The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England 3030202747

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NEW DIRECTIONS IN BOOK HISTORY

The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England Jocelyn Hargrave

New Directions in Book History Series Editors Shafquat Towheed Faculty of Arts Open University Milton Keynes, UK Jonathan Rose Department of History Drew University Madison, NJ, USA

As a vital field of scholarship, book history has now reached a stage of maturity where its early work can be reassessed and built upon. That is the goal of New Directions in Book History. This series will publish monographs in English that employ advanced methods and open up new frontiers in research, written by younger, mid-career, and senior scholars. Its scope is global, extending to the Western and non-Western worlds and to all historical periods from antiquity to the twenty-first century, including studies of script, print, and post-print cultures. New Directions in Book History, then, will be broadly inclusive but always in the vanguard. It will experiment with inventive methodologies, explore unexplored archives, debate overlooked issues, challenge prevailing theories, study neglected subjects, and demonstrate the relevance of book history to other academic fields. Every title in this series will address the evolution of the historiography of the book, and every one will point to new directions in book scholarship. New Directions in Book History will be published in three formats: single-author monographs; edited collections of essays in single or multiple volumes; and shorter works produced through Palgrave’s e-book (EPUB2) ‘Pivot’ stream. Book proposals should emphasize the innovative aspects of the work, and should be sent to either of the two series editors. Editorial board Marcia Abreu, University of Campinas, Brazil Cynthia Brokaw, Brown University, USA Matt Cohen, University of Texas at Austin, USA Archie Dick, University of Pretoria, South Africa Martyn Lyons, University of New South Wales, Australia More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14749

Jocelyn Hargrave

The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England

Jocelyn Hargrave Monash University Clayton, VIC, Australia

New Directions in Book History ISBN 978-3-030-20274-3    ISBN 978-3-030-20275-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20275-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: DNY59 / Getty This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Sammi (1967–2016)

Acknowledgements

This book was published with support from the Australian Academy of the Humanities’ Publishing Subsidy Scheme. Adapted sections of this book have previously been published as journal articles: ‘Editorial networks in practice: Early-modern style guides and the editing of Piers Plowman’, Oxford Research in English, ‘Networks’ Issue 2 (2015), 7–22; and ‘Joseph Moxon: a re-fashioned appraisal’, Script & Print, 39:3 (2015), 163–81; and in a book chapter: ‘On the Road to Standardisation of the Printed Page: The Legacies of John Degotardi and Benjamin Fryer’ in Book Publishing in Australia: A Living Legacy, edited by Millicent Weber and Alexandra Dane (Monash University Publishing, 2019). The completion of this book has not been an individual task: there are several people to whom I wish to express my sincerest, deepest gratitude for their vital contributions. First, I would like to thank my supervisors—Dr Louise Poland, Dr Peter Groves and Dr David Dunstan—for their superlative knowledge, guidance and encouragement. Particular thanks goes to Louise Poland, who experienced every step of my doctoral journey, providing unfailing emotional, collegial and editorial support. Both my book and I would not be here without her. For donating their time to read specific chapters and providing invaluable feedback and advice, my thanks goes to Dr Susan Greenberg, University of Roehampton; Dr Shef Rogers, University of Otago; and Professor Wallace Kirsop, Monash University. vii

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my most profound gratitude to my doctoral colleague and friend Christine Elliott, who experienced every moment of my journey and adeptly kept me grounded. And, finally, to my family—my husband, Stuart, and children, Eloise and Luke—for their enduring support, interest and unconditional love. I feel truly blessed.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 The Beginnings of Editorial Style in Seventeenth-Century England: Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises 19 3 The Architectural Principles of Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises: Documenting the Early Modern Living Page 55 4 The Pinnacle of Editorial Style in Eighteenth-Century England: John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar 83 5 Eighteenth-Century Editorial Style at Work: The Editing of The Elements of Euclid by Isaac Barrow and Robert Simson123 6 The First Appropriation of Editorial Style: Philip Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing153 7 Nineteenth-Century Modernising Inheritance of Editorial Style: Caleb Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar185

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CONTENTS

8 Nineteenth-Century Editorial Style at Work: Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s Piers Plowman213 9 Authorial Editorial Practice at Work: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Poems (Ashley MS 408)237 10 Conclusion257 Index265

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1

Fig. 1.2 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4

Double-page spread of instruction on correction in Johann Heinrich Gottfried Ernesti’s (1721, 154–55) Die Woleingerichtete Büchdrückery. (Reproduced with permission by Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Abteilung Historische Drucke, Shelf mark: Bibl. Diez qu. 3024) 7 Double-page spread of instruction on correction in Christian Friedrich Gessner’s (1743, 364–65) Der in der Buchdruckerei wohl unterrichtete Lehr-Junge10 Hornschuch’s (1972, 16) ‘marks’ for correcting in Orthotypographia. (Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library) 23 Moxon’s (1683, 262–63) proofreading marks in Mechanick Exercises. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London) 46 The title page of the first edition of Moxon’s (1659) A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London) 68 The first recto page of the second volume of Moxon’s (1683, 197) Mechanick Exercises. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London) 74 Verso–recto running heads in the second volume of Moxon’s (1683, 200–201) Mechanick Exercises. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London) 74 The first recto page of the first edition of Moxon’s (1659, 1) A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London) 76

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 3.5

Fig. 3.6

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 4.2

Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5 Fig. 5.6 Fig. 5.7 Fig. 6.1

Verso–recto running heads of the first edition of Moxon’s (1659, 2–3) A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London)76 Decorative multi-lined capital in the ‘To the Reader’ section of the first edition of Moxon’s (1659) A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London) 77 Smith’s (2014, 275–7) proofreading marks in The Printer’s Grammar (Note that Smith’s (1755, 275–7) text was originally typeset in a single column over three pages. However, to reproduce Smith’s text comfortably on this page, I have organised it into two columns instead). (© Cambridge University Press. Reproduced with permission of The Licensor through PLSclear) 114 How braces are used to keep tabular and other textual matter together in The Printer’s Grammar. (© Cambridge University Press. Reproduced with permission of The Licensor through PLSclear)118 The title pages of the 1660 and 1686 editions of Barrow’s Euclid[e]’s Elements. (British Library 8529.a.22. and 1485.k.21, respectively) 130 Table of symbols from the 1660 first edition of Barrow’s Euclid[e]’s Elements. (British Library 8529.a.22) 133 Barrow’s (1660, 9) textual cross-references for proposition I reconnect practice with theory. (British Library 8529.a.22) 139 An example of Barrow’s (1660, 29) illustrative crossreferencing directs his readers to artwork provided elsewhere in the text. (British Library 8529.a.22) 140 Barrow’s (1660, 37) second-level asterisk reference symbol cross-­references to more general information. (British Library 8529.a.22)140 The first instance of Barrow’s (1660, 36) third-level referencing style that acknowledges his indebtedness to André Tacquet. (British Library 8529.a.22) 141 Simson’s (1756, 23) grammatical application of semicolons in The Elements of Euclid. (British Library 531.n.6) 148 The mathematical working with braces in Hume’s (1766, 233) edited twelfth edition of Comes Commercii (left), and without braces in Luckombe and Dunn’s (1783, 233) thirteenth edition (right). (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London) 178

  LIST OF FIGURES 

Fig. 6.2

Fig. 7.1 Fig. 8.1

Fig. 8.2

Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2 Fig. 9.3 Fig. 9.4

Fig. 9.5 Fig. 10.1

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An extract from Hume’s (1766, 237) second chapter of Comes Commercii (left), with Luckombe and Dunn’s (1783, 237) edited version (right). (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London) 179 Stower’s (1806) visual exemplar of editorial hand mark-up in Typographical Marks used in correcting Proofs explained and exemplified204 Page 8 of Passus I of Whitaker’s Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman, featuring red ink for the header; Latin scriptural text, which is also the direct speech of personified Conscience; the names of God (‘Criste’, ‘Lordes’); and the place name ‘Malverne’. (Fisher Library, the University of Sydney, 821.15 J1 15) 226 Page 61 of Passus IV from Whitaker’s Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman, featuring red ink for the names of God (‘Messias’, ‘God’), Latin text, the proper name of ‘Moses’ and the personifications of ‘Mede’ and ‘Conscience’. The page also includes italicised text of placebo and dirige in the paraphrasing text at the bottom. (Fisher Library, the University of Sydney, 821.15 J1 15) 228 Coleridge’s corrections to numbered lines and specific words, and replacement of blocks of text in Ashley MS 408 (f. 16v). (British Library) 247 Coleridge’s use of contemporary proofreading marks, such as the deleatur and ‘Ital’, in Ashley MS 408 (f. 36r). (British Library)249 Coleridge’s use of contemporary proofreading marks, such as the caret, in Ashley MS 408 (f. 61r). (British Library) 250 (a) Coleridge’s handwritten note on the blank verso for line 316 of ‘Religious Musings’ in Ashley MS 408 (f. 24v–25r). (British Library); (b) the typeset footnote in the second edition251 Coleridge’s virtually inconsolable lament over his printer’s (or compositor’s) incorrect grammar in Ashley MS 408 (f. 60v). (British Library) 253 A punctuated evolution of editorial style 258

List of Tables

Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3

Comparing Smith’s (1755, 143) and Luckombe’s (1770, 214) capitalisation styles Luckombe’s (1770, 222) simplification of Smith’s (1755, 26) nomenclature of the different founts Smith’s (1755, 97) emphatical italicised text compared with Luckombe’s (1770, 271) adapted reproduction

167 168 173

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

According to the Chicago Manual of Style (2017), editorial style for the modern print trade ‘governs such things as when to use numerals or per cent signs, how to treat abbreviations or special terms, and how tables are typically organized. Consistency of design and style contributes to [a book’s] identity; readers know what to expect, and the substantive contribution […] stands out more sharply when typographical distractions are at a minimum’. That is, editorial style relates to rules designed to ensure not only consistency within and across all titles produced by a publishing company but also the consistency and effectiveness of authors’ meaning. These rules are known as house style and are typically associated with editors whose responsibility, among many others, is to prepare manuscripts for typesetting and eventual publication. Editors do not prepare manuscripts in isolation, however: they liaise, or negotiate, with authors and publishers to correct and finalise content, and with numerous other stakeholders such as typesetters, proofreaders and printers during production and final printing. The process leading up to and including printing is therefore ‘an exercise in communal responsibility’ (McKitterick 2003, 117)—it is a shared, collaborative experience in which all stakeholders, not only editors, are accountable not just for the page but for the final printed product. Stakeholders such as authors, editors and printers typically refer to style guides for instruction on editorial style. Style guides outline the rules pertaining to grammar, punctuation, spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation and © The Author(s) 2019 J. Hargrave, The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England, New Directions in Book History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20275-0_1

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italicisation, for example; explain the parts of a book, such as the preliminaries, headings, body text and end matter, their typography and typesetting; and include proofreading (also called proof-correction) symbols that are used to mark authorial and editorial corrections, either interlineally or in margins, on manuscript and typeset page proofs to be incorporated by typesetters. Such mark-up represents the communication channel, or metalanguage, necessary for these stakeholders to share the same working space, regardless of where or in what manner they complete their individual daily tasks. Editorial practice embodies all such work. Questions that arise from such contemplation include when and how did style guides originate; how did they contribute to the evolution of editorial style; and how did they impact the publishing of content historically. That is, how did the various stakeholders within the print trade— such as authors, editors, typesetters and printers—interpret and apply the guidelines provided in early modern style guides to create, negotiate and typeset content? Addressing these questions required a defined scope. The scope of this book was therefore determined by publication chronology of early modern style guides: from when the first style guide was published in England in the final quarter of the seventeenth century to when editorial innovation plateaued in the mid-nineteenth century, manifesting a punctuated evolution of editorial style, not a gradual one. (The concept of punctuated evolution is explained later in this introduction.) In this way, this book resides at the intersection of editorial theory and book-history research. Its focus is twofold: to provide a historical study of the evolution of editorial style and its progress towards standardisation through an examination of early modern style guides; and to explore how multiple stakeholders—namely authors, editors and printers—either directly implemented, or uniquely interpreted and adapted, the guidelines of contemporary style guides as part of their editorial practice. The critical questions given above have yet to be considered for early modern English print culture. Research regarding editorial theory has concentrated traditionally on error and the identification of authorial intention, and the nature of such research has been polarised. On the one hand, scholars have examined principally the ‘best’ copy-text considered closest to the author’s final intention, as introduced by W. W. Greg; and, on the other, a radial compilation has been advocated by Anglo–American New Critics (Greg 1950; Bowers 1976; Gaskell 1978; Tanselle 1990; Cohen 1991; Bornstein 1996). Furthermore, research into early modern style guides has focused principally on their typographical aspects, not their editorial content (Wroth 1935; Janssen 2000; Maruca 2003;

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Mosley 2009). The only comparable research relates to correction in classical and Renaissance Europe (Kenney 1974; Richardson 1994; Grafton 2011a, b; Hellinga 2014). Robert Ritter’s (2010) doctoral thesis, ‘The Transformation of Authority in Print and the Rise of House Style’, examines similar issues to those in this book but for a later period, specifically from the end of the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Addressing these questions therefore places directly into the foreground the hands-on labour of stakeholders in the print trade, such as authors, editors and printers—their specialised interaction with content. Indeed, this minimises attention given to errors resulting from such work as book-­making encompasses a series of interdependent processes with the united objective of bringing content to print. Marrying theory and practice in this manner serves to refashion modern perceptions of, and textual bibliographic approaches to, early modern book-making specifically and book history more generally.

Critically Mapping Early Modern Style Guides Philip Gaskell, Giles Barber and Georgina Warrilow published in 1968 an annotated list of style guides (or, as they were termed in the early modern period, printer’s  manuals or grammars) to 1850. Their purpose was to ‘summarize their contents and to locate a few copies of each one’; their enumeration ‘followed in the giant steps of E.  C. Bigmore and C.  W. H. Wyman, whose astonishingly comprehensive Bibliography of Printing (1884–6) mentions all but three of the sixty-six manuals described’ in their article (Gaskell et  al. 1968, 11). Of these 66 manuals, 23 were English; 19 were French; 23, German; and 1, Spanish. The first English printer’s manual was Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing in 1683; and the second, John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar, appeared approximately 70 years later in 1755. Three German manuals had been printed between 1608 and 1673 before Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises, while five—four from Germany and one from France—emerged between 1684 and 1749 before Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar. Given that the English manuals printed after 1755 primarily consisted of material reproduced verbatim from those of Moxon and Smith, such as Philip Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing and Caleb Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar, which were published in 1770 and 1808, ­respectively, the potential influence of these German and French manuals on Moxon and Smith is considered below. The first printer’s manual, Hieronymus Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia, was the first manual to be published in 1608  in Leipzig. His audience

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comprised mainly correctors (the early modern equivalent to editors), though his instruction was also directed partly to authors. Hornschuch wrote his manual in Latin; however, two German translations were later produced: the first, Orthotypographia, das ist ein kurtzer Vnterricht, für diejenigen, die gedruckte Werck corrigiren woollen, by Tobias Heidenreich in 1634; and the second, Der bey Buchdruckery wohl unterwiesene Corrector, by Christian Friedrich Gessner in 1739. Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia provided a brief explanation of the history of printing, followed by an appraisal of printing-house culture, such as the ideal attributes of correctors; technical information for correctors, including imposition schemes, type specimens, the placement of signatures and catchwords, and the first listing and description of proof-correction marks; and recommendations for authors regarding the correct preparation of manuscript copy. Gaskell et al. (1968, 24) observe that ‘the German version [of Orthotypographia] is expanded with poems in praise of printing’, albeit without identifying which one: Heindenreich or Gessner. Reference to the first volume of Bigmore and Wyman’s Bibliography of Printing confirms that Gessner’s Der bey Buchdruckery wohl unterwiesene Corrector was this ‘German version’ (345). Given that Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia was the first manual to feature proof-correction marks and that Moxon’s was not only the first English manual but also the next manual after Orthotypographia to include them, Moxon’s inheritance is clear. The next German manual, Johann Ludwig Vietor’s Formatbüchlein darinnen abgesetzte Figuren wie man die Columen aussschiessen soll, was first published in 1653; its 62 pages were dedicated to imposition schemes (Gaskell et al. 1968, 24; Tanselle 2000, 73). Three subsequent editions were produced over 24 years: the first, Format-Büchlein, in 1664; the second in 1673 that remains unidentified; and the third, attributed to Vietor and Jacob Redinger, published in Frankfurt in 1679 and entitled Neu-­ auffgesetztes Format-Büchlein. Bigmore and Wyman (1884a) recognised the third edition only. Gaskell, Barber and Warrilow (1968, 24–5) itemised the contents of a 1679 edition, which ‘almost certainly grew out of the 1653 edition’: schemes of imposition, information on type cases and type specimens, histories of famous printers and Johann Rist’s Depositio cornuti typographici, a morality play that was often included in ­eighteenth-­century German printer’s manuals as end matter. Bigmore and Wyman (1884a) also list this content, albeit in German only. The final German manual published before Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises was Georg Wolffger’s Neu-auffgesetztes Format-Büchlein, which was printed in Graz in 1673; however, a section was printed earlier in 1670 in oblong

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format. Its 30 leaves featured imposition schemes; illustrations of a press and printing tools, namely brass rules and types; and the earliest representation of a single case lay (Gaskell et al. 1968, 25; Bigmore and Wyman 1884c, 97). Gaskell (1978, 126) relates in a separate article that ‘Wolffger actually illustrated two single lays, one for gothic and the other for roman type’. Research yields no evidence of the impact of these German manuals on Moxon, besides his inheritance of proof-correction marks from Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia. Indeed, most book historians principally observe Moxon’s singularity. Gaskell, Barber and Warrilow (1968, 13–14) have remarked that Mechanick Exercises is ‘[the] first comprehensive manual in any language, covering composition, presswork, warehousing, organization, and the service of ink-making, punch-cutting and type-founding’. Similarly, David McKitterick (2003, 147) has stated that it is ‘the earliest work of its kind in any language’; and James Mosley (2009, 168) has declared that ‘Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises is the first extensive account of printing and typefounding to be published in any language’. Nevertheless, book historians, such as Lawrence Wroth (1949, 64), have indicated that ‘Moxon had been strongly influenced by the current usage of the Dutch in the practice of printing, type founding, and the subsidiary crafts’, although Wroth neglected to specify the nature of this Dutch influence. Frans Janssen (2000, 157) provided more detail approximately 50 years later: [Between] the age of 11 and 17 [Moxon] lived in the Netherlands, where his father was printer: first in Delft (1637), later in Rotterdam (1638–43). He returned there: he visited Amsterdam in 1652. In his printer’s manual he was accordingly able to speak to Dutch typographical techniques and practices with authority. He commanded Dutch.

Janssen further observed that Moxon ‘compares the type of press commonly used in England (the so-called box-hose-press) against a superior system (the so-called Blaeu-hose-press, which he had seen in the Netherlands and attributes to the printer and cartopher Willem Jansz Blaeu (1571–1638))’ (p. 157). Moreover, Moxon’s Dutch connection is evidenced first-hand in Regulæ trium ordinum literarum typographicarum, or, The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters, which he authored and printed in 1676. Here, Moxon expressed his admiration for letters ‘that have been cut by the Hand of the Curious Artist Christofel van Dijck’ (1605–70), a Dutch typefounder (Moxon et al. 1962, 372; Lawson 1990, 385; Reed 1887, 47). During his two years in Amsterdam to complete training in globe- and map-making, Moxon met with van Dijck in 1652 and discussed the latter’s work on Amsterdam’s City Hall. Moxon (1676,

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4) related this interview in The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters: ‘When the Stadhouse at Amsterdam was finishing, such was the curiosity of the Lords that were the Overseers of the Building, that they offered C. van Dijck aforesaid 80 Pounds Sterling (as himself told me) onely [sic] for drawing in Paper the Names of the Several Offices that were painted over the Doors, for the Painters to paint by.’ The next three printer’s manuals to be produced before Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar in 1755 were once again German. The first was Daniel Michael Schmatz’s Neu-vorgestelles auf der löblichen Kunst Nuch-druckery gebräuchliches Format-Buch, which was printed in Sulzbach in 1684 (Tanselle 2000). Its significance appears to be underestimated. Gaskell et al. (1968, 25) relate only that this manual ‘is devoted mainly to schemes of imposition and type-specimens. A text of the Rist version of the Depositio cornuti typographici follows with separate pagination’. Bigmore and Wyman (1884b, 314) are dismissive when supplying their enumeration: ‘88 pp. of schemes of imposition and other information for Compositors. Very rude in execution.’ In contrast, citing Philip Gaskell though neglecting to reference his work, Jeremy Norman (n.d.) relates that, while Schmatz’s manual ‘was not a comprehensive printing manual like Moxon’s’, it provided instruction on ‘imposition, different alphabets, Greek and Latin abbreviations, [and] alchemical and pharmaceutical symbols’. Hence, this ‘other information for Compositors’ represents a significant development in German instruction on editorial matters since Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia. Emerging 30 years later was Samuel Struck’s Nue-verfassetes auff der löbel. Kunst-Buchdruckery nützlich zu gebrauchendes Format Buch in 1715 (Tanselle 2000); it was printed in Lübeck, where Struck operated his printing house, and Leipzig (Gaskell et al. 1968, 25; Bigmore and Wyman 1884b, 409). Not only does Struck’s Nue-verfassetes auff der löbel involve printing history, schemes of imposition and type specimens, similar to the German manuals that preceded his own, it also emulates—and improves on—Schmatz’s manual by its significant attention to editorial matters. Struck’s guidance relates to foreign-language alphabets, such as Greek, Hebrew, Ethiopian and Coptic; vowels, diphthongs and accented letters; numbers; Greek and Latin abbreviations; and medicinal, chemical, celestial and alchemical symbols. The third German manual published after Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises is Johann Heinrich Gottfried Ernesti’s Die Wol-eingerichtete Büchdrückery, which was printed in oblong format in Nuremberg in 1721 and then reissued and enlarged in 1733. Given the nature of its editorial content, it is perplexing that Gaskell et al. (1968, 25) compare Ernesti’s manual only with that of Schmatz:

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A more practical and complete manual than Schmatz, with a preface containing short histories of famous printers and a history of printing in Nuremberg. A valuable section on type-specimens shows more than 40 different types in 18 type sizes, an indication of the increase and variety in type at this period. The Rist version of Depositio cornuti typographici is included […].

Even Bigmore and Wyman (1884a, 205), whom Gaskell et al. (1968) reference regularly, allude to Ernesti’s editorial content, albeit very briefly: ‘a complete practical treatise on the art of printing, specimens of type, plans of cases, imposition, essay on the Hebrew language, &c, partly printed in red and black, and including some poetical pieces.’ Of book historians’ review of German manuals, only Pankow (2005, 8) appears to have perceived Ernesti’s editorial approach: ‘The work continues with showings of type and music specimens, ornaments, and a variety of tables and imposition schemes that betray its bias towards language and composition rather than the technical details of presswork.’ While Ernesti’s manual considers abbreviations, ligatures, symbols and foreign-language alphabets in a similar manner to that of Schmatz and Struck, it was the first to provide instruction on not only music notation, as intimated by Pankow, but also correction—the first German manual to attend to this since Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia (see Fig.  1.1). Ernesti’s system of placing an oblique before the marginal insertion copy is observed in Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar (see Fig. 4.1).

Fig. 1.1  Double-page spread of instruction on correction in Johann Heinrich Gottfried Ernesti’s (1721, 154–55) Die Wol-eingerichtete Büchdrückery. (Reproduced with permission by Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Abteilung Historische Drucke, Shelf mark: Bibl. Diez qu. 3024)

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Smith’s professional association with the German print trade is apparent from an analysis of The Printer’s Grammar.1 An example pertinent to this discussion is Smith’s (1755, 10) reference to Struck: ‘This account I have of Mr. Struke [sic], a Printer at Lubec, who did cast, for his own use, not only large-siz’d letters for titles, but also a sufficient quantity of two-­ lined English.’ While Smith did not mention Struck explicitly during his editorial instruction, similarities in their content infer Smith’s familiarity with Struck’s manual, such as their presentation of the Greek alphabet. Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar was the first English manual to feature diverse alphabets, such as Arabic, Syriac, Samaritan, Coptic and English Saxon, many of which were included in the manuals of Struck and Ernesti. Smith’s grammar was also the first to cover music notation. Any influence might have derived from either Ernesti’s Die Wol-eingerichtete Büchdrückery or Christian Friedrich Gessner’s Der in der Buchdruckerei unterrichtete Lehr-Junge, which was published in Leipzig in 1743. Before addressing Gessner’s Der in der Buchdruckerei unterrichtete Lehr-Junge, it is necessary to consider the printer’s manual that emerged after Ernesti’s Die Wol-eingerichtete Büchdrückery: Martin Dominique Fertel’s La science practique de I’imprimerie, which was printed by Fertel in St Omer in 1723. Reference to Fertel’s manual is essential to this critical mapping for two reasons: first, it was the first French printer’s manual to be produced; and second, it influenced Smith the most. Fertel’s La science practique de I’imprimerie gave equal treatment to language, composition and the technicalities of presswork. In terms of its editorial instruction, Fertel’s manual covered accented letters, or diacritic marks (circumflexes, accents, graves and umlauts); reference symbols (paragraph and section marks, asterisks, daggers and the manicule); capital letters; punctuation marks (full stop, comma, semicolon, colon, and question and exclamation marks); the signs of intercalation (parentheses and crotchets); the apostrophe, or sign of abbreviation; and the hyphen, or division mark (Fertel 1723, 10–13, 217–18, 220–3, 224–6). However, as has been demonstrated thus far, Gaskell et al. (1968, 19) prioritised typographical matters in their annotated list of printer’s manuals: they acknowledged only Fertel’s coverage of ‘composition, 1

 This is examined in more detail in Chap. 4.

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presswork, setting up, ink making’ and his provision of ‘a certain number of specimen title-pages’. Bigmore and Wyman (1884a, 216) stated merely that Fertel’s manual contained ‘[numerous] illustrations; 10 leaves of preliminary matter; 292 pp., and Index consisting of 9 pp. at end’. Two book historians have acknowledged Smith’s indebtedness to Fertel: Wroth and Pankow. McKitterick (2003, 194) briefly mentioned Fertel in Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order 1450–1830, albeit only in relation to the production history of French printer’s manuals generally. Wroth (1949, 70) observed in Typographic Heritage that ‘Fertel’s books was an original creation on the part of its author, arising from his failure throughout many years of search to find in print any book of practical utility to the typographic workman’. Here, Wroth implicitly compared Fertel’s originality with that of Smith, whose manual he found deficient: ‘it remains true that it was a shadow of the greater works on which it was based [that is, Moxon and Fertel]’ (p. 72). In a footnote accompanying his discussion, Wroth listed specific pages from Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar that demonstrated clear indebtedness to Fertel.2 Likewise, in The Printer’s Manual: An Illustrated History, Pankow (2005, 10) commented first on the content of Fertel’s manual: that it ‘[included] good sections on book design and the history and use of diacritic marks. His is a scholarly work with a strong emphasis on making books of quality, from the choice of typefaces to the selection of appropriate format’; and then on Smith’s reliance on Fertel: ‘Later manuals like that of Smith (1755) depended almost as much on Fertel for material as they did on Moxon’. As mentioned previously, Christian Friedrich Gessner’s Der in der Buchdruckerei wohl unterrichtete Lehr-Junge was published in Leipzig in 1743. Considered to be a ‘comprehensive, practical volume’ by Gaskell et  al. (1968, 28), it contains two sections: the first concerns ‘format, composition, correction, and imposition, with specific vocabularies of printing in French and German’, as well as illustrations of ‘type specimens from the Zinck and Ehrhardt founderies’; and the second includes ‘a collection of poems in praise of printing, the Rist version of the Depositio cornuti typographici and a prose version of the same play’. This cataloguing by Gaskell et al. (1968) neglects Gessner’s editorial content, such as his coverage of music notation; foreign-language alphabets; accents, or diacritic marks; diphthongs; Arabic and Roman numerals; Latin abbrevia2

 This indebtedness will be discussed further in Chap. 4.

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tions; and celestial, medicinal, chemical and geometrical symbols. The significance of Der in der Buchdruckerei wohl unterrichtete Lehr-Junge involves its instruction on correction. Similarly to the proof-correction marks featured in Ernesti’s Die Wol-eingerichtete Büchdrückery (see Fig. 1.1), Gessner’s manual includes the oblique before marginal insertion copy, as well as the deletion symbol (or deleatur) and the systems for moving text left or right, running on text between lines, transposing (or rearranging) the order of words and closing up space (see Fig. 1.2). However, the proofcorrection mark that has hitherto not been present, and which has specific relevance to Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar, is the series of four full points in the margin at the bottom of the left-hand page. Editorially, the marking of full points underneath the text communicates to compositors that text

Fig. 1.2  Double-page spread of instruction on correction in Christian Friedrich Gessner’s (1743, 364–65) Der in der Buchdruckerei wohl unterrichtete Lehr-Junge

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originally designated for deletion needs to be retained. This proof-correction mark turns up next in Smith’s grammar as ‘stet’, a Latin term meaning ‘let it stand’—its first appearance in any of early modern printer’s manuals.

A Punctuated Evolution of Editorial Style The term ‘punctuated evolution’ serves as a constructive theoretical analogy, or framework, to consider the development of editorial style in early modern England, specifically the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. Its relevance to editorial style might not be immediately apparent, especially without reading the forthcoming pages of this book; however, the application of scientific terminology and/or theory to understand the technical work of the print trade is not a novel enterprise. As Chap. 2 of this book examines, Moxon associated the mechanical arts, namely typography, with one of the five mathematical components of the liberal arts known as the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. For example, Moxon (1677) declared in his preface to Mechanick Exercises, or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works Began Jan. 1, 1677: ‘That Geometry, Astronomy, Perspective, Musick, Navigation, Architecture, &c. are excellent Sciences, all that know but their names will confess: Yet to what purpose would Geometry serve, were it not to teach Handicrafts?’ Furthermore, in Mechanick Exercises, or The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing, Moxon (1683, 81–2) used the term ‘architecture’ when defining the occupation of typographer. More recently, Benjamin Fryer (1930, 11) referenced architecture in A Book and Its Elements, when appraising the nature of bookwork: ‘A book should be regarded as a complete work to be done, in the same sense that an architect should visualize his building before he lays foundation.’ Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge’s contentious modification of Darwinism, which they termed ‘punctuated equilibrium’, was first proposed in 1972. According to Charles Darwin (1861, 59) in The Origin of Species, which was first published in 1859, the evolution of species tends to be gradual and ongoing: ‘for whenever many species of the same genus have been formed, or where, […] the manufactory of species has been active, we ought generally to find the manufactory still in action, more especially as we have every reason to believe the process of manufacturing new species to be a slow one’. In contrast, Gould and Eldredge (1993, 223) observe ‘the geologically instantaneous origination and subsequent stability […] of palaeontological “morphospecies”’ or, more simply, ‘the

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stability of a species through time’. While the term stasis connotes inertia, Gould and Eldredge stipulate that ‘stasis must be viewed as an active phenomenon, not a passive response to unaltered environments’. In this way, biological evolution tended to experience a period of pronounced change followed by an equally pronounced period of active stasis. Comparative textual analyses of the style guides from Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia to Caleb Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar—as well as John Johnson’s Typographia, Or, The Printers’ Instructor (1824), Thomas C. Hansard’s Typographia (1825), Charles H. Timperley’s The Printer’s Manual (1838) and William Savage’s A Dictionary of the Art of Printing (1841)3—revealed a punctuated evolution of editorial style, not a gradual one, through a process of generational intertextual inheritance. That is, a period of significant origination, or innovation, was followed by a period of active stasis, in which minor developments occurred, building on from those preceding them, but were not sufficient to be disruptive. More specifically, Hornschuch published the first printer’s manual in 1608 in Germany for correctors primarily but authors as well. Moxon in Mechanick Exercises, extended Hornschuch’s teaching in 1683 to provide the English print trade with its own manual 75 years later. Smith represented the pinnacle of editorial style approximately 70 years on in 1755, when he explained in The Printer’s Grammar the fundamentals of not only of letters and their typography and typesetting but also, for the first time in the one English manual, the specifics of punctuation. Luckombe, Stower, Johnson, Hansard, Timperley and Savage reproduced verbatim, adapted and modernised the texts of Moxon and Smith to varying degrees. It is true that Luckombe observed the modern use of quotation marks and Stower was the only modernising editor in the nineteenth century to contribute editorial innovation, though not to the extent of his predecessors. Rather, Stower followed in Luckombe’s footsteps by legally appropriating Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar as both were no longer copyright protected while also adapting and modernising their content for his own manual. Hence, ‘stasis’ applies to Stower’s textual appropriation and ‘active’ to his adaptation and modernisation.

3  The manuals of Johnson, Hansard, Timperley and Savage fall outside the scope of this book; however, comparisons with Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar reveal very little to no innovation.

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Content and Organisation This book contains eight chapters, in addition to its introduction and conclusion. The objective of these chapters is, when considered holistically, to connect the theory of editorial style and its practice by specific stakeholders in the print trade. That is, when one chapter focuses on a specific early modern style guide, the chapter that follows examines how stakeholders in the print trade interpreted, used and adapted its guidelines to suit their own needs and/or agendas specifically and to bring specific content to print generally. It is through this close study that the punctuated evolution of editorial style through generational intertextual inheritance becomes evident. Chapter 2, ‘Beginnings of Editorial Style in Seventeenth-Century England: Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises’, documents the start of editorial style in early modern England through critically mapping the first printer’s manual published in English: Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises, or The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing. Mechanick Exercises was not the first manual to be published, however: Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia claims this distinction, as previously mentioned. While Orthotypographia lies outsides this book’s scope, an effective critical mapping of editorial style in early modern England requires knowledge of the people or factors of influence from the past. Hence, Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia and its influence on Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises are also examined. Chapter 3, ‘The Architectural Principles of Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises: Documenting the Early Modern Living Page’, considers how Moxon’s commercial publications use, and therefore exemplify, the editorial practices manifest in Mechanick Exercises. To do this, a comparative textual analysis of Moxon’s A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie with Mechanick Exercises is conducted. Through this, the chapter develops the concept of ‘architecture of the page’ to demonstrate how Moxon’s published output worked towards standardising editorial instruction on, or documenting, the early modern living page. Chapter 4, ‘The Pinnacle of Editorial Style in Eighteenth-Century England: John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar’, presents a textual analysis of John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar, the publication of which occurred approximately 70 years after that of Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises. Smith’s manual is significant to book-history research and editorial theory for two reasons. First, it was the first manual in English to instruct the print trade on the intricacies of punctuation. Second, its publication coincided with

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three fundamental shifts in the eighteenth century: typographical, grammatical and orthographic. Hence, Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar was truly unprecedented and, by necessity, resides at the pinnacle of the progress of editorial style towards standardisation. Chapter 5, ‘Eighteenth-Century Editorial Style at Work: The Editing of The Elements of Euclid by Isaac Barrow and Robert Simson’, considers how numerous editors of The Elements of Euclid, the first mathematics textbook, began their Euclidean journeys with virtually identical copy; however, their differing treatments, and their interpretations of their contemporary style guides, typify idiosyncratic editorial experiences. To demonstrate this, Barrow’s 1660, 1686 and 1705 editions are studied; and Simson’s influential 1756 edition is also treated briefly for comparative purposes. The editorial performances of Barrow and Simson are examined with reference to Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar, respectively. Chapter 6, ‘The First Appropriation of Editorial Style: Philip Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing’, examines the first appropriation, more or less verbatim, of Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar by Luckombe, whose manual A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing appeared 15 years after Smith’s own. The objectives of this chapter are twofold. The first is to determine the impact of Luckombe’s textual appropriation of Moxon’s and Smith’s manuals on the evolution of editorial style through a comparative textual analysis of these three manuals. The second is to reflect on the implications of such appropriation in early modern print culture in terms of plagiarism and copyright. Luckombe demonstrated unquestionably a determined vision—he sought to provide instruction to the print trade through a modern Britanno-centric lens. At times Luckombe succeeded; however, his personal contribution to editorial style was virtually non-existent and his adaptation of Smith’s text, which accounted for the majority of his editorial instruction, appeared inconsistent and indifferent to Smith’s original intent. Chapter 7, ‘Nineteenth-Century Modernising Inheritance of Editorial Style: Caleb Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar’, relates not only how Stower emulated Luckombe by appropriating Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar, but also how he pursued his own editorial path by sympathetically adapting and modernising the content of these manuals for his own publication, The Printer’s Grammar. Stower’s editorial contributions included observing the standardisation of

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hyphenation and spelling; devising a more efficient, enduring word-based cast-off method; supplying the first exemplar that visually captured editorial practice at work; and improving on the methods for correcting manuscript copy and typeset page proofs. However, emerging from analyses completed in the previous chapters, as well as understanding how little editorial innovation occurred from this point, is a picture of the punctuated evolution of editorial style through active stasis. Chapter 8, ‘Nineteenth-Century Editorial Style at Work: Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s Piers Plowman’, seeks to understand the extent of the influence of Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar on the presentation of Whitaker’s controversial 1813 folio edition of William Langland’s dream-­ vision poem, which was written in the fourteenth century. More specifically, it is through an examination of Whitaker’s usage of black letter and red ink and his punctuation style that this chapter demonstrates how Whitaker’s Romantic medievalism and interpretative but practical application of contemporary editorial style both assured the clarity of authorial content, and enabled Langland’s potentially anachronistic poem to be accessible to, and appreciated by, his nineteenth-century audience. And lastly, Chap. 9, ‘Authorial Editorial Practice at Work: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Poems (Ashley MS 408)’, explores how Coleridge’s mark-up, or his marginal annotations, in Ashley MS 408 reveals his familiarity with using proof-correction marks, and how he both cohered to and adapted the instruction provided in contemporary style guides, specifically Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar. Through this, a more general understanding is obtained of not only how early modern style guides influenced authors’ correction of typeset page proofs, but also how marginal spaces on the typeset page offered authors the textual landscape to communicate with, and often judge the proficiency of, stakeholders within printing houses—in this case, compositors and printers. Marginal spaces thus represented the means by which authors were able to equitably share the same working spaces as their professional counterparts. As mentioned earlier, the two objectives of this book are to provide a historical study of the evolution of editorial style and its progress towards standardisation through an examination of early modern style guides; and to explore how multiple stakeholders—namely authors, editors and printers—either directly implemented, or uniquely interpreted and adapted, the guidelines of contemporary style guides as part of their editorial practice. The comparative textual analyses of early modern style

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guides—specifically Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises, Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar, Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing and Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar—have yielded this book’s principal observation: a punctuated evolution of editorial style through a process of generational intertextual inheritance. Moreover, as early modern style guides have historically been analysed through a typographic lens, rather than an editorial one, this book provides researchers, the print trade and people interested in editorial style and practice specifically, and book-­making and book history more generally, with an alternative modern perspective and bibliographic approach. That is, it places the expectation of error in the background, and connects theory and practice to foreground the hands-on labour and specialised interactions of stakeholders in the early modern book-making process in their endeavour to technically negotiate and typeset content before proceeding to print.

References 2017. The Chicago Manual of Style. 17th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/cmos17 Bigmore, E.C., and C.W.H. Wyman. 1884a. A Bibliography of Printing with Notes and Illustrations. Vol. 1. London: Bernard Quaritch. ———. 1884b. A Bibliography of Printing with Notes and Illustrations. Vol. 2. London: Bernard Quaritch. ———. 1884c. A Bibliography of Printing with Notes and Illustrations. Vol. 3. London: Bernard Quaritch. Bornstein, George. 1996. Introduction. In Palimpsest: Editorial Theory in the Humanities, ed. George Bornstein and Ralph G.  Williams, 1–5. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Bowers, Fredson. 1976. Scholarship and Editing. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 70 (2): 161–188. Cohen, Phillip, ed. 1991. Devils and Angels: Textual Editing and Literary Theory. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia. Darwin, Charles. 1861. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. New  York: D. Appleton and Company. Ernesti, Johann Heinrich Gottfried. 1721. Die Wol-eingerichtete Büchdrückery. Nünberg: Johann Andred Endters. Fertel, Martin Dominique. 1723. La science practique de I’imprimerie. St Omer: Par Martin Dominque Fertel.

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Fryer, Benjamin. 1930. A Book and Its Elements. Sydney: Printing Industry Craftsman of Australia. Gaskell, Philip. 1978. From Writer to Reader: Studies in Editorial Method. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gaskell, Philip, Giles Barber, and Georgina Warrilow. 1968. An Annotated List of Printers’ Manuals to 1850. Journal of the Printing Historical Society 4: 11–32. Gessner, Christian Friedrich. 1743. Der in der Buchdruckerei wohl unterrichtete Lehr-Junge. Leipzig: C. F. Gessner. Gould, Stephen Jay, and Niles Eldredge. 1993. Punctuated Equilibrium Comes of Age. Nature 366 (6452): 223–227. Grafton, Anthony Thomas. 2011a. The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe, the Panizzi Lectures 2009. London: The British Library. ———. 2011b. Humanists with Inky Fingers: The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe, The Annual Balzan Lecture, Vol. 2. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki. Greg, W.W. 1950. The Rationale of Copy-Text. Studies in Bibliography 3: 19–36. Hellinga, Lotte. 2014. Texts in Transit: Manuscript to Proof and Print in the Fifteenth Century. Leiden: Brill. Janssen, Franz A. 2000. The First English and the First Dutch Printer’s Manual: A Comparison. Quærendo 30 (1): 154–163. Kenney, E.J. 1974. The Classical Text: Aspects of Editing in the Age of the Printed Book. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lawson, Alexander. 1990. Anatomy of a Typeface. Boston: David R.  Godine, Publisher Inc. Maruca, Lisa. 2003. Bodies of Type: The Work of Textual Production in English Printers’ Manuals. Eighteenth-Century Studies 36 (3): 321–343. McKitterick, David. 2003. Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450–1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mosley, James. 2009. The Technologies of Printing. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume 5: 1695–1830, ed. Michael F. Suarez and Michael L. Turner, 161–199. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moxon, Joseph. 1676. Regulæ Trium Ordinum Literarum Typographicarum, or, The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters viz. the Roman, Italick, English Capitals and Small: Shewing How They Are Compounded of Geometrick Figures, and Mostly Made by Rule and Compass, Useful for Writing Masters, Painters, Carvers, Masons, and Others That Are Lovers of Curiosity. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon. ———. 1677. Mechanick Exercises, or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works Began Jan. 1, 1677, and Intended to Be Monthly Continued. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon at the Sign of Atlas, Ludgate-Hill.

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———. 1683. Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. The Second Volumne [sic]. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the Sign of Atlas. Moxon, Joseph, Herbert Davis, and Harry Carter. 1962. Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing (1683–4). 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press. Norman, Jeremy. n.d. What the Journeyman Printer Needs for Ready Reference [online]. HistoryofInformation.com, Last Modified 20 February 2019. http:// www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=398. Accessed 21 Feb 2019. Pankow, David. 2005. The Printer’s Manual: An Illustrated History: Classical and Unusual Texts on Printing from the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Rochester: RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press. Reed, Talbot Baines. 1887. A History of the Old English Letter Foundries, with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C. Richardson, Brian. 1994. Print Culture in Renaissance Italy: The Editor and the Vernacular Text, 1470–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ritter, Robert M. 2010. The Transformation of Authority in Print and the Rise of House Style. D. Phil. diss., St Anne’s College, University of Oxford. Smith, John. 1755. The Printer’s Grammar. London: Printed for the Editor; and Sold by W.  Owen, Near Temple Bar; and by M.  Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row. Tanselle, G. Thomas. 1990. Textual Criticism and Scholarly Editing. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia. ———. 2000. The Concept of Format. Studies in Bibliography 53: 67–115. Wroth, Lawrence. 1935. Corpus Typographicum: A Review of English and American Printers’ Manuals. Dolphin 2: 157–170. ———. 1949. Typographic Heritage: Selected Essays. New York: The Typophiles.

CHAPTER 2

The Beginnings of Editorial Style in Seventeenth-Century England: Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises

Hieronymus Hornschuch (1972, i) employs medical analogy in Orthotypographia to encapsulate an intrinsic objective of editors—the clarity of content, or authorial meaning: ‘A doctor who lances a tumour, cuts out the bad and cauterizes is not an evil man. He inflicts pain to restore health. He is troublesome, but if he were not, he would be of no use.’ That is, editors negotiate with authors and their content—cutting out, cauterising and other myriad equally important tasks such as ensuring consistent typographic practices relating to title pages and headings—to ensure readers’ understanding of text not only line by line and from chapter to chapter but also from cover to cover—a text’s entire health. However, as mentioned in the introduction, most research regarding editorial theory has typically concentrated on the identification of authorial intention and error, not their hands-on labour, their specialised interaction with content before proceeding to print—their editorial style. This chapter therefore seeks to illuminate the beginnings of editorial style through critically mapping the first English printer’s manual: Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises or The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing, which was published in 1683. Yet, to avoid ‘the pernicious practice of reading history backwards’, as Water J.  Ong (1944, 349) has recommended, it is beneficial to retreat chronologically further to examine the first printer’s manual, Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia, which appeared in 1608. Hornschuch’s manual resides outside the geographic scope of this © The Author(s) 2019 J. Hargrave, The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England, New Directions in Book History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20275-0_2

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book, since it was published in Leipzig, Germany; nevertheless, an e­ ffective critical mapping of editorial style in early modern England can only occur with an appreciation of the people or factors of influence from the past.

Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia Born in Henfstadt and school-educated in Schleusingen, Hornschuch initially studied medicine in Jena (Gaskell and Bradford 1972, II; Simpson 1935, 126); however, in 1596, at the age of 23, he relocated to Leipzig to escape ‘extreme poverty’ and to continue to study medicine, with which, he declares, ‘I have been fired from the beginning of my life’ (Hornschuch 1972, iii–iv). Once established in Leipzig, he secured two positions of employment: ‘one part was to supervise the correcting of books in printing houses, and the other, instructing children in liberal studies’; however, owing to ‘the over-indulgence of parents towards their children’, he resigned from the teaching position. The surplus accumulated over two years from his ‘miserable wage’ as a proof corrector enabled Hornschuch to purchase his books (p. v). During this two-year period, Hornschuch admits he ‘neglected’ himself, presumably from over-work, to the extent that he states dramatically that he ‘eventually became like one of the prisoners from Pylos’. Nevertheless, he immediately extenuates his suffering by explaining that ‘anything’ was welcome in the pursuit of ‘some knowledge in the divine art of medicine’ (pp. v–vi). In 1598, Hornschuch befriended herbalist Ludwig Fürer of Northeim who, at an unidentified date, introduced him to the Jungermann family. This introduction profited Hornschuch considerably: at the request of Ursula Jungermann, Hornschuch became the assistant to Ursula’s sons, Gottfried, ‘that darling of the Muses’, and Ludwig, who was ‘devoted to the study of medicine and botany’ (p. viii). Despite this unexpected, much-appreciated opportunity, Hornschuch’s resigned suffering continued: But, although I was able to have plenty of food when I was established in this position, that permanent shelter might also be available, I have not been able to free myself from printing to this day, but have been compelled to stick at it continually, with a serious delay to my studies. In the meantime the wretchedness and gall which I experienced has produced this present work. (p. ix)

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And so the year 1608, Hornschuch’s 12th year in Leipzig, marks the culmination of his suffering by the publication of his treatise Orthotypographia by Michael Lantzenberger.1 It is through Orthotypographia that Hornschuch provides a solution to his ‘deplorable situation’—that is, correcting more ‘monstrously faulty manuscripts’ provided by authors than ‘printers’ errors’. This solution involves instructing ‘inexperienced people’—principally correctors, but also authors—on the intricacies of printing: ‘And although the instructions I have given here seem to me to refer particularly to the corrector, I nevertheless trust they will be of use to others, especially those who are near the printing house and wish to check their own proofs themselves’ (pp. ix–xii). Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia might appear haphazard in construction—with the absence of a contents page, headings or index—yet a closer appraisal proves otherwise. His manual contains three implicit ‘sections’: first, a brief explanation of the history of printing followed by his opinions relating to printing-house culture, particularly correctors and printers and the execution of their work; second, technical information for correctors; and third, recommendations for authors regarding the preparation of a manuscript copy. While his first section, notably of printing-house culture, is an entertaining read owing to its partial feistiness,2 the objective here is to map critically the evolution of editorial practice; therefore, the second and third sections are examined only. Editorial practice typically entails both substantive or macroscopic work, such as consideration of the entire page from header to footer, reoccurring design or typographic elements, or structural and thematic coherence; and attention to the minutiae, such as style, alignment, spacing and correction of errors. Consequently, as related in the introduction, style guides from the early modern period to those published in the twenty-first century provide instructions to the print trade on both aspects. Examination of Hornschuch’s second section on technical information for correctors 1  A version translated into German by Tobias Heidenrich was published in 1634, entitled Orthotypographia, das ist, ein kurtzer Vnterricht für diejenigen, die gedruckte Werck corrigiren woollen; see Simpson, p. 126. 2  Note Hornschuch’s criticism of printers: ‘[P]rinters themselves, some of whom would be altogether better employed spending their time in cobblers’ or barbers’ shops than in charge of this noble profession. They do everything solely for the sake of money, and whatever is given to them to be printed they send back ever worse, with types often so worn down and blunt that their feeble impression on almost crumbling, dirt-coloured paper can scarcely be detected by the keenest eye’; see p. 5.

