Specimen of Modern Printing Types by Edmund Fry, Letter Founder to the King
A trade specimen book from Edmund Fry's Polyglot Letter Foundery in Type Street, London, dated 1828 on its title page.
What it is
A trade specimen book from Edmund Fry's Polyglot Letter Foundery in Type Street, London, dated 1828 on its title page. It shows the foundry's stock in the order a printer buys it. Display sizes come first, from twelve lines pica down through French Canon, many printed sideways to fit. Text sizes follow, from Great Primer to Pearl, each set with the same passage, the opening of Cicero's first speech against Catiline, so faces and sizes can be compared directly. Then come ornamented and Antique jobbing letters shown on short words, a black letter labelled as Caxton's, zodiac, medical and mathematical signs, and learned founts: Hebrew, Greek with a Codex Alexandrinus face, Anglo-Saxon, Arabic, Irish, German, Syriac cut by Dr. Fry for Bagster's Syriac New Testament, and Ethiopic. It ends with music type, ships, numbered flowers, and priced ornaments, arms and crests.
Why read it now
The method is the part worth copying: hold the sample content fixed so the buyer compares only the product. Every text size carries the same Cicero passage, so a printer judging Pica against Long Primer sees letterform, colour and words per line, not different copy. Modern A/B tests and product comparison pages rest on the same control logic. The book also orders pages by attention, loud display faces first and quiet text sizes after, and closes with numbered, priced ornaments so browsing turns into an order. Two things have dated. Sales copy is almost absent, which suits a trade buyer who knows what he needs but would not hold a general audience. And some authority claims are asserted, not shown, such as the note that one black letter is the one Caxton used. For Gulf readers, the Arabic founts record how an early European foundry handled Arabic, though the OCR cannot read them. Use: when you show a range of products or templates, run one identical sample through every variant and put the order number and price beside each.
Passages worth keeping
Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?
معناها: إلى متى يا كاتيلينا تستغل صبرنا؟ وهي مطلع خطبة شيشرون، جعلها فراي نصًا ثابتًا في كل المقاسات ليقارن القارئ الحروف لا الكلام.
The general use now made of Antiques of various sizes has encouraged him to produce one on so small a scale, which he can recommend
يقول فراي إن انتشار حروف أنتيك بمقاسات مختلفة شجعه على صنع مقاس صغير جدًا منها، فهو يتبع طلب السوق ويعلن ذلك للمشتري.
The Price of this and all other Antiques is the same as other founts.
يطمئن المشتري بأن الحرف الجديد لا يكلفه أكثر من الحروف المعتادة، فيزيل اعتراض السعر قبل أن يظهر.
N. B. This is the celebrated Black that was used by William Caxton.
ينسب فراي هذا الحرف القوطي إلى كاكستون، أول من طبع في إنجلترا، ليمنحه مكانة تاريخية، دون أن يقدم دليلًا على ذلك.
THE SYRIAC ALPHABET WITH POINTS, CUT BY DR. FRY, UPON AN IMPROVED PLAN OF THE FORM USED BY THE EMINENT ASSEMANN, For Mr. Bagster’s Syriac New Testament, now Printing by Bagster and Thoms, London.
يربط المسبك حرفه السرياني بمشروع علمي قائم باسم ناشره، فذكر الاستعمال الحقيقي دليل على جودة الحرف.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
Read the original archive.org
If this library is useful, leave an email
We send new patterns, ads, and notes when we add them. Name and phone are optional.
You are on the list
We will write when we add more library material.