The Printer's Grammar

This 1755 work describes the typesetting of books, from the formation of type to imposing and correcting.

John Smith (Author)

9781108073431, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 April 2014

324 pages
21.9 x 14 x 1.8 cm, 0.36 kg

The author of this 1755 work is unknown - John Smith may not even have been his real name - but internal evidence from the book suggests that he may have spent some time in northern Germany, and he also shows familiarity with aspects of French printing. Smith describes the typesetting of books but not the actual printing, so it is possible that he may have been a compositor or a printer's reader. The work is a comprehensive survey of all aspects of typecasting and composition, dealing with the formation of type, regular- and irregular-bodied letters, accents, kerning, upper and lower case, spacing, rules, braces and fleurons, and non-Roman fonts including Greek, Hebrew, black-letter, Old English, and Chinese, as well as mathematical and astronomical symbols and music. There are also sections on casting off copy, composing, imposing and correcting, giving a fascinating account of the eighteenth-century compositor's craft.

To the reader
1. Of roman, italic, and black letter printing
2. On the different bodies and sizes of printing letter
3. Of a fount of a letter, considered in the same order as with letter-founders
4. Of a complete fount of letter, considered as with printers
5. Of the appurtenances to founts of letter
6. Of the names of letter, and the bearings to each other
7. Of abridging, or shortening of words, in Latin
8. Of distributing, and laying of cases
9. Of composing
10. Of imposing
11. Of correctors, and correcting
12. Observations upon Greek, and Hebrew
13. Of sundry alphabets, signs, symbols, and characters.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]