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clearly manifests this; more specifically, his instruction appears to move from the substantive to the minutiae. Hornschuch’s substantive focus involves two aspects of book production integral to a corrector’s checking of page proofs. The first is the literal gathering of pages; that is, ‘the method of sequence or arrangement of papers in every kind of format; how for example these pages follow on in folio, quarto, octavo, decimo etc., on the front and back of a sheet’ (pp. 9–10). Hornschuch indicates that the front of the sheet is termed ‘the first forme’; the back, ‘or reiteration’, is ‘the second forme’. As an example, he explains how folios are assembled: ‘In folio three sheets are commonly gathered together one inside another, and this arrangement is generally called triternio, and consists of twelve sides of pages’ (p. 10). Hornschuch provides an illustrative representation of the sequencing of folios in his manual, followed by diagrams for the other forms listed above (pp. 11–14). Certainly, one of the many responsibilities of correctors is to ensure that all typeset pages are properly sequenced; furthermore, any mispaging would negatively impact the creation of contents pages and indexes. Ensuring proper sequencing is achieved through the checking of the second aspect of book production discussed by Hornschuch: the system of marking pages called ‘signing’, in which letters and numbers, or ‘signatures’,3 are marked on the bottom of each page—odd for the first forme and even for the second: ‘Hence on the first forme the reading is begun from page one (which is indicated by the letter on its own at the bottom): and on the second forme from page two’ (Hornschuch 1972, 15). From this, Hornschuch’s perspective becomes more specific—and, for correctors, represents a substantial component of their craft: the reading and technical correction of content. To begin his technical instruction, Hornschuch (1972, 16) inserts a list of ‘marks’ used in proof-correction: the caret ( ^ ) for text insertion; the deleatur for text deletion; how turned letters—those typeset upside down—are corrected; text is to be run together or joined ( ᴗ ); parallel lines ( ═ ) for letters typeset askew or when ‘they stand out too far so that the letters next to them are printed faintly’; how letters or words are transposed, or rearranged, when they have been typeset in incorrect order; how space is to be inserted (#); how punctuation marks, such as commas, full stops and hyphens, are inserted with a full stop placed within a circle and semi-circles placed before the others; 3  According to Rebecca Bullard (2014, 119), ‘Printed signatures first appeared in the 1470s (having migrated from the practice of scribes, who sometimes used them in manuscripts) and quickly became a ubiquitous feature of the new technology’.

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crotchets, or square brackets ( [ ] ), to indicate the direction that text is to be moved away, or indented, from the margin; and a strikethrough to indicate either modified text, with the replacement inserted in the margin, or ‘mutilated’ or ‘imperfect’ text, with the correct text placed in the margin underlined (see Fig. 2.1). Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia was the first printer’s manual to list and describe proof-correction marks. The initial response of modern-day editors to Hornschuch’s proof-­ correction marks would most likely be astonishment because these marks have altered comparatively little in more than 400 years. This conclusion derives from a comparative analysis of printer’s manuals published since 1608, such as Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises (1683), John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar (1755), Philip Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing (1770) and Caleb Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar (1808), as well as my own professional experience as an editor since the late 1990s. However, Edward Malone (2006, 418) has similarly observed this constancy:

Fig. 2.1  Hornschuch’s (1972, 16) ‘marks’ for correcting in Orthotypographia. (Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library)

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Although they were probably adapted from symbols and abbreviations used by earlier scribal correctors and manuscript editors, such marks assumed their particular form and use during the first century of moveable type, and many of the words ‘remain essentially unchanged today’ (Gaskell 1972, p.  113). For example, symbols for deletion (the dele), an insertion (the caret), a transposition, a full point, an indentation, and a space (the octothorpe), are identical to those used now, as are the abbreviations for italic and roman types and the procedure for substituting letters.

Some published research exists for the probable origination and early employment of the deletion and space symbols, and punctuation marks such as exclamation marks, parentheses and semicolons. For the deletion symbol, Percy Simpson (1935, 133) refers briefly to the deleatur when describing correctors’ hand mark-up of page proofs generally, though without accompanying historical evidence; similarly, Lotte Hellinga (2014, 128) observes the sign’s inclusion in Orthotypographia. In contrast, Anthony Thomas Grafton (2011, 35) provides two examples of its application: the first, a ‘superbly imaginative meditation’ on the symbol’s potential origin; the second, an instance of its practical application. For the first, Grafton cites from José Saramago’s novel The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1989): Raimundo Silva, the proof-reader who is the anti-hero of José Saramago’s The History of the Siege of Lisbon, offers a superbly imaginative meditation on the best-known [symbol] of them all, the deletion sign derived from the Greek δ: “yes, this, symbol is called deleatur, we use it when we need to suppress and erase, the word speaks for itself, and serves both for separate letters and complete words”.

For the second, Grafton mentions that a ‘proof sheet from an edition of Justinian’s Institutes [sic] produced in German printer Peter Schöffer’s shop as early as 1475 shows the deleatur in full flower in its margins’. According to Keith Houston (2013, 42), the space symbol (Robert Bringhurst offers the term ‘octothorpe’4) originates from the late-­ fourteenth-­century abbreviation for the pound (lb):

4  According to Bringhurst, ‘In cartography, [#] is a traditional symbol for village: eight fields around a central square. That is the source of its name. Octothorpe means eight fields’; this is cited by Houston (2013, 48). See also Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, 2nd edn (Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 1999), pp. 77, 282.

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[In] the late fourteenth century the abbreviation ‘lb’ for libra entered English, and according to common scribal practice it was accessorized with a line—known as a ‘tittle’, or ‘tilde’, and for which the modern ‘~’ is named—drawn just above the letters’ x-height to denote the use of the contraction … [this] was transformed into # by the carelessly rushing pens of successive scribes, while the naked ‘lb’ soldiers on to this day.

No other research to date confirms or denies his assertion that the space symbol originated from ‘the carelessly rushing pens of the scribes’. Houston accompanies his discussion with an illustration of Isaac Newton’s handwritten libra abbreviation with tilde, which could conceivably be misinterpreted as a space symbol. The reasons for such plausible misinterpretation might be answered by researching medieval scribal–authorial relationships. John Lennard has published general research on the origination of punctuation marks, namely exclamation marks, parentheses and semicolons; unfortunately, his discussion omits their early modern application: ‘The exclamation mark came from Iacopo Alpoleio da Urbisaglia in the 1360s, the lunala [sic] or round bracket from Colluccio Salutati in the 1390s, and the semicolon from Pietro Bembo in the 1490s, all three marks being disseminated primarily in print as part of Aldine and Bembine founts’ (Lennard 2000, 6). Lennard derives much scholarly support from M.  B. Parkes (1992). While these punctuation marks do not feature in English printer’s manuals until the publication of John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar in 1755, they figure in seventeenth-century English grammars, such as Charles Butler’s The English Grammar (1633), A Treatise of Stops, Points, or Pauses (1680; author unknown), Mark Lewis’s Plain, and Short Rules for Pointing, Periods, and Reading Sentences Grammatically, with the Great Use of Them (1680) and Owen Price’s English Orthographie (1688). The remainder of this technical section provides particularised guidance on correctors’ copyediting page proofs; however, from the outset, Hornschuch (1972) does appear enthusiastically partisan when highlighting compositor errors. First, he advises correctors to ‘take careful note of the beginnings and ends of lines. For often the last syllable of a preceding line is found to be repeated at the beginning of the following line’ (p. 17). Editorially, this caution is perplexing. The principal reason why correctors would observe this is when compositors hyphenate a word over two lines owing to inadequate space to place the word on the line completely. Such

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hyphenation is extremely common in printed books—for example, page 16 of Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia reveals six cases of hyphenation alone (see Fig. 2.1)—and requires correctors’ keen attention. Nevertheless, it seems improbable that a compositor would typeset a word in its entirety at the end of one line, only to repeat the final syllable of this word at the beginning of the next. Therefore, for the inexperienced corrector, Hornschuch’s caution required further clarification in hindsight. Moving on, Hornschuch implicitly urges correctors to employ similar attention when checking ‘catchwords’5: ‘The “catchword” (the syllables written at the bottom right-hand corner of the page to show the beginning of the next page) must be carefully examined to see if any of it has been left out, or any extra put in’ (p. 18). Next, Hornschuch informs correctors of compositors’ faulty repetition and insertion of letters during typesetting. Two reasons for compositors’ erroneous repetition of letters are the hasty redistribution of type into cases once a forme has been printed—that is, placing letters into adjacent boxes in the cases instead of their correct locations6; and the fact that many letters closely resemble one another in lower case: for example, single letters such as r and t, n and u, e and c; ligatures such as ӕ and œ; and certain lower-case letters that resemble numbers, such as the capital letter O and zero (0) respectively. Hornschuch advises correctors to pay particular attention to such repetition for content placed in margins (referred to as marginalia or ‘concordances’). The faulty insertion of letters—for example, mistaking different founts of letters, such as ‘inserting italics and capitals in a body of lower case’ (Simpson 1935, 131)—is again attributed to compositors’ inaccurate redistribution of type: ‘these are also more often mixed up when being put back, because they are generally used alternately, as words that are emphasised are always printed in different founts or in capitals’ (Hornschuch 1972, 19). Another example of faulty composition is inverted letters: ‘[The] letters, f, s, and o when inverted very often escape the notice of the corrector, because they look almost the same upside-down as they do the right way up’ (p. 19). Hornschuch explains that each inverted letter can be visually identified—for example, ‘s receives a bigger hook above, 5  For example, the Latin text on the left-hand side of the page in Fig.  2.1 contains the catchword ‘Si’. 6  The pressure placed on compositors by their master printers must be noted, as explained by Adrian Johns (1998, 93): ‘Working for up to fourteen hours a day, a pair of such workers might be expected to produce some twelve to fifteen hundred sheets in that time—that is, to make 250 impressions an hour’.

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which is smaller when it is the right way up’—and reassures correctors that, by employing such techniques, all such mistakes for any given situation ‘will be seize[d] upon’ (p. 20), which is a curiously fervent and physical metaphor for a sedentary, cerebral action. Lastly, and purely editorial in focus, Hornschuch discusses how correctors imposing variation in spelling is an acceptable means to distinguish between homonyms with varying pronunciations: For if words which are spelt the same when used both as a noun and a verb are shown to be distinct by an actual difference in pronunciation, then I do not see why a distinction cannot be established by a difference in spelling, when this can be conveniently accomplished. Certainly in printing houses it is altogether useful and necessary that a difference should be observed. (p. 22)

Some critics such as Simpson (1935, 51–3) might interpret this recommendation as interfering with the author’s inviolable manuscript or potentially bestowing compositors with a licence to amend content on the page as they see fit; however, editorially, it can be perceived more constructively. As an experienced corrector, Hornschuch (1972) would have encountered authorial copy whose meaning became ambiguous through unfortunate word choice, as exemplified in the quotation above. To rectify this, the corrector could select a synonym to replace the noun or verb; yet doing so might invite further ambiguity—and the author’s displeasure. Therefore, Hornschuch’s solution was to advise correctors to impose a slight spelling modification that retained the author’s original intention. Rightly or wrongly, this recommendation represents Hornschuch’s first explicit move to create house style: that is, editorial standardisation across titles at one printing/publishing house. This admittedly would not be a feasible standardising move applicable to the industry. Successive instances that suggest movement towards editorial standardisation across the ­industry, however, and conclude Hornschuch’s technical instruction to correctors were the presentation of words to convey emphasis (‘printers should become accustomed to printing the beginning of words which have a certain emphasis with a capital letter’), and how correctors fix the spelling errors of compositors (pp. 23–6). Hornschuch’s development of editorial standards shifts focus slightly in his third and final section: instructions for authors regarding the preparation of manuscript copy:

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[All] those who have any intention of having any of their works published in print, need my advice just as much. For after more than ten years in the trade I am now very well aware of the evils that arise from this quarter; what nuisances, troubles and delays beset the printing staff. (p. 26)

He appears to have a dual intent: first, to explain to authors the adverse consequences that impact on the printing house of providing poorly prepared copy; and second, to instruct authors on how to remedy this. For the first, Hornschuch informs authors that printers waste valuable time dealing with poor copy, such as attempting to decipher illegible handwriting. The outcome of this unproductive endeavour is ‘monstrous and prodigious words in their print’. However, what authors fail to understand is that correctors are ultimately held responsible for errors in the printed text, not authors and their ‘faulty manuscripts’ (p.  29). He concludes this lecture with an agriculturally inspired analogy, stating that the role of the corrector is to correct the work of compositors, not that of authors: ‘For a corrector takes up his appointment on these terms: so as to remove and uproot typographical errors; that is, those of which a rich harvest flourishes through the fault of the compositors; assuming that the manuscripts offered for printing are all neat and polished’ (p. 30). For the second, Hornschuch’s recommendations to authors include the following. Copy should be ‘written as neatly as possible […] on firm, non-absorbent paper’ and ‘checked again with the utmost care’. Abbreviations (known as ‘abridged and contracted words’) and alterations should be avoided; however, if the latter are unavoidable, they need to be marked clearly in the margin opposite the faulty copy. Authors should both adhere to consistent and accurate presentation of proper nouns—‘Let everyone set out distinctly his surname, native-land, proper names of places, towns, villages’—and be attentive to correct punctuation as it ‘leads more than anything else to a clear understanding of the subject-matter’ (p. 32). Returning to his agricultural analogy, Hornschuch urges authors to adopt his suggestions when preparing their copy so that the ultimate quality of the printed text will be assured: ‘if good seed has been scattered in the typographical field, it will be a hard job for the wretched weedy errors to grow there’ (pp. 33–4).7 The reason for examining Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia becomes substantially clearer in the ensuing section on “Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises” (as well as John Smith’s Printer’s Grammar, which is analysed in Chap. 4): Hornschuch essentially prepared the editorial soil for his successors to cultivate.  Simpson (1935, 131) describes Hornschuch’s analogous conclusion as ‘a well-aimed blow’.

7

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Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises One interpretation of the legacy of printer Joseph Moxon (1627–91), albeit ostensibly reductionist, is that it suffers from myriad, often conflicting labelling by book historians. Talbot Baines Reed (1887, 180) distinguished Moxon as ‘the first practical English writer on the mechanics of typography’ and appeared ‘to have been brought up as a mathematical instrument maker, in which profession he showed himself highly proficient’. Theodore L. de Vinne (1896, ix) stated that Moxon’s ‘first business was that of a maker and vender of mathematical instruments […] between the years 1659 and 1693’; however, owing to his dissatisfaction ‘with his work, for he had leanings to other branches of the mechanic arts’ (p. ix), he ‘carried on the two distinct businesses of type-founding and printing after 1669’ (p. xi). For P. M. Handover (1960, 332), Moxon was a ‘versatile exprinter who stocked globes and maps made by himself and guides to navigation and textbooks on astronomy translated by himself’. Arthur E. Hallerberg (1962, 490) considers Moxon to be ‘a globe and instrument maker, writer of leaflets and books explaining their use, and publisher of maps and charts for others as well’. While Herbert Davis and Harry Carter (1962) perceive Moxon as an intermittent printer, they specifically describe him as an experienced craftsman.8 Carey S.  Bliss (1965, 14) enumerates succinctly: ‘Joseph Moxon, printer, publisher, globe maker, map maker, mathematical-instrument maker, typefounder, and author’. Graham Jagger (1995, 193) conducts similar cataloguing, though with a slightly different occupational emphasis: ‘Joseph Moxon […] printer, publisher, author, and maker of globes, maps and mathematical instruments’, ‘Hydrographer to the King’ and ‘Fellow of the Royal Society’; as does Laurence Worms (2014, 117). Directly afterwards, Jagger (1995, 193, 200) subsumes these occupations into ‘tradesman’. Adrian Johns (1998, 79–80) labels Moxon as a ‘practitioner’ of all occupations abovementioned, who wrote Mechanick Exercises based on his ‘intimate knowledge’. Derek Long (2013, xxiii) supplemented these enumerations recently with ‘type-designer’. In contrast, Frans A. Janssen (2000, 157) embodies a more critical departure: Moxon […] had nothing of the workman: he was the son of a master printer and was active in London not only as a printer, but also as a producer-­ publisher of globes and maps, he translated and adapted books on globes 8  Interestingly, Handover (1960, 332) asserts that Davis and Carter ‘regard [Moxon] as a sporadic amateur’, which starkly contrasts with Davis and Carter’s (1962, lv) summation at their introduction’s end: ‘He was the first writer on printing, and though he had a dignified following, he was probably the best of all’.

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and astronomy, cartography, architecture and mathematics. He was also Royal Hydrographer and Fellow of the Royal Society […] he was more or less a gentleman-printer.

And lastly, inhabiting the comparative middle ground, Lisa Maruca (2003, 326–7) first identifies Moxon as an ‘entrepreneur’, who ‘advertised himself not only as a knowledgeable printer, but also a reliable hydrographer and map-, globe-, and mathematical instrument-maker’, and then positions him ‘on the boundary between the laboring and thinking classes’ because of his connection with the Royal Society of London and its Fellows.9 Portraying book historians’ perspectives in this manner points to issues more complex than a reductionist enumeration. Who was Joseph Moxon, son of Puritan English printer James Moxon, and born in Wakefield, England? Besides showcasing Moxon’s extensive professional interests, does identifying Moxon in this fashion matter when undertaking a critical mapping of editorial style and, if so, why? The answer is certainly in the affirmative because it not only places the critical mapping of Moxon into its historical context, but also reveals interdependent dichotomies that underpinned his legacy and the ensuing critical perception of it. As ­suggested above, was Moxon an unsullied gentleman-printer or inky-fingered businessman, and was his published output politically or professional necessitated and to what end? The political environment in England certainly muddied Moxon’s early life. As Davis and Carter (1962) and Jagger (1995) independently report, Moxon’s Puritan father James ‘vigorously opposed […] Archbishop Laud’s policy for Church and State’10 and hence relocated to Holland in 1637, when Joseph Moxon was aged ten, where he worked as a master printer at first Delft and then Rotterdam. It is at the Rotterdam Rederikkers’ Theatre that James Moxon established his press, printed transgressive English Bibles and surreptitiously exported them back to England; he also allegedly printed ‘libellous’ material against the English government. The 9  However, earlier in her article, Maruca slightly contradicts this by identifying Moxon as ‘a part-time printer, typefounder and writer, in addition to his regular work as a hydrographer and mathematical instrument maker’ (p. 323). 10  Feather (1988, 40) describes Laud’s motivation for his policy well: ‘The whole thrust of crown policy in the 1630s, under the direction of Laud and [Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of] Strafford, was centralisation and control. Laud was concerned about the growing divisions in the Church of England and the opposition to his ecclesiastical policies. Fully aware of the power of the press, he sought to control it.’

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political environment improved in England for Protestants with the impeachment and subsequent imprisonment of Archbishop Laud in 1641. Father and son eventually returned to England in 1646 and founded their printing partnership, under the joint imprint of ‘at the upper end of Houndsditch, neer [sic] Bishopsgate’, when Joseph Moxon was aged 20. From 1647 to 1649, they printed 12 titles together, which appear to be Puritan and/or military in nature. However, from 1649, Davis and Carter (1962, xxi) relate that Joseph Moxon distanced himself from his father’s political stance to begin his own journey: ‘[In] the list of London printers with their sureties, dated 10 October 1649, the name of James Moxon, Houndsditch, appears alone. And it is from this year that Joseph Moxon dates the beginning of his special training which was to make him a globeand map-maker and hydrographer.’ From this, Joseph Moxon’s career could be interpreted as ‘political rehabilitation’ (Jagger 1995, 197), where he located himself within his own professional niche, pursuing his own mathematical and scientific interests that would inform his own publishing agenda from 1654. The ambiguity regarding Moxon’s unsullied or inky fingers results from two related factors: his self-positioning in seventeenth-century print culture and his professional experience being inspected under a modern hermeneutic lens, where researchers analyse distant content from their own frames of reference. Dissimilar to the modern labour market with its clearly labelled titles and exhaustive position descriptions, print culture during Moxon’s lifetime did not appear to be so constrained; according to Maruca (2012, 10), it was ‘a time of fruitful indeterminacy’: Indeed, many of the literary categories that later emerged as rigid ‘natural’ dichotomies—text versus book, creative thought versus manual labour, intellect versus economies—had not yet developed into commonsense inevitabilities. Certainly, many print workers, from booksellers to compositors, did not always see themselves as confined to one side of the binary.11

Such indeterminacy enabled Moxon to position himself between two seemingly disparate but, for him, interconnected worlds: professional and philosophical. 11  Printers exemplify this. Simpson (1935, 110) explains that, from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, printers either hired correctors or performed the corrections personally. Though Feather (1988, 39) indicates that the ‘early decades of the seventeenth century […] saw the beginning of the separation of the printing and publishing functions.’

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When Moxon returned from Holland in 1654 (he journeyed there in 1652 to continue his special training in globe- and map-making), he became a ‘publisher in his own right’ with the publishing of an English translation of William Janszoon Blaeu’s Institutio Astronomica (1634), the short title of which was A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie (Jagger 1995, 194; Long 2013, 14). The following year, Moxon printed John Dansie’s A mathematical Manual: wherein is handled Arithmetick, Planimetry, Stereometry, and the Embattelling of Armies, as well as a translation of an abridged version of James Barozzi’s Vignola: Or the Compleat Architect in 1655, now under the imprint of ‘Printed by J. Moxon, and sold at his shop in Cornhill, at the signe of Atlas’ (Moxon et  al. 1962, xxvii). There, he also authored his own text, Primum Mobile: or Tables Shewing the Declinations, Rights Ascensions, Ascentional Differences, Oblique Ascentions of the Sun and Other Planets, in 1656; and printed John Newton’s A Help to Calculation and William Oughtred’s Trigonometria in 1657. Hence, Moxon’s printing legacy is never in question: despite his virtual printing hiatus for the period 1660–1665, when he was appointed Hydrographer to the King in 1662 and tasked with creating globes and maps (Bliss 1965), Moxon’s book production amounted to 40 titles for the period 1662–78, and more than 60 by 1686. While Davis and Carter (1962) perceive Moxon’s physical output as a printer to be comparatively negligible, output is not necessarily symbolic of success12—the longevity of the content is, however, which is certainly the case for Moxon. Moxon’s typographical business interests—namely as letter-cutter and typefounder—were first evidenced after his enforced relocation to Russell Street, Westminster, after the 1666 London Fire: [The] first types cut by him at Russell Street in 1667 were the symbols designed by Bishop Wilkins for his Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language. He is said also to have cut the ‘correcting marks’ used later in his own Mechanick Exercises, and the mathematical and astronomical symbols which were afterwards in the Andrews foundry, and some symbols used in the Index Villaris of John Adams, 1680. (Moxon et  al. 1962, xxxv)

12  McKenzie (1969, 13) writes: ‘Where output varies so markedly from man to man and period to period, any reliance on “norms” would seem to imply an almost irresponsibly large burden of probable error’.

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Given Moxon’s publishing output, it is surprising that he was not a member of the Stationers’ Company.13 Simply put, the purpose of the Stationers’ Company since its early-fifteenth-century inception was the regulation of the printing and publishing industries. Queen Mary’s granting of the royal charter on 4 May 1556,14 and later bolstered by the Licensing Act 1662, further empowered such regulation through two provisions to be legally administered by the Stationers’ Company. The first provision was the banning of provisional printing: it could only occur within London with a limited number of approximately 20 members, with the exception of the university presses in Cambridge, Oxford and later at a university press in York in 1662 and those provincial few who were accredited members (Feather 2009; Maruca 2003; McKitterick 2003). Such control resulted, according to D. F. McKenzie (2002, 557), in a very stable London book trade: from 1583, ‘there were twenty-three printing houses equipped with fifty-three presses, until 1668, when there were thirty-three printing houses with perhaps seventy-two presses’. The second provision involved censorial pre-publication licensing: only Company-­ approved content could be printed (Feather 1988; Febvre and Martin 1976; Johns 1998). Pre-publication licences, or patents, were granted to members of the Company only (Rose 1993). Despite these restrictions, numerous advantages were gained through membership: The trade had been recognised as an important element in the state. Its senior members had learned to work with the highest levels of government and had successfully achieved many of their own objectives […] The parallel evolution of crown and Company licences had laid foundations for the practice, and later the law, of copyright […] The trade in 1640 was more prosperous than ever before […]. (Feather 1988, 41)

If membership to the Stationers’ Company entailed lucrative and enduring benefits, why then was Moxon not a member? Davis and Carter (1962, xxvii–xxviii, 482) suggest that Moxon might have considered himself to be adequately safeguarded from the Company’s ‘interference’ by being a freeman of London and the royal hydrographer, as well as the fact that he never claimed to be a master printer. They also suggest that Moxon’s 13  Long (2013, 30) indicates that the only company of which Moxon was a member was the Livery of the Weavers’ Company; he was admitted on 8 August 1664. 14  T.  C. Hansard (1825, 246–9) reproduced the charter in Typographia: An Historical Sketch of the Origin of the Art of Printing.

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printing output was not sufficiently consistent to warrant being on the Company’s regular radar, as referenced earlier. Such claims prove problematic when they acknowledge not only that Moxon had applied for membership on 1 December 1663, though later decided against it on account of what would be ‘demanded’ of him, but also that he was summoned twice before the Company’s court for illegal printing: the first time on 10 January 1673/4; the second, 11 years later, on 7 May 1685, for ‘printing, binding, stitching, publishing or dispersing printed books while being free of London livery companies other than the Stationers’. Johns (1998) also observes this. While Maruca (2003, 326) neglects to mention why Moxon remained ‘[outside] the still closed ranks of the Stationers’ Company’ specifically, she attributes roguish motivations for his non-­ membership by stating that ‘he could freely give away “secrets”’,15 albeit not in wilful ‘defiance of the Company’.16 Most recently, in his biography of Moxon, Long (2013, 30–31) reiterates the information previously supplied by Davis and Carter: ‘Moxon refused to accept the conditions demanded of him’; however, he disagrees that Moxon ‘relied on his position as Royal Hydrographer to give him authority to print, publish and sell books’. Long’s concluding remark on this subject is that ‘the relation between Moxon and authorities like the Stationers’ Company is rather unclear’. Both Davis and Carter (1962) and Long (2013) independently cite the Company’s records, which unfortunately did not elucidate why Moxon disputed the Company’s conditions; nevertheless, Moxon’s principled objection to becoming a member of the Stationers’ Company highlights his deliberate self-positioning. Moxon’s relationship with the Royal Society not only compounded his professional self-positioning but also complicated it further. Through his mathematical printing, such as John Newton’s A Help to Calculation in 1657 and Jonas Moore’s Short Introduction Into the Art of Species in 1660, Moxon befriended significant personages in the mathematical community, 13 of whom supported his petition to become royal hydrographer in 1662 by supplying their signatures of approval, such as Newton, Walter Pope, Elias Ashmole and Moore; all except two were Fellows of the Royal Society 15  Maruca neglects to identify these ‘secrets’, though presumably she alluded to the print trade. 16  Maruca (2003, 325) does explain, however, how the English civil war impacted on the trade and its regulation: ‘In the case of the print trades […] factors were exacerbated by the loosening of restrictions on printing throughout the last thirty years or so of the seventeenth century’. See also Feather (1988, 43–9).

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(Jagger 1995; Long 2013). Moxon’s direct involvement with the Royal Society, including Robert Hooke, most probably resulted from the Royal Society’s purchase of his mathematical instruments: On 30 March 1664 the Council ordered ‘that the Society tube be lent to Mr Moxon to make observations with’. Later in the same year it was ordered ‘that the treasurer should pay for a globe […] which Dr Wren should choose at Mr Moxon’s’. The Royal Society was evidently a good customer […]. (Birch 1756–7b, 403, 469; see also Jagger 1995, 198)

Moxon’s association with Hooke proved invaluable from the late 1670s. Bliss recounts a cheeky get-together at Hooke’s residence on 24 April 1677, which she reproduces from his diary: ‘“Wild, Aubery, Merret, Moxon, &c., here to see comet but missed it. Drank 2 bottles of claret”’ (Bliss 1965, 18).17 Hooke also related in his diary subsequent engagements with Moxon, during which they discussed Moxon’s most notable achievement: Mechanick Exercises. Hooke visited Moxon on 31 December 1677, who read the first issue on smithery from Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Arts of Smithing, Joinery, Carpentry, Turning, Bricklayery. Its publication occurred over 14 issues, thereby making it ‘the first book in England to be published in serial form’ between 1678 and 1680 (Bliss 1965; Jagger 1995); the print run comprised 500 copies and each cost six pence (Johns 1998; Moxon et  al. 1962). Armed with a letter of introduction from John Evelyn, another Fellow of the Royal Society, Moxon bestowed on the president of the Society, Sir Joseph Williamson, the first six numbers of Mechanick Exercises in July 1678. Soon afterwards, on 30 November 1678, Moxon was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Moxon’s election as a Fellow occurred late in his professional career— he was 51 years old—and after 20 years of association with the Society and its Fellows (Jagger 1995). His election can certainly be interpreted as an honour (Bliss 1965, 17); however, it is necessary to question from whose perspective and to what end? The answers to these questions are, once again, more detailed and complicated than they would appear. Moxon’s writing of Mechanick Exercises aligned with the Society’s own ­philosophical 17  See Diary of Robert Hooke 1672–1680 Transcribed from the Original in the Possession of the Corporation of the City of London (Guildhall Library), edited by H. W. Robinson and W. Adams (London: Taylor and Francis, 1935), p. 287.

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research interests in the mechanical arts,18 as illustrated at a Society meeting in the subsequent year: ‘On 18 March 1679/80 Moxon “presented his fourteen Mechanical exercises, bound in a volume; and was encouraged to proceed in the undertaking”’ (Birch 1756–7a, 26). Nevertheless, this encouragement belies Moxon’s tenuous relationship with the Society. While Davis and Carter (1962), Bliss (1965) and Maruca (2003) all surmise Moxon’s election as a Fellow to be a natural consequence of his endeavours, only Jagger (1995, 200) details the reality—a reality that implicitly results from his self-positioning: The first and indeed only occurrence of negative voting occurred at the Anniversary meeting held on 30 November 1678 at which Moxon was elected with 27 votes for, and four against […] What is remarkable about Moxon’s election is not the four votes cast against him but the fact that he was elected at all […] he was the first tradesman to be elected Fellow.19

As Jagger mentions (1995, 200), Moxon had not been the only tradesman to be elected; however, this comes with a caveat: ‘Although some 13 merchants had become Fellows prior to Moxon’s election, no less than nine of these were knights and the remainder held various public offices.’20 The Society’s reluctance to grant Moxon’s application for fellowship is explained additionally by his age—‘The median age of the 100 Fellows elected immediately before him was about 37’—and the fact that his election occurred after his prestigious employment as the royal hydrographer.21 Becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society certainly symbolised Moxon’s official welcoming into the mathematical fraternity, though such a connection was disinterested—Moxon was a businessman after all. Moxon’s other motivation was therefore commercially inspired to increase sales; for example, as Johns (1998, 81) notes, ‘Moxon made use of president of the 18  Maruca (2003, 326) states that one of the proposed projects of the Royal Society at that time was a ‘written catalogue and history of the trades’. Houghton Jr (1941, 50) notes that the Society ‘was riddled with a utilitarian and commercial spirit’. 19  Johns (1998, 81) does mention the negative vote, though neglects to explain the reason for it. 20  See also Paul Emmons, ‘Architecture before art: imagining architectural authority in early modern England’, Architectural Research Quarterly, 10 (2006), 275. 21  Hunter (1982, 25) confirms the Society’s reluctance to grant fellowship to tradesmen, as well as Moxon’s late election: ‘what is more significant than his actual election is its lateness, considering that he had been associated with the Society earlier, and the fact that he received the unusual number of four negative votes when he stood for election’.

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Society Sir Joseph Williamson’s position as overseer of the London Gazette to publicize the Exercises in the government’s periodical’22; Williamson was also the gazette’s editor (Musson and Robinson 1969). Furthermore, integral to this commercial imperative are the concepts of prestige and authority: Moxon’s association with the Royal Society and the latter’s encouragement of his writing regarding the mechanical arts enabled him to publicise this on the title page of Mechanick Exercises or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing—he writes, ‘Member of the Royal Society, and Hydrographer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty’. Hence, just as printers would promote eminent editors of their titles to increase sales with booksellers (Richardson 1994), Moxon was equally capitalising on his connection to the Royal Society. The irony of this association is that the Society expelled Moxon in November 1682 for not paying his subscription; this expulsion occurred nine months before the publication of Mechanick Exercises in 1683. According to Jagger (1995), Moxon took little notice of this: rather, Moxon’s involvement with the Society faltered after his application to become the Society’s printer was rejected in favour of Richard Chiswell, who was appointed on 29 June 1681. The minutes of the Royal Society meeting that day states: ‘Mr Chiswell’s Patent to be Printer to the Society was fairly engrossed, read and approved.’23 For Moxon, as Jagger (1995, 202–203) relates, this was ‘a bitter disappointment’. Such disappointment could be confirmed when considering a cryptic note in the Society’s meeting minutes for 3 March 1682: ‘Mr Haughton brought in a written reply from Mr. Moxon which was read but ordered to be debated at the next meeting.’24 Did Moxon write to the Society to question or appeal the decision to elect Chiswell as printer? A search of the Society’s online archives has not yielded an answer to this question.

22  The London Gazette archives yields no evidence to confirm whether Moxon paid for this advertising or not. 23  ‘GB 117 The Royal Society’ repository, reference number CMO/1/278, https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl& dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=1&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27Mr%20Chiswell%27%29, date accessed 21 February 2019. 24  ‘GB 117 The Royal Society’ repository, reference number CMO/2/3, https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl &dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=1&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27Mr%20Moxon%27%29, date accessed 21 February 2019.

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Maruca (2003, 326) declares that Moxon’s association with the Royal Society indicated that the intended audience of Mechanick Exercises was not printers, a perception long-held by bibliographers; instead: Moxon’s participation in the Royal Society suggests that his was not a manual for printers, but one specifically for outsiders. Indeed, he asserts in his preface to the first volume of the Exercises that, ‘Mechanicks be, by some, accounted ignorable and scandalous … yet it is very well known, that many Gentlemen in this Nation, of good Rank and high Quality, are conversant in Handy-Works.’

Janssen (2000, 156) mirrors this conclusion when similarly analysing Moxon’s preface: ‘Moxon does not address the employees of the workfloor, but his fellow-members of the Royal Society: his work, accordingly, is dedicated to no less a man than John Fell, Bishop of Oxford and governor of the university.’ However, Moxon’s name-dropping can be interpreted differently from a commercial viewpoint. As discussed, the references to the Royal Society and John Fell25 impart Mechanick Exercises with prestige and authority—to magnify its value in the eyes of its intended readership, which would then theoretically translate into increased sales. Another advantage is that the intended audience widens to embrace both printing professionals and the learned ‘outsiders’. With this perception, the contention over whether Moxon identified as unsullied gentleman-­printer or inky-fingered businessman with specific reference to Mechanick Exercises, and his career generally, loses relevance. His self-positioning between the professional and philosophical worlds enables his content to address each. The historical account provided above described Moxon’s pragmatic self-fashioning, which facilitated his positioning between two interconnected worlds—professional and philosophical—with the objective of maximising his commercial success. As referenced earlier, Johns (1998) labels Moxon a ‘practitioner’ who authored Mechanick Exercises based on his ‘intimate knowledge’ of the print trade. What is this intimate knowledge? Certainly, Moxon proved his intimate knowledge of the art of printing. For example, Robin Kinross (2004, 22) states that with ‘Mechanick Exercises, printing received its first extended theoretical treatment, and thus moved out of a state of unconsciousness’. However, Moxon’s understanding of the issues governing the technical work of correctors, of editorial practice specifically, has garnered scant attention. 25  Dedicating Mechanick Exercises to John Fell appears justifiable as he was, according to Janssen (2000, 156), ‘“architect” of English seventeenth-century typography’.

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An Editorial Appraisal of Mechanick Exercises Moxon (1683) meticulously divided Mechanick Exercises into numbered sections: Numbers I–VI, for ‘Printing’; VII–IX, for ‘Letter-Cutting’; X– XIII, for ‘Mold-Making, Sinking the Matrices, Casting and Dressing of Printing-Letters’; XIV–XVII, for ‘The Compositers Trade’, including the ‘Corrector, and his Office’; XVIII–XXIII, for the ‘Press-mans Trade’, including the ‘Warehouse-keepers Office’; and XXIII–XXIV, for his ‘Dictionary’, which functions also as an index. In this way, Moxon separated his text into two implicit parts: Numbers I–XIII relates to the typographical arts: printing, letter-cutting, mould-making, sinking of punches and casting of letters; and XIV–XXIII involves the production processes within printing houses: compositors’ trade, correctors’ office, pressmen’s trade and warehouse keepers’ office. It is through an examination of this second part that Moxon’s contribution to the evolution of editorial style and its consequent standardisation is confirmed. Moxon’s treatment of the technical craft of correctors begins macroscopically and then directs the lens more specifically—that is, from the generic physical layout of the typeset page to the linguistic (or, more ­pertinently, editorial) presentation and correction of it. Moxon’s macroscopic discussion starts at Number XIV, for the ‘Compositor’s Trade’, and concentrates on the justification and spacing of copy, the placement of directions and signatures, and the typesetting of title pages, headings and large multi-lined capitals. His ‘editorial’ focus involves not only the setting of proper nouns, words of ‘great emphasis’, capital letters, and the typesetting of obsolete English and foreign-language words, but also casting-off copy, the listing and description of proofreading marks and correctors’ application of them, and the correction of typeset page proofs. Hence, Moxon’s discursive journey was a standardising embodiment of the editorial process. Moxon commences his explanation of justification with a definition: ‘Justifying (in Compositors Language) is the stiff or loose filling of his stick, for if it be fill’d very stiff with Letters, or Spaces, they say it is hard Justified, if loosly, they say it is loose Justified’ (p. 212). The amount of white space between words in justified text depends on the number of words on a specific line, with or without divisions. Moxon explains that a compositor’s ‘good Workmanship’ (p. 214) dictates that no more than three spaces should be permitted between words to justify text. Though he admits this is not always possible for copy whose measure is ‘so short, that by reason of few Words in a Line, necessity compells him to put more Spaces between the Words’ (pp.  214–15), such as for marginalia. Wide white spaces are

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termed ‘Pigeon-holes’ and are perceived ‘by none accounted good Workmanship’ (p.  215), unless considered absolutely necessary. Setting copy too close, such as by inserting a ‘Thin-space’ between words, to justify text can result in ambiguity, ‘especially if no Capital Letter follows the Thin-space or Point go before it’ (p. 215).26 Once an entire page is typeset, the compositor inserts the ‘Direction’ on the last line, justified right; it might be an entire word or, if too long, one or two syllables of that word. The direction fulfils an identical purpose to Hornschuch’s catchword: to indicate the first word on the successive page—‘he Sets a Line of Quadrats and at the end of it the first word of the next Page’ (p. 218)—which, in turn, enables the collationers to gather the book more efficiently once completely printed. Signatures are another feature that assist with final collation; their function and presentation mirror those described by Hornschuch: ‘[The compositor] Sets a Signature about the middle of the Line, or rather a small matter nearer the end than the middle is’ (p.  218). However, Moxon’s (1683, 218–19) explanation proves more thorough than that provided by Hornschuch27: If it be the First Page of the first Sheet of a Book the Signature is A, if the first of the second Sheet B, if the first of the third C, and so successively till he come to W, which is always skipt, because the Latin Alphabet has not that Letter in it; but next V follows X Y Z, so that if the Book contain above three and twenty Sheets, the Signature of the four and twentieth Sheet must be A a, if five and twenty B b; till in like manner he run through the Second Alphabet, and comes to the third, fourth, &c. still as he begins a new Alphabet adding an a. To the second Page, or any other Even Page, he Sets no Signature, but to the Third which is an Odd Page he does, viz. A 2. The Figure of 2 is no part of the Signature, but is only an adjunct to shew the Book-binder the Second Leaf of that Sheet, that he may the surer Fold the Sheet right. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London: rare book [G.L.] 1683: Moxon, Joseph: Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of HandyWorks. (London, 1683))

Moxon’s substantive focus continues with his description of the design of title pages. The success of a well-presented title page lies in its ability to communicate clearly—that is, ‘what Word or Words have the greatest  See also Howard-Hill (2006, 25).  Note that R. B. McKerrow (1913, 264) observes that the ‘letters i and j, and u and v, not being differentiated in early times, are not separately used as signatures, i.e., there is one gathering signed either i or j and one signed u or v. The letter w is also generally omitted from signatures’. See also Sayce (1966, 3). 26 27

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Emphasis in it’ (p.  221). Moxon states that if numerous words precede those of emphasis, compositors need to decide on several typographical issues: to typeset these words over one or two lines; to select a larger or smaller typeface to highlight this distinction; to indent the lines ‘at one end or both’, the latter referring to centred justification; to select certain types that further convey emphasis, such as capitals, roman, italics or English; and to decide if the primary title requires its own line. The latter decision can be accomplished by using ‘the great Bodied Letters of the Lower Case, or else by Capitals, Roman, Italick or English, of a proper Body, which best pleases his fancy, or is in the present mode’. Next, Moxon discusses the spacing—or, in a modern sense, the kerning—between words of emphasis on title pages. Usually it is not necessary to insert additional space between letters; however, this might be required to ensure correct justification, particularly if the word is capitalised: ‘But if that Word be Set in Capitals, he chuses to Set a Space between every Letter, and sometimes he Sets two Spaces, yet that is rather to drive out the Line.’ Regarding spacing between words, Moxon recommends inserting three spaces between those containing one space between individual letters and four spaces between those with two spaces between individual letters to ‘give a graceful appearance to the Eye, as to make a Visible and proportionable distinction between Word and Word’. Moxon’s final matter on typesetting title pages involves the ‘Whites’—or, in a modern sense, the leading—between the lines. The space allocated depends on the amount of content to be typeset and the page’s justification: ‘[The compositor] Justifies his Page in Length, either by adding more Whites (where they may be proper) if his Page be too short, or by taking out or diminishing Whites if the Page be too long.’ It is noteworthy that Moxon concludes his instruction on title pages with a caveat regarding standardisation: ‘Therefore a Lasting Rule cannot be given for the ordering of them: only what has been said in general concerning Emphasis, and in particular to humour of the Eye, the Compositor has a constant regard to’ (p. 222). Moxon’s reluctance towards owning standardisation is perplexing given his definite views. Does it elucidate his willingness to adapt editorial practice to suit content, or does it confirm technology-related determinism, as concluded by T.  H. Howard-Hill (2006, 29) after analysing spelling and its standardisation: ‘The standardisation of spelling occurred because printers, like every other artificer […] strove to perform their work more efficiently’? A combination of the two seems more probable, particularly if compositors adhered to Moxon’s ‘standards’.

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Moxon’s final substantive foci relate to the presentation of headings in continued body matter and capitalisation for each chapter or section. His discussion on the typesetting of headings begins with how this varies according to a selected typeface and its size: ‘[The compositor] Sets the Title of the Chapter or Section in a bigger Body and different Character than his Material is Set in; as if the Matter be Set in English Roman, he Sets the Title in Great Primer or Double Pica Italick, but the Words of Emphasis he will Set in Roman, and varies the Character for them as well in the Title, as he does in the Matter’ (Moxon 1683, 222). Next, it reintroduces alignment and spacing. That is, if the title is short, the compositor uses centred justification ‘by Setting Quadrats on both sides’; if too long, he continues with centred justification, though over several lines with specific ­indentation requirements: ‘If it make three or more Lines, he Indents the first with an m Quadrat, and the other with two m Quadrats’. Chapters or sections after titles commence with a large capital, full out—namely, ‘a Two-lin’d Letter, or Three or Four-lin’d Letter, but Indents it not’. The subsequent letter in the same word is set as a normal capital (although Moxon does indicate that some compositors capitalise the entire word), with the succeeding text indented in line with the top and bottom of the large capital: ‘he Sets a Capital Letter of the Body his Matter is of, and Indents all, those Lines that are to fill up the Great Letter with an n Quadrat’ (p. 223). While readers of Mechanick Exercises might have assumed, rather understandably, that the specific ‘editorial’ aspects within the ‘Compositor’s Trade’ section had been written explicitly for compositors, correctors would have been necessarily conversant with this material to undertake accurate proof-checking. Moxon’s treatment starts with proper nouns, words of emphasis (including common nouns), capitals generally, and obsolete English and foreign-language words. Body text typeset in roman requires proper nouns to be set in italic; in contrast, body text in italic necessitates proper nouns in roman. Nonetheless, all proper nouns begin with a capital: ‘For Capitals express Dignity where-ever they are Set, and Space and Distance also implies stateliness.’ Similarly, words of ‘great Emphasis’ are typeset in italic and, depending on the distinction to be conveyed, sometimes start with a capital. Nouns (identified as ‘Things’) of emphasis also begin with a capital; however, those of smaller emphasis can be set in roman. Capital letters always follow full stops (pp. 225–6). Lastly, for the presentation of obsolete English and foreign-language words, Moxon (1683, 226–7) writes:

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English obsolete Words he Sets in the English Character, the first Letter, if the dignity of the Word require it, as aforesaid, with a Capital. Foreign Languages he meets with in his Copy, if the Master Printer have them in his House, he Sets them in the proper Character; if not, the Author must write them in the common Character, and the Compositor Sets them as they are written. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London: rare book [G.L.] 1683: Moxon, Joseph: Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works. (London, 1683))

While casting-off copy—that is, anticipating the number of typeset pages that manuscript copy will occupy—is principally a substantive, whole-text undertaking, it is also a very editorial one that requires a­ ttending to the minutiae. For this reason, recounting Moxon’s treatment occurs here rather than earlier. Casting off was a well-practised necessity in early modern printing houses, just as it is today; nevertheless, Moxon represents a pioneer as Mechanick Exercises is the first printer’s manual to not only mention it but also instruct his readers comprehensively on how to complete it. Understandably, Moxon (1683, 250) commences his instruction on casting off with a definition: Counting or Casting off Copy (for both Phrases are indifferently us’d) is to examine and find how much either of Printed Copy will Come-in into any intended number of Sheets of a different Body or Measure from the Copy ; or how much Written Copy will make an intended number of Sheets of any assigned Body and Measure. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London: rare book [G.L.] 1683: Moxon, Joseph: Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works. (London, 1683))

Whereas printed and written copy inhabit space differently, Moxon indicates that the methods by which the cast-offs are performed are identical, though casting off written copy is more difficult because it is ‘irregularly Writ’ and thus more unpredictable. Moxon’s arithmetical method is derived from his professional experience. Once compositors ascertain the manuscript copy’s intended format, such as folio or quarto, and judge the manner of its presentation—for example, evenly or unevenly written, or closely or widely spaced—they prepare one line of text in their composing stick. Generally representative of the manuscript copy, this line assists with determining the remainder: ‘If his Copy and Measure run Line for Line, then consequently 10, 20, 30 Lines of the Copy will make 10, 20, 30 Lines in the Measure ; and a­ ccordingly

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he counts what number of Lines in his Copy will make a Page’ and so on. Thus, if two lines of manuscript copy equal one composed line, ten manuscript lines equal five and 20 equal ten; similarly, if one and a half lines of manuscript copy correspond to one composed line, 15 manuscript lines are equivalent to ten lines and 30 equal 20 (pp. 251–2). Moxon provides an example to demonstrate his arithmetical procedure for casting off: ‘Suppose it be requir’d to know how many Sheets 127 Pages of Written Copy will make?’ He writes that if one line of manuscript copy contains 43 letters and the entire manuscript page holds 35 lines, the total number of letters for the page equals 1505, which is obtained by multiplying 43 by 35. Hence, the 127 sheets of manuscript copy consist of 191,135 letters, which is derived from multiplying 1505 by 127. Moxon applies this measurement to two exemplar formats; the first will be considered here. For a quarto format to be typeset with ‘English Body’, the page length would be 33 lines, not 35, and the letter number per line would be 47, not 43. In this case, Moxon multiplies 47 by 33 to produce 1551. Next, he divides the original 191,135 of manuscript copy letters by 1551 to give 123 pages in quarto. Moxon concludes that ‘123 Pages in Quarto, which is divided by 8, the number of Pages in one Sheet, gives 15 Sheets and 3 Pages’ (pp. 253–4). Moxon’s arithmetical method is based on consistent page format and fount, which he acknowledges immediately. Consequently, he explains that compositors are mindful of specific considerations that might affect casting off. These include where breaks occur in the copy; the number of chapters, sections or paragraphs and allowing sufficient space in the typeset pages for their design and placement; how often abbreviated words appear in the manuscript copy, each of which requiring not only being spelt out but also additional space in the typeset pages; whether manuscript copy is closely or widely written and, depending on either, allocating more or less space respectively; and the frequency of italicised or English words, which occupy space differently from roman: ‘As Italick is thinner than Roman, so the English Face is thicker than the Roman ; wherefore if he meets with the English Face, he considers that accordingly’ (p. 256).28 Moxon commences the section ‘Of the Corrector, and his Office’ with his perception of the ideal corrector: besides English, correctors should be conversant with many languages in print, such as Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Italian, Saxon and Welsh; and should be knowledgeable of the ‘Derivations and Etymologies of Words, very sagacious in Pointing,  Such issues are practically considered in Hinman (1955).

