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ERNARD SHAW 
 
 ON 
 
 [ODERN TYPOGRAPHY 
 
•n. 
 
BERNARD SHAW 
 
 ON 
 
 MODERN TYPOGRAPHY 
 
 REPRINTED FROM 
 
 THE CAXTON MAGAZINE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HORACE CARR 
 AT THE PRINTING PRESS 
 CLEVELAND 
 * 1915 
 
IJOAN STACK 
 

iXMN S1AUC 
 
MODERN TYPOGRAPHY 
 
 Like most authors, I am so greatly itidthv 
 ed to the printer, and the printer's reader, 
 for their work and help in the produAion 
 of my books, that 1 cannot point out their 
 shortcomings without feeUng some stings 
 of conscience for my ingratitude. Besides, 
 an author is not a fair judge of a printer, 
 because the author himself usually spoils 
 the printer's work. 
 This arises from the fad that the main 
 difference between a well^printed page 
 and an ill/printed one lies in the evenness 
 of the block of colour presented by the let^ 
 terpress. If the justification is made solely 
 to comply with some office rule against du 
 viding words at the end of a line, or if the 
 spaces between the sentences are made as 
 long as possible, or if the page is leaded, 
 ana the type kept small, so as to make the 
 white the chief feature instead of the black, 
 
 413 
 
then no ingenuity of ornament, or gilt edg/ 
 ing, or silky surface in one fashion, or a& 
 fedation of Caslon type and deckle edged 
 hand^made paper in another, will make 
 the book look well. Not only will there 
 be the transverse bars of white made by 
 the leads, but rivers of white will trickle 
 up and down between the words like rain^ 
 drops on a window pane; and the block of 
 letterpress will be grey here and whitey^ 
 brown there, and mildewy in the other 
 place,instead of a rich,even colour all over. 
 Now I think it cannot be denied that 
 many fashionable books show that the 
 printer has not only not known this first 
 canon of his art, but that he has actually 
 gone out of his way to introduce leads and 
 spacings wherever he can. And even the 
 most cultivated authors encourage him in 
 this : for instance, Mr. Ruskin's books, as 
 printed under his own supervision, are 
 instructive examples of everything a book 
 should not be. In the books of a great art/ 
 ist/printer like William Morris, you will 
 find that not only did he discard leading 
 and make it an invariable rule to set his 
 type solid, but he often introduced little 
 leaf ornaments between the sentences in 
 
order to fill up a gap which would other/ 
 wise have made a white patch by coming 
 immediately above or below another such 
 space. And in reprinting his own works, 
 whenever he found a line that justified 
 awkwardly, he altered the wording solely 
 for the sake of making it look well in print. 
 
 When a proof has been sent me with 
 two or three lines so widely spaced as to 
 make a grey band across the page, 1 have 
 often re^written the passage so as to fill 
 up the lines better; but 1 am sorry to say 
 that my objed has generally been so little 
 understood that the compositor has spoilt 
 all the rest of the paragraph instead of 
 mending his former bad work. Some of 
 the American imitators of William Mor^ 
 ris have actually introduced copies of his 
 leaf ornaments between their sentences, 
 and then made a wide space after the orna^ 
 ment as if to prove how little they under/ 
 stood what he used it for. 
 
 The way in which the author spoils the 
 printer's work is now clear. The author 
 always makes his purely literary correct 
 tions on the proof Consequently, though 
 the printer take pains to set his page so 
 that it is as even in colour as a column of 
 
the Maz;arin Bible, the author comes and 
 knocks out a word here and wedges in a 
 sentence there; so that the printer finds 
 all his trouble wasted and his work dis^ 
 figured. Under such circumstances he nat^ 
 urally grows accustomed to disregard the 
 beautiful evenness of his page, and to jus^ 
 tify in the cheapest, shortest and handiest 
 way. It is therefore only in the reprint^ 
 ing of the classic authors, where nothing 
 but literals are corrected, that the printer 
 can fairly be expected to produce work of 
 mediaeval or Morrisian excellence. And 
 even in such editions we very rarely get it, 
 because compositors shift from one job to 
 another, anci lose their conscientiousness 
 on this point. A good artist ^'compositor 
 should never be allowed to touch the work 
 of a living author. 
 
