An Essay on Typography (1936)

Description

Gill wrote, referring to the earlier issue, ‘It was one of the author’s chief objects to describe two worlds - that of industrialism and that of the human workman - & to define their limits’. It is with the application of his ‘two worlds’ theory to the trade of printing that the first chapter is especially con­cerned. ‘On the one hand is the world of mechan­ized industry claiming to be able to give happiness to men and all the delights of human life - provided we are content to have them in our spare time and do not demand such things in the work by which we earn our livings’, and ‘On the other... a world in which the notion of spare time hardly exists, for the thing is hardly known and very little desired; a world wherein the work is the life & love accompa­nies it. ’ Gill, himself, in the same 1936 introduction considered that these ‘chief objects’ had been ‘imperfectly remembered’ and faulted the book on that account, although the theme recurs frequently in succeeding chapters. Publishing History [of this book] Contents: NEW INTRODUCTION THE THEME 1. COMPOSITION OF TIME AND PLACE 2. LETTERING 3. TYPOGRAPHY 4. PUNCH-CUTTING 5. OF PAPER AND INK 6. THE PROCRUSTEAN BED 7. THE INSTRUMENT 8. THE BOOK 9. BUT WHY LETTERING? ABOUT THE AUTHOR Typographic Setting