28

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skilful in the Compositors whole Task and Obligation, and endowed with a quick Eye to espy the smallest Fault’ (p. 261).29 Note therefore that a corrector’s responsibility, according to Moxon, was to oversee the entire typeset page, not simply the correction of spelling, punctuation and grammar, for example. Readers next learn that correctors received their typeset page proofs from either the compositor or errand ‘boy’ and usually performed their checking in their ‘Appartment’—‘commonly some little Closet adjoyning to the Composing-room’—with the assistance of a skilful and efficient reader: ‘This Reader […] Reads the Copy to him, and the Corrector gives attention ; and at the same time carefully and vigilantly examines the Proof, and considers the Pointing, Italicking, Capitaling, or any error that may through mistake, or want of Judgement, be committed by the Compositor’ (p. 261). Correctors indicate their corrections on the typeset pages using a system of proofreading marks, which Moxon lists and describes (see Fig.  2.2). This text is significant for two reasons: first, it is the first instance ever in English (Simpson 1935); and second, it demonstrates the evolution of editorial style since Hornschuch. Hornschuch’s catalogue of proofreading marks does appear to include more than that of Moxon—that is, Moxon neglects to include full stop, comma and hyphen, and run-on symbols. Note that Moxon includes the caret (^) in his instruction on how to insert copy, though neglects to place the symbol in the margin. Nonetheless, it becomes evident on closer inspection that Moxon’s marks build on Hornschuch’s own, especially from a modern-day editor’s perspective. For example, when Hornschuch refers to a corrector’s insertion of ‘all kinds of punctuation’ in the copy, he advises the punctuation mark be enclosed in a semicircle and placed in the margin (see Fig. 2.1). Moxon instructs correctors in a similar manner; however, the difference is that an oblique is placed after the punctuation mark, not a semicircle before it. While this might epitomise a slight difference to the inexperienced, the opposite is true. Hornschuch applies the semicircle to punctuation only (copy, such as individual letters, is marked in the margin in isolation), whereas Moxon indicates that obliques follow all insertion copy. This logical practice endures to the present day because it effectively prevents confusion between each consequent insertion written in the margin on the same line. 29  Notable examples of critical reception are Simpson (1935, 112–13), McKenzie (1959, 361) and Salmon (1962, 348).

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Fig. 2.2  Moxon’s (1683, 262–63) proofreading marks in Mechanick Exercises. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London)

Three additional proofreading marks symbolise Moxon’s radical departure from Hornschuch. The first is ‘(Out)’, or the related ‘(See the Copy)’, written in the margin: If a whole Sentence be Left out, too long to be Writ in the Margin, he makes the mark of Insertion where it is Left out, and only Writes (Out) in the Margin. If the Sentence Left out be not very long, he Writes it under the Page, or on the Left Hand Margin of the Page: But if it be too large to be Writ in the Margin, or under the Page, he Writes in the Margin, See the Copy. (pp. 262–63)

From this, Moxon developed an unambiguous system for correctors to highlight copy that, for instance, either the compositor has neglected to typeset or the author desires to include in hindsight in the typeset pages,

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especially if considerable mark-up is present. The second proofreading mark involves distinct mark-up within the copy to communicate to the compositor that words are to be transposed or rearranged. Where Hornschuch instructs correctors to insert numerals both above the specific copy and in the margin to display the accurate sequencing of words, Moxon marks the correction visually with curved lines. The intention behind this practice is to reduce the amount of mark-up on the page. An important observation is that Moxon is the first to include the transposal symbol. The third is Moxon’s instruction regarding the correction of type into, for example, italic or roman or vice versa: ‘If a Word be set in Roman Letter instead of Italick or English Letter, he dashes the Word underneath thus, and Writes Ital. or Eng. in the Margin’ (p. 263). The success of these meticulous practices is that they were embraced immediately by his contemporaries in the English book trade and they now constitute modern-­ day standardisation. Moreover, Moxon’s awareness of the issues challenging correctors and their mark-up reinforces how inky his fingers were (See Chap. 3 for an examination of Moxon’s own editorial practice manifest in his authored and published texts.) From this, Moxon provides correctors with a veritable checklist for assessing typeset pages. First, correctors examine ‘again if the Forme be right Impos’d’; that is, once the minutiae are corrected, a substantive perusal is required to verify the pages are gathered accurately and therefore in order. They accomplish this ‘not only by [checking] the Direction Word, but by examining the whole Sentence the Direction comes in, both at the end of the Page, and the beginning of the next Page’. Second, signatures, titles and folios are confirmed. Third, if the manuscript ‘be large Forms and small Letter’—a larger format, such as folio, typeset with a smaller fount, contains more copy on the page and risks ambiguity and error—greater attention to detail is necessary. Consequently, correctors inspect a second, and possibly a third, set of pages and approach these in an identically meticulous manner to first-page proofs. Finally, once second and/or third pages are returned to the printer and corrections incorporated, correctors receive final pages before proceeding to print: ‘After the Second or Third Proof he has a Revise, which is also a Proof-sheet: He examines in this Revise, Fault by Fault, if all the Faults he markt in the last Proof were carefully mended by the Compositor ; if not, he marks them in the Revise’ (p. 264). Moxon’s checklist effectively standardises the editorial process of checking typeset pages—the first in print.

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At the conclusion of the section ‘Of the Corrector, and his Office’, Moxon’s standardising objective perseveres with his ‘Advertisement to authors’. Similarly to Hornschuch, Moxon encourages authors ‘to examine his Copy very well e’re he deliver it to the Printer, and to Point it, and mark it so as the Compositor may know what Words to Set in Italick, English, and Capitals, &c’. For authors to complete the second task, Moxon interestingly recommends: ‘For his Italick Words he draws a line under them thus: For English Words he draws two lines under them thus; and for Capitals a line of Pricks thus , or else draws a line with Red Inck’ (p. 265). The first recommendation is noteworthy because modern-day editors continue to mark up their copy to be italicised in this manner. Given Mechanick Exercises standardising accomplishments, one notable silence stands out—one that Moxon candidly remarks upon—in regard to the rules for punctuation: As he [the compositor] Sets on, he considers how to Point his Work, viz. when to Set , where ; where : and where . where to make ( ) where [ ] ? ! and when a Break. But the Rules for these having been taught in many School-­ books, I need say nothing to them here, but refer you to them. (p. 224)

Moxon ‘refer[s]’ his readers to these ‘School-books’ implicitly; therefore, he neglects not only to instruct his readers on the intricacies of punctuation but also to recommend specific texts, which is unquestionably unhelpful for both his contemporary and modern readers (Price 1939). Which were the dominant grammars, necessitating neither acknowledgement nor review by Moxon? For the seventeenth century generally, Vivian Salmon (1988) identifies four suitable contenders: Charles Butler’s The English Grammar (1633); A Treatise of Stops, Points, or Pauses (1680; author unknown); Mark Lewis’ Plain, and Short Rules for Pointing, Periods, and Reading Sentences Grammatically, With the Great Use of Them (1680); and Owen Price’s English Orthographie (1688). As the earliest influential antecedent, a brief study of Butler’s The English Grammar follows below. Charles Butler’s silent influence is immediately, and literally, apparent when comparing The English Grammar with Mechanick Exercises. For example, Butler’s first body text subheading ‘Of the Letters’ is almost identically reproduced by Moxon—that is, ‘Of Letter’—in the second numbered section ‘Of the Office of a Master-Printer’. Both authors concentrate on similar material in their respective sections. Butler explains that the many ‘Sorts’ of letters are distinguished by the height of their ‘bodi’s’, and that ‘Every Sort has 3 kind’s [Roman, Italick, English :]’ and

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each kind features ‘2 Figur’s [Capital, and Vulgar :]’ (Butler 1633, 1). Moxon relates identical information, although from a more technical perspective. First, he catalogues the standard ‘Fount (properly a Fund) of Letter of all Bodies’ used by English printing houses (such as ‘Pearl, Nonpareil, Brevier, Long-Primmer, Pica, English, Great-Primmer, Double-­ Pica, Two-Lin’d-English, Great-Cannon’). Second, he informs readers that ‘Bodies are commonly Cast with a Romain, Italica, and sometimes an English Face’. And third, he provides a table that features the sizes of those previously mentioned bodies (Moxon 1683, 13–14). Moxon’s first reference to capital and lower-case letters occurs six pages later, again from a printer’s technical perspective: ‘The Upper Case and the Lower-Case are of an equal length, breadth and depth, viz. Two Foot nine Inches long, One Foot four inches and a half broad, and about an Inch and a quarter deep’ (p.  19). Nonetheless, Moxon’s explanation of the application of capital letters during typesetting mirrors Butler’s philological discussion. For Butler (1633, 4), not only do capital letters begin sentences and proper nouns, but they also indicate ‘things especially observable : such as is the Subject or principal matter handled in a Book, as Grammar ; or in any particular Tract thereof, as Letter, Syllable, Woord’. The final pages of Butler’s grammar predictively alleviate Moxon’s silence on punctuation, referred to contemporaneously as ‘pointing’. Butler’s (1633, 58) taxonomic instruction begins with separating the points into two groupings: primary points express tone, sound and pauses, whereas the secondary do not—their dichotomous application indicates mostly absence and connection. The primary grouping consists of eight points: ‘4 simple and most common ; Period , [ . ] Colon, [ : ] Semicolon, [ ; ] Comma ; [ , ] and 4 mixt and less frequent’; the less frequent are ‘Erotesis, [ ? ] Ecponesis ; [ ! ] Parenthesis , ( ) Parathesis: [ ]’ (p. 60).30 The secondary grouping includes four also: ‘Apostrophus, [ ʼ ] Eclipsis, [ —— ] or [ ---] Diëresis, [ ¨ ] and Hphen [sic], [  - ] or [ ⸗ ]’ (p.  63). Butler’s definitions of the primary and secondary points are consistent with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century usage. Hence, from this comprehensive analysis, it is apparent how significantly Moxon contributed to the evolution of editorial style through the publication of his Mechanick Exercises. As the first to be published for the English print trade, Moxon’s manual addressed the justification and spacing of copy and the typesetting of title pages, headings and multi-lined  See also Salmon (1988, 299).

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capitals; provided instruction on capitalisation and italicisation, how to cast off copy using an arithmetical cast-off method and the typesetting of marginalia; offered amendments and additions to proofreading marks, specifically the use of obliques not semicolons to separate consecutive mark-up on the same line; devised ‘(Out)’ and ‘(See the Copy)’ instruction for the insertion of content and simplified the transposal (or rearrangement) of words; and supplied a standardised process for checking page proofs and more detailed advice for authors to hand-mark their manuscript copy to assist compositors with accurate typesetting. In this way, the English print trade at the end of the seventeenth century now had access to necessary standardised technical information to accurately and confidently negotiate and typeset content to bring it to print. Yet, despite such substantial editorial innovation, this evolution reaches its pinnacle with John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar, the first manual to instruct the English print trade on the specifics of punctuation.

References Birch, Thomas. 1756–7a. The History of the Royal Society of London. Vol. 4. London. Birch, Thomas. 1756–7b. The History of the Royal Society of London. Vol. 1. London. Bliss, Carey S. 1965. Some Aspects of Seventeenth Century Printing with Special Reference to Joseph Moxon. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California. Bullard, Rebecca. 2014. Signs of the Times? Reading Signatures in Two Late Seventeenth-Century Secret Histories. In The Perils of Print Culture: Book, Print and Publishing History in Theory and Practice, ed. Jason McElligott and Eve Patten, 118–133. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Butler, Charles. 1633. The English Grammar, or the Institution of Letters, Syllables, and Words in the English Tongue. Oxford: Printed by William Turner, for the Author. Feather, John. 1988. A History of British Publishing. London: Routledge. ———. 2009. The British Book Market 1600–1800. In A Companion to the History of the Book, ed. Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, 232–272. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Febvre, Lucien, and Henri-Jean Martin. 1976. The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450–1800. Trans. David Gerard. London: NLB. Gaskell, Philip, and Patricia Bradford. 1972. Introduction. In Orthotypographia, I–V. Cambridge: Cambridge University Library. Grafton, Anthony Thomas. 2011. Humanists with Inky Fingers: The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe, The Annual Balzan Lecture, Vol. 2. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki.

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Hallerberg, Arthur E. 1962. Joseph Moxon, Mathematical Practitioner. The Mathematics Teacher 55 (6): 490–492. Handover, P.M. 1960. Review: Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing (1683–4) by Joseph Moxon. Edited by Herbert Davis and Harry Carter. The Review of English Studies 11 (43): 332–333. https://doi.org/10.2307/510441. Hansard, T.C. 1825. Typographia: An Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Art of Printing; with Practical Directions for Conducting Every in an Office: With a Description of Stereotype and Lithography. London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock and Joy. Hellinga, Lotte. 2014. Texts in Transit: Manuscript to Proof and Print in the Fifteenth Century. Leiden: Brill. Hinman, Charles. 1955. Cast-off Copy for the First Folio of Shakespeare. Shakespeare Quarterly 6 (3): 259–273. Hornschuch, Hieronymus. 1972. Orthotypographia. Trans. Philip Gaskell and Patricia Bradford, Historical Bibliography Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Library. Houghton, Walter E., Jr. 1941. The History of the Trade: Its Relation to Seventeenth-Century Thought: As Seen in Bacon, Petty, Evelyn, and Boyle. Journal of the History of Ideas 2 (1): 33–60. Houston, Keith. 2013. Shady Characters: Ampersands, Interrobangs and Other Typographical Curiosities. London: Particular Books. Howard-Hill, T.H. 2006. Early Modern Printers and the Standardization of English Spelling. The Modern Language Review 101 (1): 16–29. https://doi. org/10.2307/3738406. Hunter, Michael. 1982. The Royal Society and Its Fellows 1660–1770: The Morphology of an Early Scientific Institution. Chalfont St Giles: The British Society for the History of Science. Jagger, Graham. 1995. Joseph Moxon, FRS, and the Royal Society. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 49 (2): 193–208. Janssen, Franz A. 2000. The First English and the First Dutch Printer’s Manual: A Comparison. Quærendo 30 (1): 154–163. Johns, Adrian. 1998. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kinross, Robin. 2004. Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical History. 2nd ed. London: Hyphen Press. Lennard, John. 2000. Mark, Space, Axis, Function: Towards a (New) Theory of Punctuation on Historical Principles. In Ma(r)king the Text: The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Page, ed. Joe Bray, Miriam Handley, and Anne C. Henry. Aldershot: Ashgate. Long, Derek A. 2013. ‘At the Sign of Atlas’: The Life and Work of Joseph Moxon, a Restoration Polymath. Donington: Shaun Tyas.

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Malone, Edward A. 2006. Learned Correctors as Technical Editors: Specialization and Collaboration in Early Modern European Printing Houses. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 20 (4): 389–424. Maruca, Lisa. 2003. Bodies of Type: The Work of Textual Production in English Printers’ Manuals. Eighteenth-Century Studies 36 (3): 321–343. ———. 2012. Work of Print: Authorship and the English Text Trades, 1600–1760. Vancouver: University of Washington Press. McKenzie, D.F. 1959. Shakespearian Punctuation—A New Beginning. Review of English Studies 10 (40): 361–370. ———. 1969. Printers of the Mind: Some Notes on Bibliographical Theories and Printing-House Practices. Studies in Bibliography 22: 1–75. ———. 2002. Printing and Publishing 1557–1700: Constraints on the London Book Trades. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume 4: 1557–1695, ed. Barnard John, D.F. McKenzie, and Maureen Bell, 553–567. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McKerrow, R.B. 1913. Notes on Bibliographical Evidence for Literary Students and Editors of English Works of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The Library TBS-12 (1): 213–318. https://doi.org/10.1093/libraj/TBS-12.1.213. McKitterick, David. 2003. Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450–1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moxon, Joseph. 1683. Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. The Second Volumne [sic]. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the Sign of Atlas. Moxon, Joseph, and Theodore De Vinne. 1896. Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises, or the Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing: A Literal Reprint in Two Volumes of the First Edition Published in the Year 1683. New  York: Typothetæ of the City of New York. Moxon, Joseph, Herbert Davis, and Harry Carter. 1962. Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing (1683–4). 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press. Musson, A.E., and Eric Robinson. 1969. Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Ong, Walter J. 1944. Historical Backgrounds of Elizabethan and Jaobean Punctuation Theory. PMLA 59 (2): 349–360. Parkes, M.B. 1992. Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West. Aldershot: Ashgate. Price, Hereward T. 1939. Grammar and the Compositor in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 38 (4): 540–548. Reed, Talbot Baines. 1887. A History of the Old English Letter Foundries, with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C.

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Richardson, Brian. 1994. Print Culture in Renaissance Italy: The Editor and the Vernacular Text, 1470–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rose, Mark. 1993. Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Salmon, Vivian. 1962. Early Seventeenth-Century Punctuation as a Guide to Sentence Structure. Review of English Studies 13 (52): 347–360. ———. 1988. English Punctuation Theory 1500–1800. Anglia: Zeitschrift Für Englische Philologie 1988 (106): 285–314. Sayce, R.A. 1966. Compositorial Practices and the Localization of Printed Books, 1530–1800. The Library s5-XXI (1): 1–45. https://doi.org/10.1093/library/ s5-XXI.1.1. Simpson, Percy. 1935. Proof-Reading in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. London: Oxford University Press. Worms, Laurence. 2014. ‘At the Sign of the Atlas’: The Life and Work of Joseph Moxon, a Restoration Polymath. Imago Mundi 67 (1): 117–118. https://doi. org/10.1080/03085694.2015.974978.

CHAPTER 3

The Architectural Principles of Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises: Documenting the Early Modern Living Page

The previous chapter observed how Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises contributed significantly to the evolution of editorial style by not only adopting and improving on Hieronymus Hornschuch’s editorial principles and practices, but also extending these into a British-oriented editorial corpus derived from his own professional experience. This chapter therefore seeks to answer the following question: did Moxon practise what he preached—that is, did his publications use, and therefore embody, the editorial practices delineated in his manual? To answer this question, a comparative textual analysis of Moxon’s A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie with Mechanick Exercises will be conducted. Through this, not only is Moxon, the working editor, brought into sharper focus but also the interplay between theory and practice. Furthermore, as mentioned also in Chap. 2, Moxon’s political rehabilitation from his printer father, James Moxon, involved locating himself within his own professional niche. His deliberate self-positioning enabled him not only to pursue his own mathematical and scientific interests, which would inform his publishing agenda from 1654, but also to cater for a diverse audience, both philosophical and professional. One such interest was architecture. Therefore, this chapter will also demonstrate that Moxon’s self-positioning in relation to architectural theory enabled him to apply the theory in early modern print culture. That is, the chapter

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will develop the concept of ‘architecture of the page’,1 which is articulated through Mechanick Exercises and exemplified by A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. Moxon used architectural principles to document the early modern living page—that is, it mirrored, and put into print, contemporary practice.

Moxon and Early Modern Theories of Architecture Moxon signalled his interest in architecture when he published his translation of James Barozzi’s Vignola: Or the Compleat Architect in 1655. This was the first English version of Vignola and the first of Moxon’s publications to feature his name in the imprint as printer. A second edition appeared that same year, with a third edition, in 1673. Moxon published his second ‘architectural’ text in 1670, entitled Practical Perspective, or, Perspective Made Easie. He identified his intended audience on the title page: ‘Usefull for all Painters, Engravers, Architects, &c. and all others that are any waies inclined to Speculatory Ingenuity’. However, Moxon’s best-known architecturally inspired publication was Mechanick Exercises, or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works Began Jan. 1, 1677, and intended to be monthly continued, whose serialised 14 parts appeared between 1677 and 1680; it focused on the ‘smiths trade’. Moxon published the expanded second edition in 1694, entitled Mechanick Exercises, or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Arts of Smithing, Joinery, Carpentry, and Turning. A further enlarged third edition—its full title being Mechanick Exercises or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Smithing, Joinery, Carpentry, and Turning. By Joseph Moxon, Late Member of the Royal Society, and Hydrographer to King Charles II.  The Third Edition, With an Addition of the Bricklayers, Plaisterers, and Masons Trades—was printed after his death by his son, James Moxon, in 1701. A fourth edition appeared in 1703, supplemented with ‘Mechanick Dialling’. In the preface of his 1677 first edition of Mechanick Exercises, Moxon (1677) states ‘That Geometry, Astronomy, Perspective, Musick, Navigation, Architecture, &c. are excellent Sciences, all that know but their names will confess : Yet to what purpose would Geometry serve, were it not to teach Handicrafts?’ Moxon’s remarks embody the theoretical dissonance regarding architecture—and the arts more generally—in early modern England, albeit dating back to the Middle Ages and the 1  Note that this concept was developed independently from Frans A. Janssen’s (1991) discussion of Roger Laufer’s ‘architecture of the book’.

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Renaissance. Paul Emmons (2006, 275) articulates this divide succinctly in his article ‘Architecture before art: imagining architectural authority in early modern England’: [The] prevailing division of knowledge was drawn between philosophical liberal studies and the mechanical arts with architecture usually classed as a trade among the latter. The word art was most widely understood to describe a craft activity—knowledgeable, teachable making.2

The liberal arts contained seven linguistic and mathematical components: for linguistic (the trivium), grammar, rhetoric and logic; and for mathematical (the quadrivium), arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Broadly speaking, the nobility studied liberal arts as they were ‘free of physical labor and not pursued by monetary gain’ (Emmons 2006, 276).3 In contrast, the mechanical arts pertained not only ‘to mechanics but to every production of useful things’ (Robert 2011, 142)—it was the precursor to the modern conception of technology.4 First identified by French philosopher Hugh of St Victor (c. 1096–1141), the mechanical arts similarly comprised seven crafts: fabric-making, armament and building, commerce, agriculture, hunting and food preparation, medicine and theatrics (Whitney 1990; De Liso 2013). While the demarcation between the liberal and mechanical arts in medieval and Renaissance Europe blurred, thanks to authors such as Hugh of St Victor and Italian humanist Leo Baptista Alberti (1404–1472) respectively, Emmons (2006, 275) states that ‘this view only began to appear in England at the end of the sixteenth century’.5 Early modern proponents of the mechanical arts in England include Francis Bacon (1561–1626), John Dee (1527–1608) and Joseph Moxon; only Bacon was not specifically interested in architecture. All were unquestionably influenced by Hugh of St Victor.  See also Chartier (2014, 151).  See also Robert (2011, 143). 4  Nicola De Liso (2013, 727) explains that, ‘according to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, the word technology appeared in 1615. Before then what we call today technology was referred to in different ways, for example, crafts, and from the Middle Ages, as mechanical arts’. 5  See also Whitney (1990, 82) and Robert (2011, 143). De Liso’s (2013, 728) interpretation implies a technological determinism: ‘Despite the fact that the medieval elite perpetuated the idea that the arts were the liberal ones, many technical progresses took place, and through time a change of mentality emerged. The new vision clearly emerged when the Middle Ages made room for the Renaissance’. 2 3

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In her highly researched survey entitled ‘Paradise Restored. The Mechanical Arts from Antiquity through the Thirteenth Century’, Elspeth Whitney (1990, 123) writes: This survey confirms the continuing importance of Hugh of St Victor’s vision of the mechanical arts through the last half of the thirteenth century from its origin in the early twelfth century. The artes mechanicae clearly helped to fill a wide-spread need to encompass technology within the sphere of legitimate knowledge.

Whitney’s articulation of Hugh of St Victor’s ‘vision’ agrees with Emmons’s (2006, 276) categorisation of his ‘integrated organisation of all areas of knowledge’. Whitney (1990, 83–4) briefly describes Hugh’s four divisions of knowledge, which countered the traditional liberal–mechanical arts distinction. The first was theoretical and comprised mathematics, physics and theology; the second, mechanical knowledge, involved the aforementioned seven crafts; the third, practical knowledge, consisted of politics, ethics and economics; and the fourth, logic, included grammar and the ‘theory of argument’. While a mechanical art, architecture derived legitimacy through logic and Hugh of St Victor’s (1961, 55–6), categorisation of the three types of work, all of which formed part of his larger discourse on art and nature: Now there are three works—the work of God, the work of nature, and the work of the artificer […] Among these works, the human work, because it is not nature but only imitative of nature, is fitly called mechanical […] just as a skeleton key is called a ‘mechanical’ key.

According to Hugh of St Victor, humanity imitated nature—used it as a blueprint—to fashion the things not provided by God. He aptly mentions a builder to exemplify this: The builder who has constructed a house has taken into consideration a mountain, for, as the Prophet declares, ‘Thou sendest forth springs in the vales, between the midst of the hills the waters shall pass’; as the ridges of mountains retain no water, even so does a house require to be framed into a high peak that it many safely discharge the weight of the pouring rains.

It is humanity’s logic that enables this: ‘Indeed, man’s reason shines forth much more brilliantly in inventing these very things than it would have, had man naturally possessed them’ (de Sancto Victore and Taylor

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1991, 55–6). In this way, Hugh of St Victor underlines the connection of architecture’s materiality with the spiritual. Francis Bacon championed not only new principles for obtaining knowledge but also the mechanical arts as a legitimate pursuit. Like Hugh of St Victor, Bacon’s perceptions regarding knowledge formed part of his wider discourse on nature. Loren C. Eiseley (1961, 1199) articulates this concisely in his article ‘Francis Bacon as Educator’: ‘Bacon made a sharp distinction between nature at rest and nature tormented by the experimenter’. That is, the obtainment and progress of knowledge occur not through the inertia of ‘pure intellectual enquiry’ or observation, but through evidence-based research. ‘The first distemper of learning’, wrote Bacon (1605, f. 10r) in his second book, ‘[is] when men studie [sic] words, and not matter’. Hence, knowledge is actively made, not found. Bacon extended this principle to the mechanical arts, or the ‘history of the trades’: rather than being a ‘vulgar’ practice pursued by craftsmen, the knowledge obtained and practised through the mechanical arts benefitted all of humanity. Bacon stated that ‘the use of History Mechanical is of all the others the most radical and fundamental towards natural philosophy ; such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtle, sublime, or delectable speculation, but such as shall be operative to the endowment and betterment of man’s life’. Therefore, the mechanical arts represented more than a legitimate pursuit: knowledge of the mechanical arts mitigated the effects of the Fall—an idea first described by Hugh of St Victor. In John Dee’s Mathematicall Praeface, which appeared in the first English translation of Euclid’s Elements by Henry Billingsley printed in 1570 by John Daye, architecture is aligned with the liberal arts through geometry, one element of the quadrivium. Similar to Hugh of St Victor and Francis Bacon, Dee considered architecture to be a spiritual endeavour as its geometrical drawing component served to connect ‘the supernatural (or immaterial) with the natural (material)’—as noted by Emmons (2006, 279), ‘Drawing [was] intermediate between pure idea and physical building’. Hence, Dee applies mathematics to both the natural world and the mechanical arts. Dee acknowledged that his ruminations on architecture were inspired by ‘two most perfect Architects, the one being Vitruvius the Roman : who did write the Books thereof , to the Emperour Augustus, (in whose days our Heavenly Arch-matter was born) & the other Leo Baptista Albertus, a Florentine, who also published ten books thereof’ (Dee et al. 1661).6 6

 This material occurs on the 32nd page of the preface.

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Once considered to be the second edition of Billingsley’s Euclid (Simpkins 1966), the 1661 version printed by John Leeke and George Searle reproduced John Dee’s Mathematicall Praeface—furthermore, this version most likely influenced Moxon’s writing of Mechanical Exercises. Two statements within Dee’s preface on the mathematical nature of architecture are pertinent when considering Moxon: I will appoint the Architect to be that man , who hath the skill , (by a certain and marvellous means and way,) both in mind and Imagination to determine : and also in work to finish : what works so ever, by motion of weight and coupling and framing together of bodies, may most aptly be commodious for the worthiest uses of Man. … And Plato affirmeth the Architect to be Master over all , that make any work. Whereupon, he is neither Smith nor Builder : nor, separately, any Artificer : but the Head, the Provost, the Director, and Judge of all artificial works, and all Artificers. For, the true Architect, is able to teach, demonstrate, distribute, describe, and judge all works wrought.7

The first statement evokes Bacon’s articulation of the mechanical arts’ legitimising value owing to its active improvement of humanity, while the second’s message regarding the architect’s seeming omniscience so resonated with Moxon (1683, 81–2) that he provided an adapted version in the first volume of Mechanick Exercises, or The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing to define the occupation of typographer: By a Typographer, I do not mean a Printer, as he is Vulgarly accounted, any more than Dr. Dee means a Carpenter or Mason to be an Architect : But by a Typographer, I mean such a one, who by his own Judgement, from solid reasoning with himself, can either perform, or direct others to perform from the beginning to the end, all the Handy-works and Physical Operations relating to Typographie. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London: rare book [G.L.] 1683: Moxon, Joseph: Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works. (London, 1683))

Moxon’s Architecture of Letters Moxon first aligned typography with architecture in his Regulæ Trium Ordinum, Literarium Typographicarum: or The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters, which he printed in 1676 under the imprint ‘the Sign of 7

 This material occurs on the 33rd page of the preface. See also Galey et al. (2012, 36).

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Atlas’ at Ludgate Hill. Considering the discussion above regarding the mechanical arts and early modern theories of architecture, specific elements of the title page of The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters become more meaningful. Moxon’s objective is to demonstrate literally how print letters—roman, italic and English (or black letter), as well as large and small capitals—are geometrically constructed using a rule and compass.8 He indicates that he writes for ‘Masters, Painters, Carvers, Masons, and others that are Lovers of Curiosity’. Talbot Baines Reed (1887, 182) stated that ‘[the] work intended not so much for the letter-­ cutter as for the sign-board and inscription painter’; nine years later, Theodore L. de Vinne (1896, xii) identifies only ‘punch-cutters’. More than half a century later, Herbert Davis and Harry Carter (1962, 435) express agreement with Reed when they state that Moxon ‘is prescribing, not for printers, but sign-writers and carvers’; Similarly, Carey S.  Bliss (1965, 17) concludes that ‘[it] is a manual for sign painters and stone masons’. Undoubtedly, Moxon directs his manual to these craftsmen; however, he also acknowledges ‘others that are Lovers of Curiosity’. This phrase embodies Moxon’s deliberate self-positioning, catering for the professional and philosophical; that is, his manual embraces not only craftsmen, such as painters and those employed in the building (or architectural) industry, but also intellectuals interested in the liberal arts. Such strategic self-positioning is again evident when he describes himself as ‘Hydrographer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty’. On the one hand, Moxon identifies himself as craftsman—maker of maps, globes and mathematical instruments—and, on the other, he aligns himself with the Royal Society of London and its Fellows. As observed in Chap. 2, Moxon’s association with the Society most probably began with the Society’s purchase in March 1664 of his mathematical instruments and culminated in July 1678 with his election as a Fellow, two years after his publication of The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters. Moxon was the first tradesman to be elected a Fellow; an appointment the Society had been reluctant to confirm, evidenced by four negative votes, which, according to Michael Hunter (1982), was quite unusual.9 Despite Moxon’s historically tenuous  Note that Henry R. Plomer (1900, 210) explained that Moxon ‘endeavoured to prove that each letter should be cast in exact mathematical proportion’. The inclusion of mathematical rather than geometrical presumably refers to the mathematical quadrivium, of which geometry is a constituent. 9  See also Jagger (1995) and Johns (1998). As Emmons (2006, 275) notes: ‘The Society’s members were primarily virtuosi who identified themselves not as those “who approach their Trades as dull, unavoidable and perpetual employments, but as their Diversions”’. 8

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relationship with the Society, his alignment with the Society on his title page is definitive and strategic: to widen his audience to encompass the professional and philosophical. Moxon strengthens his architectural association by dedicating The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters to Christopher Wren (1632–1723), the recently commissioned architect of the newest St Paul’s Cathedral. Moxon writes on his dedicatory page, on the first recto after the title page: ‘To the Worshipful Sir Christopher Wren, Knight, Surveyor of His Majesty’s Buildings’. Moxon achieves two further objectives with his dedication to Wren; he writes: ‘To You as to a Lover of Rule and Proportion I humbly Dedicate these my Observations upon Letters : If they prove Acceptable to you I have my whole Wish, and shall be careless of the Sleightings or Censures of the Ignorant Contemners of Order and Symmetry.’ The first objective articulates his intention to apply geometrical principles when constructing letters; and the second demonstrates his awareness of the liberal–mechanical arts dissonance in early modern England and his positioning on the side of the mechanical arts, despite anticipated negative criticism. Moxon begins his contemplation of the ‘Regularity and Beauty’ of printed letters by expressing his admiration for those letters ‘that have been cut by the Hand of the Curious Artist Christofel van Dijck’ (1605–70), a Dutch typefounder. During his two-year sojourn in Amsterdam to undertake his training in globe- and map-making, Moxon met with van Dijck in 1652 and discussed the latter’s work on Amsterdam’s City Hall. He recounts this interview in The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters: ‘When the Stadhouse at Amsterdam was finishing, such was the curiosity of the Lords that were the Overseers of the Building, that they offered C. van Dijck aforesaid 80 Pounds Sterling (as himself told me) onely for drawing in Paper the Names of the Several Offices that were painted over the Doors, for the Painters to paint by’ (Moxon 1676, 4). Moxon conveys his admiration for the ‘Proportions and Dimensions’ of van Dijck’s printed letters through comparison—with Vitruvius: Even as Vitruvius did by his Columns ; for he finding, that among the many sorts of Columns that were standing in his time, Five onely were most acceptable, viz. the Tuscan, Dorick, Ionick, Corinthian, and Composite, surveyed their exact Dimensions, and called that Survey, The Rules of the Five Orders of Architecture […]. (p. 3)

The significance of this quotation is apparent: Moxon directly compares van Dijck’s typography with Vitruvius’ architectural principles, and he reveals his own indebtedness to Vitruvius by basing the title of his text on

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Vitruvius’ The Rules of the Five Orders of Architecture. Moxon relates typography with architecture through analogy: ‘every Carpenter can build a great Fabrick ; but if they have not consulted the Rules of Architecture, it is very likely his Building may be preposterous, his several Offices unapt, and his whole Structure deficient, ungraceful, and ridiculous’ (p.  4). Therefore, Moxon concludes that if craftsmen, such as painters, adhere to the rules of van Dijck’s print letters, geometrically fashioned with rule and compass, their crafting of them will become instinctive. Moxon’s (1683, 15) veneration of van Dijck continues intertextually with the publication of Mechanick Exercises six years later: ‘For my own part, I liked their Letters so well, especially those that were Cut by Christophel Van Dijck of Amsterdam, that I set my self to examine the Proportions of all and every the parts and Members of every Letter’.10 Moxon’s ‘examination’ intertextually links back to The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters. Before starting his instruction on ‘architectural’ typography, Moxon (1676, 5–7) provides definitions of pertinent terms, such as large and small capitals; lower-case letters, length (‘the Distance between the Top and Bottom-lines’); the stem (‘the straight fat stroke of the Letter’); fat and lean strokes; parallels (‘The Divisions that are imagined to be made between the Top and Bottom-line’); erects (‘The Divisions that are imagined to be made between the Left Hand and the Right’); parts (‘Divisions [that] are all along throughout this Book’); and a space (not only ‘the Distance between one word and another’ but also ‘7 parts of the whole Length of the Letter’). All definitions coalesce into a theory of architecture of letters, as well as enable Moxon’s readers to comprehend his highly technical rules and descriptions of how each letter is geometrically constructed. For example, reproduced below is Moxon’s discursive instruction on how to construct a roman lower-case letter d: The Belly of d is made like c, all but the Dot in the head , which d hath not. The Projecture of Beak of the Stem is made like a b, but the bottom of the Stem differs ; for d hath a Tail which is as long as the Stem is broad, viz. 3½, from the right hand line of the Stem of d. This Tail is a straight line proceeding from the bottom of the left hand line of the Stem, whose end is raised to parts above the Foot-line. The line of the Tail that proceeds from the right hand line of the Stem, is a straight line parallel to the Foot-line. (p. 21)

Moxon provides his visual exemplar of the lower-case letter d in the end matter, with all the other letters of the alphabet, set in roman, italic and black letter.  See also Moxon et al. (1962, 23), Long (2013, 99) and McKitterick (1993, 21).

10

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Further comparative textual analysis of The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters also reveals that the section titled ‘Some Considerations to be had in the ordering of Inscriptions, &c.’ prepares the transferable, intertextual groundwork for Mechanick Exercises regarding the typesetting of title pages, especially for words with ‘the greatest Emphasis’. Moxon’s treatment on the presentation, or ‘ordering’, of inscriptions in The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters begins with how roman and italics influence, or benefit, the spacing of brief textual elements: ‘If your Inscription be very short, and you have more room to draw it in than you need, you were best make your Letters in Roman or Italick Capitals’ (p. 9). For such instances in which sufficient space allows, two spaces can be placed between each letter in the same word. However, Moxon reminds his readers that if each letter is situated accordingly, ‘they must remember to leave four Spaces at least between each word ; for else there will not be distinction enough between Letter and Letter’ (p. 10). For longer textual elements, he recommends leaving one space between individual letters and two or three spaces between every word. In Mechanick Exercises, Moxon (1683, 221) commences his discussion on title pages in a similar fashion: he states that words of emphasis can be typeset ‘either in Capitals, Roman, Italick or English’; and book titles appear on a separate line and are set with ‘great Bodied Letters of the Lower Case, or else by Capitals, Roman, Italick or English, of a proper Body’. Next, he advises that it is not necessary to insert additional space between letters; however, this might be required to ensure accurate justification, particularly if a word is capitalised: ‘But if that Word be Set in Capitals, he chuses to Set a Space between every Letter, and sometimes he Sets two Spaces.’ Regarding spacing between words, Moxon recommends inserting three spaces between those with one space between individual letters and four spaces between those with two spaces to ‘give a graceful appearance to the Eye, as to make a Visible and proportionable distinction between Word and Word’.11 From this, Mechanical Exercises’s intertextual inheritance is undeniable. Furthermore, analysing The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters manifests not only Moxon’s architecture of letters but also his ambition towards conceiving his architecture of the page. This culminates with the publication of Mechanick Exercises.

 See also Sullivan (2007, 646).

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Moxon’s Architecture of the Page In The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters, Moxon’s (1676, 10) first signposts his movement towards an architecture of the page by mentioning the leading—or spacing between lines—of inscriptions: ‘And you may allow 12 parts void between Line and Line, besides the 12 parts that are in all Capital Letters (except Q and J) void between the Foot and Bottom-­ lines.’ From leading, Moxon casts his attention to justification and alignment: ‘Be sure to forecast, that in a large Inscription of a continued series of Discourse, each Line be exactly of the same length ; unless it be where a Break is proper to be made, for then you may end either in the middle or anywhere else on the Line’. However, this rule does not apply to inscriptions in verse, where the lines can terminate at any length—presumably within the silent demarcations of the surface being worked on. Moxon next urges his readers to avoid placing an individual word on a line by itself, designated today as an ‘orphan’: ‘it is not graceful to end a Break with a short word onely [sic] in a line, because it seems too like a White-­ line’. To prevent such occurrences, Moxon suggests inserting additional space between the words (labelled later as ‘kerning’ by John Smith in The Printer’s Grammar in 1755) of the previous two or three lines so that the break line comprises at least three words. From this, Moxon focuses on the indentation of new lines and their capitalisation: ‘When you begin new matter after a Break, you must indent your Line four Spaces at least, and make the first Letter a Capital’ (p. 11). To assist his readers’ comprehension, Moxon provides two different layouts for inscriptions: the first features tight kerning; and the second, loose kerning (pp. 12–13). Both are reminiscent of—or emulate—title pages. Moxon fulfils this promise in Mechanick Exercises, as observed in Chap. 2. While Moxon’s instruction in The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters corresponds to the construction of individual letters, specifically, and title pages, more broadly, Mechanick Exercises concentrates on the construction on the entire page, specifically, and books, more broadly.12 Moxon’s ‘architectural page’ discussion starts at Number XIV, ‘Mechanick Exercises: 12  Moxon (1683, 275) uses architectural theory when discussing pressmen’s work: ‘But though this be the Rules of Architecture, the strongest, firmest, and most concise method for Bracing-up a Press, yet will not the Room the Press is to stand in always admit of convenience to place the Braces thus: Therefore the Press-man ought to consider the conveniences of the Room, both for the places to fit the Braces to, and the positions to set the Braces in; placing his Braces as correspondent as he can to these Rules’.

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Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Compositor’s Trade’, and details the justification and spacing of copy; the placement of directions and signatures; the typesetting of title pages; the presentation of headings and large multi-lined capitals and the setting of body text after each; the indentation of body text after break lines, as well as the avoidance of widows, orphans and excessive white space on the page; and the rendering of marginalia. Particular editorial aspects relating to body text on the page involve the setting of proper nouns, words of ‘great emphasis’, capital letters, and obsolete English and foreign-language words. Hence, Moxon effectively communicates how an entire page is to be typeset from top to bottom. Moreover, as the first printer’s manual to appear in English, Mechanick Exercises’s architecture of the page not only represents a standardising necessity for the contemporary print trade but also a textual means to document the living page—Moxon’s instruction emulates current practice. A textual analysis of Moxon’s A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie verifies this conclusion.

A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie: Documenting the Living Page Recent scholarship on the evolution of typographical elements on the page supports the concept of Moxon’s documenting the living page through his architectural typography; this scholarship extends from twelfth-century scribal culture to the mid-seventeenth-century print trade. Twelfth-century scribal mis-en-page appeared remarkably innovative. A common component in biblical texts, glosses were placed in the margins or interlineally and typeset in a smaller typeface than the body text. ‘Display’ scripts conveyed hierarchies within the text: primary display scripts featured in title pages and headings; secondary, in the first words of ‘a major division of text’; and tertiary, for litterae notabiliores (Parkes 2008a, b; Smith 1994). Scribes re-introduced running titles, which became standard from the thirteenth century.13 Mark Bland (1998) and Nicolas Barker (1981, 2010) provide similar but independent historical 13  Walsham and Crick (2004, 10) have reiterated Parkes’s (2008b) observations, albeit for socio–political context: ‘as Malcolm Parkes has argued, the patterns of reasoning and interrogation of authorities integral to scholastic learning caused changes in the organisation and layout of texts, as well as the evolution of increasingly sophisticated systems of glossing and

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analyses of early modern page typography. For example, in the fifteenth century, rules became a prevailing feature, such as whole-page framing and for typesetting tables; the sixteenth century witnessed the beginnings of the demise of black letter and the inclusion of decorative borders and ornaments, such as on title and first pages; while, at the start of the seventeenth century, leading appeared between lines of verse text and, according to Bland (1998, 93–4), there was a ‘shift from the page as a solid block of text to a more open grouping of typographical elements’. Moxon’s A Tutor to Astronomy and Geography stands as living witness to these observations, as well as those mentioned earlier. The first three editions of Moxon’s A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie will be considered: their typographical evolution and disparities exemplify both his architecture of the page and living documentation. Printed in 1659 and 1670, respectively, the title pages of the first and second editions designate Moxon as author, printer and bookseller, using the ‘signe of Atlas’ imprint albeit at different locations: the first edition at ‘Corn-hill’; the second, at Russell Street—his Cornhill premises and the majority of his stock were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, which motivated his relocation to Russell Street in 1669 (Long 2013).14 Printed in 1674 and with identical imprint, the third edition was sold by Moxon at his ‘Ludgate-Hill’ premises but printed by Thomas Roycroft (shortened to ‘Tho. Roycroft’ in the imprint). While the reason behind Moxon’s decision not to print his third edition remains unexplained, the change of printer reveals much: the first and second editions manifest typographical similarities; the third edition, differences. Consistent with the previous section’s discussion, the following will be considered during the textual analysis of Moxon’s page architecture: the typesetting of title pages; the justification and spacing of copy (including leading and kerning); the application of rules, such as for running heads; and the presentation of headings, and large multi-lined capitals. All three editions of A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie present architectural-style title pages, consistent with Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters (see Fig. 3.1). For the latter, as mentioned, Moxon writes that if an inscription is very short and mechanisms of reference, including the use of running titles, indexes and tables of contents’; see Alexandra Walsham and Julia Crick, ‘Introduction: Script, print and history’. 14  According to Long (2013), at the time of the fire, Moxon had two premises: Ludgate Hill and Cornhill.

