Pentateuch of Printing with a Chapter on Judges (page 1/3)

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Cherubs on a book

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

Title page from Lewis’ Life of William Caxton

The Life of Mayster Wyllyam Caxton, of the Weald of Kent; the First Printer in England. [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...] [$]

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...] [$]

Floriated fruitbowl ornament

This woodcut design was used as a decorative ornament on the title page of the Life of William Caxton edited by John Lewis. [more...] [$]