The Art of the Book: A Review of Some Recent European and American Work in Typography, Page Decoration and Binding

by Charles Holme

Excerpt from The Art of the Book: A Review of Some Recent European and American Work in Typography, Page Decoration and Binding

HE Editor desires to express his thanks to the following who have kindly assisted in the preparation of this volume - to the Trustees of the Kelmscott Press for permission to repro duce the pages printed in the three types designed by William Morris, and to Mr. Emery Walker for the valuable assistance.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Genres: Art

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

Charles Holme was an English journalist and art critic, founding editor of The Studio from 1893. He published a series of books promoting peasant art in the first decades of the 20th century.

Author Charles Geoffrey Holme is his son.

(wikipedia)

Reviews

[Marc Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book that when produced (1914) gave the reader a snapshot into the art of book production at the time. This was not long after the closure of the Kelmscott Press, which ignited fine book production in England, Europe and the United States. Looking back from 2023, one sees the beauty and passion of the book designers, typographers, printers and binders of this most heady of times. It is beautifully printed by The Studio, with fine typography, quality paper and exquisite reproductions of pages from the fine printers of that era (including some in color). A marvelous book for those whose interest is books on books and fine printing of this time period. Highly recommended.

[Scribh · Rating 2 out of 5]

An informative work on typography previous to the majority of the 20th century. Contains such gems of wisdom as "A book that will not open freely and that gapes like a dead oyster when it ought to be shut is not pleasant to use" and "By swinging each leaf on a guard it is possible to bind a pack of playing-cards into something like a book which will open and shut freely, but that this can be done is no excuse for the production of books which necessitate this drastic treatment before they can be bound satisfactorily". I've long been intrigued by the role of typeface in putting together a manuscript to be published...clearly, some fonts have an effect on the eye that renders the words more pleasing to the reader. I would expect Dr Seuss's books to have a different font from my textbook, and that of Plutarch's Lives to appear more stylized and archaic than that of an American edition of Charles Dickens. This book actually puts names to familiar fonts and explains the history behind the ones available on any computer.

[Walt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 1914 edition was published in French, so it is difficult to really learn anything from the accompanying text. Fortunately, there is not too much analysis. Most of the book is photographic in that there are images with captions in English. Some of the text in the images is in English, so readers can appreciate the calligraphy. Now that the book has been republished in English (1990), readers have a more accessible resource. It is nice for the pictures; but there are better books describing the art from historical and artistic perspectives. Even considering its age, the images are lovely. However, the images reinforce my opinion that the book is better suited for coffee tables rather than bookcases.