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Fig. 3.1  The title page of the first edition of Moxon’s (1659) A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London)

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space is sufficient, roman and italic capitals are preferred; additionally, two spaces are placed between individual letters and four spaces between each word—that is, a loose kerning. For longer inscriptions, one space is left between individual letters and two or three spaces between each word—a tighter kerning. In Mechanick Exercises, Moxon reiterates this instruction, as well as stipulates that words of emphasis are typeset in capitals, roman italic or black letter, and that book titles appear on a separate line in a larger typeface as lower case, otherwise as capitals in roman, italic or black letter. Moxon’s final note on typesetting title pages involves the ‘Whites’— or the leading—between the lines. The space allocated depends on the amount of content to be typeset and the page’s justification: ‘[The compositor] Justifies his Page in Length, either by adding more Whites (where they may be proper) if his Page be too short, or by taking out or diminishing Whites if the Page be too long’ (Moxon 1683, 221–2). Both first and second editions present degrees of tight kerning and varied stylistic applications to express emphasis. The first edition’s short main book title A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie features centred justification and, what appears to be, two spaces between individual letters and at least three spaces between each word, with a combination of roman and italic capitals and lower case, with the italicised capitals communicating emphasis. The ensuing lengthier subtitle is similarly presented and centred, albeit with looser kerning. The first half of the subtitle, ‘Or an Easie and speedy way to know the Use of both the’, comprises mostly roman lower-case letters over two lines, with the adjective ‘Easie’ and the noun ‘Use’ capitalised to reinforce the text’s utilitarian nature. The next word in the subtitle, ‘GLOBES’, is independently placed across the entire line, set in a significantly larger typeface and entirely capitalised to advertise the text’s cartographic focus. This theme continues for the subtitle’s next line, ‘Cœlestial and Terrestrial’, the two types of globes to be considered; title capitalisation emphasises the globes’ nature, whereas the lowercase italics set in a smaller typeface conveys less emphasis. The subtitle finishes on the fifth line, with ‘In six BOOKS’, and displays the smallest typeface employed thus far, with a roman lower-case–capital combination. The maximal capitalisation of ‘BOOKS’ signposts the numerical list below it, describing each book. Besides the ‘book’ list and imprint at the bottom of the page, which maintain centred justification, the remainder of the text is left aligned with full justification and typeset with a hanging indent for each paragraph’s second and consecutive lines. These lines offer immediate ‘content-like’ information for readers, despite the book

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containing a detailed eight-page contents section. The hanging indent is a recurring feature among his publications, such as Sacred Chronologie (1648), A Tutor to Astronomie & Geographie, or the Use of Copernican Spheres; In Two Books (1665), Practical Perspective, or Perspective Made Easie (1670) and Mechanick Exercises (1683).15 While Moxon did not include instructions regarding hanging indents in Mechanick Exercises, the contemporary practice was described by printer Caleb Stower (1808, 168) in The Printer’s Grammar: ‘The contents follow the preface or introduction, and are either set in Roman or Italic, generally of a size smaller than the body of the work; the first line of each summary full, and the rest indented an m-quadrat, with the referring figures justified at the ends of the respective lines.’ Lastly, Moxon affords greater leading between the lines for the main title and subtitle, as well as above and below the authorial line. In Mechanick Exercises, Moxon states that body text typeset in roman requires proper nouns to be set in italic; in contrast, body text in italic necessitates proper nouns in roman. Nonetheless, all proper nouns begin with a capital. Words of great emphasis are typeset in italic and, depending on the distinction to be conveyed, sometimes start with a capital. Nouns of emphasis also begin with a capital; however, those of lesser emphasis can be set in roman. The title pages of the first three editions of A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie adhere to these directives. Since title pages are typeset in roman, proper nouns are capitalised and appear in italics (‘Gemma Frisius, Metius, Hues, Wright, Blaew’); this is equally the case for emphatical words and nouns (‘Astronomical’ and ‘Spherical Triangles’). Other italicised elements are auxiliary book components (‘a Discourse of the Antiquity, Progress and Augmentation of Atronomie’) and scriptural excerpts (‘Job 26. 13. By his Spirit he hath garnished the Heavens: His Hand hath framed the crooked Serpents’). While not considered in Mechanical Exercises, the rule for italicising ‘different Parts and Fragments, abstracted from the Body of a work’ and ‘literal citations from Scripture’ was provided approximately 70 years later by John Smith in The Printer’s Grammar. The book list on the title page is significant because of the inclusion of braces to separate varying sections of text; its tabulating function also 15  The Davis and Carter (1962) edition of Mechanick Exercises includes reproductions for most titles; see pp. 410, 423 and 430.

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serves to indicate textual omission. That is, the first set of braces encloses the numerical list; and the second, the names of the enumerated items. Hence, the braces perform similarly to the rules dividing table columns, keeping the textual elements both together and distinct. The words outside the braces relate to each matter within; therefore, only one articulation is required instead of six. Moxon’s brief, albeit only, allusion to the editorial nature of braces occurs in the glossary of Mechanick Exercises: ‘Brace, is a Character Cast in Mettle […] The Compositor is to have these Cast of several Breadths, viz. to several numbers of Lines of a designed Body (most commonly of Pica Body) that they may hook in or Brace so many Lines as his Copy may shew him’ (Moxon 1683, 370). For regulations regarding braces, it is necessary to refer to Smith’s Printer’s Grammar, in which Smith instructs his readers comprehensively on how braces are used not only for diverse textual elements, such as tables, and omission (‘Braces are used chiefly in Tables of Accounts, and other such-­like matter that consists of a variety of Articles, which would require much circumlocution, were it not for the curious method of Table Writing’), but also for title pages: ‘Braces, sometimes, are used instead of Rules, especially in Titles of books, where the Heads of the principal Parts are recited in two columns that do not exceed the depths of a Brace’ (Smith 1755, 127–9). Moxon employs rules for the latter half of the title page of A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie to partition different items of information, most notably the author line, the edition, noteworthy end matter, scriptural citations and the imprint. Moxon’s solitary reference to rules—or, more specifically, brass rules—occurs at the beginning of Mechanick Exercises when he describes the fount of all bodies of letter; however, his discussion relates only to physical printing, not the editorial purpose of rules: ‘He [the master printer] also provides Brass Rules of about Sixteen Inches long, that the Compositor may cut them into such Lengths as his Work requires’ (Moxon 1683, 18). Using rules to separate sections of text was commonplace from the fifteenth century as recounted briefly by Bland (1998, 101), and more particularly by Barker (2010, 249): ‘They were already in use in the fifteenth century, some visibly cast in type-mould, others already made differently, being drawn in strips, probably in brass, as they certainly were later. The first use of such rules was utilitarian, for tables.’ Their first editorial mention figures in Smith’s (1755, 122) The Printer’s Grammar: ‘Rules are either Brass rules, Metal rules, or Space rules ; whereof the first are made by Joiners, and the other two sorts cast by Letter Founders.’ Smith not only reiterates Moxon’s measurement of

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brass rules—‘Brass rules being commonly cut to the length of sixteen inches, their equality, as to height from end to end, is not always to be depended on’—but also imparts advice for compositors regarding their use in tables: ‘The thickness of Rules for Table-work should be proportionable to their Face, without so much Sholder as shall hinder a cross rule to join a perpendicular line’ (p. 123). The first half of the second edition’s title page is virtually identical to that of the first edition (two dissimilarities are the naming of the sixth book: the first edition includes ‘Of Spherical Triangles’, whereas the second has ‘Trigonometrical Problemes’; and the second edition contains an ‘Appendix shewing the use of the Ptolomaick Sphere’); however, the second half is conspicuously different, owing to the ‘Corrected, enlarged’ nature of the second edition and the 11-year publication gap between the two editions. The first difference is the author line: the first edition features only Moxon’s name in full and italicised; the second edition includes not only Moxon’s name identically presented but also the edition number (‘The second Edition, Corrected and enlarged’) and Moxon’s additional professional title (‘Hydrographer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty’). The second involves the scriptural citations: while the first edition displays one-sentence excerpts from Psalms and Job, each occupying two lines, the second edition includes only the latter. And the third, as mentioned earlier, concerns the imprint: the first edition was sold at Moxon’s ‘Corn-hill’ premises; the second, at Russell Street. Despite these disparities, the first and second editions represent a united typographical treatment: Moxon’s architecture of the page, as delineated in Mechanick Exercises. While Moxon authored the third edition, three noticeable alterations indicate a different hand at work—that of Thomas Roycroft. The first alteration is the wider text measure and slightly tighter kerning to accommodate additional copy. The second is the application of black letter to typeset ‘In Six Books’ in the subtitle and the separate edition line (‘The Third Edition Corrected and Enlarged’). The third is the scriptural citation: similar to the second edition, the third includes only the one from Job; however, for the latter, the citation is expanded into two sentences rather than one. In addition, the scriptural reference ‘Job XXVI. 7.13’ uses Roman numerals, not Arabic (‘Job 26.7.13’ for the second edition), and is centred on a separate line. Given their prevalence in the late seventeenth century, it is perplexing that Moxon neglects to include running heads in his page architecture outlined in Mechanick Exercises. Barker (2010, 249) connects their layout with that of title pages during his analysis of Dryden’s translation of Virgil

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(1697): ‘the title page […] is enclosed in a double-rule border horizontally divided by single rules, echoes in running headlines’. Smith supplies the necessary contemporary perspective in The Printer’s Grammar. On the first recto page of body text, double rules are inserted ‘at the Head’— the place occupied by the ‘Running title’ from the second typeset page— though this produces conspicuous white space immediately underneath. Smith (1755, 207) states that this space is filled ‘by driving the Head out so much more, unless it should be thought best to drive the Head-piece down as much as the Running title makes’. Regarding the presentation of running heads, Smith writes: [N]ow to the Second page ; to which we begin to set the Running title, in proportion to the Letter of the work, and according to the quantity of the matter, either in all Capitals, Small Capitals, or Italic : for it not often that Running titles are so concise as to admit of being set in large Capitals ; but are commonly divided into two lines ; and sometimes made very troublesome to the Compositor besides, by crowding the Parts and Sub-parts of a work, such as Book, Chap. &c. into corners of them ; or by changing the Running title with the Head of every Chapter […]. (p. 208)

Simply put, early modern running heads were typeset using capitals, small capitals, italics or a combination of these elements. If too long, they were separated over the verso–recto pages; otherwise overcrowding on the line could result. An option available to the compositor to prevent overcrowding was altering the running head copy from the publication title to a more accommodating book section. The first recto page of the second volume of Mechanick Exercises features a virtually empty double-rule running header, with the heading driven down to fill space, which is consistent with Smith’s instruction (see Fig.  3.2); however, the abbreviated subsection number (with full stop) and folio reside above the double rule but at opposite ends. Each ­double-­page spread thereafter presents running heads with a single rule underneath only, with the verso and recto using a combination of roman, italics, capitals and black letter, and containing different text (see Fig. 3.3). The verso running head comprises the folio ‘200’ near the left-hand margin, the publication name ‘Mechanick Exercises’ (with full stop) in the middle and the main abbreviated section number (also with full stop) close to the right-hand margin. Analogous to the first recto of body text, the recto of the double-page spread includes the abbreviated subsection

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Fig. 3.2  The first recto page of the second volume of Moxon’s (1683, 197) Mechanick Exercises. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London)

Fig. 3.3  Verso–recto running heads in the second volume of Moxon’s (1683, 200–201) Mechanick Exercises. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London)

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­ umber and folio on opposing sides, with the main section title ‘The n Compositors TRADE’ in the middle. Moxon (1659) employs a similar technique in the first edition of A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. The first recto of body text features the page number close to the right-hand outside margin only (see Fig. 3.4); however, the ensuing verso–recto running heads exhibit differing treatment albeit in accordance with Smith’s instruction. Centred within a double rule and typeset with roman, italics and title capitalisation, the publication name is divided from verso to recto and the page number appears near the outside margin (Fig. 3.5). For the second edition, Moxon (1670, 2–3) deviates from this technique by inserting more information in the running heads than the first edition, albeit a comparable amount to that in Mechanick Exercises. For the first recto, the folio remains near the outside right-hand margin; however, the book number ‘Book I.’ is situated on the opposite side. For the verso of the first double-page spread, the folio identically resides besides the outside left-hand margin, with the entire publication name ‘A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie’ in the middle and the book number near the inside right-hand margin; the recto repeats the book number and folio on opposing sides but places the book name Rudiments of Astronomie and Geographie in the centre. The third edition emulates the second edition’s method; however, the publication and book titles inserted in the respective verso and recto running heads feature black letter. For the presentation of headings, Moxon (1683, 222) dictates in Mechanick Exercises that the compositor ‘Sets the Title of the Chapter or Section in a bigger Body and different Character than his Material is Set in; and if the Matter be Set in English Roman, he Sets the Title in Great Primer or Double Pica Italick, but the Words of Emphasis he will Set in Roman, and varies the Character for them as well in the Title, as he does in the Matter’. Simply put, if the compositor uses roman to typeset the textual matter, the chapter or section heading should be italic; however, if the heading contains words of emphasis, these words should be similarly set as roman. In regard to headings’ alignment and spacing, Moxon advises that if the title is short, the compositor applies centred justification ‘by Setting Quadrats on both sides’; if too long, he maintains centred justification, though over several lines with specific indentation: ‘If it make three or more Lines, he Indents the first with an m Quadrat, and the other with

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Fig. 3.4  The first recto page of the first edition of Moxon’s (1659, 1) A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London)

Fig. 3.5  Verso–recto running heads of the first edition of Moxon’s (1659, 2–3) A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London)

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two m Quadrats’. Moxon adheres to this practice in both Mechanick Exercises and all editions of A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. Chapters or sections after headings begin with a large multi-lined capital, full out—namely, ‘a Two-lin’d Letter, or Three or Four-lin’d Letter, but Indents it not’. The subsequent letter in the same word is typeset as a capital, with the ensuing text indented in line with the top and bottom of the large capital: ‘he Sets a Capital Letter of the Body his Matter is of, and Indents all, those Lines that are to fill up the Great Letter with an n Quadrat’ (Moxon 1683, 223). Textual analyses of Moxon’s publications reveal he became progressively more restrained in his presentation of multi-lined capitals. Moxon’s (1659, 35) first edition of A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie comprises three floral multi-lined capitals, each occupying approximately one-sixteenth of a page or less: the first, in the preliminary section ‘To the Reader’, requires a depth of seven lines (see Fig. 3.6); the second, on the second recto page of the first book, with a depth of three lines (p. 3); and the third, on the first recto page of the second book, nine lines (p. 35). Successive multi-line capitals in A Tutor to Astronomie and

Fig. 3.6  Decorative multi-lined capital in the ‘To the Reader’ section of the first edition of Moxon’s (1659) A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London)

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Geographie are plainly typeset in bold with a two- or three-line depth; however, all multi-lined capitals that prefix words of two or more letters, whether decorative or plain, are followed by a normal capital, with the remainder of the word set in lower case. Moxon published in 1665 the second edition of Vignola and A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie, or the Use of the Copernican Spheres; In Two Books at his Ludgate Hill premises; both manifest similar techniques to the aforementioned first edition, though their capitals consume less space. Vignola also contains two decorative multi-lined capitals: the first, in the ‘To the Ingenious Artist’ preliminary matter, boasts a detailed floral treatment occupying six lines (Moxon 1665b, A2); and the second, in the first book section, a variation on the floral theme with an identical line depth (p. 16). All other two- or three-line capitals are bold. Similar to Vignola, both the preliminary dedication and ‘To the Reader’, as well as the first pages, of the two-book A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie feature elaborately diverse multi-lined capitals, with the two- or three-line remainder set in bold (Moxon 1665a). Published in 1674, the third edition of A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie typifies restraint: only plain, bold two- or three-line capitals are present. While Moxon enjoyed a brief hiatus in 1676 with the printing of The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters— the dedicatory page to Christopher Wren and first recto page exhibited respectively four-and eight-line capitals dissimilar to those considered so far (Moxon 1676, i, 1)—he resumed his sobriety with Mechanick Exercises in 1683: mostly three- or four-line plain, bold large capitals introduce main book sections. Hence, Moxon’s progressively sober practice could be perceived to herald the eighteenth-century typographic shift embodied by Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar, to be discussed in Chap. 4.16 In conclusion, returning to the basic question posed in the introduction to this chapter: did Moxon practise what he preached—that is, did his publications use, and therefore represent, the editorial practices delineated in his manual? The answer is unquestionably in the affirmative. Moxon inherited, benefited from and capitalised on the early modern dissonance regarding theories of architecture—or, more generally, between the liberal 16  Another reason for this sobriety might be the Great Fire of London in 1666, as William Blades (1888, 10) has observed for books more generally though no less applicable for cases of type: ‘At the Great Fire of London in 1666, the number of books burnt was enormous. Not only in private houses and Corporate and Church libraries were priceless collections reduced to cinders, but an immense stock of books removed from Paternoster Row by the Stationers for safety was burnt to ashes in the vaults of St Paul’s Cathedral’.

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and mechanical arts—to conceptualise his architecture of the page. He began this journey through his publication of Vignola (1655); and he built his architecture of letters in The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters (1676), which served as his conceptual groundwork. The journey culminated with Mechanick Exercises (1683)—however, not just culminating but also practising and then sublimating with his subsequent publications, such as the first three editions A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. By practising what he preached in this consistent fashion, Moxon succeeded in documenting the early modern living page. In other words— and invoking Gary  Taylor who states that ‘[t]exts are not just isolated material objects; texts are also material agents made by material objects, catalysing other material agents’ (O’Connor 2014, i)—it is evident from the above enumeration that Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises needs to be viewed not as a material object in isolation, but as one whose creation embodied and finalised work conducted previously. Furthermore, Mechanick Exercises was influential not just as a solitary manual to the early modern English print trade for educating numerous stakeholders and informing their daily book-making tasks and the authors of subsequent style guides who reproduced liberally from it (this will become apparent in later chapters). It was also a catalyst for the trade moving into the eighteenth century by furnishing it with the necessary blueprint, or template, for typesetting and correcting successive publications.

References Bacon, Francis. 1605. The Tvvoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Aduancement of Learning, Diuine and Humane to the King, of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning. London: Printed by Thomas Purfoot and Thomas Creede for Henrie Tomes, and Are to Be Sould at His Shop at Graies Inne Gate in Holborne. Barker, Nicolas. 1981. Typography and the Meaning of Words: The Revolution in the Layout of Books in the Eighteenth Century. In The Book and the Book Trade in Eighteenth-Century Europe, ed. Giles Barber and Bernhard Fabian, 127–165. Hamburg: Dr Ernst Hauswedell & Co. ———. 2010. The Morphology of the Page. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume V: 1695–1830, ed. Michael F. Suarez and Michael L. Turner, 248–267. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blades, William. 1888. The Enemies of Books. London: Elliott Stock. Bland, Mark. 1998. The Appearance of the Text in Early Modern England. Text 11: 91–154.

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Bliss, Carey S. 1965. Some Aspects of Seventeenth Century Printing with Special Reference to Joseph Moxon. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California. Chartier, Roger. 2014. The Author’s Hand and the Printer’s Mind. Trans. Lydia G. Cochrane. Cambridge: Polity Press. De Liso, Nicola. 2013. From Mechanical Arts to the Philosophy of Technology. Economics of Innovation and New Technology: 726–750. https://doi.org/10.1 080/10438599.2013.795777. de Sancto Victore, H., and J. Taylor. 1991. The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts. New York: Columbia University Press. Dee, John, John Leeke, and George Y. Searle. 1661. Euclid’s Elements of Geometry in XV Books : With a Supplement of Divers Propositions and Corollaries. To Which Is Added a Treatise of Regular Solids. London: Printed, by R. & W. Leybourn, for George Sawbridge at the Bible upon Ludgate-hill. Eiseley, Loren C. 1961. Francis Bacon as Educator. Science (New York, N.Y.) 133 (3460): 1197–1201. Emmons, Paul. 2006. Architecture Before Art: Imagining Architectural Authority in Early Modern England. Architectural Research Quarterly 10: 275–283. Galey, Alan, Jon Bath, Rebecca Niles, and Richard Cunningham. 2012. Imagining the Architectures of the Book: Textual Scholarship and the Digital Book Arts. Textual Cultures: Text, Contexts, Interpretation 7 (2): 20–42. https://doi. org/10.2979/textcult.7.2.20. Hugh, of St Victor & Taylor, Jerome. 1961. The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor: a Medieval Guide to the Arts. Trans. From Latin by Jerome Taylor. New York: Columbia University. Hunter, Michael. 1982. The Royal Society and Its Fellows 1660–1770: The Morphology of an Early Scientific Institution. Chalfont St Giles: The British Society for the History of Science. Jagger, Graham. 1995. Joseph Moxon, FRS, and the Royal Society. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 49 (2): 193–208. Janssen, Frans A. 1991. Author and Printer in the History of Typographical Design. Quærendo 21 (1): 11–37. Johns, Adrian. 1998. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Long, Derek A. 2013. ‘At the Sign of Atlas’: The Life and Work of Joseph Moxon, a Restoration Polymath. Donington: Shaun Tyas. McKitterick, David. 1993. The Acceptable Face of Print. In An Index of Civilisation: Studies of Printing and Publishing Hinstory in Honour of Keith Maslen, ed. R. Harvey, W. Kirsop, and B.J. McMullin, 15–30. Clayton: Centre for Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Monash University. Moxon, Joseph. 1659. A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie: Or an Easie and Speedy Way to Know the Use of Both the Globes, Cœlestial and Terrestrial. In Six

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Books. London: Printed by Joseph Moxon: And Sold at His Shope on Corn-hill, at the Signe of Atlas. ———. 1665a. A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie, or the Use of the Copernican Spheres; in Two Books. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon, and Sold at His Shop on Ludgate Hill, Neer Fleet Bridge, at the Signe of Atlas. ———. 1665b. Vignola, or, The Compleat Architect Shewing in a Plain and Easie Way, the Rules of the Five Orders in Architecture : viz. Tuscan, Dorick, Ionick, Corinthian & Composite: Whereby Any That Can but Read and Understand English May Readily Learn the Proportions That All Members in a Building Have One unto Another, ed. Joseph Moxon. 2nd ed. London: Printed by W. Leybourn for Joseph Moxon, and Sold at His Shop on Ludgate Hill, Neer Fleet Bridge, at the Signe of Atlas. ———. 1670. A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie: Or an Easie and Speedy Way to Know the Use of Both the Globes, Cœlestial and Terrestrial. In Six Books. 2nd ed. London: Printed by Joseph Moxon: And Sold at His Shop in Russell Street, at the Signe of Atlas. ———. 1676. Regulæ Trium Ordinum Literarum Typographicarum, or, The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters viz. the Roman, Italick, English Capitals and Small: Shewing How They Are Compounded of Geometrick Figures, and Mostly Made by Rule and Compass, Useful for Writing Masters, Painters, Carvers, Masons, and Others That Are Lovers of Curiosity. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon. ———. 1677. Mechanick Exercises, or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works Began Jan. 1, 1677, and Intended to Be Monthly Continued. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon at the Sign of Atlas, Ludgate-Hill. ———. 1683. Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. The Second Volumne [sic]. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the Sign of Atlas. Moxon, Joseph, and Theodore De Vinne. 1896. Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises, or the Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing : A Literal Reprint in Two Volumes of the First Edition Published in the Year 1683. New  York: Typothetæ of the City of New York. Moxon, Joseph, Herbert Davis, and Harry Carter. 1962. Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing (1683–4). 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press. O’Connor, Francis X. 2014. Literary Folios and Ideas of the Book in Early Modern England. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Parkes, M.B. 2008a. Handwriting in English Books. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume 2: 1100–1400, ed. Rodney M. Thomson and Nigel Morgan, 110–135. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2008b. Layout and Presentation of the Text. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume II: 1100–1400, ed. Nigel Morgan and Rodney M. Thomson, 55–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Plomer, Henry R. 1900. A Short History of English Printing, 1476–1898. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Company, Limited. Reed, Talbot Baines. 1887. A History of the Old English Letter Foundries, with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C. Robert, Arnăutu. 2011. The Renaissance Conception Regarding Technology. Journal for Communication and Culture 1 (2): 141. Simpkins, Diana M. 1966. Early Editions of Euclid in England. Annals of Science 22 (4): 225–249. https://doi.org/10.1080/00033796600203155. Smith, John. 1755. The Printer’s Grammar. London: Printed for the Editor; and Sold by W.  Owen, Near Temple Bar; and by M.  Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row. Smith, Margaret M. 1994. The Design Relationship Between the Manuscript and the Incunable. In A Millenium of the Book: Production, Design & Illumination in Manuscript & Print 900–1900, ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris, 23–44. Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies. Stower, Caleb. 1808. The Printer’s Grammar; or, Introduction to the Art of Printing: A Concise History of the Art, with the Improvements in the Practice of Printing, for the Last Fifty Years. London: Printed by the Editor, 32, Paternoster Row, for B. Crosby and Co. Stationers’-Court. Sullivan, Ceri. 2007. Disposable Elements? Indications of Genre in Early Modern Titles. Modern Language Review 102 (3): 641–653. Walsham, Alexandra, and Julia Crick. 2004. Introduction: Script, Print and History. In The Uses of Script and Print, 1300–1700, ed. Alexandra Walsham and Julia Crick, 1–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitney, Elspeth. 1990. Paradise Restored. The Mechanical Arts from Antiquity Through the Thirteenth Century. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 80 (1): 1–169. https://doi.org/10.2307/1006521.

CHAPTER 4

The Pinnacle of Editorial Style in Eighteenth-Century England: John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar

Textual analysis of John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar reveals its significance to book-history research and editorial theory. First, its contribution to print culture in early modern England was unparalleled. Certainly, Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises preceded Smith’s grammar as the English print trade’s first manual, as observed by David McKitterick (2003, 171): ‘The needs of the English-speaking printer, rather than of the historian, were […] left to Moxon, whose Mechanick Exercises (1683–4) remained the only available extended treatment of the practice of printing until the publication of John Smith’s Printer’s Grammar in 1755.’ Nevertheless, Smith’s manual was the first to instruct the English print trade on the specifics of punctuation, thereby fostering the standardisation of editorial style. Second, Smith’s manual both coincided with, and became representative of, three fundamental shifts in the eighteenth century: first, from elaborate typography to a more sober treatment (such as restrictions placed on the application of italic); second, from rhetorical to grammatical punctuation (more emphasis on the written word over the spoken); and third, from permissive to a more regulated orthography. In this way, progress towards editorial standardisation and the three eighteenth-­century shifts intersect but cannot be understood without reference to each other.

© The Author(s) 2019 J. Hargrave, The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England, New Directions in Book History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20275-0_4

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The Elusive John Smith Precious little is known about John Smith (fl. 1755). The blurb for The Printer’s Grammar on the first recto page in the preliminary matter of Cambridge University Press’s 2014 facsimile edition attests to Smith’s biographical elusiveness: The author of this 1755 work is unknown—John Smith may not even have been his real name—but internal evidence from the book suggests that he may have spent some time in northern Germany, and he also shows familiarity with aspects of French printing. Smith describes the typesetting of books but not the actual printing, so it is possible that he may have been a compositor or a printer’s reader. (Smith 2014)

Similarly relying on internal evidence, James Mosley (2009, 169) has observed that ‘the addition of “Regiom” to [Smith’s] name on the title page suggests that he came from Königsberg. Smith’s text shows that his familiarity with trade practice in Germany and France as well as England’. Mosley (2007) noted this earlier on his blog, Typefoundry, observing that ‘Regiom’ is an abbreviation of Regiomontanus, which means ‘pertaining to Königsberg’ in Latin, a well-known epithet for German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Müller von Königsberg (1436–76) (Byrne 2006, 41). But while Smith’s association with the German town appears confirmed, his origins remain unknown. Smith’s familiarity with the German print trade, both its personages and technical practice, is evidenced in The Printer’s Grammar. Examples of the first are his personal references to German printer Samuel Struck (1671–1720): ‘This account I have of Mr. Struke [sic], a Printer at Lubec, who did cast, for his own use, not only large-siz’d letters for titles, but also a sufficient quantity of two-lined English’ (Smith 1755, 10); and to German letter-founder Samuel Jalleson, who lived temporarily in London ‘in the Old Bailey ; where he printed the greatest Part of an Hebrew Bible, with Letter of his own casting’ (p. 31). The second manifests in his discussion on, for example, the German print trade’s reluctance to replace black letter for roman (p. 3), their typesetting of quotation marks in comparison to English and French practices (pp. 90–91), casting spaces ‘to several irregular thicknesses, to make true Spacing more easy’ (p. 111), the placement of matter alongside two-line letters (p. 121), and their claim to the ‘invention of cutting in wood […] tho’ the Italians seem to have a prior right’ (p. 135).

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The only other biographical information, albeit brief, discovered to date appears in Charles H. Timperley’s A Dictionary of Printers and Printing and the first volume of E. C. Bigmore and C. W. H. Wyman’s A Bibliography of Printing. Timperley (1839, 694) supplies the precise publication date of 1 November 1754 for The Printer’s Grammar, rather than the 1755 on the title page, and relates that ‘Smith appears to have died in the following year’. While Bigmore and Wyman (1884, 365) differ from Timperley by identifying a publication date of ‘July 1755’, their review of the grammar points out its unfinished state resulting from Smith’s possibly unexpected death: ‘A good practical work on types and composition, which has formed the basis for many subsequent grammars. The press-­work for a printer’s business is entirely omitted, the author having died before the completion of this work.’ Bigmore and Wyman provide further evidence in the following paragraph on the same page: It may be interesting to state that in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. xxiv., p. 535, among the ‘Books published,’ is enumerated : ‘The Printers’ [sic] Grammar, No. I.  Owen.’ At page 335, vol. xxv., among the books mentioned as having been published in July, 1755, is ‘The Printers’ Grammar,’ by J. Smith (5s. Owen). This would seem to imply that the work was originally published, or intended to be published, in numbers.

Internal evidence in The Printer’s Grammar verifies Smith’s protracted illhealth (‘For tho’ infirmities and ailments are become habitual to me’ [p. i]1) and his eager intention to write a follow-up, despite implied opposition to the venture (‘I am unwilling to lay aside the thoughts I have entertained of compiling a Sequel to this Part, containing The History and Present State of Printing ; for which undertaking I would hope the favour and indulgence of the Public’ [p. iv]). Consequently, an analysis Smith’s manual as a textual artefact—both its structure and content, or minutiae—is provided in this chapter to remedy this historical silence, particularly in regard to understanding Smith’s contribution to the standardisation of editorial style.

 Smith mentions his ill-health again two pages later, stating that this ‘Volume […] has been compiled under such disadvantages as well as of body as of mind’. 1

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Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar was printed in London in 1755 by, most probably, Samuel Richardson2 and distributed by ‘W. Owen, near Temple Bar ; and by M. Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row’. Smith (1755, i) declares in his preface that the ‘publication of the following Essay is the result of a resolution to make a stand against the joint disasters that long have harassed me, and threaten to pursue me to the last confines of retreat’ and that he ‘was on a sudden prompted to think of guarding against their further incroachments [sic]’. These intriguing statements could be interpreted as a type of ‘call to arms’ against the faulty practices exhibited by stakeholders in the British book trade, such as authors (in terms of poor presentation of manuscript copy) and compositors and/or printers (unskilled or erroneous typesetting), as similarly communicated in the early seventeenth century by Hieronymus Hornschuch in Orthotyographia. Here, Hornschuch (1972, ix–x) confessed that ‘[for] since every day [he] had to struggle almost more with monstrously faulty manuscripts than with printers’ errors [he] began to think more and more by what means a solution could be found for this deplorable situation’. Smith’s nineteenth-century critics, namely T. C. Hansard and Timperley (who reproduces Hansard almost verbatim), observe merely that ‘[he], from his own acknowledgment, appears to have compiled his book under very adverse circumstances, and solely with a view to relieve himself from his embarrassments’ (Hansard 1825, ix; Timperley 1839, 3). Neither Hansard nor Timperley elaborates on these ‘circumstances’ and ‘embarrassments’; however, Smith (1755, ii) does acknowledge that The Printer’s Grammar was ‘of a troublesome and expensive nature’ and that it was ‘not done as it should be, by having been too circumstantial in the Theoretical part’. Both Hansard and Timperley concur with Smith’s second conclusion: Hansard (1825, ix) judges that it may be ‘called a tolerably good practical book, although it is badly arranged’, whereas Timperley (1839, 693–4) remarks more soberly that Smith ‘only went halfway 2  The title page’s imprint does not identify Richardson as the printer; rather, it includes only ‘Printed for the Editor’. However, Keith Maslen (1969, 518) has observed that ‘Richardson’s press is identified [in The Printer’s Grammar] by two ornaments, a factotum on B1 and a tail-piece on 2R4, found in other books known to have been printed by Richardson’. Additionally, Maslen relates how ‘Richardson’s generous support is implied in the Preface’. Smith (1755, 11) states in his preface that he was ‘permitted to print at prime cost’.

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through with his design, since his volume treats only upon the business of a compositor, omitting all that relates to the completion of printing ;—never mentioning press or pressmen’, although Smith could be forgiven for this latter oversight since he died before it could be completed. From the outset, Smith distinguishes himself subtly from Moxon. In his preface, entitled ‘To the reader’, Smith (1755, iii) declares he ‘did not intend to touch in this part upon the History and Practice of real Printing; considering that these two articles would fill more sheets than we have done in describing the business of a Compositor’. That is, rather than concentrate on the mechanics of presswork, Smith limits himself to book composition and correction, as catalogued in the subtitle of The Printer’s Grammar. Such restriction fulfils two functions: it enables Smith to extend his treatment of ‘editorial’ style considerably further than that of Moxon, and to establish editorial standardisation definitively. McKitterick (2003, 197) has previously acknowledged this, though from a more general viewpoint: John Smith’s choice of title for […] The Printer’s Grammar (1755), was deliberate in its allusion to ordered discipline, and also claimed for printers a place in the literary establishment. Moxon had announced himself on his title-page as ‘Member of the Royal Society, and Hydrographer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty’. In contrast, Smith modelled himself at least partly on the literary conventions of the school of grammar.

Furthermore, the structure of Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar is the reverse of Moxon’s macroscopic–minutial editorial focus in Mechanick Exercises: Smith’s initial focus is specific and content-driven but moves progressively and substantively outwards. The text comprises 13 chapters. Chapters 1–5 and 7 concentrate on the history and application of type, the underlying motive of which is the clarity of content; and chapters 6 and 8–13 involve the hands-on interaction of compositors and correctors with content to bring it to print. The content-driven interpretation of this book contrasts with Lisa Maruca’s (2003, 331) market-driven one: The effects of this market-driven understanding of print can be seen in both the content and style of Smith’s manual. His text does not describe the sweaty, human scene of print making, but prescribes a system of typographical classification and workplace regulation that will result in a proper, that is, uniform and standardized, page.

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Additionally, Maruca contends that Smith’s ‘chief complaint, reiterated frequently, is that the bodies of type in England were not standardized’ and judges that he ‘worries incessantly about the variations in usage of italics, capitals, spelling, and punctuation’ to the extent that his text is ‘full of prohibitions and regulations’. Of these, Maruca’s latter value judgement misconstrues and, in turn, undermines the daily practicalities and frustrations experienced by compositors and correctors, which Smith undoubtedly endeavoured to resolve through his standardising text.

Attending to Minutiae: Typographical, Grammatical and Linguistic Smith (1755, 1) begins his attention to minutiae with a modest declaration in his first chapter, ‘Of ROMAN, Italic, and BLACK Printing Letter’: ‘Conformable to the General method which is observed in Grammars, we begin this also with the Principles thereof, viz. LETTERS’. Here, Smith acknowledges the discursive tradition evinced by first early modern grammarian Charles Butler (1633, 1) and then Moxon (1683, 19), both of whom identically commenced their texts with identifying printing letters, as discussed earlier in Chap. 2. Where Smith aligns with Moxon but distinguishes himself from Butler is his authorial perspective; Smith (1755, 1) writes: ‘instead of applying their signification, as in others, to the art of speaking and writing some particular language, we shall consider them as the chief Printing-Materials’. Smith’s self-positioning is significant given centuries of debate over punctuation theory. Vivian Salmon (1962, 347) articulates this well: ‘[The] rhetorical function of punctuation […] was certainly known to sixteenth- and seventeenth-­ century linguists, but far from disappearing in the eighteenth century, it came to overshadow the view of punctuation as grammatical.’3 Satisfied with this admission, Smith departs from Moxon to initiate his own discursive journey. For example, Moxon relates the architecture of letters in his first volume and visits the application of italic to emphatical words in the second volume; in contrast, Smith directly instructs his readers on the history of letters and their typographic, content-driven application. In this first chapter, Smith (1755, 18) relates content’s narrow-type existence: roman, italic and black letter; however, the fate of black letter was imminent obsolescence: ‘At present Black letter is so far abolish’d here 3

 See also Honan (2008, 92–3), Baron (2001, 31) and Bray (2000, 96).

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that it is seldom used in any other matter than what belongs to Law, and more particularly to Statute Law.’4 Ancient Roman in origin, roman was the principal letter employed in the eighteenth-century printing houses of not only Britain and Ireland but also Western Europe, specifically Portugal, Spain, France and Italy; those ‘in Germany and, and in the kingdoms which lie around the Baltic, they print with letters which owe their formation to the Gothic characters’ (p. 2)—that is, black letter. Despite owning this generality, Smith concedes that even these printing houses, along with the Dutch, Polish and Hungarian, appear to be transitioning to roman and employ black letter for discrete purposes: ‘books of devotion, and religious treatises designed for general use’. As Nicolas Barker (1981, 133) observes, ‘sobriety was the new style’ of the eighteenth century.5 Smith (1755, 12) declares that Britain owes the invention of italic to Aldus Manutius, after he established his printing house in Venice in 1490; he ‘dedicated [the letter] to the State of Italy’. However, Smith neglects to identify the specific year that Manutius created italic—that is, 1500. The original function of italic, according to Smith, related to distinguishing the body text typeset in roman from preliminary and end matter—‘the sub-parts of a Work’—such as contents, prefaces, introductions, annotations and summaries.6 This ‘distinguishing’ feature resulted in the overuse of italic, whereby two-thirds of a text could be typeset in italic. With relief, and consistent with the eighteenth-century typographic shift towards sobriety, Smith reports that italic’s use had become more 4  Though Smith acknowledges on the following page that ‘Black Letter is sometimes used instead of printing Red, what is designed to be more conspicuous than common’. Barker’s (2010, 250) research verifies Smith’s account of black letter centuries later: ‘A phenomenon equally familiar then is less so now, namely “black letter”, the French letter de forme adopted by English printers for vernacular texts. Already rare by the seventeenth century, it persisted in four uses: the “Authorized Version” of the Bible […]; the Book of Common Prayer (last printed in black letter in 1706) and its occasional supplements; Acts of Parliament, other statutory instruments and a few other legal texts; and as a display type, to distinguish a keyword in title pages and drop-head titles. All these uses had diminished by 1700, except for Acts of Parliament, which did not change to roman type until 1794’. See also McKerrow (1913, 307). 5  See also McKitterick (1993, 20). Bray (2000, 109) acknowledges a similar shift in the eighteenth century, though in regard to punctuation. 6  Bray (2000, 108) states that the ‘initial role [of italic] was to mark quotations, particularly scriptural ones. Before print, such quotations were written in different scripts’. See also Parkes (2008, 64). Furthermore, Barker (2010, 251) divulges that italic was ‘[originally] used for Latin words (even in black letter)’.

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sparing ‘since all the adjunct parts of a Work may now be properly varied by the different sizes of Roman’ (p.  13). He extends this by urging a complementarity between roman and italic: ‘It is therefore to be wished, that the intermixing Roman and Italic may be brought to straighter limits, and the latter be used for such purposes as it was designed for’ (p. 14). The correct functions of italic are therefore: ‘[For] varying the different Parts and Fragments, abstracted from the Body of a work—for passages which differ from the language of the Text—for literal citations from Scripture—for words, terms, or expressions which some authors would have regarded as more nervous; and by which they intend to convey to the reader either instructing, satyrizing, admiring, or other hints and remarks.’ In other words, italic was confined to passages different from body text, foreign-­language words, excerpts from the Bible and text to be emphasised. To achieve ‘purity’ of roman and italic (yet Smith admits the futility of such an expectation), Smith recommends that ‘the mixing of said two species of Letter […] ought to be avoided’ and that proper nouns should only be capitalised (p. 14). Chapter 2 of this book outlined Moxon’s application of italic regarding proper nouns and emphatical words. That is, body text typeset in roman requires proper nouns to be set in italic, and body text in italic necessitates proper nouns in roman; and words of ‘great Emphasis’ are typeset in italic and, depending on the distinction to be conveyed, sometimes start with a capital. How then did sobriety emerge in the 72 years separating Mechanick Exercises and The Printer’s Grammar? Two publications provide early witness. Robert Monteith (1704, 15) supplied succinct directives for the application of italic in The True and Genuine Art, of Exact Pointing: 1. Words Materially taken should be put in Italick, or different Character. 2. Proper Names of Persons, Places, Dignitaries, Offices; &c. together with the Words of Foreign Languages. 3. The Adjectives, in Titles of Books, should be put in Italick. 4. Every Emphatick Word, or Word of Importance in the Matter Treated of, should be Italick. Therefore, the original function of italic had disappeared by the beginning of the eighteenth century. It appears that Monteith’s second and third points, with the exception of foreign-language words, phased out shortly afterwards. James Greenwood (1711, 226–7) supported this in An Essay

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Towards a Practical English Grammar: ‘An Emphasis is used for the Distinction of such Word or Words, wherein the force of the Sense doth more peculiarly consist, and is usually expressed by putting such kind of Words into another Character, as the Italick, &c.’ Smith’s editorial focus begins to widen for second and third chapters, entitled respectively ‘Of the different BODIES and SIZES of Printing Letter’ and ‘Of a Fount of Letter, consider’d in the same order as with Letter-­ founders’: that is, from contemplating the three basic types that comprise a fount of letters to the letters themselves. In Chapter 2, Smith (1755, 21) first catalogues the 17 bodies of type—such as French canon, two-lines double pica, paragon, minion and pearl—and divides these into regular and irregular bodies. These bodies differ in their standardisation, or lack thereof: ‘We call them Irregular, because they are of intermediate sizes to Letter of Regular Bodies; a standard to which, no doubt, was fixed by former Printers, and Founders.’ The non-standardisation of irregular bodies incited confusion among printers; therefore, printers were ‘less countenanced’ to use them, other than sparingly. The remainder of Chapter 2 concerns the sizes of all 17 bodies of type, particularly how the contemporary sizes differ from those of Moxon’s lifetime. Chapter 3 is significant editorially as Smith enumerates the specific constituents of a ‘Fount of Roman Letter’—lower-case letters, capitals, double letters, figures (or numerals), points (or punctuation marks), the four types of spaces, m and n quadrats, and the three types of large quadrats. All are typographically defined from a typefounder’s perspective. Smith writes: ‘These are the ordinary Sorts which are cast to a Fount of Letter; and which by Founders are divided into Long Letters, Short Letters, Ascending Letters, Descending Letters, and, Kerned Letters’ (p. 32). The quotation immediately above is particularly important because it contains the term ‘kerned’: Smith’s grammar is the first of the three printer’s manuals analysed thus far to define it, as well as its associated kerning, with a more modern editorial perspective than a purely practical one relating to letter casting, which was the case for Moxon. In Mechanick Exercises, Moxon (1683, 177) defines ‘kerned’ italic letters as follows: ‘The Kern’d-­ Letters are such as have part of their Face hanging over one side or both sides of their Shanck.’ That is, kerned italic letters are those with ascenders and descenders that encroach on the space of letters that precede or follow them on the line, depending on the type used. Such encroachment is resolved by kerning—that is, adjusting the type by filing ‘on one side, and some both sides’. Moxon describes the process meticulously:

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He lays the side of the Letter to be Kern’d upwards with the Face of the Letter towards the end of the Kerning-stick : the side of the Letter against the side Sholder of the Kerning-stick, and the Foot of the Letter against the bottom Sholder of the Kerning-stick, and laying the end of the Ball of his left-Hand Thumb hard upon the Shanck of the Letter to keep its Side and Foot steddy against the Sholders of the Kerning-stick, he with the Kerning-­knife in his right-Hand cuts off about one quarter of the Mettal between the Beard of the Shanck and the Face of the Letter. Then turning his Knife so as the back of it may lean towards him, he scrapes towards him with the edge of the Knife about half the length of that upper-side, viz. about so much as his Thumb does not cover : Then he turns the Face of the Letter against the lower Sholder of the Kerning-stick, and scraping fromwards him with a stroak or two of his Knife smoothens that end of the Letter also. (p. 179) (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London:rare book [G.L.] 1683: Moxon, Joseph: Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. (London, 1683))

In contrast, Smith’s (1755, 33–4) definition of roman and italic ‘kerned letters’ is more specific: Kerned Letters are such as have parts of their Face hang over, either on one, or both sides of their square Metal, or Shank. In the Roman, f ſ j are the only kerned letters ; but in the Italic, d g j l y are kerned on one side, and f and ſ, on both sides of their face.

Consistent with Moxon, Smith acknowledges that space issues resulting from kerned letters can be fixed in either of two ways. The first is by typefounders specially casting type: he states earlier in his first chapter that ‘Italic discovers a particular delicacy, and shews a mathematical judgement in the Letter-cutter, to keep the Slopings of that tender-faced Letter within such degrees as are required for each Body, and as do not detriment its individuals’ (p. 16). The second is by filing, or kerning: [Some] Founders have been more liberal than others, in kerning of letters, appears from their care which they have shewn in preventing the Italic capital A from causing a gap, where it is preceded by a Capital Letter which is not kerned ; but more particularly when it stands after a P ; from which the A separates itself more perceptible than from any other letter. (pp. 35–6)

Where Smith distances himself from Moxon, however, is by providing a more modern editorial perspective. Smith advises that the encroachment of kerned letters can be resolved through a kerning practice of adjusting spacing; that is, inserting an additional hair-space between lower-case italics to

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prevent the letters from touching: ‘for we may observe that in some Italics the lower-case g will not admit of another g to stand after it, without putting a Hair-space between them, to prevent their pressing against each other’ (p. 16). Simply put, kerning involves adjusting the between-­character spaces; how much kerning required between roman or italic letters is determined by their physical orientation in relation to those adjacent to them. An example of Smith’s recommendation to insert hair-spaces before kerned italic letters occurs in his instruction on apostrophes: ‘Several Italic letters being kerned, the Apostrophe does not join to d’ f’ j’ l’, but require a Hairspace before them’ (p. 109). The focus of the fourth chapter, ‘Of a COMPLETE Fount of Letter, consider’d as with Printers’, relates to identical content to that of Chapter 3, though now the perspective shifts from typefounders to printers. Smith’s objective is to ‘consider a Fount of Letter more typographically, with respect to its Contents, and Appurtenances’ (p.  49). That is, he examines the application of each component of the pica fount: large capitals, small capitals, small letters and ligatures, accented letters, figures, points, references, spaces and quadrats. Moreover, Smith explains that printers further divide these components into two classes: upper- and lower-case sorts; the word ‘case’ refers to their locations in a compositor’s case. Such order embodies Enlightenment thought generally and is reminiscent of Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778) and his binomial taxonomy of organisms described in his seminal publication Systema Naturae in 1735.7 Upper-case sorts comprise large and small capitals, accented letters, figures and references; and lower-case sorts include small letters and ligatures, points, spaces and quadrats. While the title of Chapter 4 unequivocally addresses printers, Smith’s examination is fundamentally ‘editorial’, representing compositors’ and correctors’ bread-and-butter existence. Smith embarks on his taxonomic journey with upper-case sorts: large and small capitals, accented letters, figures and references. For large capitals, he indicates they should preferably appear in inscriptions, titles or other similar matter; however, he emphasises that roman, not italic, should be used: ‘their beauty is not [to be] invaded by italic, but where they present themselves in their erect position, by themselves’ (p. 50). Certainly, the traditional function of large capitals is the commencing of proper and 7  Zahra (2010, 2) identifies Isaac Newton as an instigating force of change: ‘Newton presented [the] universe as a great machine. In his views nature was ordered and everything in the universe was explainable through the exercise of reason’.

