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Background and Sources
At the turn of the century, Robert Proctor first employed a measure of twenty-lines of type to avoid the difficulty of the apparent size. McKerrow preferred ten-line measurements but A. W. Pollard resisted this change. Ten-line measurements make sense; they would save some time counting lines and the division by ten would be easier. John Tarr, in his 1946/47 Library article "The Measurement of Type" (5th ser. 1: 248-249) offered a useful table of 49 to 220 millimeters with the corresponding values in inches, pica points, and old bodies. Unfortunately, his sixty-one calculations, either by
In 1949, Bowers codified the work of the preceding bibliographers, thereby encouraging successive generations to use the twenty-line measurement. Nevertheless, one cannot easily convert from the measurement of the printed image to the exact specification of point size. Interested bibliographers have still needed to consult a variety of sources. For the first time, this article draws together the work of many different bibliographers, including the following.
Fifteenth Century
Charles Enschedé, Typefoundries in the Netherlands from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century. Translated by Harry Carter. Edited by Lotte Hellinga. Haarlem: Stichting Museum Enschedé, 1978. The common names for English, Dutch, French, and German typesizes are entered on the correlated table using the inch measurements from his convenient "Table of Body-Sizes" (pp. 455-456).
Sixteenth Century
Harry Carter, A View of Early Typography Up to About 1600 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). A chart entitled "Old Names for [Twelve] Bodies of Type in English, French, German, and Dutch and Typical Values for Twenty Lines in Millimetres" appears on page 127 and shows the actual body and face of type alongside the common names. These names are entered into the correlated table using the millimeter measurements.
H. D. L. Vervliet, Sixteenth-Century Printing Types (Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger, 1968). The author conveniently summarizes his work in a table on page 16 labelled "Synopsis of the [20 different] Names for the Sizes of Type, Used in This Book." Unfortunately, he miscalculates the didot points in at least five of the largest sizes of type. In three instances he rounds up his pica point sizes (83, 52, and 15.5) rather than down. Nevertheless, he provides English names for several typesizes and these are entered into the correlated table based on his twenty line millimeter measurements.
Seventeenth Century
Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing, edited by Herbert Davis and Harry Carter. 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1962). Regrettably, the reproduction of his "Prove" is not an exact size facsimile so that measurements cannot be taken directly from it. On page 21, however, Moxon provides a table of ten common names and their equivalent measurement for one foot. The editors' note suggests that "names were given loosely to bodies varying very much in size. . . ." Nevertheless, these ten names have been added to the correlated table by dividing Moxon's figures into twelve to obtain the fractions of an inch.
Eighteenth Century
Harry Carter, Fournier on Typefounding; the Text of the Manuel Typographique (1764-1766) (London: Soncino Books, 1930). On page xxxv ff, a "Table of Body-Sizes" lists the English old body and Fournier name along with the equivalent in English inches and pica points. The names are entered in the correlated table using Carter's highly accurate English inch equivalents.
Philip Gaskell, "Type Sizes in the Eighteenth Century," Studies in Bibliography 5 (1952-53): 147-151. On page 151, Gaskell records sixteen text types by name along with the body size in pica points (column B) and a twenty-line measurement in column C. Common names are entered into the table using his measurements in column C.
Talbot B. Reed, A History of the Old English Letter Foundries (London: E. Stock, 1887); rev. ed. by A. F. Johnson (Folkestone: Dawsons, 1974). Drawing upon various "specimen-books of the eighteenth century" Reed presents a table on page 32 giving eighteen different names of type from England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and Spain along with the respective pica point size. Derivations of these names are treated on pp. 35-40 of his history.
Allan Stevenson, Catalogue of the Botanical Books in the Collection of Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt, Vol. 2, Part 1: Introduction to Printed Books, 1701-1800 (Pittsburgh: Hunt Botanical Library, 1961). To create his "Common Type Sizes in the Eighteenth Century" on p. ccxxviii, Stevenson relies on many different sources. His ten-line millimeter measurements have been doubled and the eight English common names entered into the correlated table directly. Then, for six other countries, including Sweden,[2] he provides the modern pica points and the common names for nine more type sizes. Again, these names have been entered into the table based on the stated Pica point equivalent.
Nineteenth Century
Giambattista Bodoni, Manuale Tipografico, 2 vol. (Parma: Presso la Vedova, 1818). Bodoni's work provides twenty-two "Serie di Caratteri Latini" or common Italian names for type sizes on pages 1-144 of volume one. Twenty-line millimeter measurements have been taken directly from the original and the names entered into the table. Although several other works, such as De Vinne, base their information on Bodoni, he seems to have worked "only to please himself"[3] and must be approached with caution. See Appendix A for an indication of some of the problems encountered measuring his types.
Charles H. Timperley, The Printer's Manual (London: H. Johnson, 1838; reprint ed., English Bibliographical Sources, No. 7. London: Gregg Press, 1965). Comparable names for nineteen different sizes are provided for England, France, Germany, and Holland on page 56. A second table gives the number of lines to a foot for eighteen different bodies; these have been divided into twelve inches to provide the decimal equivalent, and the common names have been added to the correlated table.
Twentieth Century
Theodore Low De Vinne, The Practice of Typography: A Treatise on the Processes of Type-making, the Point System, the Names, Sizes, Styles, and Prices of Plain Printing Types, 2nd ed. (New York: Century Company, 1902). His Plain Printing Types contains the common names for twenty-seven American and English types. Their respective point equivalency size is found on page 54, followed by the names of another twenty-seven French and German types and their Corps (i.e., didot) size. Finally, he draws upon Bodoni's Manuale Tipografico (1818) for the Italian names which are accompanied by the equivalent Spanish and Dutch names on page 56. In addition, the "Relation of Different Bodies of Type to each other and to standard linear measures [i.e., in inches, feet, and square feet] by the Bruce System of Geometrical Progression" appears on page 148. The discussion of common names appears in Plain Printing Types on pages 62-68. Common names are entered into the correlated table using De Vinne's pica and didot point equivalents.
Lucien A. Legros and John C. Grant, Typographical Printing-Surfaces; The Technology and Mechanism of Their Production (London: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1916) provides a handy "Table 6—Comparative Table giving the names of [23 different] English and foreign type and their dimensional relationships in Fournier, Didot, and standard points, in inches, and in millimetres." The pica-to-inches and the didot-to-inches columns are quite accurate, matching the correlated table almost exactly even to the third or fourth place.
Daniel B. Updike, Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use, A Study in Survivals. 3rd ed., 2 vol. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962). On page 27, Updike presents a table labelled "Names of Sizes of Type in Various Countries." Covering eighteen pica point sizes, ranging from 4.5 to 48-point, he lists the equivalent names in England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain. The common names are entered into the correlated table using the pica point measurements.
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