the text font of the first folio of shakespeare hiſtory, Deſcription, and Identification of the Font. Pierre Haultin ∫culp∫it Geneva. N E W H A V E N Written & Deſigned by Reed Reibſtein. 2009. The Text Font of Shakespeare’s First Folio 1 as the compositors in william jaggard’s print others did not regard the font (beyond its imperfections) shop plucked countless sorts out of their cases, compos- to have much import for their research, only a few have ing page after double-columned page from 1621 to 1623, found reason to examine it closely. they could not have suspected that they were handling a In this paper, I will compile and review what has been font that would be the object of more study than perhaps written about the Folio’s text font. A formal analysis will any other before or since. The font certainly would not suggest the font’s identity, while historical information have appeared remarkable in any way; it was cast on a about printing, typefounding, and punchcutting in the pica body, the most common size of the era,1 and fonts sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries will corroborate made from the same punches had been owned by more the identification. This discussion may not immediately than thirty printers since 1570.2 Moreover, the font was yield strikingly new information relevant to the work of weathered, having been in use probably for well over a critical bibliographers, but it should clarify the status of decade.3 Surprisingly, it was precisely this battered condi- the First Folio as a complete book, not just a collection of tion that made it so fruitful for detailed analysis: the damaged letters. numerous visible defects in its sorts have proved the most powerful tool for reconstructing the printing history of the first significant description of the fo- the First Folio. lio’s text font6 (hereafter abbreviated to ftf) appeared Despite an extensive analysis of its distinctive sorts, in the introduction to the 1902 Oxford Folio facsimile. the origins and characteristics of the font itself have been Indicative of the limited interest that most Shakespear- essentially overlooked. The reason is clear enough: the ean bibliographers have taken in typographic history, scholars working on the Folio have considered them- Sidney Lee wrote the entire introduction except for the selves “critical” or “analytical” bibliographers,4 con- section on the fonts. That he commissioned from Horace cerned with the printing of a text mostly for what it can Hart, the controller of the Oxford University Press, tell them about editing or understanding it. Unlike some well-known for his rediscovery of the “Fell” types. Hart’s other famous books, the Folio is not remarkable for its “Notes on the Typography” provide by far the most aesthetic aspects.5 As Pollard, Willoughby, Greg, and detailed information on the ftf to date, and as such the relevant portions are reproduced here in full: The text of this paper is set in mvb Verdigris, designed by Mark van The founts of type used in printing the First Folio bear Bronkhurst in 2003. The Roman fonts are a free interpretation upon unmistakable marks of Dutch origins.… Granjon proportions, while the italics are based on those of Pierre As to the roman and italic fount used for the text of the Haultin. Headings and footnotes are set in the display, subhead, and work in two columns, I am convinced that this is not only caption fonts of Robert Slimbach’s Garamond Premier Pro (2007), Dutch in face, viz. that it is Mediaan, equal to 11-points his second interpretation of Claude Garamont’s oeuvre. according to the Didot system; and I suggest that it was specially chosen, for excellent reasons, and could not easily 1 Ferguson, Preface. be improved upon if type had to be selected for a similar 2 Ferguson, Table 4, cites 32 printers using Haultin, the design work to-day. It is condensed, in order to get the metrical this paper will suggest was used by Jaggard for the Folio. Adrian lines in without turning over a word or words; and it also Weiss re-assigns Bynneman 4 from “Tavernier” (corrected by shows sufficient space or “daylight” between the printed Weiss to Garamond) to Haultin (as described in Lane, 362), mak- lines to afford the necessary relief to the reader’s eyes. ing for 33 printers. There is no English type-body equivalent to 11 Didot points. 3 Extrapolating from Weiss’ discussion of Jaggard’s fonts (544–545). 4 The first being W. W. Greg’s term (Blayney, 2) and the second seldom been surpassed.” (Meggs, 75, caption for pl. 5-13.) being Charlton Hinman’s (Preface). 