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common nouns, titles of ‘honour and eminence’ and ‘emphatical expressions’ (p. 51). Smith’s sobriety once again agrees with that of contemporary grammars, specifically John Brightland’s (1746, 153) A Grammar of the English Tongue: ‘It is grown customary in Printing, to begin every Substantive with a Capital, but ʼtis unnecessary, and hinders that expressive Beauty and remarkable Distinction intended by the capitals.’8 Finally, to ensure the standard application of large capitals from manuscript stage, Smith (1755, 52) directs authors on how to present—or mark up by hand—their copy for typesetting: ‘Words, or Matter, which is to be set in Capitals should be written in Capitals, in the Copy, or else treble underscored, in contradistinction of Small-capitals, which are double underscored; and of Italic, which is intimates by underscoring once what is to be in that character.’ Small capitals are most commonly typeset in roman and imply that ‘a more particular stress and emphasis is intended by the Author’; they appear also in headings, often styled in italic. Smith concedes that authors seem to prefer small capitals because they are ‘so fond’ of applying them to entire sentences and verses. Nevertheless, he counsels against this practice, particularly in combination with large capitals, as it impedes readers’ comprehension. Two other applications of small capitals are: to prefix the first word of a new paragraph in ‘open matter, with leads and white-lines between’ (if such text includes proper names, they are rendered italic small capitals), which indicates these new paragraphs do not commence with first-line left indentation; and to replace large capitals in titles when space is limited on the page (p. 53). Accented letters, figures and references symbolise uncultivated territory as neither Hornschuch nor Moxon addresses them in their manuals. Oliver Pollack (2006, 17) similarly observes this for references: The term ‘references’ refers to evidence in non-fiction literature supporting statements or quotations in the text. In Smith’s Printer’s Grammar, the section ‘Of references’ may claim the first printed use of ‘bottom Note’, an expression not found in the OED. 8  Note also Greenwood’s (1711, 256–7) earlier directives: ‘Great Letters are never to be used in the middle or the end of Words, but at the beginning of any Writing. 1. At the beginning of any Writing. 2. After a Period, when a new Sentence begins. 3. At the beginning of every Verse in Poetry, or in the Bible. 4. At the beginning of Proper Names of all kinds […] 5. At the beginning of any Word of special Note […] 6. The Pronoun I, must always be a Capital or a Great Letter’.

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Smith (1755, 56) identifies accented letters’ three avenues of use: vowels with acute (such as á), grave (à) or circumflex (â); vowels with a dieresis (ä); and vowels with a macron (a¯) or a breve (a¯). The few consonants ‘distinguish’d by marks’ are the French cedilla (ç), the ‘Spanish ñ, and the Welsh ŵ and ŷ’. Smith proceeds to describe in detail how accented letters are used, mainly for Latin and French, albeit he stipulates beforehand that ‘besides the e, acuted letters are of no use in French Orthography ; and none of them, in the English; save the acuted í ó ú may, on occasion, serve in Etymological Dictionaries among Small Capitals’ (p. 58). A noteworthy example of è in English involves its purpose in poetry: ‘e is marked with a Grave, in Poetry, to prevent its being taken for the e feminine, which, not being sounded, would shorten the measure of the Verse, were the e not marked to be pronounced’ (p. 60). Smith’s instruction on accented letters is unprecedented and original, compared with earlier English manuals, yet it cannot be assumed that it arose out of a vacuum. Who, therefore, is the most likely source of influence? While none of the contemporary grammars examined include comparable detail on foreign-language accented letters, Brightland’s A Grammar of the English Tongue contains definitions that might represent informative reference points. For example, Brightland’s (1746, 152) definition of diareses (‘Dialysis [ ¨ ] being Two Points placed over two Vowels of a Word, that won’t otherwise make a Diphthong, parts ‘em [sic] into two several Syllables’)9 corresponds with Smith’s (1755, 62) own (‘Their use is, to separate one vowel from another, and to prevent their being taken for diphthongs’).10 Moreover, as discussed in the introduction, Martin Dominique Fertel appears to have influenced Smith the most when compiling his manual, such as in relation to accented letters. Fertel (1723) authored and printed the first French printer’s manual, La science practique de l’imprimerie; its four sections cover language, composition and the technicalities of presswork. The manual’s third section is relevant here as it relates partly to accented letters. Fertel’s influence is apparent as Smith reproduces text from La science practique de 9  Greenwood (1711, 243–4) supplied similar, earlier instruction on diphthongs. See also Fisher (1754, 11–12). 10  Note, however, that besides the function of diareses in poetry, Smith (1755, 62) eschews instructing the print trade on their application, owing to the absence of standardisation: ‘but the rules for placing the Diaresis, being unsettled as many others, relating to Accented letters, we will not presume to fix upon any, but recommend it to Authors, to mark them in their Copy, according to their own, or their favourite Grammarians fancy’.

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l’imprimerie in The Printer’s Grammar, namely descriptions of accented letters used in French and specific examples of words and phrases that include them. For example, Fertel provides the following for acute letters: ‘L’é aigu est celui qu’on appelle é fermé , parce qui’il se prononce d’une maniere ferme & bien articulé, comme celui qui finit ces mots ; bonté, santé, pieté, probité &c’ (p. 201). Smith (1755, 58) translates Fertel’s text as: ‘Where it sounds open and clear, at the end of words, as in bonté santé, pieté.’ For circumflexes, Fertel (1723, 200) writes: ‘Lorsque la lettre a est doublée, on peut en retrancher une, & metre l’autre circonflexe; comme à ce mot, aage, âge’, which Smith (1755, 61) translates as ‘a is circumflex’d in âge, instead of writing aage, which is obsolete.’ Moving on to figures, Smith states that they ‘are invented to express Numbers’ and categorised as ‘Numeral Letters’ (that is, Roman numerals) or ‘Arithmetical Symbols’ (or Arabic). He begins his account by defining each of the Roman numerals and the rules governing their use: ‘If a less number stands before a greater, it is a rule, that the less is taken from the greater […] If a less number follows a greater, it is a rule, that the less is added to the greater’ (p. 65).11 Typographically, large capitals are used for Roman numerals. However, when typesetting dates (or years), Smith does acknowledge that some printers decide to set the first numeral with a large capital and the remainder of the date with small capitals—unfortunately, he does not elaborate on this difference. In regard to arithmetical symbols, while printers tended to insert commas in large figures, such as for tens of thousands and millions, Smith also acknowledges that this practice remains non-standardised; that is, there is ‘no law with most Accomptants, who judge it needless in Schemes that are printed’ (pp. 65–9). Smith completes his section on figures with instruction regarding scratched figures and Greek and Hebrew numerals. The basics of referencing have remained virtually unaltered since Smith’s defining explanation: References are called, all such Marks and Signs as are used in matter which has either side or bottom Notes; and serve to direct the Reader to the observations which are made upon such passages of the Text as a distinguished by them, and demand a Reference of the same likeness to be put to the Notes by which the Matter is illustrated, or otherwise taken notice of. (p. 75)  Fisher (1754, 143–4) similarly writes: ‘Observe concerning the Numeral Letters, that if a less Numeral Letter be placed before a greater, it takes away from the greater so much as the letter stands for ; but being placed after a greater, it adds so much as the letter stands for’. 11

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Nevertheless, eighteenth-century reference styles appear more diverse in comparison to modern standards: printers could select from letters, superior figures or letters, or symbols. For letter referencing, parentheses surrounded italicised lower-case letters—(a), (b), (c) and so on—though crotchets ( [ ] ) were occasionally used. Smith recommends that letters recommence at (a) on each left-hand, or verso, page so that the references ‘appear at one view, and an irregularity in them rectified without much trouble’. This benefits not only readers but also the compositors and correctors who respectively typeset and check page proofs. For the latter two, any corrections to referencing would apply to the double-page spread only, not to an entire section or chapter. Such timely, accurate correction would in turn benefit the master printer by translating into economic savings on labour and delivering on production schedules. Smith indicates that superior letters or figures are historically preferred to italicised letters ‘for both were originally contrived and intended to be employed in Matter that is explained by Notes, whether by way of Annotations, Quotations, Citations, or otherwise’, though he does acknowledge that printers favour superior figures and use superior letters mainly for ‘large and lasting works’ (p. 76). For references with symbols, Smith first lists each in order—paragraph (¶), section (§), obelisk (†), double dagger (‡), parallel (║) and asterism (∗)12—and then describes them in detail. The two to be considered here are the obelisk and asterism (or the asterisk). The early modern obelisk (or long cross) operated in dichotomous spheres: religious and secular. For the religious sphere, Smith explains that it replaced the square cross, wherever necessary, both ‘in Roman-Catholic Church-books in prayers of Exorcism, at the Benediction of Bread, Water, Fruit, and upon other occasions, where the Priest is to make the sign of the cross’, and ‘in the Pope’s Briefs, and in Ordinances and Mandates of Archbishops and Bishops, who put it immediately before the signature of their names’. For the secular, the obelisk featured in genealogical tables, or similar, to ‘denote the death of a person, or the extinction of a family’; represented omitted or supplementary textual matter; and, most importantly, was used as a reference in either of two manners: ‘the right way ; and inverted’. Much of this text derives almost verbatim from Fertel’s La science practique de l’imprimerie. 12  Houston’s (2013, 111) discussion on early modern referencing reveals the movement towards sobriety in the eighteenth century: ‘One sixteenth-century author blazed a meandering trail, adding notes labelled d, e, f, ∗, e, f, g, h, i, ∗, and l to a single-page in a frenzy of marginalia, while a calmer eighteenth-century document might use ∗, †, ║ and ∴ .’

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For example, for the religious application of the obelisk, Fertel (1723, 212) writes: ‘Ces Croix servent ordinairement dans les Oraison & Priers des Exorcismes, aux Benedictions du Pain, de l’Eau, des Fruits &c. Dans le Canon de la Messe, & aux autres Cérémonies de l’Eglise.’ Besides being ‘chief of the References’, the asterisk fulfilled numerous functions. For Roman-Catholic church books, it divided ‘each verse of a psalm into two parts ; and shews where the responses begin’. The asterisk signified the name of a person who desired to remain anonymous; in this manner, and more generally, it ‘denote[d]’ omission, or an hiatus’ of the original manuscript copy (Smith 1755, 79)—the more asterisks, the greater amount of text omitted, from lines to entire pages.13 To satirise someone in pamphlets and ‘Public papers’ without legal fallout, asterisks would be placed after the first initial to disguise the name. And lastly, they could be substituted for a line of small flowers. Once again, much of Smith’s information mirrors that in Fertel’s manual; for example, Fertel (1723, 212) writes in regard to asterisks replacing the names of authors who wish to remain anonymous: ‘Ils servent encore en la place d’un Auteur, lorsqu’il est anonime, de même que pour marquer les Lacune.’ Greenwood’s An Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar, Brightland’s A Grammar of the English Tongue and Fisher’s A New Grammar (1754) might have served independently as grammatical points of departure for Smith’s account of referencing—though Fisher more so. Greenwood (1711, 257–8) defines asterisk and obelisk, albeit briefly: the first, ‘An Asterism (∗) directs to some Note or Remark in the Margin, or at the bottom of the Page. In some Latin Books it denotes that some Thing is defective or wanting’; and the second, ‘Sometimes an Obelisk (†) or Spit is used upon the like occasion as the foregoing Note’. Unexpectedly, Brightland’s (1746) equally brief text is almost verbatim that of Greenwood (1711); however, for the asterisk, Brightland (1746, 152) adds that it signifies something ‘immodest in the Passage of the Author’.14 While Fisher’s (1754, 41) definition of asterisk in A New Grammar mirrors Brightland’s own ironically, she extends that for obelisk to incorporate the other referencing symbols: ‘Obelisk (†) is used as well as the 13  The role of asterisks in denoting textual omissions can be traced back to scribal culture, as recounted by Henry (2000, 128): ‘The asterisk or “asteriscus” was initially used by early medieval scribes to indicate damage, illegibility or omissions in the manuscripts from which they were copying.’ 14  Note that this text remained unaltered from the second edition (1711) to this seventh edition (1746).

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Asterism (∗) to direct some Note or Remark in the Margin, or at the Foot of the Page : And this is also done by parallel Lines, as (║) ; sometimes by a double Obelisk (‡) ; and, at other times, by Letters or Figures included with a Parenthesis, thus (a), (1), or thus ∗’. Undoubtedly, Fisher’s referencing instruction approximates presciently Smith’s own more than that of Greenwood (1711) and Brightland (1746); the typographical remainder presumably derives from Smith’s professional experience and/or observation. From this, Smith’s instruction proceeds to the next taxonomic division—lower-case sorts, namely small letters of the alphabet, points, quadrats and spaces—though, owing to space limitations, the first two will be discussed only. The small letters comprise not only the 24 single letters of the alphabet, but also the ligatures or, as Smith alternatively terms, ‘compound Sorts’. Editorially, noteworthy lower-case sorts include i, v, x, l and c, which are also identified as ‘Numerical letters’ and used in ‘Notes to Holy Scriptures, to shew the number of the Chapter cited; which, in the Bible, is expressed by Numerals in large Capitals’. Typographically, Smith (1755, 82) explains that the ‘Lower-case Sorts serve in a double capacity’: for those instances in which printers reside too far from the typefoundry and whose production schedules allow insufficient time to travel and replace type, certain lower-case sorts can be used instead; for example: The French ç is very readily turned into a common c, by taking off its tail. The c, when put the flat way ( ˘ ), serves also where a syllable is marked to be Short.    The letter d makes a good p, when it is put inverted. (p. 83)

Smith’s explanation of all lower-case sorts that perform this dual function proves instructive for correctors in their checking of pages: while lowercase sorts serve as replacements, their shapes remain fundamentally different from those they substitute. Such knowledge assists with preventing ambiguity and hence unnecessary corrections. Smith’s discussion on pointing begins taxonomically with specifying the hierarchy of points for printing houses: ‘The Order in which Points stand with Printers is, properly, the following; viz. The Comma—Semicolon— Colon—Full-point—Sign of Interrogation—Sign of Exclamation; and— Division.’ Next, he supplements these with parentheses and the crotchet (both of which are labelled ‘names of Signs of Intercalation’), and the

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apostrophus (or the ‘Sign of Abbreviation’).15 Smith explains that the purpose of pointing is ‘to divide a Sentence into Rests and Pauses, according to the quantity which is intimated by their figures’ (p.  85)16; two pages later, he extends this definition by declaring that pointing serves to ‘make Matter more easy for reading, and more ready for apprehension’. Linguistically, Smith acknowledges the rhetorical–grammatical duality of punctuation (Salmon 1988; Chappell and Bringhurst 2000; Baron 2001; Honan 2008); however, as indicated from the outset, the grammatical is his object. Editorially, the two statements are significant owing to their causative symbiosis: the detailed application of pointing results in the clarity of authorial content; yet, the first cannot occur without the second’s essential objective—the goal of all practising editors. While Smith’s (1755) ensuing treatment on pointing contributes to the standardisation of editorial style definitively—prior to The Printer’s Grammar, he intimates ‘no rules of prevailing authority’ existed, which grammarians such as Greenwood (1711), Brightland (1746) and Fisher (1754) would presumably dispute—Smith (1755, 87–8) does acknowledge that content determines the punctuation style applied: It must be allowed, that all Matter is not pointed alike ; for some requires more stops than other. Thus, Familiar discourses, or Historical and Narrative subjects, do not take up so many Points as Explanatory Matter ; and that, again, not so many as English Statute Law […].

In other words, regulations underpin all editorial practice; however, achieving clarity of content requires adaptation and compromise. But first, Smith briefly recounts the historical evolution of punctuation. He observes that pointing and printing do not share ‘the same antiquity’ and that the inventors of the latter were not the creators of the former—a probable assumption among the uninformed. However, not long after the invention of printing came the colon and full point: ‘the first, to shew the first part of a period ; and the Full-point, to close the other division thereof’; and the comma arrived ‘[in] the success of time’. The status quo remained for more than 50 years until the final years of the fifteenth century, when Aldus Manutius, ‘a Man made of restoration of learning ! 15  Smith’s two-tiered hierarchy is reminiscent of Butler’s (1633, 58–63) separation of the points into primary and secondary groupings, as discussed earlier in Chap. 2. See also Salmon (1962, 351, 1988, 299). 16  See also Salmon (1988, 300–1).

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among other great improvements in the Art of Printing, corrected and enlarged the Punctuation’ (p. 85). Manutius determined the hierarchy of points (he assigned the three points ‘their proper places’), devised ‘a better shape’ for the comma and conceived the semicolon, placing it in the hierarchy between the comma and colon. Naomi Baron’s (2001, 25) critical research corroborates Smith’s basic outline: The stage was first set in 1566, when Aldus Manutius […] laid out a system of punctuation in Orthographiae ratio that was based on syntactic rather than rhetorical principles. While his grammatically-based [sic] principles were not followed in England, the symbols he defined (what today we know as the comma, the semicolon, the colon, the period, and the question mark) were to become the basic printer’s arsenal.17

Regarding the first appearance of punctuation marks in England, McKerrow (1913, 310) draws on Joseph Ames’s Typographical Antiquities (1790) to enumerate that the comma ‘seems to have been introduced into England about 1521 (in roman type) and 1535 (in black letter)’ and that the semicolon’s first use occurred around 1569, though it was ‘not common until 1580 or thereabouts’.18 Moving from theory to practice, Smith explains the dual function of commas. The first is the standard comma, which sits on the base line and ‘requires the shortest pause’ (Smith 1755, 88). According to C. J. Mitchell (1983, 363), the ‘comma is descended from the virgule (/) which was originally placed above the line but which sank to the base line and developed a curve’. Smith provides neither further elaboration on this standard use nor examples of its application. Instead, he recognises the reality of the printing house—authors point, wilfully or meticulously, and compositors decipher: But as Pointing is regulated by the free, or by the stiff way of writing, to which Authors have accustomed themselves ; it will not be labour in vain for a Compositor, to examine his Copy, and to observe in what manner it is pointed, whether properly, or at random ; for some Gentlemen who have regard to make the reading of their Works consonant with their own delivery, point their Copy accordingly, and abide thereby, with strictness. (Smith 1755, 89)  See also Parkes (1992, 49).  See also Mitchell (1983, 364).

17 18

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Smith’s pragmatism does not undermine his objective to consider letters primarily as printing materials; his silence on commas is answered by exacting grammarians. For example, Monteith (1704, 6) defined the comma as ‘a mark, for the small Pause, or Delay, after uttering that part of Speech, which is Pointed and Circumscribed therewith, such as my be seen betwixt each Word’. Greenwood (1711, 227) elaborates further seven years later, with more emphasis on the grammatical than the rhetorical: ‘The Comma is the shortest Pause or resting in Speech, and is used chiefly in distinguishing Nouns, Verbs and Adverbs […] It distinguishes also the Parts of a shorter Sentence’. Brightland (1746, 151) pays similar attention: commas apply ‘[w]here the Sense is not compleat in the first Verse, and the second has a plain Dependance on the first’. Almost a decade later, Fisher (1754, 38) is first deceptively brief: ‘A Comma, placed at the Foot of a Word, and marked, thus ( , )’; however, on the following page, she itemises the several occasions in which commas are used: after ‘every distinct Word of Numbers’, ‘every distinct Figure of Numbers’, ‘bare Names of Persons &c. called up on or spoken to’, ‘every least distinct Clause of a Sentence, which is Part of a more perfect one’ and injections requiring separation from the body text. The second function of commas is to form inverted commas to ‘distinguish quoted Matter from the mean  Text’—that is, quotation marks. According to Parkes (1992, 59) in Pause and Effect, and consistent with the typographical shift previously mentioned, ‘[at] the beginning of the eighteenth century English printers transformed the comma-marks used for the diple into [the] new punctuation symbol’.19 Smith (1755, 89) directs compositors to place inverted commas ‘at the beginning of such Matter, and [continue] before each line of the quotation, till the close thereof is signified by two Apostrophus’, which by some is called, the ‘Mark for Silence’—in other words, initial left-hand double inverted commas to commence a quotation, left-hand double inverted commas at the start of each required line and right-hand double inverted commas to conclude. From this, Smith proceeds to subcategorise quotation marks according to their editorial use: single inverted commas are employed for extracts ‘or the substance of a passage’ that supports the author’s argument; and double inverted commas, for verbal quotations. Smith’s instruction mirrors 19  See also Houston (2013, 202) and Bray (2000, 109). In contrast, Mitchell (1983, 364) states that double quotation marks ‘seems not to have been the continuation of an existing trend but rather a radical new step by printers’.

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that of contemporary grammarians. For example, Greenwood (1711, 258) explained that ‘Quotation ( “ ) or a double Comma revers’d at the beginning of a Line, denotes the Passage to be quoted or transcribed from some Author in his own Words’.20 For authors’ ‘own Select matter’ distinct from the main text, a different one is placed alongside: Smith (1755, 90) recommends substituting the comma with ‘an inverted Full-point, or Colon, or a Comma standing in its proper position’. The space between the inverted comma and the quoted matter is an n-quadrat. Smith concludes by asserting that while the comma is ‘one of the junior Points’, it ‘governs the order of the intermediate ones’ nonetheless, specifically the semicolon and colon (pp. 91–2). Smith’s definition of the semicolon gestures to rhetorical punctuation: ‘The Semicolon is a Point which is composed of a Comma, and an inverted Full-point ; to shew the quantity of the pause or rest which is requires’ (p.  92); however, his explanation of its editorial application remains entirely grammatical. Moreover, a close reading of the text reveals their primary, grammatical function has remained unchanged since the mid-­ eighteenth century. Smith writes: The Semicolon is a Point of great use to enforce and to illustrate what has been advanced, and digested by the Comma. It serves likewise to concatenate such parts of a period as are to be supported by a Point of more elevation than a Comma, which helps to relate matter more distinctly ; whereas the Semicolon keeps the parts of an argument together.

A final function for semicolons concerns abbreviations: the insertion of a semicolon after a word’s initial syllable(s) indicates that the word has been abbreviated, such as ‘Esq;’ for ‘Esquire’. From this, it is evident that the semicolon features prominently in the eighteenth-century rhetorical–grammatical shift. Using criteria that are entirely rhetorical, Monteith (1704, 6) states that the semicolon ‘or Comma majus, is the Note or Mark, for a longer pause, halt or delay, in utterance, than that after a Comma’. Monteith’s inclusion of ‘Note’ points to music’s influence on early modern grammarians. Salmon (1988, 303) explores this connection in ‘English Punctuation Theory 1500–1800’: 20  Brightland’s (1746, 153) definition is virtually verbatim: ‘Quotation ( “ ) or a double Comma turn’d, is put at the beginning of such Lines as are recited out of other Authors’. Fisher (1754, 42) appears to reproduce Brightland (1746).

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‘Looking […] at the association of commas, colons and periods with pauses of various lengths, one notices that grammatical theory of the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries owes much to music.’21 Salmon consults seventeenth-­century grammarians as primary evidence: ‘Butler compares minim and period, crotchet and colon, quaver and semicolon, semiquaver and comma’ (p.  304). Moving marginally towards the grammatical, Greenwood (1711, 227) first mentions that the pause of the semicolon ‘is greater than a Comma, and less than a Colon’, but then expands his definition by asserting that the ‘proper place for this Point is in the Subdivision of the Members or Parts of a Sentence’. In contrast, Brightland’s (1746, 151) definition abandons the rhetorical sense completely: ‘A Semi, or Half Colon, is made use of when half the Sentence remains behind.’22 Chronicling the rhetorical–grammatical development in this way highlights Smith’s (1755) significant contribution to punctuation since Moxon (1683). For colons, Smith (1755, 93) explains that they show ‘where the first part of a paragraph has been digested by Comma’s [sic] and Semicolons, for making observations, objections, or enlargement upon it, before the Full-point puts a stop to it’. That is, colons communicate in an introductory sense: to indicate that an observation, explanation or elaboration is to follow. Additionally, they are used not only in biblical references—to separate chapter and verse, such as ‘Deut. 5:13’—but also in tables to d ­ istinguish between columns—hence, the first line of a table would be typeset as ‘3456 : 782 : 235 : 59’. Again, Smith’s contribution to punctuation is evident when his definition is contrasted with that of Greenwood (1711, 227) and Brightland (1746, 151), who identically but independently state that the colon is used ‘when the Sence is perfect, but the Sentence [is] not ended’. That is, Greenwood and Brightland allude to the introductory sense of colons, whereas Smith prioritises it.23 The grammarian who  See also Bruthiaux (1993, 27, 31).  Note that Fisher’s (1754, 38) version iterates Butler’s own, with a minor addition: ‘A Semicolon ( ; ) is made use of when half the Sentence is yet behind, and in distinguishing Contrarieties.’ Bruthiaux (1993, 30) confirms my observation, albeit articulated more strongly: ‘Admittedly, similarities in wording, as between Greenwood (1711) and Gildon and Brightland (1711), Tuite (1726) […], suggest rampant pirating rather than independent opinion.’ 23  Bruthiaux (1993, 28) discusses sixteenth-century French scholar, translator and printer Étienne Dolet and the function of punctuation in Dolet’s plays; this application coincidentally approximates Smith’s own: ‘he is unambiguous in his statement that, in addition to representing an intermediate pause, the colon is frequently used to reinforce a contrast and to suspend incomplete meaning’. 21 22

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approximates Smith is Fisher (1754, 39): ‘A Colon ( : ) is made use of to distinguish a perfect Sentence, which has a full Meaning of its own ; but yet leaves the Mind in suspense and Expectation to know what follows.’ Full points, or full stops, perform diverse functions. The first function is grammatical and predictably identical to their modern primary purpose—completing sentences: ‘The Full-point makes a stop, and entirely closes the contents and substance of a Period, or Paragraph’ (Smith 1755, 93). Another grammatical function is reminiscent of semicolons: to abbreviate words. This observation is consistent with Smith’s grammarian counterparts. For example, Fisher (1754, 140) states that an ‘Abbreviation, or Contraction of a Word is, when one or more letters of a Word are writ, and are made to stand for the whole Word ; a Period being put immediately after the said Letter or Letters’. However, Smith (1755, 94) stipulates that this mode of abbreviation is particularly relevant for Latin text ‘to perpetuate the custom of writing Latin as the former Romans did’, such as for inscriptions on coins and tombs. Where Smith distinguishes himself is his articulation of the typographical applications of full points: they replace rules ‘in work of Accounts, to lead and to connect the posted Article with its contingent valuation’. Smith demonstrates this visually: A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3456 B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     25 C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2345

He also identifies multiple full points in a line whose purpose is to ‘guide the reader to the contingent part of the Tabular article’ as ‘Dotted Quadrats’—simply put, spaced full points. While Smith judges it is unnecessary to explain the purpose of the ‘Sign of Interrogation’, or question mark—‘where a Question is proposed, that gives room for, or demands, an Answer’—he does clarify its appropriate typographic presentation (p. 95).24 That is, every question should begin with a large letter, regardless of whether additional capitals (for common and proper nouns) appear in the matter or not. This is also the case for the ‘Sign of Admiration, or Exclamation’, or exclamation mark, which expresses  According to McKerrow (1913, 310), the question mark ‘appears to have been used [in England] from about 1521’. 24

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‘Surprize, Astonishment, Rapture, and the like sudden commotions of the mind’ (p. 96). To communicate the required emphasis, the exclamatory or ‘admirative’ word commences with a capital letter and finishes with the exclamatory symbol, such as ‘Ah! Alas! O!’. However, to soften the emphasis, a comma often replaces the symbol.25 Smith’s grammatical approach contrasts strikingly with Greenwood’s (1711, 226) rhetorical one: ‘Ecphonesis, Admiration or Wonder and Exclamation, is a Note of Direction for raising the Tone or Voice, upon occasion of such Words, denoting some vehement Passion, and is marked thus, (!).’ Smith’s instruction on pointing concludes with the hyphen, also termed ‘division’ or ‘connexion’.26 This section is significant because it embodies the shift from permissive to regulated orthography—in this case, the provision of exacting rules that authors and compositors should follow. Ancient Greek in origin, the hyphen fulfils numerous grammatical and typographical tasks similar to the full point: to break words at the ends of lines; to form compound nouns, adjectives or adverbs of two or more words; or as an alternative to rules. Houston (2013, 125) traces the hyphen’s earliest application in England to tenth-century scribes working on Latin manuscripts. Furthermore, he writes that ‘[by] the twelfth century the Latin hyphen had acquired an oblique slant and could be found on (hy/phen), above (hy/phen), or below the line (hy/phen), occasionally varying in position even within the same manuscript, with extravagant double hyphens (= and ⸗) following from 1300 onward’. Smith (1755, 97) indicates that, when dividing words, few printers place a single letter at the end of the line, such as ‘a-bide, e-normous, o-bedient’, though this practice is permissible for marginalia and other textual material that occupy narrow measures. Admittedly, tighter spacing can make room for smaller words, such as ‘love’. However, such close spacing makes ‘no provision for Outs’—that is, copy that the compositor neglected to typeset from the author’s original manuscript or additional text that the author desires to include at page-proof stage. Given Smith’s 25  Parkes (1992, 49) makes an interesting historical point regarding the exclamation mark: ‘The use of the excamativus was revived by [Tuscan humanist] Coluccio Salutati and this mark occurs in the Paris copy of De nobilitate legume et medicinae’, or On the Nobility and Laws of Medicine, first published in 1399.’ 26  Similar to the full point, Smith’s instruction mirrors that provided by eighteenth-century grammarians. For example, Monteith (1704, 7) states: ‘Hyphen, as the Greeks call it, or, rather Maccaph, as the Hebrews, or, a Division, as the Printers call it, is a little line, joining two Words together, as Praise-worthy. And which takes place also, in dividing Words at the end of Lines’.

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editorial preoccupation, it is perplexing that he excludes the function of hyphens in representing textual omissions. In contrast, Brightland (1746, 153) writes that the ‘Hyphen ( - ) Connexion, is us’d to join or compound two Words into one, as Male-contents, Male-admiration ; or when Names or Words are purposely left out’. In regard to the stakeholder responsible for the hyphenation of content, Smith (1755, 96) declared the ‘Division, Hyphen, or Connexion’ to be ‘a Mark of the utmost authority, considering that it has given employment not only to a number of Spelling-Book-Authors, but also others, of a higher degree, who have engaged in the controversy of Spelling’. Nevertheless, he judged that, regardless of such attention, ‘none of them has been acknowledged to have carried that important point so as not to want amending or improving’. Simply put, according to Smith, hyphenation in the mid-eighteenth century remained contentious and thus unstandardised. Owing to this uncertainty, Smith concluded that ‘none can be better judges of [spelling] than Compositors’. However, as will be discussed in Chap. 7, printer Caleb Stower (1808) observed in his own identically titled manual, The Printer’s Grammar, that the publication of Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language, also in 1755, had eventually effected the standardisation of hyphenation. For compound words, Smith (1755, 98) defines these as consisting ‘frequently’ of ‘two Substantives, whereof the last is generally put with a Lower-case letter; as, Bird-nest, Love-letter, Pin-cusheon, &c. tho’ sometimes Compounds are made up of different parts of Grammar; as, Loving-­ kindness, Self-conceit, Blind-side’. Besides such compounds including nouns and adjectives, Smith demarcates clearly the usage of adjectival compounds that contain after, before, over and under, for example, when describing other words in a sentence: The Particles after, before, over, under, &c. are often connected to other words, but make not always a proper Compound : Thus, Under-age admits sometimes of an Hyphen ; but at other times makes two distinct words : before-mentioned, is likewise a Compound, when it stands before a Substantive ; as, in the before-mentioned place ; whereas it requires to be separated, when it comes after a Noun ; as, in the Chapter before mentioned. (p. 99)

Simply put, if the adjectival compound precedes the noun that it describes, it includes the hyphen (attributive use); however, if the adverbial compound follows the noun, the hyphen is omitted (predicative use).

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Another example of Smith’s emblematic prescriptive shift occurs after his instruction on hyphenation and before that for the signs of intercalation: over two and a half pages, Smith provides ‘A list of some Equivocal Words, which differ in Spelling’ (pp.  102–104). Besides each word, or homophone, he supplies a succinct definition (such as ‘Errand, message’) or elucidation (‘Bolt of a door’ and ‘Boult of a mill’). The final symbols in the section on pointing are the two signs of intercalation (the parenthesis and crotchet) and the sign of abbreviation (or apostrophe). For the parenthesis, Smith writes: The Parenthesis serves to inclose such parts of a Period as make no part of the subject, indeed, yet at the same time strengthen and raise the argument ; which, however, would loose nothing of the sense or substance, were the [in Parentheses] inclosed matter taken away. (p. 104)

The parenthetical text is therefore not integral to the argument of the sentence but strengthens it; if it were removed completely, the sentence would still make sense. While entire sentences enclosed in parentheses are commonplace today, Smith immediately discourages this practice as it disregards the primary purpose of parentheses. Smith’s fine print might be interpreted as an editorial directive: If the entire parenthetical sentence is not integral to the argument, leave it out. Despite this rule, Smith proceeds to imbue his dialogue with compromise—namely, that commas are a correct alternative—however, he encourages authors who are either unfamiliar with, or uncertain regarding, the parenthetical application of commas to persist with parentheses when preparing their manuscripts. Smith’s caveat comes almost verbatim from Fertel’s (1723, 224) La science practique de l’imprimerie. For the typesetting of parentheses, Smith (1755, 105) reminds compositors of the necessity not to combine roman with italics, or vice versa: ‘Italic ones ought not to serve with Roman, nor these with Italic matter of intercalation’. Besides reiterating the other function of parentheses—‘to inclose letters, or figure, for References’— Smith finishes his discussion with technical distinctions instructive to modern readers generally and those employed in the printing and publishing industries: ‘To distinguish the two parts of the Parenthesis in reading proofs, its first semicircular figure is called Parenthesis, and the other is signified by reading it, Close ; which answers to claudatur—the term used by Correctors in foreign parts.’

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Smith presents the principal functions of crotchets unambiguously as numerical bullet points. Their first function occurs for ‘Receipts and Prescriptions, that make short paragraphs’ (that is, short-form lists)—for example, ‘Hare, how to roast.]—Wine, how to clarify.]—Strengthening-­ plaister, how to prepare.]’ (p. 106). The second involves ‘Forms of particular Prayers ; and Notations’ (that is, to indicate alternatives or succession, particularly for the ensuing example), such as ‘Restore him [her] we beseech thee—This is the first [second, third] time of, &c.’ The third and fourth are typographical: to enclose not only page numbers without running titles but also letters or figures for references. This contrasts with Brightland (1746, 153), who erroneously informs his readers that crotchets are interchangeable with parentheses: ‘Crotchets [ ] or Brackets, include Words or Sentences of the same Value and Signification with those they are join’d to, and may be us’d instead of Parenthesis.’ Finally, the fifth relates to poetry, when the length of the page measure prohibits the inclusion of the final word(s) or syllable(s) of a line of poetry on the same line. So that the entire text for that line remains together visually, Smith (1755, 106) states that either the word(s) or the syllable(s) is(are) placed above or below this line and preceded only by a crotchet. The first function of the apostrophe, or ‘Sign of Abbreviation’, is to ‘denote the ejection of some letter, or letters, that suffer themselves to be cut by an Apostrophe’ (pp.  106–107). The most common examples include the vowel e in poetry or prose writing, which ‘may be cut off by an Apostrophe, in all such Verbs whose Preterimperfect, or other Tenses, end in ed’; the ‘retrenche[d] l’, such as cou’d, shou’d and wou’d; vowels at the start of words (aphesis), such as ʼbate, ʼscape and ʼSquire; entire syllables at the start of words, such as ʼprentice, ʼfore and ʼchange, though these tend to occur principally in ‘Poetry, Plays, and Epistolary and Humorous Writings’; and creating abbreviated monosyllables, particularly when space is limited on the page, such as tho’ and thro’. Smith’s instruction on the use of apostrophes in French appears to be based on Fertel’s (1723, 226) La science practique de l’imprimerie. During this enumeration, Smith (1755, 107) identifies the stakeholders ultimately responsible for the application of apostrophes: for e, the compositor ‘after his own discretion’; for l, ‘upon sufferance by the Master-Printer, and Author’; and for those at the beginning of words, ‘under the arbitration of an Author’ (pp. 107–108). Therefore, the first, second and fourth appear typographical in nature—that is, for space considerations; and the third, stylistic, which is the author’s domain. The other notable function involves the

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genitive case for singular nouns, where an ʼs ‘terminat[es]’ the noun, such as a proper name, to indicate possession. Note that Smith’s instruction on the grammatical application of the apostrophe concurs with Monteith (1704, 7–8): ‘Apostrophe is a little semicircle, like a Comma, put above the head of a Word, to shew the Omission, or taking away, of a Vowel; and it is ordinarily placed, to distinguish the Genitive Case singular, from the Nominative Plural.’

Standardising Editorial Practice Smith’s (1755) sixth chapter, ‘Of the Names of Letter ; and the Bearings to each other’ is significant for two reasons: first, it instructs compositors on casting-off copy, a task today usually completed by editors; and second, it provides recommendations for authors in the presentation, including mark-up, of their manuscript copy to assist with accurate casting off. In this way, Smith standardises not just the grammatical application of punctuation, but also editorial style within the printing house. By definition, casting off entails calculating the number of typeset pages that a section of text will require for a specific format, such as folio, quarto or octavo: [I]f we divide the Width of a Manuscript into equal parts, we can more readily compute our Copy, by observing, how many parts are required to a line in print. The parts, therefore, into which we divide our Copy for m ­ ensuration, ought to be suitable to the size of it ; viz. wider for that is written in Folio ; and closer for what is written in Quarto, or in Octavo. (p. 154)

Substantive aspects that impact a compositor’s accurate cast-off comprise spacing—whether the manuscript copy was written ‘tolerably even, or whether it varies, and is sometimes close, and then wide’; variations in the size of copy, such as ‘small in one place, and large in another’; textual insertions indicated by the author in the margin or between lines; and the frequency of italicised text, headings, breaks ‘and other incidents’ (p. 155). Smith recommended a letter-based cast-off method that is similar to Moxon’s (1683) arithmetical method outlined in Chap. 2. To complete his letter-based cast-off, Smith (1755, 160) first calculated the number of letters in a line of manuscript copy; he provided the example of 40. Second, he multiplied the number of letters in the line by the number of lines in the manuscript page, say 38, which produces 1520 letters in the page.

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Third, he determined the number of letters for the folio format, for example, 1520 is multiplied by 2; for quarto, multiply by 4; for octavo, by 8; and for twelves, by 12. Smith provided an example to demonstrate his method: ‘Suppose a parcel of Copy is cast off, that promises to make 18 Sheets in Pica, at 38 lines long, and 20 m’s wide.’ His calculations manifest a peculiar type of reverse engineering, starting with the required cast-­ off amount and working backwards: The Pica has 40 letters in a line. 40 times 38 make 1520 letters ; which are contained in 1 page: 16 times 1520 make 24320 ; which is the number of letters in One sheet : 18 times 24320 makes 4,37,760 [sic] ; which is the number of letters contained in 18 Sheets of Pica, of the above-said dimensions.

Smith acknowledges the existence of a word-based cast-off method; nevertheless, he criticises it decisively, stating that ‘[such] casting-off therefore is next to lumping the Copy ; and no Compositor is to answer for the contrary effects thereof’. He concludes that his own method ‘ought not to be challenged ; because it serves several exquisite purposes : for a parcel of Copy being cast off for such a Letter, Size, and number of Sheets, may easily be known what it will make either in a larger or smaller character than it was cast off for’ (pp. 159–60). The ‘rivalry’ between letter- and word-based casting off is discussed further in Chap. 7. To ensure that the cast-off is as precise as possible, Smith proposes the following method for authors when preparing their manuscript copy. First, select black ink and white paper to write copy. Second, decide on the copy’s size; Smith suggests folio or quarto because octavo pages are ‘too soon filled’. Third, position marginal notes in their ‘proper places’—that is, place them in the margin exactly where they should appear on the typeset page. Fourth, ‘do no over-charge the paper’—namely, ensure properly sized margins by not writing to the edges or ‘extremities’. Fifth, write the body text on the right-hand side of the page, and ‘Bottom-notes, Additions, and other incidental Emendations’ on the left. Sixth, ensure that the references in the body text correspond to the notes, and vice versa. Seventh, maintain a consistent referencing style appropriate for the text—that is, ‘chuse such marks and symbols […] as present themselves to the eye’. Eighth, avoid abbreviations or contradictions; however, if this is not possible, an explanation should accompany the copy ‘to serve the Compositor in setting such Abbreviated words at length’. Additional

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specific editorial recommendations include maintaining consistent setting of capitals and nouns, such as proper names, and marking a single underscore underneath text to be set in italics and a double underscore for small capitals (pp. 167–8). While the audience of Chapter 9, ‘Of Composing’, appears to be compositors, numerous aspects are relevant for correctors and the competent execution of their editorial tasks. Smith details how compositors should measure up the pages of manuscript copy, as well as observe the ‘Laws of Printing’ by abiding by the author’s copy. However, why Smith includes this directive is perplexing because he immediately undermines this by confirming the realities of printing practice: that the law is ‘now obsolete’ and that authors accordingly expect the ‘Printer to spell, point, and digest their Copy, that it may be intelligible and significant to the Reader’ (p. 199).27 From this, Smith provides rules during typesetting for applying capitals to not just common nouns but also to specific proper nouns—for example, for the names of men and women, which are additionally italicised; names of kingdoms, provinces, cities, mountains and rivers, also italicised; the Arts and Sciences and ‘those that possess them’; names of ‘Dignity and Quality, whether Ecclesiastical, or Civil’; names of festivals; and words that express a subject’s title (p. 201). Owing to this exhaustive list, Smith urges austerity once again when applying capitals and italics: ‘[W]e pay no regard to put any thing in Italic but what is underscored in our Copy : neither do we drown the beauty of Roman Lower-case Sorts by gracing every Substantive with a Capital ; but only such as are Proper names, or are words of particular signification and emphasis’ (p. 202). Similarly to, and often surpassing, Moxon’s (1683) Mechanick Exercises, for the remainder of Chapter 9, Smith (1755) discusses comprehensively the typesetting of signatures; running titles; body text; headings and subheads; break lines; the indentation of paragraphs; and preliminary and end matter, such as title pages, prefaces, contents pages, indexes and errata. While Smith ostensibly concentrates on the physical typesetting of pages— for instance, he writes in regard to indexes: ‘We always begin an Index upon an uneven page, and put a Slip, or Double rule at the Head thereof’ (p. 215)—he never loses sight of the editorial. He consistently identifies the technical functions of roman and italic, and tacitly encourages auster27  Smith (1755, 213) asserts later: ‘Gentlemen ought not to cross a Printer’s judgement, by obstinately refusing to comply with the endeavours that are used to make the work look uniform.’ See also Bush Jones (1977, 49).

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ity during application. For example, Smith directs the following on the same page, again concerning indexes: ‘It is common to set the Subject word of each Article in Italic, and all the rest in Roman’. The final chapter to be considered is Chapter 11, ‘Of Correctors, and Correcting’, which directly addresses those responsible for implementing and maintaining editorial standards. While Smith’s observations on the ideal characteristics that correctors should possess are instructive—for example, ‘As it is necessary that Correctors should understand languages, so it is requisite that they should be acquainted with the nature of Printing’ (p. 274)—the objective here is to appreciate their hands-on labour, their metalinguistic mindset, their mark-up (see Fig. 4.1). Smith writes: ‘The manner in which Correctors take notice of faults in a Proof, is by particular symbols and signs, that are marked in the Margin, opposite the line that has faults in it : for it is a General law in Printing, That whatsoever fault is not marked or taken notice of in the Margin, the Compositor is not answerable for, if it passes unobserved, and not corrected’ (p. 275). The first noteworthy aspect of Smith’s ‘mark-up’ instruction is that he situates the proofreading symbols within the description of each symbol. This treatment contrasts with those of Hornschuch (1972) (see Fig. 2.1) and Moxon (1683) (see  Fig. 2.2), where the proofreading symbols are separate from the description and placed in the margin. The shortcoming of Smith’s (1755) layout is that it fails to visually capture how each proofreading symbol appears in the margin opposite its relevant text—in other words, the layout does not demonstrate how each symbol is used. The second aspect that distinguishes Smith’s text from those of Hornschuch and Moxon is that his instruction is typeset as a numbered bullet list, not body paragraphs with first-line indentation. While not strictly necessary, this editorial deviation can be interpreted advantageously. The bullet list acts to ‘contain’ the mark-up instruction—highlighting it from the surrounding body text—and as a memory aid both for correctors while correcting page proofs and for compositors when the corrected page proofs are returned. Comparing Smith’s mark-up instruction in The Printer’s Grammar with those of Hornschuch and Moxon reveals many similarities and deviations. Smith decides not to include his predecessors’ caret ( ^ ) for textual insertions; rather, he advises his readers to strike through the text to be modified and insert the replacement copy in the margin with an oblique before it. A semicircle precedes Hornschuch’s replacement copy, whereas Moxon’s has an oblique after it. Of the three, Moxon’s method is preferable

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Fig. 4.1  Smith’s (2014, 275–7) proofreading marks in The Printer’s Grammar (Note that Smith’s (1755, 275–7) text was originally typeset in a single column over three pages. However, to reproduce Smith’s text comfortably on this page, I have organised it into two columns instead). (© Cambridge University Press. Reproduced with permission of The Licensor through PLSclear)

as it prevents ambiguity: typesetters can easily discern where one correction ends and another begins. All authors feature the deletion (deleatur) and space ( # ) symbols. Smith reinstates Hornschuch’s close-up ( ᴗ ) symbol; and reproduces Moxon’s ‘turned letter’ symbol, not Hornschuch’s parallel lines ( ═ ). He also maintains Moxon’s parallel ( │ ) stroke to

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indicate that additional space ‘that sticks up and appears betwixt words’ needs to be removed (Smith 1755, 276); his underlining of text and marking ‘Ital’ or ‘Rom’ (though Moxon uses ‘Eng’) in the margin to instruct typesetters to set the text in italic or roman, respectively; and his innovation of ‘(Out)’ and ‘(See the copy)’ to communicate that supplementary copy needs to be inserted (Moxon 1683, 262–3; Smith 1755, 277). Smith’s grammar features four editorial innovations: the ‘stet’ instruction, and his methods for transposing, or rearranging, words and for run­on and ‘new-paragraph’ text. The Latin stet means ‘let it stand’; editorially, it is a direction typically hand-marked on edited manuscript copy or corrected typeset page proofs to communicate that copy originally designated for deletion needs to be retained. Smith explains it thus: ‘Where words are struck out that are afterwards again approved of, they mark dots under such words, and write in the margin, Stet’ (p.  277). This is the earliest appearance of the word ‘stet’ as a marginal direction to compositors; however, the editorial instruction—without the word but with the symbol— first appeared in Christian Friedrich Gessner’s Der in der Buchdruckerei wohl unterrichtete Lehr-Junge, which was published in 1743, albeit using four spaced full points, not three (see Fig. 1.2). For word transposal, as mentioned in Chap. 2, Hornschuch (1972) instructs correctors to insert numerals both above the specific copy and in the margin to demonstrate the correct sequencing of words; however, Moxon (1683) marks the correction visually within the text with curved lines. Where Smith (1755) departs from his predecessors is that he appropriates both to create a two-­ system approach: first, for words or letters, visually encircle copy and place a large Greek circumflex in the margin (not Moxon’s transposal symbol); and second, for several words, label each word to be transposed with a numeral above it and insert the numerically arranged order in the margin opposite. For run-on text, Smith elaborates on Hornschuch’s instruction. Hornschuch’s (1972, 16) instruction for run-on text in Orthotypographia is: ‘If a space has been left out which should be separate from each other are run together, they are separated by this mark [ ʅ ], which is also put in the margin’. In comparison, Smith (1755, 277) explains that ‘where a new Paragraph should have gone on, and be continued, they draw a short line after the broke-off matter, and write in the Margin, No Break’. Therefore, Smith replaces Hornschuch’s run-on symbol with ‘No Break’. Viewed from a modern perspective, Hornschuch’s and Smith’s methods are acceptable. In regard to new-paragraph text, Smith’s manual stands alone for neither of his predecessors mention it. Smith writes: ‘Where matter is

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run on that should begin a new Paragraph, they draw a stroke down the place, and this mark, [ in the Margin.’

