Beschreibung:

Title: Harpel's Typograph or Book of Specimens Containing Useful Information, Suggestions and a Collection of Examples of Letterpress Job Printing, Arranged for the Assistance of Master Printers, Amateurs, Apprentices and Others Author: Harpel, Oscar H. Place: Cincinnati Publisher: By the author Date: 1870 Description: 252, [16] ad pp. 27 inserted leaves (6 folding). (8vo) 23x15 cm (9x6") original brown cloth, front stamped in gilt and black, rear cover in black and blind, all edges red. First, and only, edition. The author, in his closing notes, states It took 476,000 impressions to print less than 3000 copies of the work. Nicolette Gray's "Nineteenth Century Ornamented Typefaces" offers: "“It was not in England, but in the United States, that ‘artistic printing’, the first conscious attempt to create a style in jobbing layout, was born. The movement is usually taken back to the publication of Harpel’s Typograph in Cincinnati in 1870. This was intended as a practical handbook and guide to the printer; it contains principles and instructions and specimens of the author’s work." This copy with the rare folding chromolithograph insert for the Republican Printing and Engraving Company of Chicago between pages 208-209. The catalog at the rear features color printed advertisements for many of the companies supplying material for the making of the volume. Very rare, no copies appear in auction records for nearly 40 years. Lot Amendments Condition: Light wear to cloth, corners a bit worn, hinges repaired; first leaf of prefatory remarks chipped and with repair on the verso; archival repair to the crease of the folding insert at page 208; very good. Item number: 282101