The Roman and Italic Printing Types in the Printing House of Theodore L. De Vinne & Co.
A house specimen book issued in September 1891 by the De Vinne Press, 12 Lafayette Place, New York, to show customers its types for books, magazines, catalogues and circulars.
What it is
A house specimen book issued in September 1891 by the De Vinne Press, 12 Lafayette Place, New York, to show customers its types for books, magazines, catalogues and circulars. A short letter explains the plan: old style faces on one page, modern faces on the facing page, and the common sizes shown solid, leaded and double leaded. Front matter gives words per square inch for each size, a worked example (80,000 words in leaded small pica make about 227 medium octavo pages), the order of a book's parts, book sizes, advice on manuscripts, and the rule that cost comes only from a special estimate. About 140 specimen pages follow, from Six-line Pica down to Brilliant, then italics, Greek, German and French faces. Each is labelled with its lines and words and set in quoted prose on books and printing, from Lamb and Emerson to a Le Figaro piece on puffery.
Why read it now
The core idea holds: show the product doing the buyer's job. De Vinne sets each face as real reading matter and prints the lines and words per page above it, so a publisher can judge the look and cost the book from the same page. Facing old style against modern, and printing each size three ways, changes one variable at a time, which is how a clean comparison works today. The pricing rule also holds: refuse to quote from guesses, and ask for complete copy and a paper cut to the size of the page. What has dated: metal size names such as Brevier and Minion, some house taste (an advertisement facing the title page is ruled out), and the long literary filler. One text has aged into a lesson. Hughes Le Roux, in Le Figaro, complains that paid puffery killed criticism and that fashionable readers now carry reputations from resort to resort, an early account of influencer marketing. Use: when you pitch a Gulf client, set their own copy in two options side by side, each labelled with its real specification and cost.
Passages worth keeping
An effort has been made to contrast the old style and modern cuts of letter on opposing pages.
رُتب الكتاب ليقارن القارئ الطرازين القديم والحديث في صفحتين متقابلتين، فتصبح المقارنة جاهزة أمامه.
Initials have been inserted to show how an otherwise unattractive page may be brightened.
الحروف الأولى المزخرفة موضوعة لتثبت أن الصفحة الباهتة يمكن أن تصبح جذابة، فالعينة تبرهن على الوعد بنفسها.
An advertisement facing the title-page is not in good taste.
للإعلان مكان مناسب داخل الكتاب، ووضعه مقابل صفحة العنوان يسيء إلى الكتاب في رأي المطبعة.
This can be determined only by a special estimate from a practical printer. Guesses and comparisons with the cost of other publications are of little value.
لا تُعرف كلفة الطباعة إلا بتقدير خاص من طابع خبير، والتخمين أو المقارنة بكلفة كتب أخرى لا يفيد.
Tel quel, le snob est un excellent commis voyageur en renommées.
محب الموضة يعمل مندوبًا متجولًا للشهرة، يكرر اسم الكاتب الذي سمعه في كل مكان يرتاده. وصف مبكر لأثر المؤثرين.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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