Smith’s Editorial Legacy So far this chapter has analysed Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar within the context of his objective to standardise early modern editorial style; it has not, however, considered his own editorial practice manifest in the text itself. So how proficient was Smith’s editorial practice, such as his application of italics—did he practise what he preached to the mid-eighteenth-­ century English book trade? An appraisal of The Printer’s Grammar reveals Smith’s generally consistent and sober editorial treatment in terms of, for example, its structure and typographical style. As mentioned earlier, Hansard (1825, ix) declared in Typographia that Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar was ‘a tolerably good practical book, although it [was] badly arranged’. Regrettably for modern scholars, Hansard neglected to offer either examples of the grammar’s poor structure or recommendations to improve them. What is instructive is Hansard’s unequivocal preference for Philip Luckombe’s (1770) A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing, which was published 15 years after Smith’s grammar. Hansard (1825, ix) deemed Luckombe’s manual to be ‘a more complete work on the Art’, though he conceded that ‘Luckombe made free use of his predecessor as far as he went : for, upon close comparison, much […] will be found to be plagiarised from Smith’. Therefore, comparing the structures of the manuals of Smith and Luckombe could provide a glimpse of how Smith’s substantive editorial practice had been perceived by his contemporaries. As outlined previously, Smith’s focus, or structure, is initially specific and content driven, but it moves progressively and substantively outwards: Chapters 1–5 and 7 concentrate on the history and application of type, and Chapters 6 and 8–13 address the hands-on interaction of compositors and correctors with content. Luckombe’s overall structure mirrors that of Smith: he commences with minutiae and proceeds substantively outwards. However, Luckombe reconfigures Smith’s first six chapters as 6, 2, 1, 3, 4, 5. In this way, Luckombe describes the bodies of type and their differences first (Smith’s Chapter 6), as a kind of typographical umbrella. Given such structural similarity, Hansard’s accusation of ‘bad’ arrangement appears unfounded without further elaboration on his part. The main textual difference between the two manuals is that Luckombe removes much of

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Smith’s instruction on European print practice (which will be discussed at length in Chap. 6) to accommodate his Britanno-centric agenda: that is, to instruct his readership principally on editorial practice relating to the English vernacular. Perhaps it is this ‘arrangement’ that Hansard favours. Furthermore, in keeping with his grammar’s meticulous taxonomic presentation, Smith uses a complex heading structure, albeit consistently. This is no more evident than in his fourth chapter, which comprises four levels of headings and features a combination of roman, italics, title capitalisation and small capitals to impart emphasis and indicate a textual hierarchy of importance (Smith 1755, 48, 50, 56): Chap. IV Of a Complete Fount of Letter, consider’d as with Printers. I. Of Upper Case Sorts. SECT. III. Of Accented Letters. I. Of the Vowels marked with an Acute.

In deliberate contrast, Luckombe employs a two-level heading hierarchy throughout, though without any stylistic features besides maximal and small capitals, such as varying fount size and using italics. While Hansard appears to approve of Luckombe’s reproduction of Smith’s text—that is, his editorial method of simplifying Smith’s headings—his approval in this context remains unconvincing given Luckombe’s removal of Smith’s emphasis and, particularly, his textual hierarchy. Braces are another important structural element. Smith indicates that the application of braces had become standardised by the mid-eighteenth century: ‘[they are] practised in England to greater perfection than in any other nation’ (p.  127). The following definition forms part of his instruction: Braces stand before, and keep together, such Articles as are of the same import, and are the Subdivisions of preceding Articles. Braces, sometimes, stand after, and keep together, such Articles as make above one line, and have either pecuniary, mercantile, or other posts after them ; which are justified to answer to the middle of the Brace ...

That is, braces are used in tables and other textual matter that need to be kept together. The first of Smith’s many examples that illustrate how they are used and typeset is reproduced in Fig. 4.2:

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Fig. 4.2  How braces are used to keep tabular and other textual matter together in The Printer’s Grammar. (© Cambridge University Press. Reproduced with permission of The Licensor through PLSclear)

In regard to typographical style, Smith generally practises as he instructs his readership: that is, austerity when applying capitals and italics. Smith advises that capitals should appear in inscriptions, titles or other similar matter but that roman, not italic, should be used. In addition, large capitals prefix proper and common nouns, titles of honour and eminence, and emphatical expressions. Italic was confined to passages different from body text, such as quotations, foreign-language words, excerpts from the Bible and text to be emphasised. Moreover, Smith advises against ‘intermingling’. Smith appears to not adhere to his directive regarding the use of italics and its intermingling with roman in titles, as illustrated above; nonetheless, an extract from Moxon’s (1683) Mechanick Exercises ­reproduced by Smith (1755, 24) in his third section ‘Of the Difference of Sizes in Letter’ in Chapter 2 demonstrates the latter’s austerity, as well as Smith’s ability to edit: [...]  Mr. Moxon would not have failed to mention them, as he does Small-­pica ; concerning which he says; ‘We have one Body more which is sometimes used in England, that is, a Small-pica : but I account it no discretion in a Master Printer to provide it, because it differs so little from Pica, that unless the workmen be carefuller [sic] than they sometimes are, it may be mingled with the Pica, and so the beauty of both may be spoiled.’

Moxon’s (1683, 13) original text includes emphasis afforded by the more liberal use of capitals and italics, as was typical of seventeenth-­century typographical style: Yet we have one Body more which is sometimes used in England ; that is a Small Pica, but I account it no great discretion in a Master-Printer to

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provide it; because it differs so little from the Pica, that unless the Workmen be carefuller than they sometimes are, it may be mingled with the Pica, and so the Beauty of both Founts may be spoil’d. (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London: rare book [G.L.] 1683: Moxon, Joseph: Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. (London, 1683))

Here, Smith (1755) removes roman–italic intermingling by setting proper and common nouns in roman and retains capital letters for common nouns for technical terms only. The most common applications of italic in The Printer’s Grammar are the literal reference to letters and words, foreign-language words and text to be emphasised. Smith’s italicisation of letters and words referred to literally figures prominently through his text; however, this editorial style is not applied consistently. For example, when discussing short letters, Smith writes: ‘Short Letters are all such as have their Face, generally, cast on the middle of their square Metal, by Founders called Shank. They are the following, viz. a c e m n o r s u v w x z ; which all will admit of being Bearded, as well below their Face, as at their Sholders, both in the Roman and Italic’ (p. 33). In contrast, in his discussion on vowels marked with a grave, he provides: ‘a has a Grave, when it is a Particle before the Dative case, as j’ai donné à lui, il a dit à lui’ (p. 59). This latter example also showcases Smith’s italicisation of foreign-language words and his proficiency with the French language. An early example of Smith’s use of italic to ­communicate emphasis occurs in Chapter 2: ‘[Here] follows our Counter Table, which will shew how far our present Sizes of Letter different from the former’ (p.  25). His italicisation of both foreign-language words and to provide textual emphasis is applied consistently. Through this comprehensive appraisal, Smith’s taxonomic jargon and meticulous presentation of text reveals him to be not only a professional who is unapologetically dedicated to his craft but also someone characteristic of the Enlightenment’s commitment to order. Smith’s increasingly substantive text mirrors the editorial style it seeks to standardise: moving from the function of roman and italics, the articulation of specific type, the taxonomic examination of punctuation, to prescribed orthography, the method for casting-off copy, recommendations for authors in the presentation of their manuscript copy, and the composition and correction of

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page proofs. Through this, Smith’s standardising text both embodied contemporary practice and coincided with three fundamental shifts in English print culture in the eighteenth century: typographical, grammatical and orthographic. However, to confine this standardisation to editorial processes would be erroneous; Smith’s legacy is as successfully ambitious as that of Moxon: to standardise the whole print production process.

References Barker, Nicolas. 1981. Typography and the Meaning of Words: The Revolution in the Layout of Books in the Eighteenth Century. In The Book and the Book Trade in Eighteenth-Century Europe, ed. Giles Barber and Bernhard Fabian, 127–165. Hamburg: Dr Ernst Hauswedell & Co. ———. 2010. The Morphology of the Page. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume V: 1695–1830, ed. Michael F. Suarez and Michael L. Turner, 248–267. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baron, Naomi S. 2001. Commas and Canaries: The Role of Punctuation in Speech and Writing. Language Sciences 23 (1): 15–67. Bigmore, E.C., and C.W.H. Wyman. 1884. A Bibliography of Printing with Notes and Illustrations. Vol. 1. London: Bernard Quaritch. Bray, Joe. 2000. “Attending to the Minute”: Richardson’s Revisions of Italics in Pamela. In Ma(r)king the Text: The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Page, ed. Joe Bray, Miriam Handley, and Anne C.  Henry, 105–119. Aldershot: Ashgate. Brightland, John. 1746. A Grammar of the English Tongue: With the Arts of Logick, Rhetorick, Poetry &c. Illustrated with Useful Notes; Giving the Grounds and Reasons of Grammar in General. 7th ed. London: Printed for Henry Lintot. Bruthiaux, Paul. 1993. Knowing When to Stop: Investigating the Nature of Punctuation. Language & Communication 13 (1): 27–43. Bush Jones, John. 1977. Victorian “Readers” and Modern Editors: Attitudes and Accidentals Revisited. The Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America 71: 49–59. Butler, Charles. 1633. The English Grammar, or the Institution of Letters, Syllables, and Words in the English Tongue. Oxford: Printed by William Turner, for the Author. Byrne, James. 2006. A Humanist History of Mathematics? Regiomontanus’s Padua Oration in Context. Journal of the History of Ideas 67 (1): 41–61. Chappell, Warren, and Robert Bringhurst. 2000. A Short History of the Printed Word. Vancouver: Hartley and Marks Publishers. Fertel, Martin Dominique. 1723. La science practique de I’imprimerie. St Omer: Par Martin Dominque Fertel.

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Fisher, Anne. 1754. A New Grammar with Exercises of Bad English: Or, an Easy Guide to Speaking and Writing the English Language Properly and Correctly. 4th ed. Newcastle upon Tyne: Printed by I. Thompson and Comp. Greenwood, James. 1711. An Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar. London: Printed by R. Tookey. Hansard, T.C. 1825. Typographia: An Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Art of Printing; with Practical Directions for Conducting Every in an Office: With a Description of Stereotype and Lithography. London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock and Joy. Henry, Anne C. 2000. The Re-mark-able Rise of “…”: Reading Ellipsis Marks in Literary Texts. In Ma(r)king the Text: The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Page, ed. Joe Bray, Miriam Handley, and Anne C. Henry, 120–142. Aldershot: Ashgate. Honan, Paul. 2008. Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century English Punctuation Theory. English Studies 41: 92–102. Hornschuch, Hieronymus. 1972. Orthotypographia. Trans. Philip Gaskell and Patricia Bradford, Historical Bibliography Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Library. Houston, Keith. 2013. Shady Characters: Ampersands, Interrobangs and Other Typographical Curiosities. London: Particular Books. Luckombe, Philip. 1770. A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing with Practical Instructions to the Trade in General. Compiled from Those Who Have Wrote on This Curious Art. London: Printed and Sold by W. Adlard and J. Browne. Maruca, Lisa. 2003. Bodies of Type: The Work of Textual Production in English Printers’ Manuals. Eighteenth-Century Studies 36 (3): 321–343. Maslen, Keith. 1969. Samuel Richardson and Smith’s Printer’s Grammar. The Book Collector 18: 518–519. McKerrow, R.B. 1913. Notes on Bibliographical Evidence for Literary Students and Editors of English Works of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The Library TBS-12 (1): 213–318. https://doi.org/10.1093/libraj/ TBS-12.1.213. McKitterick, David. 1993. The Acceptable Face of Print. In An Index of Civilisation: Studies of Printing and Publishing History in Honour of Keith Maslen, ed. R. Harvey, W. Kirsop, and B.J. McMullin, 15–30. Clayton: Centre for Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Monash University. ———. 2003. Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450–1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, C.J. 1983. Quotation Marks, National Compositorial Habits and False Imprints. The Library s6-5 (4): 359–384. https://doi.org/10.1093/library/ s6-5.4.359.

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Monteith, Robert. 1704. The True and Genuine Art, of Exact Pointing; as Also What Concerns the Distinction of Syllables; the Marking of Capitals; and Italick, or Different Character: To Be Used, in Prints and Manuscripts, as Well Latine, as English. Edinburgh: Printed by John Reid Junior. Mosley, James. 2007. John Smith’s Printer’s Grammar, 1755. Typefoundry: Documents for the History of Type and Letterforms, October 2. http://typefoundry.blogspot.com/2007/10/. Accessed 22 Feb 2019. ———. 2009. The Technologies of Printing. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume 5: 1695–1830, ed. Michael F. Suarez and Michael L. Turner, 161–199. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moxon, Joseph. 1683. Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. The Second Volumne [sic]. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the Sign of Atlas. Parkes, M.B. 1992. Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West. Aldershot: Ashgate. ———. 2008. Layout and Presentation of the Text. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume II: 1100–1400, ed. Nigel Morgan and Rodney M. Thomson, 55–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pollack, Oliver B. 2006. The Decline and Fall of Bottom Notes, op. cit., loc. cit., and a Century of the Chicago Manual of Style. Journal of Scholarly Publishing 38 (1): 14–30. Salmon, Vivian. 1962. Early Seventeenth-Century Punctuation as a Guide to Sentence Structure. Review of English Studies 13 (52): 347–360. ———. 1988. English Punctuation Theory 1500–1800. Anglia: Zeitschrift Für Englische Philologie 1988 (106): 285–314. Smith, John. 1755. The Printer’s Grammar. London: Printed for the Editor; and Sold by W.  Owen, Near Temple Bar; and by M.  Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row. ———. 2014. The Printer’s Grammar, Cambridge Library Collection—History of Printing, Publishing and Libraries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stower, Caleb. 1808. The Printer’s Grammar; or, Introduction to the Art of Printing: A Concise History of the Art, with the Improvements in the Practice of Printing, for the Last Fifty Years. London: Printed by the Editor, 32, Paternoster Row, for B. Crosby and Co. Stationers’-Court. Timperley, Charles H. 1839. A Dictionary of Printers and Printing, with the Progress of Literature, Ancient and Modern; Bibliographical Illustrations, etc. etc. London: H. Johnson. Zahra, Kanwal. 2010. A Critique of Postmodernism. International Journal of Arts and Humanities 38 (38).

CHAPTER 5

Eighteenth-Century Editorial Style at Work: The Editing of The Elements of Euclid by Isaac Barrow and Robert Simson

According to Leslie Howsam (2014, 31), ‘Like any human cultural institution, print culture is perilous simply because it is human’. The word of interest in this perceptive statement is ‘perilous’. Human practice contributes undoubtedly to print culture’s perilousness, but how specifically— particularly when the word literally means ‘dangerous’ or ‘risky’? Placing this within the context of this book, perilousness pertains to the inherently human editorial practices in early modern England that negotiate content to achieve authorial clarity. This perilousness is exceedingly complex and, in turn, exacerbated by its complexity: put simply, human editorial practices prone to error that were completed approximately 300 years ago are analysed under an equally human hermeneutic lens. More particularly, this book seeks to uncover how stakeholders in the print trade interpreted and implemented the rules and guidelines supplied in contemporary style guides. Which rules and guidelines did editors and publishers, for instance, strictly adhere to and which did they adapt and for what purpose? Were these adaptations seeking to achieve clarity of authorial meaning or a broader, or perhaps, adjacent agenda? The perilous endeavour to uncover early modern editorial style is demonstrated through comparative textual analyses of the specific editions of The Elements of Euclid by Isaac Barrow (1660, 1686 and 1705) and Robert Simson (1756). Like many professions, editing is an intrinsically human, personal endeavour; hence, each editor of The Elements of Euclid began © The Author(s) 2019 J. Hargrave, The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England, New Directions in Book History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20275-0_5

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their Euclidean journeys with virtually identical copy; however, their ­differing treatments reflect iconoclastic editorial experiences. From the myriad editors of The Elements of Euclid, Barrow and Simson were selected for their divergent approaches: while Barrow’s method was generally pedagogic and content-driven, Simson’s related more to his legacy—to remain visible among these myriad editors. These editorial  performances are examined with specific reference to Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar not only to determine their success but also to gain some understanding in the twenty-first century of why certain editorial decisions were made, especially in comparison, and often in opposition, to those implemented by previous editors.

Same but Different: The Editors of The Elements of Euclid The Euclidean experience in early modern England has received much scholarly attention; the overarching aspect shared among scholars is the regret that precious little is known about Greek mathematician Euclid, whose Elements is considered to be the world’s oldest mathematics textbook (Blum 2002; Stakhov 2009). According to Charles Thomas-Stanford (1924, 39), ‘Euclid flourished at Alexandria about 300 BC.’ Thomas-­ Stanford’s contemporary, Thomas Heath, offers significantly more in his introduction to his scholarly edition The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements, the first complete English translation since James Williamson in 1781 (Barrow-Green 2007). Heath (1956, 2) states that it is ‘most probable that Euclid received his mathematical training in Athens from the pupils of Plato’ and that ‘[one] thing is […] certain, namely that Euclid taught, and founded a school, at Alexandria’.1 The Elements of Euclid (also known as Euclid’s Elements) comprises fifteen books that explain, as Christopher Blum (2002, 108) enumerates, ‘all the basic theorems of the geometry of both plane and solid figures, as well as treatises on angles and parallel lines, ratio and proportion, arithmetic, and incommensurable magnitudes’.2 Each book conforms to a standard structure or ‘template’ (Stahl 2013, 26). The first book begins by defining forty geometrical terms, the first being: ‘A Point is that which hath no part’ (Euclid and Barrow 1660, 1). Explicitly labelled diagrams  Note that the first edition was published in 1908.  See also Stakhov (2009, 2).

1 2

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accompany many of these, as well as the majority of content thereafter. Three ‘Postulates or Petitions’ immediately follow the definitions. Modern mathematicians might term these ‘hypotheses’ or ‘statement of goal[s]’ (Stahl 2013, 26). The first postulate is, for instance: ‘From any point to any point to draw a right line’ (Euclid and Barrow 1660, 6). Twenty ‘Axiomes’, or ‘rules’ (Ostermann and Wanner 2012, 30),3 are listed next, the second of which is, for example: ‘If to equall things you adde equall things, the wholes shall be equall’ (‘equall’ here means ‘even’) (Euclid and Barrow 1660, 7). The remainder of book one contains forty-seven ‘propositions’, or problems, each of which features either corollaries (or conclusions), scholia (commentary), additional theorems or a combination of these. Regarding the scholia, Heath (1956, 65) is unequivocal: ‘As a rule, they contain only such observations as any intelligent reader could make for himself.’ Heath appears unconvinced by the scholia’s auxiliary function; indeed, he might have had the one attached to proposition fortyseven, which treats right-angled triangles, in mind. It reads: ‘This most excellent and useful theoreme hath deserved the title of Pythagoras his theoreme, because he was the inventor of it. By the help of which the addition and subtraction of squares are performed’ (Euclid and Barrow 1660, 35). Nevertheless, each component is consistently applied according to the template. Sometime Oxford and Cambridge scholar in the early 1550s, apprentice haberdasher who later became a wealthy merchant, and elected Sheriff of London in 1584 and Lord Mayor in 1596, Henry Billingsley (d. 1606) produced the first English translation of The Elements, which was printed in London by John Daye in 1570. Its preliminary matter included John Dee’s Mathematicall Praeface. Billingsley’s edition contains not only all fifteen books but also an additional sixteenth thought to have originated from François de Foix (1502–94), Comte de Candale, who compiled a complete Latin edition of The Elements in 1566 from Greek (Euclid and Heath 1956, 104).4 According to Heath (1956, 109–110), Billingsley created ‘truly a monumental work, consisting of 464 leaves, and therefore 928 pages, of folio size, excluding the lengthy preface by Dee […] The print and appearance of the book are worthy of its contents’. Billingsley (1570, i–ii) declares in his preface ‘The Translator to the Reader’ that his pedagogical objective is to educate those unfamiliar with Euclidean geom3 4

 See also Stahl (2013, 26) and Blum (2002, 108).  See also Klein (1992, 259).

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etry: ‘But perfectly to be instructed in [the principles, groundes, and Elementes of Geometrie], requireth diligent studie and reading of old aucient authors. Amongst which, none for a beginner is to be preferred before the most auncient Philosopher Euclide of Megara.’ Note that Billingsley maintained the misattribution thought to have been first perpetrated by Theodorus Metochita (1260–1332) that Euclid of Megara (fl. 400 BCE) authored The Elements, not Euclid of Alexandria who lived the century later (Euclid and Heath 1956; Broadbent 1947). The next translation into English appeared in 1651. Entitled Euclides Elements of Geometry the First VI Books, in a Compendious Form Contracted and Demonstrated, this translation was produced by English military engineer and mathematician Captain Thomas Rudd (1583?–1656) and printed in London by Robert and William Leybourn. Its compact, ‘modest’ nature is evidenced by its abbreviated content (Barrow-Green 2007, 7), quarto size and 259 page extent. Included in Rudd’s edition is a reprint of Dee’s Mathematicall Praeface. More versions directly ensue. In 1660, Isaac Barrow’s Euclide’s Elements; The Whole Fifteen Books Compendiously Demonstrated was printed in London by Roger Daniel for William Nealand and reprinted numerous times, such as in 1660, 1686, 1705 and 1714. In 1661, students John Leeke and George Serle’s Euclid’s Elements of Geometry In XV. Books: With a Supplement of Divers Propositions and Corollaries contained not only the second reprint of Dee’s preface but also other diverse elements as mentioned in its lengthy subtitle: ‘To Which is Added, a Treatise of Regular Solids, by Campane and Flussas. Likewise Euclid’s Data: And Marinus His Preface Thereunto Annexed. Also a Treatise of the Divisions of Superficies, Ascribed to Machomet Bagdedine, but Published by Commandine, at the Request of John Dee of London’. Two independent versions though similarly translated from the1672 French edition by Claude-Françoit Dechales appeared in 1685: the first by Reeve Williams, engraver, teacher of mathematics and self-described ‘Philomath’, was printed in London for Phillip Lea; the second by William Halifax, an Oxford academic, printed in Oxford by Leonard Lichfield. Both featured books one to six and eleven to twelve only. Other noteworthy abridged versions include William Alingham’s Geometry Epitomiz’d in 1695, which provided the first six books, and An Epitome of Geometry in 1700, which contained both the first six books and the eleventh and twelfth; John Keill’s Euclid’s Elements of Geometry from the Latin Translation of Commandine in 1723; Henry Hill’s The Six First, Together with the Eleventh and Twelfth Books of Euclid’s Elements Demonstrated After a New, Plain, and Easie Method in 1726; and

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Robert Simson’s The Elements of Euclid viz. the First Six Books, Together with the Eleventh and Twelfth in 1756. Jacqueline Stedall (2012, 70) observes correctly that ‘[further] English editions followed throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Each editor wrote in his own style, and with his own ideas on how best to present The Elements to new readers.’5 With this in mind, examinations of Barrow (1660, 1686 and 1705) and Simson (1756) follow, with their editorial practice particularly analysed with reference to Moxon’s (1683) Mechanick Exercises and Smith’s (1755) The Printer’s Grammar, respectively.

Barrow’s Euclide’s Elements English mathematician Isaac Barrow (1630–77) began his Euclidean journey in print with his Latin translations from Greek. Published in 1655 while abroad on the Continent, Euclidis Elementorum Libri XV Breviter Demonstrati is Barrow’s first publication (Feingold 1990), printed by the Cambridge University Printer and organised by Cambridge bookseller William Nealand (fl. 1649–62) (Simpkins 1966). Barrow’s objective was to present Euclid in its entirety, albeit in a compact fashion: ‘He compressed the work into a very small compass (less than 400 small pages, in the edition of 1659, for the whole of the fifteen Books and the Data) by abbreviating the proofs and using a large quantity of symbols (which, he says, are generally [William] Oughtred’s)’ (Euclid and Heath 1956, 105). In 1657 his first edition of Euclidis Data appeared, again printed by the University Printer in Cambridge, organised by Nealand and during Barrow’s absence (Simpkins 1966). In 1659 the Elements and Data were published in one volume; Barrow had returned to England by this time. While Nealand sponsored the volume’s publication, this time it was printed in London by Roger Daniel. Which Latin version Barrow used to create his 1660 first edition in English remains unclear. Heath, Goldstein and Barrow-Green independently imply that Barrow utilised the 1655 first edition. Heath (1956, 110) states: ‘The First English edition of Barrow’s Euclid (published in 5  Simpkins (1966, 249) writes that ‘[by] the end of the seventeenth century Euclid was established as part of the liberal education of a gentleman and as a basic discipline for navigators and military scientists; he was read by the academic and the practical man, and neither had the monopoly of translating or interpreting the texts’.

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Latin in 1655), appeared in London’; almost 100 years later, Goldstein (2000, 41) writes: ‘in his 1655 Latin and 1660 English editions of the Elements, Barrow included all of Euclid’s propositions and carefully distinguished postulates, axioms, and definitions’. Barrow-Green’s (2007, 8) expression mirrors that of Heath: Barrow’s ‘first edition of the Elements was published in Latin in 1655, with his first English edition (translated from the Latin) following five years later’. In contrast, Simpkins (1966, 242) conjectures differently and more explicitly, though without citing any evidence: ‘He presumably translated it himself from the 1659 edition with incorporated corrections.’ Barrow’s 1660 English first edition of Euclide’s Elements inherits much from its Latin antecedents. The title page features a quote from Greek philosopher Hierocles (fl. second century AD), written in Greek and typeset with a rule placed above and below it across the page measure; Barrow first utilises Hierocles’ quotation in Euclidis Elementorum Libri XV Breviter Demonstrati. Simpkins provides a translation: ‘A knowledge of Mathematics is the purification of the rational mind’ (p.  240). The Hierocles quotation in the 1660 English first edition functions as a pedagogical signpost for Barrow’s overall objectives articulated in ‘The Author’s Preface’, which mirror those in his Latin translations. First, Barrow (1660, i) offers a complete yet compact version of Euclid: ‘to conjoin the greatest Compendiousness of Demonstration with as much Perspicuity as the quality of the subject would admit ; that so the volume might bear no bigger bulk then would render it conveniently portable’. He reiterates his editorial position more emphatically on the next page: ‘to demonstrate Euclide himself, and all of him, and that with all possible brevity’ (p. iv). He later states that his ‘Performance’ is ‘undertaken for the advantage of [his Ingenuous Readers’] Studies’. Barrow’s objective epitomised seventeenth-­century pedagogical and commercial practice, as observed by Goldstein (2000, 41): ‘Seventeenth-century editions such as those of Isaac Barrow […] not only demonstrated increasing concern for consistent editorial style but also aimed to spread geometry to a widening geometric readership’.6 Barrow’s second objective is to provide symbolic rather than verbal, or descriptive, demonstrations. That is, he subscribes to an ‘algebraic notation’ (Wardhaugh 2012, 248) derived from English 6  Simpkins (1966, 243) states that Barrow’s Euclid ‘was clearly influential as the first cheap and compact, but reliable and complete edition, available first in academic circles and later to students of mathematics and navigation outside the universities’.

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­ athematician William Oughtred (1574–1660) that he declares had not m been previously applied, with the exception of Peter Herigon, or Pierre Hérigone (1580–1643), whose translation was published posthumously in 1644 (Feingold 1990; Wardhaugh 2012). Barrow’s preference for ‘the intermingling of Words and Signes’ to avoid ‘superfluous repetition’ (Euclid and Barrow 1660, iv) and ambiguity resulting from descriptive conjunctions and adjectives received much criticism. As Heath (1956, 110–11) recounts, for example, Keill ‘praises Barrow’s version on the whole, though object[s] to the “algebraical” form of proof adopted in Book II, and to the excessive use of notes and symbols, which (he considers) makes the proofs too short and thereby obscure’.7 Such criticism forms part of a wider disapproval regarding Barrow’s prioritisation of geometry over arithmetic. As previously mentioned, Barrow’s 1660 octavo edition was printed in London by Roger Daniel for Cambridge bookseller William Nealand. The title page features both black and red ink, the latter utilised mostly for proper nouns (‘Isaac Barrow’, ‘Cambridge’, ‘R.  Daniel’, ‘William Nealand’, ‘Cambridge’ and ‘Duck-Lane’) but also for emphasis (‘ELEMENTS’ and ‘Fifteen Book’) (see Fig. 5.1). Printed 11 years after Barrow’s death, the ‘very carefully corrected’ 1686 duodecimo second edition enumerates different participants in its imprint: printed in London for ‘Christopher Hussey and E. P in Little Britain’. Simpkins (1966, 242) identifies ‘E.  P’ as ‘presumably E.  Playford, bookseller of Little Britain, successor to John Playford who died in 1685’. She also intimates that the printer and location changes sought to widen Barrow’s reception: ‘It seems there was a market for the Barrow Euclid outside the general academic circle.’ The second edition’s title page exhibits similar use of red ink to that of the first, though with the additions of ‘Second Edition’ and ‘London’. Other variations on the second edition’s title page not only result from its smaller duodecimal size but also demonstrate Hussey’s different typographical style from that of the University Printer at Cambridge: ‘Euclide’ is now spelt ‘Euclid’; a full stop follows ‘ELEMENTS’ instead of a semicolon; fewer words occupy the lines across the page measure (e.g. ‘The Whole’ sits independently on the line to emphasise the edition’s complete nature); and the serpent–eagle printer’s device has been omitted. Both first and second editions identify Barrow as ‘Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge’. 7

 See also Goldstein (2000, 41), Barrow-Green (2007, 19) and Feingold (1990, 43).

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Fig. 5.1  The title pages of the 1660 and 1686 editions of Barrow’s Euclid[e]’s Elements. (British Library 8529.a.22. and 1485.k.21, respectively)

While not labelled as such on the title page, the 1705 third edition appeared 17 years after the second edition and 28 years after Barrow’s death; Barrow is now designated ‘Late Master of Trinity College in Cambridge’. Its imprint indicates that it was printed in London by E. Redmayne and sold by J. Sprint in Little Britain. From the outset, it is apparent the third edition intends to emulate the 1660 first edition: octavo in size, rather than duodecimo, the spelling on the title page is identical (‘Euclide’ not ‘Euclid’); the entire book title occupies the same number of lines and is similarly typeset across the page measure—though ‘BOOKS’ features maximal capitalisation; and a semicolon follows ‘ELEMENTS’, not a full stop. However, red ink is no longer utilised to provide textual emphasis. Moreover, dissimilar to its predecessors, the third edition includes additional copy of ‘Archimedes Theorems of the Sphere and

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Cylinder, investigated by the Method of Indivisibles’ and does not specify that The Elements have been ‘Translated out of the Latin’, only ‘Never before in English’. Comparing ‘The Author’s Preface’ of the 1660 and 1686 editions provides a preliminary glimpse of distinct editorial style in practice regarding spelling and the application of capitals and italics. The editor of the second edition has corrected and modernised Barrow’s spelling in most instances: ‘then’ becomes the comparative conjunction ‘than’, which is accurate for the context (‘that so the Volume might bear no bigger Bulk than would render it conveniently portable’) (Euclid and Barrow 1686, i); ‘farr’ becomes ‘far’; ‘lesse’ becomes ‘less’, ‘Axiomes’ becomes ‘Axioms’ and ‘Paines’ becomes ‘Pains’. One deviation involves the alteration of ‘conjoin’ to ‘conjoyn’. While readers today might conclude that the editor’s more frequent capitalisation of nouns in the preface contradicts the book’s comparative modernity, the opposite is true. The 1686 edition was published three years after Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and its capitalisation conforms to the manual’s general directives: common nouns requiring emphasis are capitalised; applying italics imparts further emphasis. Examples of common nouns given an initial capital are those pertinent to the production and reception of content: ‘Bulk’, ‘Person’, ‘Curiosity’, ‘Conciseness’, ‘Propositions’, ‘Discretion’ and ‘Alliance’. Few nouns besides proper nouns, such as ‘Andr. Tacques’ and ‘Euclid’, are italicised in both editions’ preface; nevertheless, the editor of the second does italicise one other for emphasis—‘Axioms’—which is consistent with the application of capitals. In contrast, the third edition differs significantly: while its capitalisation approximates that of the second edition, the editor has condensed the first edition’s original four-page preface to less than two—an advertisement occupies the latter quarter of the second page; furthermore, the abbreviated ordinal numbers used to represent The Elements’ books are now italicised: ‘unless in the 2d. and 13th. and sparingly in the 7th. 8th. and 9th. Books’ (Euclid and Barrow 1705, i). Before conducting the textual analysis of Barrow’s editorial style, another significant difference between the three editions needs to be acknowledged: the placement of artwork in the body text. For the 1660 first edition, each piece of artwork is situated on the page beside the text that it accompanies. However, the editor of the 1686 second edition has removed them all, except for the artwork for definition XXXIV (Euclid and Barrow 1686, 4), gathered them into fold-out leaves and inserted the leaves further into the text. Such a decision is understandable c­ ommercially:

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the copy is typeset with minimum inconvenience. Constant indentation can engender myriad potential problems; for example, greater time dedicated to typesetting, such as for moving text and removing subsequent widows and orphans, which in turn increases production time and expenses, and the possibility of exceeding the allocated page extent. Nevertheless, a decision that benefits the typesetter ultimately results in inconvenience for readers, who are now required to flick through the pages to consult artwork. Fortunately, the readers of the 1705 third edition are spared this chore as the artwork is reinstated beside the immediate body text. It is therefore apparent that the editor of the 1705 third edition sought to emulate Barrow’s original work in the 1660 first edition, while the editor of the 1686 second exhibited divergences, particularly in relation to the placement of artwork. Regrettably, editorial notes were not included to account for these divergences—only comparing these editions, particularly with their contemporary style guides, potentially affords some understanding of why certain decisions were made over others.

Barrow’s Editorial Intermediation Barrow differentiates himself editorially from his predecessors, Billingsley and Rudd, through his application of italics and capitals, his referencing and his ‘intermingling’ of words and symbols. One of the functions of italic in Barrow’s 1660 first edition is to distinguish breakout text—that is, text set apart from normal textual matter. The first example arises on the final verso page of the preliminaries. Headed ‘The Explication of the Signes or Characters’, Barrow provides a table of his most frequently used signs and their definitions (see Fig. 5.2). For instance, the addition operator (+) is defined as ‘More, or to be added’. Beneath the table is the italicised breakout text: ‘Other Abbreviations of words, where ever they occurr, the Reader will without trouble understand of himself; saving some few, which, being of lesse general use, we refer to be explained in their own places’ (Euclid and Barrow 1660, vi). Neither Billingsley nor Rudd supplied such a table in their editions; moreover, subsequent editors of Euclid appropriated Barrow’s table for their own. For example, in his edition, Henry Hill (1726, vii) utilised Barrow’s table as a template to create his expanded two-page version; he even adapted Barrow’s heading: ‘The Explanation of the Signs, Characters, and Abbreviation of Words, used in this BOOK’.

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Fig. 5.2  Table of symbols from the 1660 first edition of Barrow’s Euclid[e]’s Elements. (British Library 8529.a.22)

As mentioned previously, Moxon (1683) describes in Mechanick Exercises the roman–italic reversal method: body text typeset in roman requires proper nouns to be set in italic, whereas body text in italics necessitates proper nouns to be set in roman. For clarification of an additional seventeenth-century purpose of italic, it is necessary to refer to Smith’s

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(1755) The Printer’s Grammar: italics originally served to distinguish the subparts of a book from the main text, such as contents, prefaces, introductions, annotations, poems and summaries. Barrow’s italicised breakout text therefore conforms to contemporary practice: the italic signifies its independence from the tabular material—though the preface fails to conform by being typeset in roman. The italic also emphasises Barrow’s point to readers: not all symbols appear in the table but are explained elsewhere when first employed. The 1686 and 1705 editions reproduce Barrow’s table of symbols verbatim typographically, though with minor textual alterations according to their idiosyncratic presentations. The 1686 second edition corrected and modernised the spelling—‘Equall’ to ‘Equal’, ‘Lesse’ to ‘Less’, ‘Excesse’ to ‘Excess’, ‘where ever’ to ‘wherever’, ‘occurr’ to ‘occur’, ‘generall’ to ‘general’ and ‘referr’ to ‘refer’—and capitalised the plural noun ‘Words’. Whereas the 1705 third edition’s spelling is identical to that of its immediate predecessor, the editor conformed to the first edition by reinstating the lower-case ‘words’. The most common breakout text involves Barrow’s explanatory notes to his readers. An early example of an explanatory note in the 1660 edition relates to how angles, when several meet at the same point, are described by three letters (Euclid and Barrow 1660, 2): Note. When severall angles meet at the same point (as at G) each particular angle is described by three Letters ; whereof the middle letter sheweth the angular point, and the two other letters the lines that makes that angle : As the angle which the right lines CG, AG make at G, is called CGA, or AGC.

Typeset in roman, with full stop, at the start of the paragraph, the ‘Note’ functions as a heading, with the italicised text running on directly after. Consistent with the body text, the breakout text features first-line indentation of one m quadrat, with the remainder set full out. This indentation style mirrors Moxon’s (1683, 226) instruction in Mechanick Exercises: ‘Indenting after a Break (unless it be the end of a Chapter or Section) is an m Quadrat, (more or less is not proper) Set at the beginning of a Line’. The breakout text in the 1686 second edition exhibits similar first-line indentation and the roman heading ‘Note’ with full stop, yet the paragraph generally comprises a hanging indent to emphasise its extra-­textual nature visually. The spelling of ‘severall’ has now been modernised to ‘several’. While the 1660 addition correctly follows to the italic–roman reversal method by setting the pronumerals in roman, the 1686 edition contains italicised text overall (Euclid and Barrow 1686, 2):

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Note. When several angles meet at the same point (as at G) each particular angle is described by three letters; whereof the middle letter sheweth the angular point, and the two other letters the lines that make that angle: As the angle which the right lines CG, AG make at G, is called CGA or AGC.

The 1705 third edition maintains the modern spelling of the second edition, but mirrors not only the typesetting of the first edition—first-line indentation of one m quadrat, with the remainder set full out—but also the roman–italic reversal method by setting the pronumerals in roman: ‘As the angle which the right lines CG, AG make at G, is called CGA, or AGC’ (Euclid and Barrow 1705, 2). Admittedly, neither the first nor the third edition correctly maintains the reversal method for the body text: both normal textual matter and pronumerals are set in roman. Note, however, that not all explanatory notes commence with the ‘Note’ heading. For example, proposition II in book one includes the following caption-like note after artwork: ‘At a point given A, to make a right line AG equall to a right line given BC’ (Euclid and Barrow 1660, 9). The second and third editions reproduce this text according to their identified editorial styles. Moxon (1683) directs in Mechanick Exercises that common nouns requiring emphasis be capitalised. Barrow implements contemporary practice in the 1660 first edition pedagogically in his ‘Definitions’ sections: the first instance in which a keyword is defined, it is typeset with an initial capital; all subsequent instances are lower case. The capital functions to bring each keyword to readers’ attention and convey its importance. Barrow applies this keyword style consistently. For example, for the definition of right-angled parallelograms in the second book, the text reads: ‘Every right-angled Parallelogram AB–CD is said to be conteined [sic] under two right lines AB, AD comprehending a right angle’ (Euclid and Barrow 1660, 39); and further in the seventh book, regarding the basic multiplication of numbers, ‘One number is said to Multiply another, when the number multiplied is so often added to it self, as there are unities in the number multiplying, and another number is produced’ (p.  142). Note that the table of symbols on the final preliminary page demonstrates the keyword style as well. For the division (÷) operator definition, for instance, the words ‘Difference’ and ‘Excesse’ contain initial capital letters; similarly, for square root: ‘Side’, ‘Root’, ‘Square’ and ‘Cube’. Consistent with their identified editorial styles, the 1686 second edition presents all such keywords as lower case, whereas the 1705 third edition reinstates Barrow’s pedagogical keyword style.

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Barrow is not the first editor of Euclid to place notes, or references, in the outside margin of the page; Billingsley holds this title. Nevertheless, the compositors of both versions observe Moxon’s (1683, 236) general instruction in Mechanick Exercises: ‘Marginal Notes come down the Side or Sides of the Pages (for if there be two Columns in a Page, the Marginal Notes may come down both sides)’. Evidently, Moxon supplies only basic typographic instruction; for references’ specific contemporary editorial purpose, it is necessary to consult Smith’s (1755, 75) The Printer’s Grammar: ‘References are called, all such Marks and Signs as are used in matter which has either side or bottom Notes; and as serve to direct the Reader to the observations which are made upon such passages of the text as are distinguished by them, and demand a Reference of the same likeness to be put to the Notes by which the Matter is illustrated, or otherwise taken notice of.’ Billingsley upholds this practice by utilising his marginal notes to provide observation or elucidation; moreover, he correctly applies italics to distinguish the notes from normal textual matter, though most are not signposted in the body text with a reference symbol. In the first book, for example, opposite the definition ‘A lyne is the mouyng of a poynte, as the motion or draught of a pinne or a penne to your fence maketh a lyne’ is the observation inserted in the left-hand margin: ‘An other definition of a line’ (Euclid et al. 1570, f. 3v). On the facing recto page, one marginal note imparts reiterative emphasis: opposite the text ‘Of all figures a circle is the most perfect, and therefore is it here first defined’ and its accompanying artwork is the marginal note: ‘A circle the most perfect of all figures.’ A marginal note further on serves to elucidate; however, its presentation is significant: it features the first reference symbol in body text (f. 19r). Under the heading ‘The 4. Probleme. The 9. Proposition.’, which details how to ‘decide a rectiline angle geuen, into two equall partes’, the third paragraph reads: Here against this proposition may of the aduersary be brought an  instance. For he may cauill that the hed of the equilater triangle shall not fall between the two right lines, but on one of them, or without them both.

The star preceding ‘instance’ alerts readers to the accompanying marginal note on the left-hand side:  An instance is an objection or a doubt, whereby is letted or troubled the construction, or demonstration, & contayneth an vntruth, and an impossibility: and therefore it must of necessity be answered vnto, and the falsehode thereof made manifest.

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The star, Billingsley’s ‘first-order’ reference, approximates the ‘asterism’ (or asterisk) defined by Smith (1755, 79): ‘The Asterism is the chief of the References, which presents itself most readily to the eye, on account of having its figure a-top, and leaving a blank below ; which makes it a Superior.’ ‘First order’ thus relates to the asterisk’s primary placement on the page—it is the first to appear in the margin, with the remaining symbols (the paragraph [¶], the section [§], the obelisk [†], double dagger [‡] and the parallel [║]) used for subsequent references. Smith relates how the reference symbols start anew for each page. Compositors also utilised superior (or superscript) italicised letters for references, surrounded by parentheses or crotchets, though these are not present in Billingsley’s edition. Instead, he uses only his star for the body text to convey hierarchy among his marginal notes—one symbol per page, with the remainder of the marginal notes inserted underneath without. Note that Dee’s Mathematicall Praeface in the preliminary matter features in the margin the manicule (), or printer’s fist, a common early modern printer’s device. According to Claire Bourne (2014, 437), the manicule ‘performed several functions in early printed texts, chief among them being “to clarify the organisation of the text and […] help individual readers to find their way around that structure”’. The manicules in Dee’s preface bring specific information to readers’ attention and supplementary emphasis. In contrast, Barrow’s marginal notes in his 1660 English first edition present a three-level hierarchy of textual cross-referencing, illustrative cross-referencing and authorial acknowledgement; such referencing is the first in the Euclidean tradition.8 The 1686 and 1705 editions maintain Barrow’s hierarchical referencing system. To present his first and subsequent textual cross-references on the page, Barrow uses italicised superior letters in agreement with Smith’s (1755, 76) later directives: ‘But the References which look the neatest, besides being the most proper, are Superior Letters, or else Superior Figures; for both were originally contrived and intended to be employed by way of Annotations, Quotations, Citations, or otherwise.’ Albeit, neither parentheses nor crotchets enclose the in-text or marginal references. Barrow’s (1660, 9) initial instance of first-level textual cross-referencing presents for proposition I in the first 8  Barrow-Green (2007, 19) similarly identifies Barrow’s editorial innovation: ‘A further novelty of Barrow’s presentation is the placing of references to previous propositions etc. in the margin, which not only makes the references easier to see but also highlights the axiomatic structure of the whole enterprise’.

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book (see Fig.  5.3). The italicised lower-case ‘a–e’ references sit mostly above the base line within the second paragraph of roman body text; they are noticeably widely spaced to prevent ambiguity with the geometrical pronumerals ‘A–E’ set in capitals. Each marginal reference appears directly opposite the in-text reference that it accompanies. Consistent with roman– italic reversal and the italicisation of paratextual material, the lower-case ‘a–e’ references in the margin are typeset in roman while the remainder of the textual marginal note is italicised. Each marginal reference in Fig. 5.3 cross-references to earlier specific textual elements: ‘a’ to the third postulate; ‘b’, the first postulate; ‘c’, the fifteenth definition; ‘d’, the first axiom; and ‘e’, the twenty-third definition (Euclid and Barrow 1660, 9). Each term is abbreviated to ensure brevity within margins; note, however, that the numerals preceding the terms are set in roman. Barrow (1660, 8) explicates his first-level textual cross-referencing style in the italicised breakout text that follows the final definition for the first book: The Citations are to be understood in this manner; When you meet with two numbers, the first shewes the proposition, the second the Book; as by 4. I. you are to understand the fourth Proposition of the first Book; and so to the rest. Moreover, ax. denotes Axiome, post. Postulate, def. Definition, sch. Scholium, cor. Corollary.9

Furthermore, for each proposition, Barrow restarts the reference at ‘a’, rather than continuing the numbering down the page. The pedagogical objective underpinning these textual cross-references is apparent: to reconnect practice with theory. The editorial objective is perspicuity: the avoidance of unnecessary repetition. Barrow’s second-level illustrative cross-references point readers to artwork provided elsewhere in the text. For example, the beginning of the second paragraph underneath the ‘Schol.’ heading for proposition XXXV in the first book reads: ‘This being supposed, the dimension of any parallelogram (EBCF) is found out by this theoreme’ (see Fig. 5.4). The asterisk is the only reference symbol that Barrow uses; for this example, the accompanying marginal note is: ‘ See the fig. of prop. 35’ (p. 29). The next example occurs in the third book, underneath the ‘Coroll.’ heading for proposition XXII, whose content is set as numbered bullet points. The text for the first  Note that the 1686 second edition presents this breakout text with centred justification, whereas the 1705 third edition reinstates Barrow’s 1660 left alignment with first-line indentation. 9

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Fig. 5.3  Barrow’s (1660, 9) textual cross-references for proposition I reconnect practice with theory. (British Library 8529.a.22)

bullet includes: ‘Hence, If one side  AB of a quadrilateral described in a circle be produced, the externall angle EBC is equall to the internall angle ADC’. The accompanying marginal note reads: ‘ See the following Diag’ (p.  64). No further directions are supplied as the diagram appears at the bottom of the same page. Note, however, that certain instances demonstrate more elucidative rather than literal illustrative purposes—that is, crossreferencing not to diagrams but to more general information. For example, for proposition XLVIII in the first book, part of the second paragraph reads: ‘Now is a CDq = ADq + ACq = ABq + ACq = BCq.  Therefore is CD = BC’ (p.  37). The accompanying marginal note for the asterisk reference symbol is: ‘ See the following Theor.’ (see Fig. 5.5). Barrow’s third-level referencing style serves to acknowledge the authors to whom Barrow is indebted. Similar to Billingsley’s plain referencing style, which was described earlier, Barrow’s acknowledgement is inserted in the margin directly opposite the text that it accompanies, without being signposted in the body text with a reference symbol. The first instance in Barrow’s 1660 first edition presents for ‘PROBLEME I’ in the first book (see Fig. 5.6). Opposite the italicised breakout ‘heading’ that introduces the problem—‘To make one square equall to any number of squares given’—

Fig. 5.4  An example of Barrow’s (1660, 29) illustrative cross-referencing directs his readers to artwork provided elsewhere in the text. (British Library 8529.a.22)

Fig. 5.5  Barrow’s (1660, 37) second-level asterisk reference symbol cross-­ references to more general information. (British Library 8529.a.22)

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is the marginal note ‘Andr. Tacq.’, which denotes André Tacquet (p. 36). Barrow mentions his intention to acknowledge his indebtedness in his preface: ‘Which notwithstanding some have done; as that most accurate Geometrician Andr. Tacquet, whom I mention the rather, because I esteem it ingenuous to acknowledge some things taken from him’ (p. i). Similarly, the later marginal note ‘Petr Herig.’ (p.  79) that acknowledges ‘Peter Herigon’ in Proposition IV of the fourth book is predicated in Barrow’s preface: ‘Wherefore I determin’d to leave out no Book or Proposition of those which are found in Peter Herigon, whose footsteps I became necessitated to follow closely by having resolved to make use for the most part of the Schemes of his book’ (pp. ii–iii). As Barrow-Green (2007, 19) correctly observes, ‘Where Barrow departs from his predecessors is in his use of notation and symbols’—that is, his ‘intermingling’ of words and symbols. As evidence, Barrow-Green compares Billingsley’s descriptive presentation of Proposition XLVII in the first book with Barrow’s more succinct treatment: ‘In the statement of

Fig. 5.6  The first instance of Barrow’s (1660, 36) third-level referencing style that acknowledges his indebtedness to André Tacquet. (British Library 8529.a.22)

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the proposition [Barrow] makes specific reference to letters on the diagram, which then enables him to be much more concise in the proof. In the latter he makes extensive use of symbols, particularly the = sign, with the result that the entire proof is only ten lines long. (For comparison, Billingsley used 38 lines to convey the same information.)’ Comparing such differing presentations certainly proves Barrow’s success in implementing his first objective: to provide a complete yet succinctly compact version of Euclid. However, it also reveals part of his idiosyncratic editorial practice. For Proposition X of the seventh book, for example, Billingsley’s (1570, f. 192v) italicised introduction is ambiguous: ‘If a number be partes of a number, and an other number the self same partes of another number, then alternately what partes or part the first is of the third, the self same partes or part is the second of the fourth’. The nature of the ambiguity becomes evident when Billingsley’s introduction is contrasted with that of Barrow (1660, 150): ‘If a number AB be parts of a number C, and another number DE the same parts of another number F; then alternately, what parts or part the first AB is of the third DE, the same parts or part shall the second C be of the fourth F’. Barrow not only introduces pronumerals from the outset to differentiate the numbers but also moves up the accompanying artwork to place it opposite the text to which it refers to provide visual contextualisation—that is, partnering theory with practice to ensure clarity of meaning. Barrow’s editorial decisions here afford his subsequent brevity, as observed earlier by Barrow-Green. Billingsley’s decision to not include pronumerals in his introduction necessitated that he restate the proposition with pronumerals at the beginning of his second paragraph: ‘Suppose that the number AB be of the number C the selfe same partes, that an other number DE is of an other number F, and let AB be lesse then DE. Then I say, that alternately also part or partes AB is of DE, the self same partes or part is C of F.’ Whereas, from the second paragraph, Barrow launches immediately into his geometrical proof: ‘AB is taken DE, and C F’, where the symbol denotes ‘less than’, as supported by appropriately modified artwork. Barrow’s aversion to descriptive mathematics manifests in his proof being approximately ten lines fewer in length than that of Billingsley—Barrow employs shorter sentences with minimal punctuation to encourage his readers to pause frequently to reflect and compare his instruction with the artwork. Furthermore, Barrow’s modified artwork enables him to supply an alternative symbolic method in his final paragraph, significantly less descriptively than in the preceding one.

