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Typography Tuesday

We love all the absurd poetic statements and accusatory finger-pointing found in our most recent acquisition, Specimens of Types & Borders and Illustrated Catalogue of Printers' Joinery and Materials, published in London by H.W. Caslon & Co. in 1915. The great English type designer William Caslon established the Caslon Foundry in 1739, based on what previously had been the Godfrey Head Foundry (1685–1700), and remained a family-owned business run by both male and female descendants until the death of H. W. Caslon in 1873, when the Foundry was acquired by T. W. Smith and partners. The company name remained H. W. Caslon and Co. Ltd., however, and continued running until 1937, when it was acquired by Stephenson, Blake & Co., which finally closed in 2005, with its equipment and matrices incorporated into the Type Archive in London. Look out for more typographic displays from this specimen book in the future.