Master Labels 8/30/04

John De Beauchesne (1538? – after 1610) and John Baildon (fl. 1570)

A Booke Containing Divers Sortes of Hands

London: Thomas Vautrouillier, 1570

RBML, Plimpton Collection
This work, an enlarged adaptation of De Beauchesne’s Le Thresor d’Escripture (Paris, 1550), was the first book on handwriting to be printed in England. De Beauchesne, a French Huguenot immigrant, was a writing master who became tutor to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, only daughter of King James I. Baildon’s role in the work is uncertain; he may have cut the woodblocks, or edited the work. Containing thirty-seven leaves (this copy lacking nine leaves, dedication and letter press), the work includes admirable examples of gothic and secretary hands, as well as chancery, italic, secretary written with the left hand (a reversed hand read through a mirror) and other hands. One other incomplete copy of this edition and a fragment are known to exist.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton, 1936
6.

William Caslon (1693 – 1766)

A Specimen by W. Caslon, Letter-Founder, Ironmonger-Row, Old-Street, London

London: W. Caslon, 1734

RBML, Book Arts Collection
Daniel Berkeley Updike wrote in his Printing Types, “In the class of types which appear to be beyond criticism from the point of view of beauty and utility, the original Caslon type stands first.” William Caslon, an engraver, began his career as a typefounder in about 1720 by cutting a font of Arabic-language types for use by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In order to sign his name to a printed proof of these letters, he cut his name in a pica roman. These roman letters were so admired that he turned his attention to various other sizes of roman and italic, followed by Hebrew, black letter, Coptic and many other exotic types, as well as ornaments. He did not issue his first specimen until 1734 – the date is printed at the end of the brevier Greek at the lower right corner. Shown here, this is the only known complete copy of this type specimen, with Caslon’s Ironmonger-Row, Old-Street, London address. In the only other recorded copy, at the British Library, the line of ornaments at the bottom has been cut off.
Purchased with the American Type Founders Company Library & Museum, 1941
7.

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)

Composing stick

RBML, Typographic Realia

This composing stick may have been purchased in France in the 1780s by Benjamin Franklin while he was serving as United States minister to France. During this period, Franklin had his own private press in his house at Passy, outside of Paris. He used his press to produce leaflets, broadsides, and even passports for American citizens. Made of wood, the composing stick has a head, knee, and rail faced with brass, and uses the slotted knee and screw system, standard at the time, to fix the length of the line of type being set. According to Henry Lewis Bullen, who acquired it for the American Type Founders Company Library and Museum, it was used by Franklin and his grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache.
Purchased with the American Type Founders Company Library & Museum, 1941
8a.

Alexander Anderson (1775 – 1870)

Diarium commentarium vitae Alexander Anderson

Autograph manuscript, 3 vols., 1793 – 1799

RBML
8b.

John Plumbe (1809 – 1857)

Daguerreotype portrait of Alexander Anderson

New York, ca.1846

RBML, Woodblocks, Related Material
8c.

Alexander Anderson (1775 – 1870)

Wood engraving of garden-house scene, signed in the block “AA”

6.5 x 8 cm.

RBML, Woodblock No. 6
Alexander Anderson has long been considered the father of wood engraving in America, being the first in this country to adopt the technique developed in England by Thomas Bewick. Wood engraving produces a finer image than the standard woodcut by working on the denser end-grain section of the wood. Anderson acknowledged his debt to Bewick in 1804 by creating an American edition of Bewick’s A General History of Quadrupeds (1790) with his own re-engraved blocks, adding “some American animals not hitherto described.”
Anderson’s connections to Columbia are many. He received an M.D. from Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1796, engraved Columbia’s commencement ticket in 1794, and a bookplate for the College Library. As noted in his diary, he began sketching the design for the bookplate on March 14, 1795, delivered the finished work to President Johnson on March 25^th, and was, after some effort on his part, paid £2, 8s on May 7^th.
Columbia’s daguerreotype portrait of Anderson is one of two likenesses “taken in duplicate” in New York by photographer John Plumbe no later than 1847, when Plumbe went bankrupt. Anderson continued to produce wood engravings until at least 1868, two years before his death at the age of 94. Also on display is an early wood engraving by Anderson, depicting a summer, garden-house scene, and signed “AA” in the lower left of the block. It was published in A Memorial of Alexander Anderson, M.D., New York, 1872.
(Diary) Vols.1-2, gift of Phillips Phoenix; Vol. 3, gift of Mrs. Castle, 1911

(Woodblock) Purchased with the American Type Founders Company Library & Museum, 1941

9.

Washington Hand Press

New York: R. Hoe & Co., 1843

Foolscap size (platen 35.3 x 49.4 cm., bed 45.6 x 60.9 cm.)

RBML
This press was used for over a hundred years by the American Bible Society, founded in 1816 to encourage a wide circulation of the Holy Scriptures. The Society started doing its own printing of Bibles in about 1844; thus this press, built in 1843, would have been one of the first it acquired for the purpose.

The Washington-style press employs two major innovations that distinguish it from the presses used since the 15^th century: it is built of metal, and it uses a toggle action. A number of improvements in press design took place rapidly in the early 1800s, which simplified and reduced the cost of manufacture while developing maximum power with minimum effort. Samuel Rust of New York designed the main features of the Washington press: a “figure 4” toggle, which provided greater power than previous levers; and a lighter, stronger, frame, which could also be disassembled for moving.
R. Hoe & Co. bought Rust’s patent and manufactured over 6,000 of these presses between 1835 and 1902. Simpler and cheaper though slower than the increasingly sophisticated presses becoming available through the 19^th century, these presses found a niche in small shops doing short runs, and for extra fine printing. A number of contemporary fine printers use Washington presses today. This is one of the four presses owned by the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Gift of the American Bible Society, 1953
10.

Kelmscott Press

Specimen copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer

Pigskin binding by J. & J. Leighton, 1896

RBML, Book Arts Collection
In addition to a regular copy of the Kelmscott Press’s edition of the works of Chaucer, bound in half-holland paper, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library also owns this specimen binding, made for William Morris by J. & J. Leighton, the text block made up of mostly repeating sheets from the print run of the book. Morris’s wish was that the binding be executed in 15th-century style, using pigskin over oak boards, with blind-tooling. The tools were cut specially for this binding, and were based on designs found on two incunables owned by the British Museum, the Apocalypse block book and the Richel Bible. According to Sir Sydney Cockerell in his “List of All the Books Printed at the Kelmscott Press,” in A Note by William Morris on his Aims in Founding The Kelmscott Press, this was the only design executed by Leighton’s. It was then used by the Doves Bindery to bind forty-eight copies, including two printed on vellum, in full white pigskin.
Purchased with the American Type Founders Company Library & Museum, 1941
11a.