Speculators in Elegant Typography
In Spring 2024 I acquired 21 cases of John Bell foundry type, cast by Stephenson-Blake in Sheffield for Taylor & Taylor of San Francisco in the 1930s. This had passed to local bookman Bill Barlow in 1960 when T&T closed. Barlow died, leaving everything to The Bancroft Library, who did not want his print shop, so I was able to acquire these types that I had long studied and written about. I was inspired to write a brief history of the John Bell types in America, which turned into a 44-page booklet. I was also curious to know how much type I could set before running out of sorts. Ten octavo pages, as it turned out.
An early reader writes: “You give the best typographic guideposts. It’s like Christmastime at Cambridge University, but instead of stodgy, pedantic public school John Dreyfus, we have the renegade Alastair Johnston! Your book caused me to dive into my packed away library to pull out Taylor & Taylor’s type specimen, How many Miles To St. Joe?, Letters to an American Family, All About Mother Goose … It’s amazing how much you have crammed into this book without garbling the stories and all the while making for engaging reading for those with the type bug.”
The work is printed in handset foundry John Bell type (with a two-page specimen):
- 9.25 x 6.125 inches
- 48 pages, Strathmore natural white wove paper
- Hand-sewn and bound into marbled paper covers
- With a cover label
- Includes 4-page insert (in color) of relevant specimens
- 50 copies
- $90
