Course:LIBR548F/2012WT1/Baskerville

John Baskerville (1706-1775)

John Baskerville was an 18th century British printer who had a life-long passion for calligraphy, typography and anything related to book arts.

Early years

John Baskerville first started as a writing master and taught penmanship and bookkeeping at different grammar schools in Birmingham. In his early years as a calligrapher, he also exercised his skills on stone and slate. It is not known for how long or to what extent Baskerville practiced stone carving, as there are very few examples of his work that have survived.

Rise to fortune

Around 1738, Baskerville sought a new trade and pursued a career in the art of japanning, a type of decorative enameling found on furniture and house ware. Baskerville excelled at making tableware items, namely candlesticks, bread trays, tea-board, salvers and waiters. His japanning business flourished and he amassed a sizeable fortune, which enabled him to buy a vast piece of property named “Easy Hill” located on the North East side of Birmingham. It is there that Baskerville started his printing press in 1749.

Printing years

As a printer, Baskerville strived for perfection. In the preface of Milton’s Paradise Lost, the second book he printed, he declares: “Having been an early admirer of the beauty of Letters, I became insensibly desirous of contributing to the perfection of them”. Baskerville understood that, in order to produce high quality books, he would need to be in control of all the processes involved in their making (i.e: letter founding, ink and paper making and the printing itself). The printer’s first resource being his types, he pursued to create his own font and worked in collaboration with a punch-cutter named John Handy to design a typeface to his specifications. It would take four years to produce the now well-known Baskerville font, a font that was more elegant and easier to read than those already in existence at the time. Plomer in his history of English printing describes it as “the most beautiful type that had ever been seen in England”.

Innovations

Driven by his quest for the perfect book, Baskerville invested many efforts in developing a printing process that would produce high-end books. First, he elaborated a new recipe for ink, which was darker in color and delivered a brighter and cleaner impression. Knowing also that high quality paper would play a big part in the end result of his product, Baskerville sought out to purchase the finest papers for his press. At the time, James Whatman was producing superior paper following a new method: his “wove” paper offered a smoother finish than the then commonly used “laid” paper. Wove paper was truly innovative at the time and is the standard in today’s paper mill industry. Finally, while most 18th century printers would hang freshly printed sheet to dry, Baskerville developed the “hot press” method which consisted of drying the freshly printed leaves in between heated copper plates, giving the surface of the paper a nice sheen.

Publications

It took more than five years of research and innovations for Baskerville to be ready to print his first book, Virgil’s Bucolica, Georgica et Aenis which came out in 1757. Its high quality set it apart from other printers’ work and it was well received by the public despite its high price. The success of the Virgil encouraged Baskerville to produce more classic works and his subsequent publications included Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Regain, Horace, and Aesop’s Fables. In 1758, Baskerville was appointed official printer at Cambridge University and gained authorization to print religious texts. Baskerville was an atheist, but he believed in printing books that would fill the demands of the public. The Book of Common Prayers was published in 1760, followed by the Bible in 1763. It is believed that Baskerville’s prayer books were often seen within the pews of churches as they were appreciated for their legibility and simplicity. Plomer describes Baskerville’s books in those terms: “They are simplicity itself. There is not a single ornament or tail-piece introduced into them to divide the attention. The books were printed with deep and wide margins, and the lines were spaced out with the very best effect". Baskerville had indeed a great sense of esthetics. Simply put, his books are characterized by simplicity, elegance and clarity. Nevertheless, his work was so novel that it unavoidably attracted fierce the criticism of other printers: the thick and thin strokes of his font combined with the gloss of the paper were believed to “fatigue the eye". Needless to say that such criticism was often motivated by jealousy and competition.

Conclusion

Baskerville continued to produce high-end books until his death. In about 20 years of practice as a printer, he produced a rather small corpus (67 books in all), which goes to show that he was more interested in quality than quantity and profit. In his time, he was more than a simple craftsman: he was a true artist who was driven by the desire to attain beauty through innovation. He introduced many improvements in all aspects of printing, and especially in the realm of typography. In this respect, he was a pioneer and is considered by some, the creator of fine printing in England.

Annotated Bibliography

• Benton, J.H.(1914). John Baskerville, type-founder and printer 1706-1775. Burt Franklin, New York.

A comprehensive account of the life of Baskerville. The author's writing style is a little old fashioned but this book is nevertheless an entertaining read.

• Knowlton, S. (n.d.) John Baskerville: England’s most successful failed printer. Available at http://stevenknowlton.webs.com/John_Baskerville.pdf

A short article on the life of John Baskerville which portrays him as a great inventor but not so successful business man.

• Plomer, H (1900). A short history of English printing, 1476-1898. Kegan Paul, Trench, Truber and Co. Ltd, London. Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20393

A scholarly historical work that gives a good overview of this time period.

• Strauss R. & Dent K. (1907). Baskerville, a memoir. University Press for Chatto and Windus, London. Avaialable at https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=gEBFAAAAYAAJ&hl=en

Another older but classic biography of Baskerville, which is often cited by historians.

Interesting websites

• The typographic Hub http://www.typographichub.org/baskerville-society/

This website is dedicated to design and typography and is sponsored by Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. It is also the home of the Baskerville Society.

• Know your type: Baskerville http://idsgn.org/posts/know-your-type-baskerville/

The Idsgn website is a blog on design and typography. This particular page is dedicated to Baskerville and features nice illustrations of some of his work.