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Barrow’s approach to Euclide’s Elements was therefore manifestly pedagogical and content-driven; that is, his editorial style—namely his italicisation and capitalisation, referencing style and intermingling of words and symbols—was meticulous and served to connect theory and practice for his eighteenth-century audience. It is through Barrow’s adherence to contemporary style as given in Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises that his approach could be implemented successfully. Comparatively analysing Barrow’s style with that of Mechanick Exercises also assists with understanding in the twenty-first century his editorial decisions that diverged from his predecessors, such as Billingsley.

Simson’s The Elements of Euclid Scottish mathematician and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Glasgow (1711–59), Robert Simson (1687–1768) released two versions of his first edition of The Elements in 1756: the first, Latin, entitled Euclidis Elementorum Libri Priores Sex, Item Undecimus Et Duodecimus, Ex Versione Latina Federici Commandini, was based on Frederic Commandini’s 1572 Latin translation (Euclid and Heath 1956; AckerbergHastings 2002; Goldstein 2000); and the second, English, entitled The Elements of Euclid viz. the First Six Books, Together with the Eleventh and Twelfth. Both versions were produced by University of Glasgow printers Robert and Andrew Foulis.10 As related by Amy Ackerberg-Hastings (2002, 47), ‘[the] first print runs were small (803 copies in English, 543 in Latin), befitting the narrow audience of mathematicians, classicists and university students for a book Simson himself perceived as mathematical scholarship’.11 A second English edition appeared in 1762, again printed by Robert and Andrew Foulis, and included Simson’s translation of Euclid’s Data; Simson granted John Nourse, his London bookseller, permission to issue an octavo schoolbook edition at a reduced price. Nourse’s release of the schoolbook is consistent with Goldstein’s (2000, 51) observation of the ‘shift’, or perhaps broadening, in reading patterns during the eighteenth century: ‘the mathematical reading public began to grow beyond the university. The circle of mathematical practitioners increas10  According to Bonnell (2008, 47), Robert and Andrew Foulis printed their Greek and Latin publications using the imprint ‘Glasguae: in aedibus academicis excudebant Robertus et Andreas Foulis Academiae Typographi’. 11  See also Trail (1812, 80).

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ingly included tradesmen and skilled craftsmen, most of whom did not study in a public school or university’.12 Testament to its success, approximately thirty editions of Simson’s Elements were produced between 1756 and 1844; the first four before his death in 1768 (Euclid and Heath 1956; Barrow-­Green 2007). Despite his academic background, Simson does not appear to emulate Barrow’s pedagogical approach; rather, his Euclidean contribution is significantly partisan. While George Gibson (1925, 46) has generally praised the quality of Simson’s schoolbook—‘the changes he made in the text were usually of the kind that contributed to an easier and a fuller understanding on the part of the ordinary schoolboy’13—he has observed that ‘Simson’s notion of textual criticism were rudimentary; he seems to have held the delightfully simple view that Euclid’s text as it originally stood was perfect, and when he discerned what he thought to be an imperfection he at once set it down to “Theron or some unskilful editor” ’ (p. 42). Gibson cites briefly from the preface of Simson’s (1756, i) English first edition; reproduced below is Simson’s academic starting-point from the preface: [By] often considering and comparing together the Definitions and Demonstrations as they are in the Greek Editions we now have, I found that Theron, or whoever was the Editor of the present Greek text, but adding some things, suppressing others, and mixing his own with Euclid’s Demonstrations, had changed more things to the worse than is commonly supposed, and those not of small moment, which this Editor has greatly vitiated.

Simson’s non-critical, partisan presentation of Euclid embodies a self– other dichotomy couched in altruism: ‘I will hope prove acceptable to all Lovers of Accurate Reasoning and of Mathematical Learning, to remove such blemishes, and restore the principal Books of the Elements to their original Accuracy, as far as I was able’ (p. iv). He then articulates how he achieved his Euclidean restoration:

 See also Drake (1970, 43–52).  Goldstein (2000, 49) also provides examples of Simson’s ‘startling’ alterations: ‘He split numerous diagrams into multiple pieces to make them easier to follow. In his edition V(8) mutated into three diagrams, while V(10) fell into six, each corresponding to one magnitude’. 12 13

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This I have endeavoured to do by taking away the inaccuracies and false Reasonings which unskilful Editors have put into the Place of some of the genuine Demonstrations of Euclid, who has ever been justly celebrated as the most accurate of Geometers, and by restoring to him those Things which Theon or others have suppressed, and which have these many Ages been buried in Oblivion.

Hence, by expressing a value judgement regarding the detrimental legacy of the ‘unskilful Editors’, Simson manipulates the self–otherness dichotomy to imbue his edition with untainted authority.

Simson’s Editorial Intermediation Simson’s editorial practice, namely his application of quotation marks, enables him to reinforce this authority. Other idiosyncratic aspects of interest are Simson’s use of italics and semicolons. As mentioned earlier, Smith (1755, 89) instructs in The Printer’s Grammar that inverted commas, or quotation marks, ‘distinguish quoted Matter from the mean Text’. Smith separates quotation marks further: double inverted commas, for verbal quotations; and single inverted commas, for extracts ‘or the substance of a passage’ that supports the author’s argument. Simson conforms to contemporary practice. As mentioned above, Simson promised in his preface to expunge ‘the inaccuracies and false Reasonings’ of the ‘unskilful Editors’. To do this though would eliminate evidence of previous inaccuracies and Simson’s authority. In his appendix ‘Notes Critical and Geometrical’, accompanying his commentary on definition VIII in the first book, Simson (1756, 355) explains how he applies double quotation marks: [It is] probable that this Definition, and that of the angle of a segment, and what is said of the angle of a semicircle, and the angles of segments, in I 6. and 3 I. Propositions of Book 3. are the additions of some less skilful Editor. on which account, especially since they are quite useless, these Definitions are distinguished from the rest by inverted double commas.

That is, Simson retains the inaccuracies in the body text, highlighting their presence with double quotation marks, and demonstrates the nature of these inaccuracies and how they influence Euclidean geometry in his notes. Such action substantiates the earlier observation of Simon’s non-­

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critical, partisan approach. For example, Simson presents definition VIII in the first book as: “ A plain angle is the inclination of two lines to one another in a plane, “ which meet together, but are not in the same direction.” (p. 2)

Simson does not provide a similar explanation of how he applies single quotation marks; however, comparing specific text from Barrow’s 1660 English first edition with Simson’s version reveals the principle behind his application. This pertains to the presentation of breakout text. As discussed earlier, Barrow uses italic for his breakout text to convey its paratextual nature and bring specific information to readers’ attention. For example, the paragraph-length note accompanying definition VI in the fifth book of Barrow’s (1660, 92) first edition starts: ‘The note hereof is ::; as A. B :: C. D. This is, as A is to B, so is C to D, which signifyes that A to B, and C to D are in the same ratio’. Besides italic, Barrow’s note features first-line indentation. In contrast, Simson’s (1756, 136) note for definition VI is typeset in roman, enclosed in single quotation marks and indented by one quadrat: ‘ When four magnitudes are proportional, it is usually expressed by ‘ saying, the first is to the second, as the third to the fourth.’

From this, it becomes apparent that Simson’s use of single quotation marks follows contemporary practice, as articulated by Smith: he applies them to textual matter that supports his argument. Simson’s application of italics results in a plainer typographic style for his edition, as well as embodies the eighteenth-century shift towards sobriety, as observed by Nicolas Barker (1981). As discussed in Chap. 4, Smith (1755, 13) explains in The Printer’s Grammar that italic’s contemporary use had become more sparing ‘since all the adjunct parts of a Work may now be properly varied by the different sizes of Roman’. He extends this by urging a complementarity between roman and italic: ‘It is therefore to be wished, that the intermixing Roman and Italic may be brought to straighter limits, and the latter be used for such purposes as it was designed for’. Italic was therefore confined to passages different from body text, such as quotations, foreign-language words, excerpts from the Bible and text to be emphasised. Unlike Barrow who, almost one century earlier, uses italic comparatively liberally for proper nouns, foreign-language

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words, minor headings, marginal notes and textual emphasis for breakout and introductory text, Simson restricts italic to foreign-language words, namely Greek, and brief moments of textual emphasis. Simson’s textual emphasis relates generally to text that is no more than one sentence in length. For example, the coordinate clause in the introductory paragraph for proposition XIX in the first book is italicised: ‘The greater angle of every triangle is subtended by the greater side, or has the greater side opposite to it’ (Euclid and Simson 1756, 24). By means of italic, Simson communicates that the second clause is at least as important as the first. Of the Euclidean editors considered, Simson’s 1756 English first edition presents a higher frequency of semicolons than Billingsley’s 1570 first Euclid and Barrow’s 1660 first edition. In regard to punctuation—or ‘pointing’, according to early modern grammarians—Smith (1755, 85) explains in The Printer’s Grammar that the purpose of pointing is ‘to divide a Sentence into Rests and Pauses, according to the quantity which is intimated by their figures’. Two pages later, he enlarges on this definition by declaring that pointing serves to ‘make Matter more easy for reading, and more ready for apprehension’. In this way, Smith acknowledges the respective rhetorical and grammatical functions of punctuation. Nevertheless, the eighteenth century witnessed not only the typographical shift towards sobriety, but also the movement away from rhetorical punctuation to the grammatical. As discussed in Chap. 4, the semicolon featured prominently in the rhetorical–grammatical shift. Smith first gestures to the rhetorical when he describes the structure of semicolons: ‘The Semicolon is a Point which is composed of a Comma, and an inverted Full-­ point; to shew the quantity of the pause or rest which it requires’ (p. 92); however, his overarching preoccupation is the grammatical, as evidenced by his forthcoming more detailed explanation: The Semicolon is a Point of great use to enforce and to illustrate what has been advanced, and digested by the Comma. It serves likewise to concatenate such parts of a period as are to be supported by a Point of more elevation than a Comma, which helps to relate matter more distinctly; whereas the Semicolon keeps the parts of an argument together.

In other words, Smith communicates two points regarding the application of semicolons. First, the text after the semicolon is attached conceptually to the text that preceded it, so closely aligned that a full stop between them would negate the wider meaning; it ‘keeps [the] argument together’.

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Second, the semicolon separates a list, or concatenation, of items within a sentence—where the expression of each item comprises other punctuation marks such as commas—to ensure clarity of meaning. Examining Simson’s text reveals the dual grammatical function of semicolons in practice, though some might contend that his long-winded sentence structures and numerous semicolons point to their rhetorical necessity—that is, readers’ need to pause frequently to absorb the content’s meaning before reading further. For example, the third paragraph for proposition XVII in the first book contains four sentences: the first, six lines long; the second and third, approximately two lines; and the fourth, half a line (see Fig. 5.7). Notwithstanding that Simson regularly neglects to commence each new sentence with an initial capital, he applies the semicolons in the first and second sentences differently. For the first and longest sentence, the semicolon concatenates three processes within his proof. For the second, it serves to keep two conceptually adjacent sentences together (Euclid and Simson 1756, 23). In conclusion, the comparative textual analyses conducted in this chapter of the editors of The Elements of Euclid has demonstrated two distinct, very human journeys: Isaac Barrow’s pedagogically inspired, content-­ driven presentation, and Robert Simson’s endeavour to fashion his

Fig. 5.7  Simson’s (1756, 23) grammatical application of semicolons in The Elements of Euclid. (British Library 531.n.6)

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authority—and legacy—within the commercial educational sphere. Each was also characteristic of the typographic and editorial conventions of their time, and they implemented these conventions to guarantee the success of their work. Barrow ensured that he remained faithful to his objective through capitalisation to highlight keywords; italicisation to emphasise paratextual matter, such as breakout text and marginal notes; and his threelevel cross-­referencing system to afford user-friendly negotiation between theory and practice. In contrast, Simson’s non-critical, partisan approach sought to draw attention to the failings of previous editors to promote his authorial dominance. He realised this through his specific application of double quotation marks and his ‘Notes’ appendix. Nevertheless, in doing this, he contributed to providing mathematical instruction beyond the universities. Such conclusions, which have been identified previously by scholars such as Goldstein (2000)  and Gibson  (1925), could not have been substantiated editorially without reference to Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar. Moreover, these manuals symbolise vital bibliographical, hermeneutic resources for modern scholars of editorial theory and book history to appreciate editorial practices and decisions completed some 300 years in the past.

References Ackerberg-Hastings, Amy. 2002. Analysis and Synthesis in John Playfair’s Elements of Geometry. The British Journal for the History of Science 35 (1): 43–72. Barker, Nicolas. 1981. Typography and the Meaning of Words: The Revolution in the Layout of Books in the Eighteenth Century. In The Book and the Book Trade in Eighteenth-Century Europe, ed. Giles Barber and Bernhard Fabian, 127–165. Hamburg: Dr Ernst Hauswedell & Co. Barrow-Green, June. 2007. “Much Necessary for All Sortes of Men”: 450 Years of Euclid’s Elements in English. BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics 21 (1): 2–25. Blum, Christopher O. 2002. The Oldest Math Textbook. The Journal of Education 183 (1): 107–115. Bonnell, T.F. 2008. The Most Disreputable Trade: Publishing the Classics of English Poetry 1765–1810. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bourne, Claire M.L. 2014. Dramatic Pilcrows. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 108 (4): 413–452. Broadbent, T.A.A. 1947. The First English Euclid. The Mathematical Gazette 31 (293): 1.

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Drake, Stillman. 1970. Early Science and the Printed Book: The Spread of Science Beyond the Universities. Renaissance and Reformation 6 (3): 43–52. Euclid, and Henry Hill. 1726. The Six First, Together with the Eleventh and Twelfth Books of Euclid’s Elements Demonstrated aAfter a New, Plain, and Easie Method. London: Printed by William Pearson, and Sold by R. and J. Bonwicke, in St. Paul’s-Church-Yard; F. Fayram, at the South-Entrance of the Royal-Exchange; and B. Motte, at the Middle-Temple-Gate, Fleet-Street. Euclid, and Isaac Barrow. 1660. Euclide’s Elements; the Whole Fifteen Books Compendiously Demonstrated. London: Printed by R.  Daniel for William Nealand. Euclid, and Isaac Barrow. 1686. Euclid’s Elements. The Whole Fifteen Books Compendiously Demonstrated by Mr. Isaac Barrow, Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge. And Translated Out of the Latin. London: Printed for Christopher Hussey and E.P. in Little Britain. Euclid, and Isaac Barrow. 1705. Euclide’s Elements; the Whole Fifteen Books Compendiously Demonstrated to Which Is Added Archimedes Theorems of the Sphere and Cylinder, Investigated by the Method of Indivisibles. London: Printed by E. Redmayne, and to Be Sold by J. Sprint at the Sign of the Bell in Little-Britain. Euclid, and Robert Simson. 1756. The Elements of Euclid viz. the First Six Books, Together with the Eleventh and Twelfth. In This Edition, the Errors, by Which Theon, or Others, Have Long Ago Vitiated These Books, Are Corrected, and Some of Euclid’s Demonstrations Are Restored. By Robert Simson, M. D. Professor of Mathematics in the University of Glasgow, ed. Gale. Glasgow: Printed by Robert and Andrew Foulis Printers to the University. Euclid, and Thomas L. Heath. 1956. The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements. 2d ed., rev. with additions ed. New York: Dover Publications. Euclid, Henry Billingsley, and John Dee. 1570. The Elements of Geometrie of the Most Auncient Philosopher Euclide of Megara. Faithfully (Now First) Translated into the Englishe Toung, by H.  Billingsley, Citizen of London. Whereunto Are Annexed Certaine Scholies, Annotations, and Inuentions, of the Best Mathematiciens, Both of Time Past, and in This Our Age. With a Very Fruitfull Præface Made by M. I. Dee. London: John Daye. Feingold, Mordechai. 1990. Isaac Barrow: Divine, Scholar, Mathematician. In Before Newton: The Life and Times of Isaac Barrow, ed. Mordechai Feingold, 1–104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibson, George A. 1925. Some Criticisms of Robert Simson by Sir T. L. Heath. Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society 44: 39–46. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0013091500034349. Goldstein, Joel A. 2000. A Matter of Great Magnitude: The Conflict over Arithmetization in 16th-, 17th-, and 18th-Century English Editions of Euclid’s Elements Books I Through VI (1561–1795). Historia Mathematica 27: 36–53.

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Howsam, Leslie. 2014. The Practice of Book and Print Culture: Sources, Methods, Readings. In The Perils of Print Culture: Book, Print and Publishing History in Theory and Practice, ed. Eve Patten and Jason McElligott, 17–32. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Klein, Jacob. 1992. Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra. Mineola: Dover Publications. Moxon, Joseph. 1683. Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. The Second Volumne [sic]. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the Sign of Atlas. Ostermann, Alexander, and Gerhard Wanner. 2012. Geometry by Its History. Heidelberg/New York: Springer. Simpkins, Diana M. 1966. Early Editions of Euclid in England. Annals of Science 22 (4): 225–249. https://doi.org/10.1080/00033796600203155. Smith, John. 1755. The Printer’s Grammar. London: Printed for the Editor; and Sold by W.  Owen, Near Temple Bar; and by M.  Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row. Stahl, Gerry. 2013. Translating Euclid: Designing a Human-Centered Mathematics. San Rafael: Morgan & Claypool. Stakhov, Alexey. 2009. The Mathematics of Harmony: From Euclid to Contemporary Mathematics and Computer Science. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. Stedall, Jacqueline. 2012. The Pathway of Knowledge and the English Euclidean Tradition. In Robert Recorde: The Life and Times of a Tudor Mathematician, ed. Gareth Roberts and Fenny Smith, 57–72. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Thomas-Stanford, Charles. 1924. Early Editions of Euclid’s Elements. The Library s4-V (1): 39–42. Trail, W. 1812. Account of the Life and Writings of Robert Simson, M.D.: Late Professor of Mathematics in the University of Glasgow. London: Printed for G. and W. Nicol. Wardhaugh, Benjamin. 2012. A Wealth of Numbers: An Anthology of 500 Years of Popular Mathematics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

CHAPTER 6

The First Appropriation of Editorial Style: Philip Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing

Acknowledged among book historians who investigate editorial theory and correction is the fact that later-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors of printer’s manuals—the original style guides—appropriated material liberally from their predecessors, termed here ‘generational intertextual inheritance’. For example, Philip Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing (1770) reproduced verbatim substantial portions from Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises (1683) and John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar (1755); in addition, he relied on Joseph Ames’s Typographical Antiquities (1749) to write his preface. Nevertheless, scholarly acknowledgement of this ostensible plagiarism to date is itself notable as it represents more a mention-in-passing than a substantial discussion—that is, they mention Luckombe’s appropriation of Moxon and Smith without sufficiently demonstrating its extent or supplying reasons for it (Kroeg 2004; Maruca 2003; Mosley 2009; McKitterick 2003; Bliss 1965; Alston 1964; Pollack 2006). The objective of this chapter therefore is twofold: first, to reflect on the implications of textual appropriation in print culture generally in terms of plagiarism and copyright; and second, to determine the impact of such appropriation on the evolution of editorial style through a comparative textual analysis of the texts of Moxon, Smith and Luckombe.

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Plagiarism, Copyright, Legal Appropriation Marilyn Randall (2001, 3) observes in Pragmatic Plagiarism: Authorship, Profit, and Power that the ‘ “history” of plagiarism can be divided roughly into discourses of apology and of condemnation’. This is clearly evident in Plagiarism in Early Modern England, edited by Paulina Kewes, in which the introductory chapters embody a theoretical tussle over the definition of the term ‘plagiarism’. In his chapter, succinctly titled ‘Plagiarism’, Christopher Ricks (2003, 22) begins his discourse of  condemnation by providing a clear-cut definition from the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘The wrongful appropriation, or purloining, and publication as one’s own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another’. Immediately afterwards, Ricks couples this illicitness with moral culpability, quoting Peter Shaw from his article ‘Plagiary’: ‘Throughout history the act of using the work of another with an intent to deceive has been branded as plagiarism’ (p.  22; author’s emphasis).1 While Ricks later concedes that plagiarism is not a criminal offence, in agreement with Kewes (2003) and Brean S. Hammond (2003), and that copyright interdependently serves to complicate it, he maintains his moralistic stance with this vehement condemnation: ‘True, plagiarists are not criminals (or very seldom are)  – they are dishonest, dishonourable, and sometimes sick, people’ (Ricks 2003, 37). That is, plagiarists are dishonest and dishonourable, regardless of the circumstances or historical period. While Randall (2001, 3) states that the apologist discourse ‘generally argues that all literature, or art—in fact, all human activity—is essentially repetitive, and that “plagiarism”, therefore, is inevitable’, Hammond and Kewes differ through their advocacy of a historical relativism. In the subsequent chapter, ‘Plagiarism: Hammond versus Ricks’, Hammond (2003, 41–2) responds to Ricks’s criticism that he is one of several ‘historical relativists’ who ‘take their place in a rogues’ gallery of exculpators of plagiarism’—meaning they ‘evacuated the discussion of proper ethical consideration’—with the following riposte: ‘Professor Ricks’s own view is that plagiarism is always and everywhere the same’. In contrast, Hammond argues that ‘originality precipitates out of earlier processes’ (p. 50). Kewes (2003, 14) similarly positions historical relativism as ‘a contextual study of plagiarism’; that is, analyses of plagiarised content should not be divorced from its circumstantial, historical moment. This conclusion is reminiscent 1

 See Shaw (1982, 327).

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of new historicism’s interpretation of history’s intertextual relationship with literature. Historical relativism in this context therefore necessitates a familiarity with the early modern perceptions of literary practice and plagiarism. English poet and dramatist Henry Taylor (1800–86) provided a contemporary definition of plagiarism in ‘Recent poetical plagiarisms and imitations’, which appeared in The London Magazine in 1823: ‘New thoughts and new modes of expression are literary property; and culpable plagiarism is the conscious and unavowed appropriation, without improvement of them’ (Taylor 1823, 597). The words to notice here are ‘literary property’ and ‘improvement’. The concept of originality appears integral to an understanding of literary property, but it also serves to introduce a common scholarly misconception, most recently articulated by Tilar J. Mazzeo (2007, xiii): This study challenges that assumption that we know what ‘Romanticism’ was. The characterisation of the period and its ideological effects as centred on autogenous originality and models of solitary genius does not square with how early nineteenth-century British writers described or enacted their relationship to appropriation, borrowing, or plagiarism.2

Certainly the development of copyright legislation—from the Licensing Act 1662, the Statute of Anne 1710, the Donaldson v. Becket case in 1774, the Copyright Act 1814 to the Copyright Act 1842—ensured the protection of common-law property (that is, authorial originality) and contributed to the professionalisation of writing or, in other words, the creation of an ‘advanced marketplace society’ (Rose 1993, 3),3 where ‘authorship [was brought] firmly into the commercial sphere’ (Feather 2011, 49). However, perceptions of authorship in the early modern period were twofold—‘one intertextual and collaborative and the other autonomous and “Romantic”’—as argued by James E. Porter (1986, 35). In his article ‘Intertextuality and the Discourse Community’, Porter contends that ‘the writer is simply a part of a discourse tradition, a member of a team, and a participant in a community of discourse that creates its own collective meaning. Thus the intertext constrains writing’. The generational intertextual inheritance described by Porter aligns with Taylor’s (1823, 598) concept of improvement: that ‘the 2 3

 See also Rose (1993, 25).  See also Rose (2010, 121).

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treasures of poetry would descend from hand to hand, improved by every successor’.4 Thus, perceptions of authorship were twofold, yet the demarcation between them was ambiguous: instead of an originality-versus-plagiarism binary, authorship in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries embodied an autonomic–intertextual symbiosis. Taylor declared that an accusation of culpable plagiarism was inadmissible if the original work had been improved; Mazzeo (2007, 2) confirms this almost 200 years later: In the [Romantic] period, culpable plagiarism was defined as borrowings that were simultaneously unacknowledged, unimproved, unfamiliar, and conscious. In the absence of any one of these elements, culpable plagiarism could not be said to have occurred.

Furthermore, Mazzeo states that ‘successful improvement justified any borrowing, regardless of extent, and no other elements were necessary to defend an author from allegations of illegitimate borrowing’ (p. 3). Interestingly, this observation differs from that of Taylor (1823, 598), who stipulated that innocence of plagiarism involved a measure of degree: ‘if [improvement] outweighs the merit of the original passage, an author would cheat himself by saying he had his idea from another’; however, if ‘the merit of the improvement is slight in proportion to that of the original, he who conceals his original commits plagiarism’. According to Mazzeo (2007), the evidence of improvement outweighed any of the other elements enumerated; nevertheless, the element of acknowledgement is directly relevant to this discussion. Taylor (1823, 597) reveals his position on acknowledgement through his account of Lord Byron’s borrowings from Coleridge: Lord Byron had borrowed the most beautiful passage Mr Coleridge ever wrote; and in point of genius, though by no means in regard to the employment and production of genius, these men may be considered as two great poetical rivals. Mr Coleridge has not suffered by this, and the plagiarism has availed nothing to Lord Byron, because it is obvious and unqualified; and therefore, by every reader acquainted with poetry, it is appropriated to its author. 4  Taylor also states on the same page: ‘The first sometimes spoils, the latter often improves upon the original.’ The eighteenth-century practice of improving is confirmed by Freeborn (1998, 376): ‘During the eighteenth century many pamphlets, articles and grammar books were published on the topic of correcting, improving and, if possible, fixing the language in a perfected form’.

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In other words, an accusation of plagiarism is inapplicable if the borrowings, even when not overtly acknowledged, are immediately recognisable to the readership. Once again, Mazzeo (2007, 3) confirms this Romantic convention: [A] work could be considered implicitly acknowledged or ‘avowed’ if a ‘well-versed’ reader could be expected to recognize the original. Ironically, the more extensive the borrowing the more likely it was to have been considered acknowledged.5

From this it will become clear that Luckombe could never be accused of culpable plagiarism from both his overt and implicit acknowledgements of his well-known predecessors and his improvements of their texts—he contributed to an intertextual discourse tradition on editorial practice. However, what of copyright infringement? As mentioned, Moxon released his Mechanick Exercises in 1683, Smith published The Printer’s Grammar in 1755, and Luckombe reproduced Moxon and Smith verbatim in 1770  in A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing, with some modernisation of spelling, capitalisation and punctuation. Therefore, considering such chronological proximity, were the texts of Moxon and Smith copyright protected? During Moxon’s lifetime, the crown sought to regulate and censor the printing and publishing industries through the ‘[Act] for preventing Abuses in Printing Seditious, Treasonable and Unlicensed Books and Pamphlets, and for Regulating of Printing and Printing Presses’ (Patterson 1968; Treadwell 2002), otherwise known as the Licensing Act 1662. The Act’s principal preoccupations were pre-publication licensing, trade restrictions and printing rights (Treadwell 2002; Feather 1988). Of these, printing rights are pertinent to evaluating copyright infringement. Two types of printing rights existed at this time: royal prerogative patents rights and those assigned by the Stationers’ Company; Michael Treadwell (2002, 759) reproduced part of the Act relating to this in his book chapter ‘The stationer’s and the printing acts of the seventeenth century’:

5  Note that Moore Howard (1999, 68) disagrees: ‘In the modern textual economy, originality marks “true” authorship, derivative authorship must acknowledge its sources; and derivative authorship using unacknowledged sources is socially transgressive. From its emergence in the seventeenth century until the postmodern era of the late twentieth century, this economy has steadily gained credence. The writer is no longer a pygmy obscured by giants’.

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[Both] forms of printing rights were given statutory authority in the clause of the Act (par. 6) which made it an offence to print or import any work which any person ‘shall have the Right, Privilege, Authority or Allowance, solely to Print … by … vertue of any Letters Patents … granted or assigned … or by … vertue of any Entry … thereof … in the Register Book of the … Company of Stationer’s’, or the University Register Books for university books. (par. 6)6

The royal prerogative patents rights were mainly administered by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London; all printing rights allocated by the Stationers’ Company were entered into the guild register (Johns 1998; Patterson 1968; Treadwell 2002). Furthermore, the Act required ‘the name and place of habitation of the publisher and owner of the press on the title page of each printed work’,7 known as the imprint (Patterson 1968, 141). Interestingly, the copyright periods for the two printing rights differed: royal prerogative patents rights were measured in years—usually 10, 14, 21 or 31; whereas Stationers’ Company printing rights were held perpetually and, according to Rose (2010, 118), ‘might be bequeathed, sold or split into shares’. The obtainment of either of these printing rights legally protected the copyright holder’s text from piracy. In other words, namely those of Rose (1993, 14), ‘Copyright did not protect a work itself but rather a stationer’s right to publish a work.’ In accordance with the Licensing Act 1662, the title page of Mechanick Exercises (1683) featured Moxon’s imprint: the name of the publisher (‘By Joseph Moxon, Member of the Royal Society, and Hydrographer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty’) and the location of the printing shop (‘LONDON. Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the sign of Atlas. 1683.’). However, Moxon did not register Mechanick Exercises with the Stationers’ Company, nor did he acquire royal prerogative patents rights. From this, it would appear that Moxon failed to protect his text from potential piracy; yet this presumed wilful neglect could be interpreted more pragmatically. The Licensing Act 1662 was, as described by Feather (1988, 52), ‘impermanent’ legislation—that is, it functioned for a three-year period and, at the end of which, required renewal.8 The Act was renewed in 1665,  See also Rose (1993, 12).  See also Feather (1994, 44). 8  According to Feather, the parliament designed this legislative impermanence to ensure against the monarch from ‘[governing] for long periods without a parliament’. 6 7

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lapsed in 1679, was successfully renewed in 1688 and 1693, but lapsed once more in 1695. No other copyright legislation existed until the Statute of Anne 1710. Therefore, the period in which Mechanick Exercises was produced was notable for its legislative instability, which was compounded by the government’s failure to administer the Act effectively during its erratic existence. Treadwell (2002, 766) cites D. F. McKenzie’s examination of published output for the year 1668, which was enumerated in D.  G. Wing’s Short-Title Catalogue of Books, as an example: And D.  F. McKenzie, who in 1974 examined 458 of the 491 items then known to have been printed in 1668 found that only fifty-two of them bore any form of the license required by the Act—though close to half obeyed the Act by carrying some form of the printer’s name, presumably because compliance was easier.9

Though Treadwell extends this conclusion by stating that the government’s true intention was never to enforce the licensing section of the Act: ‘In short, the government never tried to enforce licensing; it merely used the easily proven offence of failure to obtain a license as its preferred weapon against those publications to which it objected on quite other grounds’—that is, preventing sedition in the print trade. Hence, Moxon printed Mechanick Exercises after the Licensing Act 1662 lapsed in 1679 but before its renewal in 1688. As discussed in Chap. 2, Moxon never applied for membership to the Stationer’s Company as a master printer, which explains why his printed works were never licensed and registered— Mechanick Exercises was therefore not legally copyright protected from potential piracy. However, given this legislative instability, he sought to reinforce his ownership by adopting the only protection measure available to him: he complied with the obsolete Act by inserting his imprint on his title page. His pragmatic response became standard practice among copyright holders, as demonstrated by McKenzie. Moxon died in 1691 and his son James inherited the business, printing new editions of his most successful titles. For example, Moxon published the first edition of A Tutor to Astronomy and Geography; Or, an Easie and Speedy Way to Know the Use of Both the Globes, Cœlestial and Terrestrial in 1665 with the imprint ‘LONDON: Printed for Joseph Moxon, and sold at his Shop on Ludgate-hill neer Fleet-bridge, at the Signe of Atlas, 1665’; 9

 See also, McKenzie (2002, 118).

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the second edition appeared in 1670, the third edition in 1674 and the fourth in 1686. James printed the fifth edition in 1698 using his father’s imprint, albeit at a different location: ‘London: Printed for James Moxon, at the sign of Atlas in Warwick-Lane, MDCXCVIII’. However, James did not print a second edition of Mechanick Exercises or, The Doctrine of Handy-­Works Applied to the Art of Printing; the next version was compiled by Theodore L. de Vinne in 1898. Officially termed ‘An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of printed Books in the Authors, or Purchasers, of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned’, the Statute of Anne 1710 regulated the printing and publishing industries while Luckombe wrote A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing. Printing rights were now considered to be ‘a limited privilege, not a perpetual right’ (Rose 2010, 118). Texts printed before 1710 received copyright protection for 21 years, whereas those printed after 10 April 1710 were guaranteed protection for only 14 years, though with the option to obtain an additional 14-year term (Feather 1994, 2011; Deazley 2008). Given Mechanick Exercises was printed in 1683, the text entered the public domain in 1704. Therefore, Luckombe appropriated Moxon’s text legally. Similarly, Smith’s Printer’s Grammar moved into the public domain in 1769, making the publication of Luckombe’s text very timely.

Luckombe: Writer, Editor and Printer? More than 200 years separates the only two biographical reflections that yield (slightly) more than adequate information on Philip Luckombe (baptised 1730 – died 1803): John Bowyer Nichols’s Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century and Elizabeth Baigent’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Nichols’s (1858, 25) eighth volume of this prodigious series features correspondence between Scottish-­ born solicitor Andrew Caldwell, a friend of Luckombe, and Doctor Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore.10 Writing to Percy on 24 September 1800, Caldwell recounts that Luckombe was born in Exeter and later apprenticed to a printer before becoming a printer in his own right. After 12  years, Luckombe left printing to enter an unidentified Oxford college; and, ‘[after] going through the usual course’, Luckombe relocated to London and ‘supported himself independently by writing working for booksellers’, supervising and improving ‘popular common  See also Kroeg (2004, 127).

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books’, such as ‘the last edition of a large Geographical Dictionary […] entirely new modelled by him, and prodigiously enlarged’11 and the ‘just published’ ‘Tablet of Memory, Compilations of Chronology’.12 Caldwell’s admiration of Luckombe’s professional output is evident when he communicates that his friend had shown him ‘a list of at least sixty great works that he has enlarged and amended for the booksellers. Every day brings in various sheets to be corrected’ (Nichols 1858, 27). A footnote attached a little later in the correspondence informs the reader that Luckombe died in September 1803 (p. 32). Identifying Luckombe from the outset as a writer and printer, Elizabeth Baigent (2004) confirms that Luckombe was born in Exeter, the son of tailor John Luckombe—though the earliest date provided is his baptism at St Lawrence church on 8 November 1730—and that he was ‘a printer by trade’ and ‘made a freeman of Exeter by succession in 1776’. However, she contends that it ‘seems highly doubtful’ that Luckombe matriculated at Oxford because none of the university registers substantiate this claim. Instead, he moved to London to undertake ‘miscellaneous literary work’; for example, ‘[besides] editing several dictionaries and encyclopaedias, he wrote books on printing’. Most notably, Luckombe anonymously published A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing in 1770 and reprinted this in two parts entitled The History and Art of Printing in 1771, this time with himself identified as the author. Baigent additionally confirms Luckombe’s death in September 1803, at the time ‘a resident in the parish of St Dunstan-in-the-West’. A search of the British Library’s online English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) confirms that Luckombe was more writer and editor than printer. Of the seven titles listed, Luckombe authored five: The Beauties of England (first printed in 1757, with new editions in 1764, 1767, 1778 and 1791), The Compleat Irish Traveller; Containing a General Description of the Most Noted Cities, Towns, Seats, Buildings, Loughs &c. in the Kingdom of Ireland 11  The ‘large Geographical Dictionary’ is most probably The Beauties of England: Giving a Descriptive View of the Chief Villages, Market-Towns, and Cities; Antiquities, Parks, Plantations, Scenes, And Situations, In England and Wales fifth edn. 2 vols, published in London for L. Davis and C. Reymers in 1757. 12  Philip Luckombe. 1800. The Tablet of Memory; Shewing Every Memorable Event in History, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1800. Classed Under Distinct Heads, with Their Dates. Comprehending An Epitome Of English History, With An Exact Chronology Of Painters, Eminent Men, &c. To Which Are Annexed, Several Useful Lists. The Tenth Edition. London: Printed by J. Crowder, Warwick-Square, for G. G. and J. Robinson.

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(1788), England’s Gazetteer; or, An Accurate Description of All the Cities, Towns, and Villages, in the Kingdom (1790), A Tour Through Ireland (first printed in 1788, with new a edition in 1783) and The Traveller’s Companion; Or New Itinerary of England and Wales, with Part of Scotland (1789); he edited one: The Tablet of Memory; Shewing Every Memorable Event in History (first printed in 1757, with new editions in 1764, 1767, 1770 (reprint), 1774, 1783, 1787 (twice), 1791, 1792, 1797, 1800, 1807 and 1809; a note included for the eight entries in the ETSC states that they were ‘[probably] edited by Philip Luckombe, whose name appears on the 8th, 9th and 10th editions’); and authored and edited another: A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing (1770, 1771). No entries provided by the ESTC identify Luckombe as printer. Other general searches reveal another of Luckombe’s editorial works: he ‘Accurately Revised, Corrected and Improved’ with Samuel Dunn the thirteenth edition of Edward Hatton’s Comes Commercii; or, The Trader’s Companion (1783); and wrote the one-page A chart of the distances of all the cities and chief towns in England and Wales shewing the number of measured miles between each place comprehending above 5900 distances (1775). Hence, the research to date has regrettably yielded neither more of Luckombe’s ‘list of at least sixty great works’, as listed by Caldwell, nor any published titles while working as a printer in Exeter.

Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing Luckombe’s manual appeared to receive mixed reviews by his nineteenth-­ century successors, who borrowed content from his manual and those of others to produce their own. While Stower’s (1808, iv) attribution in The Printer’s Grammar (1808) is brief and indifferent (‘Luckombe’s History of Printing has also furnished me with several important and useful articles’), Hansard (1825, ix–x) expressed the following praise in ­ Typographia (1825), after admitting Luckombe’s plagiarism of Smith: Luckombe […] produced a more complete work on the Art [than Smith for The Printer’s Grammar], and which embraced at the same time considerable portions of history and science […] His research concerning ‘The Introduction of the Art into England,’ is the most satisfactory of any to be met with ; in proof of which, it may be seen that every subsequent writer on the subject has either copied his work, or quoted, by his means, the same

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authorities which he had consulted […] Luckombe is now becoming a scarce book, and I, therefore, take pleasure in handing down the choicest parts of his labours one step further in posterity, nearly as he gave them.

In The Printer’s Manual, Timperley (1838, 3) reconfirmed Luckombe’s plagiarism, albeit in a more critical tone: ‘It is very clear that Luckombe made free use of his predecessor as far as he went; for, upon a close comparison, much of Luckombe will be found to be plagiarised from Smith, altered a little in arrangement and phraseology’. Timperley’s (1839, 715) criticism of Luckombe continued in A Dictionary of Printers and Printing: ‘there is in the History of the Origin and Progress of Printing, by Philip Luckombe, Lond. 1770, 8vo. P. 174, a specimen of domesday type cut by Mr Thomas Cotterell, the letter-founder; but the fac-simile is unfaithful, and the extract very corrupt’. Later-nineteenth-century scholarly criticism appears equally diverse. In the first volume of A Bibliography of Printing, E.  C. Bigmore and C.  W. H. Wyman (1884, 447) demonstrate a similar conviction to that of Timperley: This volume has a course wood-engraving for a frontispiece, purporting to be a likeness of Gutenberg, but which in reality is a portrait of [Laurenz] Koster copied from Moxon. The authors named as those from whom the historical matter was compiled, are Moxon, Ames, Middleton, Atkyns, Watson, Palmer, &c. &c. ; the practical instructions are ‘the united opinions of the most experienced of the trade.’ The latter is indeed the best part of the work.

In contrast, Talbot Baines Reed (1887, 246) adopted a more considered, enumerative approach in A History of the Old English Letter Foundries: Luckombe suitably reprinted William Caslon’s ‘Specimen in small quarto’, which consisted of thirty-eight leaves and ‘[occupied] pages 134 to 173’; and provided a ‘more satisfactory account’ of Cottrell’s Foundry than Pierre-Simon Fournier in Manuel Typographique (1766), where ‘pages 169 to 174 are occupied by specimens of the Engrossing and Flowers already exhibited in the specimen book, and a fount of English Domesday’ (which clearly opposed Timperley’s opinion) (p.  291). However, Reed later expressed his dissatisfaction when Luckombe ‘[made] a disparaging reference to [Isaac Moore’s] type’13; yet even then, Reed withheld judgement by 13  Reed’s footnote accompanying this observation reads: ‘After commending Caslon and Jackson, [Luckombe] says: “As to the productions of other Founderies we shall be silent, and leave them to sound forth their own good qualifications, which by an examiner are not found to exist” (p. 230)’.

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conceding that ‘this circumstance […] may be accounted for by then growing prejudice amongst metropolitan printers against the Baskerville form of letter adopted by the new foundry’ (p. 301). Such varied reception proves credible after analysing Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing, though in this instance from an editorial viewpoint. Luckombe (1770) declares his objective definitively on the title page of A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing: to provide ‘practical instructions to the trade in general’, not specific stakeholders such as correctors, compositors or printers. In this way, Luckombe implicitly aligns himself with his predecessors Moxon (1683) and Smith (1755). He acknowledges his generational  intertextual inheritance also on the title page by stating that his text was ‘compiled from those who have wrote on this curious art’. His text’s two-part structure, which is reflected in the title, is articulated in his preliminary section, entitled ‘To the public’: ‘The motive which induces the Editor to this publication, is to promote the Theory and Practice of the Art of Printing, and not a lucrative view.’ Luckombe (1770, i) explains that the historical section, which concentrates on master printers from 1400 to 1600, originates from ‘the ingenious Mr Moxon, and other able Writers on this noble Art’, namely Joseph Ames’ Typographical Antiquities (1749), and that the practical section combines ‘the united opinions of the most experienced of the trade’— mainly those of Moxon and Smith. Curiously, despite his copious reliance on Smith, Luckombe does not explicitly acknowledge him.14 The structure of the practical section—which is central to this chapter’s discussion on the extent of Luckombe’s appropriation and his ­contribution to an intertextual discourse tradition of editorial  style—mirrors that employed by Smith in The Printer’s Grammar. Luckombe commences with minutiae and proceeds substantively outwards. Hence, from the outset, Luckombe (1770, ii) declares his order of focus: his practical instruction includes the use and properties of metal types; schemes for imposing; method for casting-off copy; the use of metal flowers; mathematical, physical, musical and astronomical sorts; useful hints to authors and compilers on how to prepare and correct page proofs; and instructions for the press and warehousemen. The text concludes with a glossary. Luckombe divides his order of focus into two separate sections: first, ‘OF PRINTING MATERIALS’; and second, ‘THE PRINTING PRESS’. For the first section, and the specific focus of this chapter, Luckombe reproduces text from Smith (1755) as either verbatim with modernised  See also Bush Jones (1977, 106–7).

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orthography or adaptations with startling omissions; the second originates from Moxon (1683), presented more or less verbatim, with a clear modern editorial presentation. The difference between the two indicates Luckombe’s agenda: his at-times extreme treatment, or adaptation, of Smith reveals his silent intention to portray primarily the British experience of printing practice. However, this results not only in restricting his account of printing practice’s European origins but also in undermining the second objective of his text outlined in ‘To the public’: to provide practical instruction to the trade. For this first section, ‘OF PRINTING MATERIALS’, Luckombe reorders Smith’s first six chapters: Chapters 1–6 are reconfigured as 6, 2, 1, 3, 4, 5. Certainly, Luckombe adopts Smith’s minutiae-to-substantive structure generally, as aforementioned; nevertheless, Luckombe elects to describe the bodies of type and their differences first (Smith’s Chapter 6), as a kind of typographical umbrella, and then concentrate first inwards and then outwards, whereas Smith commences atomically and moves progressively outwards. A comparative content analysis of Smith and Luckombe assists with clarifying more specifically what was concluded in the previous paragraph more broadly—that is, Luckombe’s treatment of Smith’s text reveals, first, his sober modernisation and, second, his editorial censorial selections, or omissions. It is through the second that Luckombe achieves his Britanno-centric agenda: in this context, to instruct his readership on editorial style relating to the English vernacular.

Luckombe’s Modernisation When editors are presented with a manuscript written and/or compiled by more than one author, one of their numerous responsibilities is to ensure the final product presents a united voice that conveys a central message, not myriad idiosyncrasies. Therefore, when Luckombe explains that his practical section combines ‘the united opinions of the most experienced of the trade’, he means that his improved, modern edition seeks to unite those voices—those of Moxon, Smith and his own. Luckombe achieves this unification by adopting a simple heading structure; adaptively modernising capitalisation, punctuation and spelling; and, most significantly, removing subjective responses, professional reflections and typographical emphasis. McKitterick (2003, 197) uses the term ‘uniformity’, albeit within a national context rather than an editorial one:

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Luckombe strove for a uniformity of presentation, in a way of thinking that also looked to uniformity of spelling, uniformity in punctuation, and even uniformity in pronunciation. He thus stands as a figure of some importance in linking ideas concerning education, writing and reading with the means by which these were to be promoted, in print.

