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Grolier Club Publications part 3

Except a useful pamphlet of "Transactions" the "Knickerbocker's 'History of New York'" was the only publication of the Grolier Club during the season of 1885-86; and during the next winter the club confined itself to the printing of certain of the lectures delivered before it. The first of these had been by the President, Mr. Robert Hoe, on "Bookbinding as a Fine Art," and it was the first to appear as a book. When Mr. Hoe spoke before the club, he illustrated his remarks by specimens of the work of many of the most noted binders, all selected from his own library, photographs of which were thrown on a screen by the stereopticon; and the published lecture is made more valuable by sixty three "Bierstadt artotypes" of these bindings of Mr. Hoe's. Although the plates reveal the extraordinary richness of the lecturer's collection, not all the examples were worthy of reproduction; and, no doubt, more characteristic illustrations might have been procured had a call been made for the best specimens obtainable from other members of the club.

The second lecture was on "Historic Printing Types," by Mr. Theodore L. De Vinne. Delivered in January, 1885, it was published by the Grolier Club with additions and with new illustrations. As all know who have read Mr. De Vinne's "Invention of Printing," he is a master not only of his own craft, but also of the more arduous art and mystery of author ship. Mr. De Vinne's style as a writer is as clear and as simple, as firm and as vigorous, as is his press work as a printer. His wide and deep knowledge of the subject has been so thoroughly digested and it is so pleasantly presented, that I think a merely casual reader, having a Gallio like indifference to type setting and type founding, would find his interest aroused at the beginning of Mr. De Vinne's essay.

It is the more fortunate that the subject should have fallen into hands so accomplished, as there is, so we read in the introduction, "no popular treatise about book types; nothing that gives us in succinct and connected form information about their designers and makers, and that tells us why styles once popular are now obsolete." It is the want of such a treatise that Mr. De Vinne has filled, all too brief as his paper is. As the author is his own printer, it is needless to say that the book in which the lecture appears is a masterpiece of American book-making, a marvel of the most admirable simplicity. The paper, the type, the press work, the size and the shape of the page, the adroit arrangement of the marginal notes, the due subordination of the foot notes, the ample and properly proportioned margins, even the novel and dignified binding all these testify to the guiding touch of a master of the craft.

In 1888 the club published, "as a sort of New Year book," so a report calls it, a dainty edition of the late Charles Reade's histrionic tale, "Peg Woffington," suggesting in its mechanical execution the book-making of the century when the lovely Mistress Margaret flourished. The two little tomes were pretty enough, but one wonders exactly why this British story should be chosen for reproduction by an American club. In 1889 the first book of the year was far more appropriate; it was Mr. De Vinne's delightful account of the Plantin printing house, reprinted from the Century magazine with additions and notes, all Mr. Pennell's picturesque sketches being printed in varying tints.

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