6 A note on terminology: “Font” is used to mean a set of letters, 5 For example, although the Gutenberg Bible is studied for its numbers, and other characters of the same size (and, ideally, from status as the first European book set with movable type, it is also the same punches, matrices, and mould) cast in type-metal. All considered a triumph of typographic design: “The superb typo- fonts created from the same punches can be considered expres- graphic legibility and texture, generous margins, and excellent sions of the same “typeface,” i.e. design. “Fonts” and “type” are presswork make this first printed book a canon of quality that has synonyms for multiple fonts or printed impressions. The Text Font of Shakespeare’s First Folio 2 The nearest is pica, which is 11.33; and I am convinced that assertion of the font first being used for the Folio, not- it is not possible to measure up a column of the First Folio ing that the body font used in Jaggard’s falsely-dated with pica m’s.7 On the other hand, the Dutch Mediaan type fits a column perfectly. Let us imagine ourselves in 1619 quartos first appeared around 1600 and is of the 10 the position of the printers of the First Folio. Being called same design as the ftf. In his discussion of the Folio’s upon to undertake so considerable a piece of work, they printing, Pollard writes, “… there is no evidence of any would specially consult the Dutch founders for the most special preparations having been made for its produc- important type, viz. that with which the text of the work tion.” 11 He states that the font in both the 1619 quartos was to be printed8; but they would regard the small founts and the Folio is slightly smaller than “modern” pica12 which they probably already possessed, of double-pica, (twenty lines of the font measure 82 millimeters13), likely great-primer, and english, as suitable for the unimportant of Dutch origins, and sometimes combined with capital parts which they had to play in the preliminary matter.… sorts from a slightly larger font James Roberts inherited The arguments in these Notes have been hitherto from from John Charlwood and that Jaggard in turn inherited type-bodies. But the type-faces also—whether they are from Roberts.14 exhibited on English bodies or on Dutch bodies—can be Despite a chapter with the promising title “Some identified as absolutely Dutch. Let the expert in typog- Typographical Practices,” E. E. Willoughby’s The Printing raphy note the peculiar shape of the italic letters which of the First Folio of Shakespeare follow, – only discusses the text font itself when advancing the theory that the printing of the a–z æ œ ct ff ffi ffl fi fl k ſ ſb ſh ſi ſk ſl ſsſsiſslſtw& and especially of the initial, or ‘swash’ capital letters, – Folio was interrupted between quires b and c of the histo- A B C D G J K M N P Q R ries. His “most important” evidence for this supposition v in the First Folio; and compare them with the characters is that “[p]age 24 [b6 ] and those immediately preceding shown in the Type Specimen Books, &c., of Christofel are seen to be somewhat clearer [i.e. printed better] than van Dijk (1683), of Bishop Fell (1693), of Johan Enschedé page 25 [c1r] and those immediately following.” 15 (1768), as well as with those represented in later times by W. W. Greg summarizes and cites Hart, Pollard, and such modern authorities as Theo. L. De Vinne and T. B. Willoughby in The Shakespeare First Folio but adds no new Reed.9 information on the ftf. He writes, about evidence for an interruption in the printing, “… most significant of all, The important claims Hart makes about the ftf are experts are able to detect a difference in the appearance that its design is Dutch, it is “Mediaan” in body size as of the type [between quires b and c of the histories], which distinguished from pica, and it was commissioned spe- henceforth shows more signs of wear, proving that some cially for the printing of the Folio. As we will see, all three considerable time must have elapsed before the resump- assertions prove highly suspect and suggest that Hart tion of work, during which it had been used for printing may have relied on his knowledge of typographic history other books.” 16 And in a footnote on the same page, he without fully investigating relevant printing practices in directs the reader to Hart and Pollard “regarding the type, the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-centuries. a fount of Dutch origin.” 17 The next to comment on the ftf was A. W. Pollard In The Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of in Shakespeare Folios and Quartos. He contradicts Hart’s Shakespeare, Charlton Hinman describes his goal as at- 7 What Hart writes as “m” is typically written as “em” today.