Pentateuch of Printing with a Chapter on Judges (page 2/3)

Front Cover, Pentateuch of Printing

The outside of the book.

Title Page, Pentateuch of Printing

Two stern figures hold up an ornate title page. [more...]

The “lay” of a pair of type cases (upper case).

This is the top half of the figure, the upper case. In the actual type tray, individual sorts, or pieces of type, would be stored in the compartment indicated. Note that the actual compartments are open; a type tray generally does not have a lid, so you had to learn where the letters went. [more...]

The “lay” of a pair of type cases (lower case).

This is the lower half of the figure, and shows (not by coincidence) how the miniscule letters, now called lower case letters, were stored in the type case. [more...]

Old Iron Composing Stick

Not mentioned in the text, but see the fifteenth century composing stick for details. [more...]

Fifteenth Century Wooden Composing Stick

“Standing in front of the case, the compositor held in his left hand a wooden “composing-stick,” in which a rectangular trench had been cut to receive the letters. Reading and keeping in his mind a few words of his manuscript, he picked up the types letter by letter and placed them side by side until first [...] [more...]

A Line of Composed Type

“When the end of a line was reached, and there was no room for more words and yet some space left, the compositor by placing a little extra space between the words made the line fill out the stick. This was called ‘justifying” the line. Each line was lifted out of the stick and placed on a wooden board; thus line after line was [...] [more...]

Bas-Relief From the Entablature, Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey

A printing office, with an engraver (I think) at left, a proof-reader, a typesetter (at the back) next to the person operating the press itself, and, at right, a boy wearing tights and I think barefoot, probably a [...] [more...]

Title page from Watson’s History of Printing

This reproduction of the title page of The History of the Art of Printing printed by James Watson in 1713 is included in the last chapter (Judges) of the “Pentateuch of Printing.” [more...]

Cherubs carrying books

Anatomically correct cherubs carrying books through the undergrowth.

Cherubs on a book

Two tiny cherubs on the spine of an a book. They face away from us.