printing types in 1716.

Caslon absorbed the Dutch models and added his own peculiarly English character to them, creating somewhat irregular yet pleasing and easy-to-read fonts. For a time Caslon’s types were very popular, but in the early nineteenth century they were all but forgotten in the wake of the wave of types based on the modern style of Bodoni and Didot. However, the Caslon types were far from dead: Caslon’s types were revived around 1840, since which time they have never been excluded from the printer’s repertoire.

Relation

PROVENANCE: American type designer George Abrams; later Jerry Kelly