 Next to evenness and richness of colour 
 in the block of letterpress, the most im^ 
 portant point in a printed page is margin^ 
 ing. And here the printer is very apt to 
 go wrong. Every printer can understand 
 regularity: few have studied good looks 
 except in living creatures. Consequently 
 they aim at equal margins ; and even when 
 they have learnt that an upper margin 
 
must be less than a lower one if it is not 
 to look more, they do not always see that 
 it looks well only when it looks less. The 
 mediaeval manuscript or early printed 
 book, with its very narrow margin at the 
 top and very broad margin at the bottom 
 of the page, with its outer margins broad 
 and its inner ones contraded, so that when 
 the book lies open the two pages seem to 
 make but a single block of letterpress in 
 a single frame, instead of two side by side, 
 has never been improved upon and prob/ 
 ably never will be. But 1 find it almost im/ 
 possible to persuade a modern printer to 
 make his top margin small enough; and 
 when 1 at last succeed, he measures it from 
 the running title instead of from the top 
 line of the page. I saw a book the other 
 day, excellently printed in old^faced type, 
 set solid, on a fine light, clean white crusty 
 paper; yet the page was quite spoiled by 
 an exaggerated top margin,like a masher's 
 collar, and by that abomination of deso^ 
 lation, a rule. The only thing that never 
 looks right is a rule. There is not in txis^ 
 tence a page with a rule on it that cannot 
 be instantly and obviously improved by 
 taking the rule out. Even dashes, cher^ 
 
ished as they are by authors who cannot 
 pundhiate, spoil a page. They are general^ 
 ly merely ignorant substitutes for colons. 
 Of course, printers who want to turn 
 out fine work have constantly to face the 
 diflGiculty that the average customer, un^ 
 fortunately including the average author, 
 dislikes it. It is quite a mistake to think 
 that he is merely insensible to the beauty 
 of a finely/designed and well^printed page: 
 he positively hates it. He likes as much 
 glossy white paper and as little black as 
 possible. He likes regularity. When he 
 hangs up a print in his drawing-^room, he 
 has it framed with several inches of white 
 mount all around it. He provides his own 
 
 Eerson with white margin in the shape of 
 uge collar and cuflFs, starched and ironed. 
 Naturally, he likes leads in his books and 
 broad and equal margins. He likes rules 
 because they are straight. He even tells 
 you that solid set type hurts the tyts^ and 
 accuses you of paradox when you tell him 
 that it is the glare of the leaded space and 
 the smallness of the leaded type that really 
 make work for the oculist. He will buy a 
 so/called art book, printed on paper that 
 will turn into mud if a drop of water falls 
 
 8 
 
on it, and send it to Mr. Douglas Cockerell 
 or Mr. Cobden Sanderson to be bound as 
 if it were a treasure for which national lu 
 braries might compete ; and if you oflFered 
 him his choice of a Kelmscott Press book 
 and a Leadenhall Press one, he would re^ 
 jed William Morris and accept Andrew 
 Tuer, whose taste he w^ould honestly be^ 
 lieve superior to Jenson's. 
 
 Every first/ rate printing house should 
 have a masterpiece of plain printing: not 
 necessarily a rare book, but a well/printed 
 one. With this should be kept a thorough^ 
 ly vile specimen of a modern fashionable 
 art book. Every author should be shown 
 these two, and asked which he prefers. If 
 he chooses the bad one, the printer should 
 thereupon tell him that the book he dis/ 
 likes is worth as many pounds as the other 
 is worth sixpences, and this will so put 
 him out of countenance that he will not 
 presume to give any instructions or med^ 
 die in the printing of his own work. If he 
 chooses rightly, the printer may safely hail 
 him as worthy to be consulted in the im^ 
 portant matter of making a book. 
 
 For— and this is the moral of what I have 
 been saying— well/printed books are just 
 
as scarce as well^written ones; and every 
 author should remember that the most 
 costly books in the world derive their 
 value from the craft of the printer, and not 
 from the genius of the author. 1 have seen 
 a bestiary, or mediaeval natural history, 
 the worthless compilation of a childish 
 liar, purchased for £800 in a city where 
 the works of Shakespeare sell for tenpence 
 halfpenny. And if you want to buy a 
 Shakespeare for £60, you must bid for 
 one of the volumes of his sonnets which 
 Morris printed at the Kelmscott Press. 
 
 10 
 
J fw.Rw aw w^in^ R^^^ Rw aw nMM wi 9kmm mi n^im & 
 
 E JUDGE OURSELVES 
 BY WHAT WE FEEL 
 CAPABLE OF DOING, 
 BUT OTHERS JUDGE 
 US BY WHAT WE HAVE AL. 
 -2 READY DONE. •:• LCmCFELLOlV 
 
 
 Q lAi mi mi im in« im miiAf in« in« immi im mi w^ vWim ^ 
 
 Among the specimens received during the 
 past month, a package from Horace Carr, 
 Cleveland, easily takes precedence. Excels 
 lent stock, largely hanci/made, good inks, 
 good presswork and an unusually careful 
 regard for type arrangement and color, all 
 combine to make this work a delight to the 
 lover of the best in printing. There is noth^ 
 ing to critici2,e in any of it.— Inland Printer. 
 
 Mr. Carr is one of the best typographers in 
 the United States. He knows type faces, 
 and when he uses decoration it is the kind 
 that blends with the spirit of the printed 
 page. When he seleds inks and papers, 
 they seem to be the only kind that could 
 have been seleded.— American Printer. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 ■i^GW^A 
 
 M 9'fi4-/]Ai. 1 
 
 
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 FEB 23 1970 
 
 
 
 
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