Typographia, or The Printers' Instructor
Including an Account of the Origin of Printing, with Biographical Notices of the Printers of England, from Caxton to the Close of the Sixteenth Century

Johnson's 1824 history of printing and study of contemporary practices is still of interest to historians, bibliographers and printers.

John Johnson (Author)

9781108047784, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 May 2012

698 pages, 96 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 3.9 cm, 0.87 kg

John Johnson (1777–1848) worked for a private press at Lee Priory, Kent, which published limited editions of poetry, prose and pamphlets, but was not financially successful. Moving to London in 1824, Johnson produced this two-volume work on printing, which had become a popular topic in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The work was published in several formats, and contemporary reviewers noted Johnson's highly ornate typography and use of engravings more than the contents. Volume 2 is useful to modern students of printing, as it deals with the practical aspects of the print trade. It includes numerous specimens of type in different alphabets, and explanations of type casting and imposition. It also describes how to manage a print shop, as well as the different kinds of press, including recent inventions such as the Stanhope, Columbian and Albion, and ends with a brief account of steam presses and stereotype.

1. Properties of types
2. Different sizes of letters
3. A fount of letter, as considered by letter-founders
4. Rules
5. Names of letter, and their bearings to each other
6. Observations on composing
7. Imposing
8. Correctors and correcting
9. Department of a reader
10. Mathematical, algebraical, and geometrical characters
11. Hebrew
12. Alphabets of ancient languages
13. Duty of an overseer
14. The best means of expediting business
15. On the construction of printing presses
16. The business of a ware houseman
17. Abstracts of the Acts relative to printers
18. Compositors' and pressmen's scales of prices
19. Of fine printing
20. Alphabetical list of printers, etc.
21. Technical terms
22. Stereotype printing, steam and hand machines
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]