Baskerville: The Biography of a Typeface

by Simon Garfield

Overview

A compact and charming history of the classic Enlightenment font by the New York Times best-selling author of Just My Type.

When Baskerville was first created in 1757, there was concern that it would damage readers’ eyes with its combination of thin and thick strokes and tapering serifs. Yet 250 years later, it remains one of the most commonly used typefaces in books of all kinds. As best-selling author Simon Garfield tells it, the tale of this elegant typeface is one of painstaking dedication. The font’s creator, John Baskerville, was a maverick lacquer maker and master printer who made it his life’s mission to achieve the font’s perfection. His efforts culminated in his magnificent Bible, acclaimed as the finest ever made. Garfield explores why Baskerville’s own body was dug up and buried many times before finally being allowed to rest in peace, and examines his legacy through the work of his wife, Sarah Baskerville—one of the first powerful women in the printing world—and the archivists and enthusiasts working to preserve the font’s original steel punches today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324086208
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/22/2024
Series:	The ABC of Fonts Series
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	1,022,712
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 4.80(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Simon Garfield is the author of the international bestsellers Just My Type, On the Map, and Mauve, among other books. He lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

2024-08-02
Brief history of the eponymous typeface designed by an 18th-century printer.

Garfield, author of more than 20 nonfiction books, recounts the origins of this common typeface, its use, and the life of the man who invented it, John Baskerville. This book is a companion to two others—on the Albertus and Comic Sans typefaces—and follows Garfield’sJust My Type: A Book About Fonts. (Althoughfont andtypeface are often considered synonyms, a font is actually the weight of the typeface.) Launched in 1757, Baskerville is admired for its openness, clarity, and ability to produce an uncluttered and highly readable text. These qualities echo Baskerville the man’s early career as a teacher of cursive handwriting and as an importer who was adept at lacquering furniture, a highly skilled craft known as japanning that emblemized his perfectionist nature. His Baskerville alphabet and numbers, composed in 14 sizes in both roman and italic, took seven years to perfect. Using the typeface, Baskerville printed high-quality books, among them Virgil’s poetry, Charles Bowlker’sThe Art of Angling, and a “magnificent Bible [that] failed to sell.” After Baskerville’s death, he and the typeface moved about; his body was buried, unearthed, lost, and then found and reburied, while the original steel punches were sold to a printer in Paris, moved to Germany, sold a few more times, and finally deposited in the Cambridge University library. Slow to be adopted, the typeface became “truly accepted” when reissued in the 1920s. Garfield is curious about the world and anxious to share his interests, making for a pleasant and informative read. No connection to the man or the typeface goes unmentioned, including an amateurish experiment in 2012 to determine if one typeface might appear more truthful than another. Baskerville beat five other candidates.

A well-documented and entertaining glimpse into one small episode in typographic history.

Kirkus Reviews