![Nicholas Morris 1
SUNY-Buffalo
SHARP 2011
nmorris@buffalo.edu
Modernism and Monotype: Collaboration in the
Age of Mechanical Composition
QUOTATIONS
1. [W]hat the bibliographer is concerned with is pieces of paper or parchment
covered with certain written or printed signs. With these signs he is concerned
merely as arbitrary marks; their meaning is no business of his.
Greg, “Bibliography”, 121–2
2. Type is something you can pick up and hold in your hands. Bibliographers mostly
belong to a class of people for whom it is an abstraction: an unseen thing that
leaves its mark on paper. For their convenience it has long been the practice to
talk about a typeface, meaning, not the top surface of a piece of type, nor even of
the many pieces of assembled type, but the mark made by that surface inked and
pressed into paper.
Carter, A View, 5
3. Whatever they do, authors do not write books. Books are not written at all. They
are manufactured by scribes and other artisans, by mechanics and other engineers,
and by printing presses and other machines.
Stoddard, “Morphology”, 4
4. [L]ooking into the novelty years, transitional states, and identity crises of different
media stands to tell us much, both about the course of media history and about the
broad conditions by which media and communication are and have been shaped.
Gitelman, Always, 1
5. Though I worked every evening at it, it seemed an endless time to get my first
page completed…The type was 14 point and so rather small and, moving it as the
book of instructions had taught me to do, my fingers slipped and the whole of
page one fell onto the floor in a thousand bits. It was one of the most
disheartening things that had ever happened to me. All that day, I sat on the floor
picking up the letters and spaces and getting them back into their proper places in](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/sharpconferencehandout-110715055626-phpapp02/85/Sharp-2011-Conference-Hand-out-1-320.jpg)
![2
the type case; and, when the next day came, instead of taking my first proofs, it
found me starting off again to set page one.
Carlow, “On Collecting” (qtd. in Nash & Flavell, xxi)
6. Small printers who could not afford composing machinery of their own could still
take advantage of the economies it offered by sending copy to be set at the
composing machines of larger firms; they would get back set type in galleys,
which they would then make up and print themselves, thereby saving both
compositors’ wages and investment in founders’ type.
Gaskell, A New Intro, 281–283
7. Viscount Carlow called […] He wants us to set up, in 18 pt. Centaur, the material
which is annexed and I have promised him an estimate immediately after Easter.
The understanding is that we should set and correct the type here and should then
tie it up in pages for him to collect in his car.
John Johnson, Oxford University Press Archives, Business
Diary, 8 April 1936
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Composing Machines
Huss, Richard. The Development Of Printersʼ Mechanical Typesetting Methods, 1822-
1925. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1973. Print.
Legros, Lucien Alphonse and John C. Grant. Typographical Printing Surfaces: The
Technology and Mechanism Of their Production. New York: Longmans, Green,
and Co., 1916. Print.
Moran, James. The Composition Of Reading Matter: a History From Case To Computer.
London: Wace, 1965. Print.
Thompson, John S. History Of Composing Machines. Chicago: Inland Printer Co., 1904.
Print.](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
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- 1. Nicholas Morris 1 SUNY-Buffalo SHARP 2011 nmorris@buffalo.edu Modernism and Monotype: Collaboration in the Age of Mechanical Composition QUOTATIONS 1. [W]hat the bibliographer is concerned with is pieces of paper or parchment covered with certain written or printed signs. With these signs he is concerned merely as arbitrary marks; their meaning is no business of his. Greg, “Bibliography”, 121–2 2. Type is something you can pick up and hold in your hands. Bibliographers mostly belong to a class of people for whom it is an abstraction: an unseen thing that leaves its mark on paper. For their convenience it has long been the practice to talk about a typeface, meaning, not the top surface of a piece of type, nor even of the many pieces of assembled type, but the mark made by that surface inked and pressed into paper. Carter, A View, 5 3. Whatever they do, authors do not write books. Books are not written at all. They are manufactured by scribes and other artisans, by mechanics and other engineers, and by printing presses and other machines. Stoddard, “Morphology”, 4 4. [L]ooking into the novelty years, transitional states, and identity crises of different media stands to tell us much, both about the course of media history and about the broad conditions by which media and communication are and have been shaped. Gitelman, Always, 1 5. Though I worked every evening at it, it seemed an endless time to get my first page completed…The type was 14 point and so rather small and, moving it as the book of instructions had taught me to do, my fingers slipped and the whole of page one fell onto the floor in a thousand bits. It was one of the most disheartening things that had ever happened to me. All that day, I sat on the floor picking up the letters and spaces and getting them back into their proper places in
- 2. 2 the type case; and, when the next day came, instead of taking my first proofs, it found me starting off again to set page one. Carlow, “On Collecting” (qtd. in Nash & Flavell, xxi) 6. Small printers who could not afford composing machinery of their own could still take advantage of the economies it offered by sending copy to be set at the composing machines of larger firms; they would get back set type in galleys, which they would then make up and print themselves, thereby saving both compositors’ wages and investment in founders’ type. Gaskell, A New Intro, 281–283 7. Viscount Carlow called […] He wants us to set up, in 18 pt. Centaur, the material which is annexed and I have promised him an estimate immediately after Easter. The understanding is that we should set and correct the type here and should then tie it up in pages for him to collect in his car. John Johnson, Oxford University Press Archives, Business Diary, 8 April 1936 BIBLIOGRAPHY Composing Machines Huss, Richard. The Development Of Printersʼ Mechanical Typesetting Methods, 1822- 1925. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1973. Print. Legros, Lucien Alphonse and John C. Grant. Typographical Printing Surfaces: The Technology and Mechanism Of their Production. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1916. Print. Moran, James. The Composition Of Reading Matter: a History From Case To Computer. London: Wace, 1965. Print. Thompson, John S. History Of Composing Machines. Chicago: Inland Printer Co., 1904. Print.
- 3. 3 History of the Book & Bibliography Bowers, Fredson. “Bibliography, Pure Bibliography, and Literary Studies.” The Book History Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. David Finkelstein & Alistair McCleery. New York: Routledge, 2006. 27-34. Print. Carter, Harry. A View Of Early Typography Up To about 1600. 1968. London: Hyphen, 2002. Print. Gaskell, Phillip. A New Introduction to Bibliography. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974. Print. Greg, W.W. “Bibliography - An Apologia.” The Library, 4th Series, 13.2 (1932): 113- 143. Print. Nash, Paul and A.J. Flavell. The Corvinus Press: A History and Bibliography. Aldershot, Hants, England: Scolar Press, 1994. Print. Stoddard, Roger. “Morphology and the Book from an American Perspective.” Printing History 17.9 (1987): 1–19. Print. Other Badaracco, Claire. Trading Words: Poetry, Typography, and Illustrated Books In the Modern Literary Economy. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Print. Gitelman, Lisa. Always Already New: Media, History and the Data Of Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006. Print. Krandall, Rolande and David M. MacMillan. Circuitous Root. 2010. Accessed 9 July 2011. http://www.circuitousroot.com/. Web. Marvin, Carolyn. When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking about Electric Communication In the Late Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Print.