Consistent with his taxonomic presentation of The Printer’s Grammar, Smith (1755) adopted a complex heading structure, as observed previously in Chap. 4 of this book. For example, Smith’s chapter four comprised four levels of headings and featured a combination of roman, italics, title capitalisation and small capitals to impart emphasis and indicate a textual hierarchy of importance. However, Luckombe (1770) employs deliberately a two-level heading hierarchy throughout A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing, regardless of the content and its relevance to other adjacent or consequent material. In addition, besides maximal and small capitals, no other stylistic features are present to express emphasis or textual importance. For example, the following headings represent Smith’s text reproduced from Chapters 6, 2, 1 and 3 respectively (pp. 216, 225–7, 234, 238, 247–8, 250, 252): OF PRINTING MATERIALS DIFFERENCE OF BODIES. REGULAR BODIED LETTER. IRREGULAR BODIED LETTER. ROMAN LETTER. ITALIC LETTER. BLACK PRINTING LETTER. A BILL OF PICA ROMAN.

(the number of each sort cast by founders.) UPPER CASE SORTS. LARGE CAPITALS SMALL CAPITALS ACCENTED LETTERS.

Therefore, all headings underneath the first heading level, ‘OF PRINTING MATERIALS’ (which today would most probably be typeset as a part heading, before a chapter heading), are accorded identical importance despite the fact that ‘DIFFERENCE OF BODIES’ is a second-level

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heading and those immediately afterwards—from ‘REGULAR BODIED LETTER’ to ‘BLACK PRINTING LETTER’—should be typeset as third-level headings to indicate that the content belongs to, and elaborates on, the difference of bodies in a fount of type. Luckombe’s simplification of Smith’s headings enables unhindered reading, namely reducing their length, omitting the italics and converting all small capitals to maximal capitalisation, except for the few subheads typeset in small capitals and placed within parentheses on the next line. However, his ideological stance of presenting a modernising sobriety in this instance paradoxically serves to increase textual ambiguity. Comparing Smith’s original text with Luckombe’s modernised but verbatim reproduction reveals Luckombe’s general capitalisation style, as illustrated in Table 6.1. Luckombe clearly simplifies not only the nomenclature of the different founts but also their presentation: one word ‘Greatprimer’ becomes two to visually distinguish the adjective from the noun; and italics, in this instance, are removed15 (though he maintains small capitals on the first appearance of each term, when he provides their definition). Table  6.2 provides further examples. Why did Luckombe alter Smith’s text in this manner? Perhaps the answer is to create unity of voice. While Luckombe elected not to utilise Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises as a foundation for detailing the different founts, his spelling subtly acknowledges Moxon’s own—that is, creating a Table 6.1  Comparing Smith’s (1755, 143) and Luckombe’s (1770, 214) capitalisation styles Smith

Greatprimer is called Tertia, in Germany; and is therefore one of the major sizes of Letter which in the infancy of the Art served for printing several Works of consideration, and particularly the Bible; on which account it is by some called Bible Text. Luckombe Great Primer, in Germany, is called Tertia, and is therefore one of the major sizes of Letter which in the infancy of the Art served for printing several works of consideration, and particularly the Bible; on which account it is by some called Bible Text.

 For this example, Smith utilised italics for emphasis; generally the names were typeset with an initial capital in roman. 15

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Table 6.2  Luckombe’s (1770, 222) simplification of Smith’s (1755, 26) nomenclature of the different founts Smith

Luckombe

Two-lines double Pica Two-lines Greatprimer Two-lines English Longprimer

Two lines double Pica Two lines great primer Two lines English Long primer

modern compromise between the two, without reliance on a distracting hyphenation style. The text reproduced below from Mechanick Exercises (1683, 13) confirms this point: He provides a Fount (properly a Fund) of Letter of all Bodies ; for most Printing-Houses have all except the two first, viz. Pearl, Nonparel, Brevier, Long-Primmer, Pica, English, Great-Primmer, Double-Pica, Two-Lin’d English, Great-Cannon.

Hence, Luckombe linguistically aligns the Smith-based first section ‘OF PRINTING MATERIALS’ with the Moxon-based second, ‘THE PRINTING PRESS’. Besides the occasional de-capitalisation of words, such as ‘Works’ to ‘works’, Luckombe retains Smith’s capitalisation when reproducing his text verbatim—that is, capitalising the first letter of nouns of significance, such as printing terminology. Luckombe (1770, 219) likewise maintains this style consistently for the few original paragraphs of copy that he writes, though slightly more soberly; for example: Though all Founders agree in the point of casting Letter to certain Bodies, yet, in the article of casting each body always to one and the same Size, they differ ; insomuch that not only Founders of different places, but of the same residence, and even in each particular, often vary in the Height and Depth […].

Furthermore, when discharging his role as editor, Luckombe corrects Smith’s rare capitalisation errors. For example, Smith (1755, 154) wrote: ‘And, to mention another convenience there is in dividing the lines of Copy into equal parts, It will assist us in Writing that varies’; Luckombe’s (1770, 219) amended version converts ‘It’ to all lower case.

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While Luckombe maintains Smith’s punctuation style, such as commas and spaced colons and semicolons, two observations typify both his departure from Smith and his desire for sober modernisation. The first observation comprises specific copyediting amendments, where Luckombe modifies Smith’s punctuation to improve meaning. For example, for Smith’s (1755, 4) sentence: ‘That good Roman makes the best figure in a Specimen of letters, may be said without reservation, especially as I would be understood not to pronounce all Letter good which is new ; but only such as has the necessary accomplishments as well in its appearance, as substance’, Luckombe (1770, 229) removes the initial italics, converts the first-person singular pronoun into the first-person plural ‘we’, substitutes Smith’s comma after ‘reserve’ (not ‘reservation’) with a semicolon, lower-­ cases ‘Letter’, inserts a comma after ‘accomplishments’ and deletes Smith’s comma after ‘appearance’. Evidently, the intention behind Luckombe’s alterations here is improvement. The subjective comment between the two semicolons is now parenthetical (that is, if the semicolons were deleted, the sentence would still make sense), the movement of the comma now connects ‘appearance’ more directly with ‘good Roman’, and the emphasis on ‘substance’ is diminished. Note that the parenthetical application of semicolons by Luckombe is atypical; indeed, it contravenes his instruction on this punctuation mark, which he reproduces verbatim from Smith: ‘The Semicolon is a Point of great use to enforce and to illustrate what has been advanced, and digested by the Comma’ (p.  267). Nevertheless, while not utilising the conventional commas or parentheses as his text recommends, Luckombe imaginatively employs his editorial tools to achieve his objective. The second observation is more editorially substantive: that is, an overarching, modern editorial application of hyphenation, quotation marks and em rules. As mentioned, Luckombe’s text discards both Moxon’s and Smith’s slightly differing but distracting hyphenation style for specific fount names; however, compound nouns are still present, such as ‘Counter-­ bill’ and ‘hair-space’ (Smith 1755, 39, 40; Luckombe 1770, 243). Instances in which Luckombe employs his modernising objective, unfortunately, often result in textual ambiguity and editorial inconsistency. For example, Luckombe removes hyphens for certain adjectival compounds— Smith’s (1755, 5) ‘true-shaped letters’ became for Luckombe (1770, 229) ‘true shaped letters’—though retains them in others, such as ‘ill-shaped’ and ‘lower-case letters’ (Smith 1755, 10, 11; Luckombe 1770, 233). Where Luckombe exhibits his true modernity is his implementation of

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quotation marks. Smith’s (1755, 89) instruction on the positioning of quotation marks reflects eighteenth-century practice: initial left-hand double inverted commas to commence a quotation, left-hand double inverted commas at the start of each required line and right-hand double inverted commas to conclude. His practice in The Printer’s Grammar follows suit: [Mr. Moxon] says ; “We have one body “more which is sometimes used in England, that “is, a Small-pica : but I account it no discretion … “it may be mingled with the Pica, and so the “beauty of both may be spoiled.” (p. 24)

In contrast, for this and other text Luckombe (1770, 220–1) maintains the beginning and ending double inverted commas but abandons those at the start of each required line.16 In regard to em rules, Luckombe’s implementation could be perceived as editorially personal—that is, he does not prefer them: numerous occasions Luckombe replaces Smith’s em rules with colons or semicolons. For example, where Smith (1755, 105) writes ‘Thus we say, I was at St. Paul’s ; understanding, Church—I am going to the Opera ; meaning, House’, Luckombe (1770, 275) reproduces this with a colon instead: ‘Thus we say, I was at St. Paul’s ; understanding, Church : I am going to the Opera ; meaning, House’.17 Additionally, Luckombe replaces the em dash in Smith’s text ‘the fault will be discovered sooner than in Letter, especially in Poetical matter—the test for Quadrats’ with a semicolon (Smith 1755, 110; Luckombe 1770, 277).18 From this, it is apparent that Luckombe achieves his modernising objective with the use of quotation marks; regrettably, his inconsistent application of hyphenation and em rules undermines it. Observations of Luckombe’s modernisation of Smith’s spelling are more straightforward. Not surprisingly, Luckombe generally maintains Smith’s spelling—he writes merely 16 years after the publication of The Printer’s Grammar. For instance, he continues with –ize and –our endings, as well as specific spellings standard for the eighteenth century, such as betwixt, chuse and shews. Where Luckombe distances himself is his expansion of Smith’s abbreviated text: tho’ becomes though, ‘tis becomes it is and –ed is no longer abbreviated to ‘d. In his article ‘Early Modern  Mitchell (1983, 364) similarly observes this.  Personally, neither the em dash nor the colon is ideal; a semicolon makes more sense. 18  The meaning would have been better served if the em dash had been retained. 16 17

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Printers and the Standardization of English Spelling’, Howard-Hill (2006, 25) provides compositors’ setting justified copy as a vital reason for spelling variation in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: Early compositors had a variety of means available to them in order to fit their text to the measure, including the use of spaces thick and thin and contractions such as the ampersand, but the most common method was to vary the spelling of the copy: bedde could be set as bedd or bed in order to fill out a line so that it did not end with white space, without affecting meaning or pronunciation.

Howard-Hill’s view has remained unchanged for more than 40 years. In his article ‘Spelling and the Bibliographer’, Howard-Hill (1963, 8) wrote that the ‘second most frequently used device [to justify copy] was the alteration of spelling, usually by the addition or subtraction of letters, more often in terminal positions. Contractions were also used’.19 Economies of scale motivated not only the efficient justification of copy but also the standardisation of spelling in printing shops—according to Howard-Hill, spelling ‘was mostly standardised’ by 1683; hence, the quicker the typesetting, the greater the quantity of books produced. Furthermore, how much a compositor could earn when setting type was a significant factor from around 1774 onwards: ‘although a compositor whose spellings were consistently longer than those of another may have set more ens of type, the compositor with the more economical (i.e. ­modern) spellings actually set more text in a similar period’ (Howard-Hill 2006, 27–8). Therefore, perhaps such conclusions raise more questions regarding Smith’s spelling than Luckombe’s own; although they do reinforce the latter’s modernising orthographic agenda. As abovementioned, Luckombe’s unification of authorial voice is most significantly achieved by removing subjective responses and professional reflections, as well as typographical emphasis. One example that characterises Smith’s (1755, 89) subjective—in this case, passionate—response to his content relates to compositors’ desire for authors to use commas consistently: [For] some Gentlemen who have regard to make the reading of their Works consonant with their own delivery, point their Copy accordingly, and abide thereby, with strictness : which, were it done by every Writer, Compositors would sing, Jubile !  See also McKerrow (1913, 295).

19

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Luckombe (1770, 264) effectively subdues  Smith’s tone by rewriting his final phrase as ‘which, were it done by every Writer, Compositors would be very glad’. Luckombe’s alteration is distinctly lacklustre in comparison, although understandable editorially. However, Luckombe’s restraint proves at times inconsistent, which is evident on the previous page where he reproduces Smith’s emotive text verbatim: ‘But happy ! that Mispointing is not of the same consequence with Misnomer ; otherwise, Where would be the end of Law-quibbles !’ (p. 263). An example of an omitted professional reflection occurs earlier, during the instruction on regular-bodied letters. Smith (1755, 22) writes: ‘[Small-pica] is now become the favourite Character to do voluminous Works in […] partly because it takes in considerably more matter than Pica—the ever-best size for Printing Letter’. In comparison, Luckombe deletes Smith’s opinion inserted after the em rule. Additionally, the professional reflections only permitted by Luckombe are those expressed in the first-person plural. Returning to an earlier example, while Smith (1755, 4) writes ‘That good Roman makes the best figure in a Specimen of letters, may be said without reservation, especially as I would be understood not to pronounce all Letter good which is new’, Luckombe (1770, 229) replaces the first-person singular pronoun I with the plural we. Therefore, he dismisses any authorial separation and endeavours to embrace his readership collegially, by acknowledging shared professional experience. Examples of Luckombe’s removal of Smith’s typographical emphasis are abundant—specifically, the removal of italics. Some prove editorially successful, whereas others are detrimental to the communication of the content’s meaning. For the successful former, Luckombe eliminates Smith’s textual emphasis that is reminiscent of an ebullient seventeenth-­ century practice of overusing italics that Smith himself counsels against. For example, Luckombe disavows italicising certain different bodies of fount, such as Paragon and Secunda (Smith 1755, 143, 144; Luckombe 1770, 214); technical substantives, such as paper and steel (Smith 1755, 5; Luckombe 1770, 229) and Height and Depth (Smith 1755, 27; Luckombe 1770, 223); abbreviated units of measure, such as ‘28 lb.’ (Smith 1755, 10; Luckombe 1770, 232) and specialised terms, such as ‘Accented Letters’ (Smith 1755, 56; Luckombe 1770, 252). Similarly, Luckombe replaces Smith’s rendering of certain proper names in small capitals, such as ‘Mr. Palmer’, with modern title capitalisation typeset in roman (Smith 1755, 40; Luckombe 1770, 243).20 For the detrimental latter, Luckombe decides 20  However, Luckombe’s (1770, 291–2) consistent presentation of proper names for the Smith text is not emulated of the first pages of the Moxon section, entitled ‘THE PRINTING PRESS’, where ‘Willem Jansen Blaew’, ‘Tycho Brahe’ are typeset in small capitals.

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against reproducing Smith’s italics for emphatical words, the objective of which is to create visual distinction from normal matter to reinforce a particular point or argument. For instance, for ‘But if this has given the hint to the English to vary their proper names’, Smith italicises ‘their’ to emphasise how the English typeset proper names in comparison to German practice (Smith 1755, 15; Luckombe 1770, 236). Another example follows below: Were we authorized to vary from the customary way of practice we should recommend literal References to begin with every even page, if he has Notes ; and to carry them no farther than to the last Note in the opposite uneven page. (p. 257)

Here, Smith (1755, 76) italicises ‘even’ and ‘uneven’ to call attention to how references are typeset on verso and recto pages—that is, the numbering of footnotes begins on the verso and finishes on the recto, with the numbering to commence anew on the subsequent verso. In addition, throughout The Printer’s Grammar, Smith italicises letters, words and phrases that are literally referenced as examples of the application of a specific rule. Such practice functions to create visual distinction from normal matter and hence prevent ambiguity. Table 6.3 compares an extract from Smith’s discussion on hyphenation, or division, at the ends of lines with Luckombe’s reproduced version. An earlier example of is ‘In Latin, the Semicolon stands for ue, when it is joined to q, as in absq; deniq; &c.’ (Luckombe 1770, 267). Without italicisation, these sentences read less smoothly and communicate less effectively.

Table 6.3  Smith’s (1755, 97) emphatical italicised text compared with Luckombe’s (1770, 271) adapted reproduction Smith

Thus the Verbs abide, ascribe, aspire, bite, bore, dictate, ease, &c. as also the Verbs which terminate in ke, as brake, make, take, &c. retain their e feminine at the end of a line; and the syllable ing, which makes the Participle of the Verb, begins the next line. Luckombe Thus the Verbs abide, ascribe, aspire, bite, bore, dictate, ease, &c. as also the Verbs which terminate in ke, as brake, make, take, &c. retain their e feminine at the end of a line; and the syllable ing, which makes the Participle of the Verb, begins the next line.

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Luckombe’s Omissions As indicated earlier, Luckombe’s censorial editorial omissions of Smith’s text demonstrate his Britanno-centric agenda: to instruct his readership on editorial practice relating to the English vernacular. However, these omissions result in Luckombe not only separating the general technical instruction from its European origins, but also—more importantly for this discussion on editorial practice—curtailing generational intertextual inheritance and the consequent dissemination of Smith’s professional knowledge of the print trade, and paradoxically inhibiting the practical abilities of compositors and correctors. An excellent example of Luckombe curtailing generational intertextual inheritance may be found in his instruction on capital letters. Smith’s (1755, 52) original text from chapter four, ‘Of a Complete Fount of Letter, consider’d as with Printers’, appears below: Matter in Capital letters has, generally, Spaces put between, which graces them much ; but wastes a Compositor’s time, especially where Spaces are short : which is the reason that the Spacing of Capitals is sometimes dispensed with, in work particularly which admits of no delay. And tho’ this passes with Roman Capitals, in Dictionaries, and upon other occasions where they are used in great abundance ; yet are Italic Capitals not of the same good-natured disposition, but will be humoured by Spaces, or else they make but an aukward and unsightly appearance.

In contrast, Luckombe’s editing of Smith’s text involves excluding the latter’s insights into compositors’ typesetting of capitals in italic or roman. While such omission is dissatisfying from a historical and instructional perspective, Luckombe’s (1770, 250) edited version below reveals him at his editorial best—his editing occasions succinct language to communicate a message unambiguously: ‘Matter in Capital letters has generally spaces put between, but this method is not observed in Dictionaries, and on other occasions where they occur in great abundance ; but Italic Capitals require spaces, or make but an aukward [sic] appearance.’ Much of Luckombe’s editorial instruction derives verbatim from Smith’s fourth chapter; very little is original copy. Where Luckombe distances himself from Smith is in the conspicuous silences, the first instance of which occurs during his discussion on large capitals. Smith’s (1755, 50–2) two-page instruction covers first large capitals’ function and correct

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application in textual matter (they ‘make a fine appearance in Inscriptions, Titles, or other matter, where their beauty is not invaded by italic’); second, observations that authors either ‘variously used’ large capitals, ‘leave that to the Printer’s discretion’ or hand-mark their preferences on their manuscript copy for inclusion by compositors; third, commentary on how ‘loss of time’ is incurred by compositors if authors neglect to mark up their manuscript copy, preferring to defer this until receipt of page proofs; fourth, instruction on the system to which authors should adhere to mark up their manuscript copy, such as text not written as capitals should be ‘treble underscored’ and, fifth, explanation of how capitals should be spaced (as articulated in the first block quotation above). In response, Luckombe edits this into three paragraphs, or half a page, by overlooking Smith’s second and third observations, which relate to stakeholder relationships and labour—another example of Luckombe curtailing generational intertextual inheritance and dissemination of Smith’s professional knowledge. The next conspicuous silence—his treatment of accented letters—characterises Luckombe’s objective to concentrate primarily on the English vernacular, with the inadvertent outcome of impeding compositors’ and correctors’ practical training. In agreement with Moxon (1683), Smith (1755, 272) declares that ‘the office of a Corrector is not to be transfered upon one that has a tolerable judgment of his mother-tongue only ; but who is a person of greater capacity, and has a knowledge of such languages, at least, as make a considerable figure in Printing ; such as Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish’; in the next sentence, he supplements this list with Greek and Hebrew. Although Smith’s instruction on accented letters occurs earlier in the text than his linguistic expectations for correctors, he remains true to his word. Proceeding first from a broad perspective, Smith categorises accented letters as vowels with acute (such as á), grave (à) or circumflex (â); vowels with a dieresis (ä) and vowels with long (a¯) or short pronunciation (ă). The few consonants with marks are the French cedilla (ç), the ‘Spanish ñ, and the Welsh ŵ and ŷ’. Next, Smith describes in-depth over six pages how these accented letters are utilised in Latin and French (pp. 56–64).21 For example, ‘a has a Grave in là, when it is an Adverb, as in il est logé là—But la has no Grave when it denotes the Article of the Feminine gender ; as la femme, la soeur’ (p. 59). Throughout, his practical 21  Smith (1755, 59) focuses only on Latin and French here because they are ‘the principal bye-languages which prove beneficial to our English Presses’.

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knowledge enriches his explanations; for instance, in his sixth subsection entitled ‘Of the French ç, Spanish ñ, and the Welsh ŵ and ŷ’, he writes: The c à la queue, or the c with a tail, is a French sort, and sounds like ſſ, when it stands before a o u, as in ça, garçon ; whereas a common c, before the same Vowels, is pronounced like a k. And, to make a tail to a Capital C, a figure of 5, inverted, and of a small size, is not improperly used. (p. 63)

Again, Luckombe (1770, 252–3) shortens Smith to three paragraphs: he retains Smith’s broad cataloguing, including his mention of ‘the French ç, the ‘Spanish ñ, and the Welsh ŵ and ŷ’, though with slightly differing layout; however, he excludes the remainder on Latin and French. This foreign-­language silence manifests again during his coverage of figures, where he neglects Smith’s (1755, 71–5) four-page instruction on Greek and Hebrew numerals. Correctors and compositors hence become aware of the accented letters and figures of foreign languages but fail to obtain practical understanding of how they are employed and, in turn, how errors in manuscript copy or typeset page proofs are corrected.

Luckombe’s Editorial Legacy Towards the conclusion of Chap. 4, the proficiency of Smith’s editorial practice was questioned; that is, did Smith practise what he preached to the mid-eighteenth-century audience. To answer this question, this chapter analysed The Printer’s Grammar as an editorial artefact owing to it being Smith’s sole known publication. What then of Luckombe’s editorial expertise? As mentioned earlier, Luckombe and Samuel Dunn (1783) edited the thirteenth edition of Edward Hatton’s Comes Commercii; or, The trader’s companion. To understand Luckombe’s editorial practice outside of, but in relation to, A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing (1770), it would therefore be instructive to contrast the thirteenth edition with the previous one, for example, which was published in 1766 and edited by ‘W. Hume, polymath’, who had edited the majority of the previous editions. Edward Hatton’s Comes Commercii was first published in 1699 and, according to James Raven (2014, 193–4), it is a ‘best-selling’ representative example of eighteenth-century ‘[instruction] on accounting and other mercantile and retail skills’. The Hume (1766) twelfth edition, which begins with preliminary matter (the ‘Author’s Epistle to the Reader’ and the ‘Corrector’s preface’), is divided into four chapters. Of these, the first

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chapter is subdivided further into three sections: the first features ‘An exact and useful Table, shewing the Value of any Quantity of Goods or Wares’ (p. i); the second, seventeen examples of how this first table is used, ‘relating chiefly to Buying and Selling’ and the third, a ‘Table calculated for universal Use’ that extends over fifty-one pages. The second chapter contains five shorter sections of examples demonstrating how the second table in the previous chapter is applied: specifically for multiplication, division, ‘reduction’, merchandising and ‘measuring any Superficies’, such as glass, flooring and timber. The third chapter relates to ‘Customs to be observed in measuring’ for glaziers, joiners, painters, plasterers, bricklayers, masons and carpenters. The fourth chapter concerns ‘such Business of Merchants as is to be done at the Custom-house, and the Waterside &c’. Appendices include an itemised contents page and a supplement pertaining to simple and compound interest, once again offering pages of tables accompanied by explanatory notes and examples. A comparative analysis of the twelfth and thirteenth editions yields an observation regarding their main textual matter. The main textual matter of both editions—that is, its pages of tables with discrete examples and explanatory text—are virtually identical. The aspects that render Luckombe and Dunn’s textual matter ‘virtually identical’ are the placement of table headings; the removal of braces in certain sections, such as the second chapter, but not all and their subtle, albeit intermittent, editing. In Hume’s edition, table headings featured within the tables, whereas Luckombe and Dunn removed the headings from the first row of the tables and inserted them directly above. The reason for this editorial intervention could be to unclutter, or simplify, the tables so that their information became clearer and more user-friendly. The chief application of braces, according to Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing and reproduced verbatim from Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar, is ‘in Tables of Accounts, and other suchlike Matter that consists of a variety of Articles, which would require much circumlocution, were it not for the curious method of Tabular Writing’ (Luckombe 1770, 283; Smith 1755, 127). Hence, for Luckombe and Dunn’s edition, while the typesetting of the mathematical working improved, specifically how the text reached, but did not exceed, each rule’s end (see Fig.  6.1), the motive for removing the braces is not as evident. Rather, removing the braces served to make the mathematical working more ambiguous, not clearer, particularly given the little white space allocated between each of the text types—marginalia, explanatory text and working.

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Fig. 6.1  The mathematical working with braces in Hume’s (1766, 233) edited twelfth edition of Comes Commercii (left), and without braces in Luckombe and Dunn’s (1783, 233) thirteenth edition (right). (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London)

Luckombe and Dunn’s (1783) subtle, albeit intermittent, editing amounts to adjusting as necessary to maintain consistency and clarity of content. A representative example is provided in Fig.  6.2; both extracts come from the fourth section ‘Use of the Table in Merchandising’ in Chapter 2. The first adjustment in Luckombe and Dunn’s text involves inserting units of measurement. For example, their second sentence in the first numbered paragraph reads: ‘Tare out of the 112 lb. the Remainder is 96  lb; which  look at the Top of the Table, and against 89C’ (p.  237). Comparing this with Hume’s (1766, 237) edition, it is apparent that Luckombe and Dunn affixed ‘C’ to ‘89’ so that units of measurement accompany each numeral. This occurs again in the first sentences of the second and third numbered paragraphs. The second adjustment relates to dividing one sentence into two to indicate a new, yet adjacent, point in discussion; that is, Luckombe and Dunn replaced the semicolon with a full stop after ‘suttle’ on the fifth line of the second numbered paragraph, deleted the ‘so’ and began a new sentence with ‘By’. Hence, the editors ensured that readers understood that the author’s discussion now focused on ‘the Tare of the 15lb.’, not the ‘Tare of 1 C’ from the first line of this paragraph. Furthermore, this adjustment assisted with reducing the length of Hume’s original, substantial sentence.

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Such sober editorial interventions are reminiscent of those observed previously in this chapter for A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing. That is, while Luckombe maintained Smith’s overall punctuation style, his modernisation—and thus his editorial proficiency—involved only those specific copyediting amendments of the punctuation to improve meaning. The comparative analysis of Comes Commercii also reinforced his editorial humanity, as demonstrated by his at-times inconsistent editorial style and his pursuit of a particular agenda. In conclusion, what is Luckombe’s editorial legacy? How did he contribute to the intertextual discourse on editorial practice through his publication of A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing? As mentioned earlier, McKitterick (2003, 195) has observed that Luckombe ‘extended very considerably’ Smith’s section on correcting. However, a content analysis of the Luckombe’s practical section ‘OF PRINTING MATERIALS’ reveals that Luckombe wrote only two sections of text. First, one original paragraph in the section on casting-off copy describes how typefounders universally agreed ‘in the point of casting Letter to certain Bodies, yet, in the article of casting each Body always to one and the same Size, they differ’, specifically each letter’s height and depth (Luckombe 1770, 219). Luckombe spends the remainder of the paragraph concluding that this presumably occurred as a result of printers obtaining their letters from abroad. And second, over approximately four pages, Luckombe adapts and enlarges on Smith’s instruction on Roman numerical figures, particularly their physical construction

Fig. 6.2  An extract from Hume’s (1766, 237) second chapter of Comes Commercii (left), with Luckombe and Dunn’s (1783, 237) edited version (right). (Reproduced courtesy of Senate House Library, University of London)

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(pp. 253–6). From this, it appears that Luckombe’s sole contribution to editorial practice is his modern demonstration of quotation marks, where inverted commas are placed at the start and end of a quotation only— and it is at this point that the ‘punctuated’ aspect of editorial development become evident. Luckombe demonstrated unquestionably a determined vision: he sought to provide ‘practical instructions to the trade in general’ through a modern Britanno-centric lens. At times, Luckombe succeeded in this endeavour, adapting Smith’s text to enable clarity of meaning—an editor’s overarching pursuit. At other times, however, his alterations to create unity of voice and fashion content to suit an English-speaking audience not only result in editorial inconsistency but also appear dismissive, unwitting or not, of Smith’s original intent and professional integrity.

References Alston, R.C. 1964. Some Printing Terms from Philip Luckombe. Notes and Queries 11 (2): 68–69. Baigent, Elizabeth. 2004. Philip Luckombe. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/17146. Accessed 25 Feb 2019. Bigmore, E.C., and C.W.H. Wyman. 1884. A Bibliography of Printing with Notes and Illustrations. Vol. 1. London: Bernard Quaritch. Bliss, Carey S. 1965. Some Aspects of Seventeenth Century Printing with Special Reference to Joseph Moxon. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California. Bush Jones, John. 1977. Victorian “Readers” and Modern Editors: Attitudes and Accidentals Revisited. The Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America 71: 49–59. Deazley, Ronan. 2008. Commentary on the Statute of Anne 1710. Primary Sources on Copyright (1450–1900). www.copyrighthistory.org/cam/commentary/ uk_1710/uk_1710_com_272007105424.html. Accessed 13 Nov 2014. Feather, John. 1988. A History of British Publishing. London: Routledge. ———. 1994. Publishing, Piracy and Politics: An Historical Study of Copyright in Britain. London: Mansell Publishing Limited. ———. 2011. 1710 and all that: The Statute of Anne Revisited. Logos 22 (1): 47–52. Freeborn, Dennis. 1998. From Old English to Standard English: A Course Book in Language Variation across Time, Studies in English Language Series. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan Press Ltd.

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Hammond, Brean S. 2003. Plagiarism: Hammond Versus Ricks. In Plagiarism in Early Modern England, ed. Paulina Kewes, 41–55. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Hansard, T.C. 1825. Typographia: An Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Art of Printing; with Practical Directions for Conducting every in an Office: With a Description of Stereotype and Lithography. London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock and Joy. Hatton, Edward. 1766. Comes commercii, or, The Trader’s-Companion … to Which Is Added, a Supplement Concerning Simple and Compound Interest, with Tables, ed. W. Hume and Edward b Hatton. 12th ed./with large additions, accurately rev., corr., improved, and augmented, by W. Hume, Philomath ed. London: Printed for H. Woodfall and 21 others. ———. 1783. Comes commercii, or, The Trader’s-Companion Containing an Exact and Useful Table, Shewing the Value of Any Quantity of Goods Ready Cast Up … Simple Interest, with Tables at Three, Three and a Half, Four, Five, &c. Per cent, ed. Samuel Dunn and Philip Luckombe. The 13th ed., with additions accurately rev., corr., and impr. by S. Dunn and P. Luckombe ed., Comes commercii. London: Printed for W. Strahan et al. Howard-Hill, T.H. 1963. Spelling and the Bibliographer. The Library Fifth Series XVIII (1): 1–28. ———. 2006. Early Modern Printers and the Standardization of English Spelling. The Modern Language Review 101 (1): 16–29. https://doi.org/10.2307/3738406. Howard, Rebecca Moore. 1999. Standing in the Shadow of Giants: Plagiarists, Authors, Collaborators, Perspectives on Writing: Theory, Research, Practice. Vol. 2. Stamford: Albex Publishing Corporation. Johns, Adrian. 1998. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kewes, Paulina. 2003. Historicizing Plagiarism. In Plagiarism in Early Modern England, ed. Paulina Kewes, 1–18. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Kroeg, Susan M. 2004. Philip Luckombe’s A Tour Through Ireland (1780) and the Problem of Plagiarism. Eighteenth-Century Ireland 18: 126–137. Luckombe, Philip. 1770. A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing with Practical Instructions to the Trade in General. Compiled from those Who Have Wrote on this Curious Art. London: Printed and Sold by W. Adlard and J. Browne. Maruca, Lisa. 2003. Bodies of Type: The Work of Textual Production in English Printers’ Manuals. Eighteenth-Century Studies 36 (3): 321–343. Mazzeo, Tilar J. 2007. Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. McKenzie, D.F. 2002. Making Meaning: “Printers of the Mind” and Other Essays, ed. Peter D.  McDonald and Michael F.  Suarez. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

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McKerrow, R.B. 1913. Notes on Bibliographical Evidence for Literary Students and Editors of English Works of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The Library TBS-12 (1): 213–318. https://doi.org/10.1093/libraj/TBS-12.1.213. McKitterick, David. 2003. Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450–1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, C.J. 1983. Quotation Marks, National Compositorial Habits and False Imprints. The Library s6-5 (4): 359–384. https://doi.org/10.1093/library/ s6-5.4.359. Mosley, James. 2009. The Technologies of Printing. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume 5: 1695–1830, ed. Michael F. Suarez and Michael L. Turner, 161–199. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moxon, Joseph. 1683. Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. The Second Volumne [Sic]. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the Sign of Atlas. Nichols, John Bowyer. 1858. Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century. Consisting of Authentic Memoirs and Original Letters of Eminent Persons. To which Are Appended Additions to the Literary Anecdotes and Literary Illustrations. Vol. 8. London: Printed by and for J. B. Nichols and Sons. Patterson, Lyman Ray. 1968. Copyright in Historical Perspective. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Pollack, Oliver B. 2006. The Decline and Fall of Bottom Notes, op. Cit., Loc. Cit., and a Century of the Chicago Manual of Style. Journal of Scholarly Publishing 38 (1): 14–30. Porter, James E. 1986. Intertextuality and the Discourse Community. Rhetoric Review 5 (1): 34–47. Randall, Marilyn. 2001. Pragmatic Plagiarism: Authorship, Profit, and Power. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Raven, James. 2014. Publishing Business in the Eighteenth Century. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. Reed, Talbot Baines. 1887. A History of the Old English Letter Foundries, with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C. Ricks, Christopher. 2003. Plagiarism. In Plagiarism in Early Modern England, ed. Paulina Kewes, 21–40. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Rose, Mark. 1993. Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2010. Copyright, Authors and Censorship. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Vol. V 1695–1830, ed. Michael F.  Suarez and Michael L. Turner, 118–131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shaw, Peter. 1982. Plagiary. The American Scholar Summer: 325–337. Smith, John. 1755. The Printer’s Grammar. London: Printed for the Editor; and Sold by W.  Owen, Near Temple Bar; and by M.  Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row.

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Stower, Caleb. 1808. The Printer’s Grammar ; or, Introduction to the Art of Printing: A Concise History of the Art, with the Improvements in the Practice of Printing, for the Last Fifty Years. London: Printed by the Editor, 32, Paternoster Row, for B. Crosby and Co. Stationers’-Court. Taylor, Henry. 1823. Recent Poetical Plagiarisms and Imitations. The London Magazine VIII: 597–604. Timperley, Charles H. 1838. The Printers Manual. London: H.  Johnson, 44, Paternoster Row ; Bancks and Co. Manchester. ———. 1839. A Dictionary of Printers and Printing, with the Progress of Literature, Ancient and Modern; Bibliographical Illustrations, Etc. Etc. London: H. Johnson. Treadwell, Michael. 2002. The Stationers and the Printings Acts at the End of the Seventeenth Century. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Vol. IV 1557–1695, ed. John Barnard, D.F. McKenzie, and Maureen Bell, 753–776. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 7

Nineteenth-Century Modernising Inheritance of Editorial Style: Caleb Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar

As discussed in the introduction, Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge (1993, 223) contentiously modified Darwinism in the form of punctuated equilibrium, to account for periods of ‘instantaneous origination and subsequent stability’ or ‘stability […] through time’. It is for this latter that Gould and Eldredge observed active stasis. Put simply, punctuated equilibrium distinguishes between periods of significant origination, or innovation, and those of active stasis, in which minor developments occur, building on from those preceding them though not sufficient to be disruptive. This theory therefore aptly assists with conceptualising the development of editorial style in early modern England, where Philip Luckombe and his successors substantially appropriated text from Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises (1683) and John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar (1755) to fashion their own manuals, such as Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing (1770). Caleb Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar (1808b) manifests similar appropriation; however, he also adapted and modernised to suit his nineteenthcentury audience. Stower’s ‘stasis’ applies to his textual appropriation, while the ‘active’ component relates to his adaptation and modernisation. Hence, this chapter demonstrates that, dissimilar to Luckombe and his Britanno-centric agenda, Stower exhibits no desire to impose his authorial, professional will: he reinstates instruction pertinent to the print trade previously dismissed by Luckombe; he negotiates by updating, and at © The Author(s) 2019 J. Hargrave, The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England, New Directions in Book History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20275-0_7

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times sympathetically removing, information that would appear anachronistic to his audience; and he modernises its typographic presentation and editorial content.

Stower: A Short-Lived but Productive Professional Life Charles H.  Timperley offered a glimpse into the little-known circumstances of his contemporary Caleb Stower (1779–1816). In A Dictionary of Printers and Printing, Timperley (1839, 864) described Stower as ‘a very ingenious and industrious printer’ and explained that Stower, who was originally from Taunton, in Somersetshire, established his ‘first […] business in Paternoster-row, London’ but relocated to Hackney and ‘carried on a respectable business’ before his death at the age of thirty-seven on 23 May 1816.1 Besides this, little is known about Stower, except that he was most probably the son of Martha and Caleb Stower, clothier or ‘sergemaker’, and that his wife and four children survived (Timperley 1839; Toulmin 1804; Humphreys 1905).2 As mentioned, Timperley offered scant information on Stower’s printing premises: he mentioned only his first business at Paternoster Row and his final one in Hackney; no dates were supplied. William Todd (1972, 185) later filled the gap for the period 1800–10: Stower established premises in 1800 at 8 Duke Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, with his partner Robert Hare; in 1801, two premises were recorded: 12 King Street, Covent Garden, and ‘Grange Ct, Carey St’, Lincoln’s Inn Fields; in 1802–4, Stower moved to 19 Charles Street, Hatton Garden, in Holburn; and in 1807–10, he relocated to 32 Paternoster Row. Stower’s first and final premises at Paternoster Row and in Hackney respectively did not feature in Todd’s list, however. For the former, a search of the British Library’s online English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) reveals that Stower printed John Mason Good’s Dissertation on the Best Means of Maintaining and Employing the Poor at Paternoster Row in 1798; neither the ESTC catalogue, the online World Catalogue (WordCat) nor the Dissertation’s title page specify the street number. For the latter, WorldCat records eight  See also Bigmore and Wyman (1884, 404).  See also Public Record, The National Archives (the will of Caleb Stower, sergemaker); ‘Taunton St Mary’s—Marriages 1728–1812’, UK & Ireland Genealogy [online], , date accessed 25 February 2019. 1 2

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titles by ‘C.  Stower, Printer, Hackney’ that were published in 1811, including Robert Morrison’s Horæ Sinicæ: Translations from the Popular Literature of the Chinese, Samuel Scholl’s A short historical account of the silk manufacture in England and W. J. Titford’s Sketches Towards a Hortus botanicus americanus. A comprehensive online catalogue search, such as via the ESTC and WorldCat, proves Stower to be a prolific printer: working out of six premises over 18  years, he printed 182 titles, which averaged ten titles per year. Stower printed the fewest titles per year during the preliminary period of 1798–1801, namely two to three per year. From the Paternoster Row address in 1789, Stower printed two titles: the second edition of George Rogers and A.  Layman’s Letters to William Wilberforce, Esq. M.  P. on the Doctrine of Hereditary Disease and John Mason Good’s Dissertation; at his Duke Street address in 1800, in partnership with Hare, three were printed: Joshua Toulmin’s The Name of ‘Lord of Hosts’ Explained and Improved and the Unitarian Christian’s A serious address to Christians of Trinitarian and Calvinistic Sentiments and Observations on the claims of the carriers as opposed by the wholesale tea-dealers; and three titles were produced at King’s Street, Convent Garden, address in 1801, such as R. P. M. Yorke’s The Haunted Palace, or The Horrors of Ventolienne; A Romance. From the final three premises, Stower printed 164 titles over 14  years. At his Hatton Garden premises from 1802 to 1806, fifty titles were produced, most of a religious nature, such as Joshua Toulmin’s The Prospect of Future, Universal Peace, Considered in a Sermon in 1802, Thomas Foster’s A Vindication of Scriptural Unitarianism in 1803, Theophilus Lindsay’s A Farewell Address to the Parishioners of Catterick in 1805 and James Hews Branby’s A Letter Addressed to a Society of Protestant Dissenters in 1806. However, Stower also printed other genres, such as poetry (Alice Flowerdew’s Poems, on Moral and Religious Subjects, 1803), politics (John Evans’s The Duty of Every Briton at this Perilous Moment: A Sermon, 1803), manufacturing (John Astie et  al.’s Observations on the Importance and Necessity of Introducing Improved Machinery into the Woollen Manufactory, 1803) and medicine (Richard Reece’s The Domestic Medical Guide, 1805). Stower was the most productive at his 32 Paternoster Row address for the period 1806–10, with seventy-­six titles produced. Once again, most concerned religion, such as Joshua Toulmin’s Popular Preaching Recommended by the Conduct of Christ, as a Teacher in 1807, John Grundy’s Religious Intolerance Reprobated: A Sermon in 1808 and Lant Carpenter’s On the Importance and Dissemination of the Doctrine of the Proper Unity of God in 1810; other genres included

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drama (Thomas Morton’s Town and Country: A Comedy in Five Acts, 1807), history (Raphael Hollinshead et  al.’s Hollinshead’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, volume four, 1807) and romantic fiction (Charles Robert Maturin’s Fatal Revenge, a Romance, 1807). When Stower relocated to Hackney, he established a partnership with printer George Smallfield, with whom he printed forty-eight titles. Those of a religious nature included Joshua Toulmin’s Four Discourses on the Nature, Design, Uses and History of the Ordinance of Baptism in 1811, Robert Aspland et al.’s The Beneficial Influence of Christianity in 1812 and John Fullager’s An Attempt to Explain the Term Unitarian in 1814; other genres were history (Stower’s own Almanac for the Year 1386 in 1811), education (John Pye Smith’s Synoptic Tables of Latin Grammar, 1814) and philosophy (John Locke’s An Essay on Enthusiasm: Being the Nineteenth Chapter of the Fourth Book of His Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1815). Two observations emerge from this inventory of Stower’s printing output: first, his enduring connection with his birthplace Taunton through his professional relationship with Unitarian minister and historian Joseph Toulmin (1740–1815); and second, his association with the Unitarian Fund. Toulmin became minister of Mary Street General Baptist Chapel, Taunton, in March 1765; he remained there until January 1804, when he moved to Birmingham. According to David Wykes (2001, 225), Toulmin was a ‘man of considerable ability and scholarship [who] wrote over fifty publications, including a number of important works on believer’s baptism and Unitarianism, as well as many hundreds of historical and biographical articles in denominational journals and the Gentleman’s Magazine’; G.  M. Ditchfield (2008) recounts more precisely that Toulmin’s ‘obituary in the Monthly Repository lists fifty-eight separate items’. Of Toulmin’s publications, Stower printed seven over 11 years: the first at the Duke Street premises in 1800, The name of ‘Lord of Hosts’ explained and improved; the second at the King’s Street, Convent Garden, premises in 1801 and written with Thomas Twining, Sermon, on interesting and practical subjects; the third and fourth at Hatton Garden in 1802, The doctrine of the scriptures concerning the unity of God and the character of Jesus Christ and The prospect of future, universal peace, considered in a sermon; the fifth at 32 Paternoster Row in 1807, Popular preaching recommended by the conduct of Christ and the sixth and seventh at Hackney in 1811 and 1812, respectively, Four discourses on the nature, design, uses and history of the ordinance of baptism and Letters to Eugenius.

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Followers of Unitarianism—or ‘dissenters’ (Watts 1991, 307) as they were labelled at that time—believed that God was one entity, which denied the divinity of Christ. English clergyman Theophilus Lindsey established in 1771 the Unitarian Society for promoting Christian Knowledge and the Practice of Virtue by the Distribution of Books with fellow minister John Disney, and shortly afterwards formed the first Unitarian church in Essex Street, London, in 1774 (Wykes 2001, 229). The Unitarian Fund for promoting Unitarianism by means of Popular Preaching was founded on 4 March 1806. While research to date yields no evidence of Stower’s personal involvement with the Unitarian Fund or Unitarianism generally, he printed regularly for both the Unitarian Fund and advocates of Unitarianism, many of whom originated from Hackney. Stower printed with Hare at his Duke Street premises in 1800 his first Unitarian title: A Serious Address to Christians of Trinitarian and Calvinistic Sentiments by an author known only as ‘Unitarian Christian’. For the Unitarian Fund, Stower printed Rules for the Unitarian Fund at 32 Paternoster Row in 1810, which was reprinted in 1813 and 1815 at his Hackney address. He also printed numerous publications for such notable Unitarians as Thomas Belsham (The Study of the Scriptures Recommended in a Discourse, 1803), David Eaton, committee member of the Unitarian Fund in 1810 (A Familiar Conversation on Religious Bigotry, Candor, and Liberality, 1803), Theophilus Lindsey (A Farewell Address to the Parishioners of Catterick, 1805), Joseph Priestley (Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, 1808) and ‘Robert Aspland, Hackney’, secretary of the Unitarian Fund in 1810 (A Selection of Psalms and Hymns for Unitarian Worship, 1811, and A Plea for Unitarian Dissenters, 1813). While Stower printed more than 180 titles and authored many, such as The Wisdom and Benevolence of the Deity co-authored with Job David in 1803, he identified himself as ‘editor’ only in his select print-related publications. Timperley (1839, 864) enumerates Stower’s publications in A Dictionary of Printers and Printing, though curiously identifies him only as their author: ‘Typographical Marks used in correcting Proofs explained and exemplified, 8vo. 1805. The Compositor’s and Pressman’s Guide to the Art of Printing, royal 12mo. 1808. The Printer’s Grammar, 8vo. 1808. The Printer’s Price Book, 8vo. 1814.’ Stower unquestionably authored these publications, though he was also their editor and printer. The imprint on the title page of the second edition of Typographical Marks (1806), labels Stower as the printer: ‘London: Printed by C. Stower, Pater-noster-­Row’. Slightly differently, the first edition of The Compositor’s and Pressman’s Guide (1808a)

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states: ‘London: Printed by the Editor, 32, Paternoster-Row’, which mirrors the first edition of The Printer’s Grammar (Stower 1808b). The only publication of those mentioned above produced at the Hackney premises, The Printer’s Price Book, not only confirms Stower as author and publisher but also designates him specifically as editor, an ambiguity perhaps unwittingly perpetrated by the earlier imprints. The title page of The Printer’s Price Book (1814) lists the following: ‘By C. Stower, Editor of the Printer’s Grammar. London: Printed by the Editor, Hackney, for C.  Cradock and W.  Joy, Paternoster-Row’.

Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar From the outset, Stower (1808b, v) is unequivocal regarding his manual’s intentions: he writes in his preface that he intends ‘to convey a practical knowledge of the Art of Printing’. Moreover, readers should neither ‘expect to find that accuracy of composition which is generally displayed in literary productions’, nor presume ‘this work [is] offered as a specimen of typography’. Later critical reception confirms his success; for example, E. C. Bigmore and C. W. H. Wyman (1884, 403) declared his manual to be ‘entirely practical’. In this way, he aligns himself implicitly with his predecessors—Moxon (1683), Smith (1755) and Luckombe (1770)—and expresses his objective to contribute to the developing intertextual discourse on editorial style. Midway through the preface, he acknowledges his textual appropriation and debt to Smith and Luckombe; however, Stower (1808b, vi) comes across as noticeably disingenuous in view of his substantial borrowings from Smith: Smith’s Printer’s Grammar is the groundwork of this publication ; and whatever in him was found to be worth preserving, is here introduced ; though I now regret my having so closely adopted his phraseology, which is rather stiff and antique. Luckombe’s History of Printing has also furnished me with several important and useful articles […].

Stower’s disingenuousness continues when he announces that his ‘principal obligations and thanks are due to some of the most respectable master-­ printers of the metropolis, for the readiness they have at all times evinced’. Among those grandly attributed are John McCreery (1768–1832), ‘the intelligent author and printer of an elegant poem entitled “the Press,” published as a specimen of typography’, who assisted Stower with his article

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‘Fine Printing’ placed in the appendices; Joseph Nightingale (1775–1824), ‘author of a “Portraiture of Methodism,” who holds the situation of Reader in one of our largest printing-offices’ and who assisted with ‘the principal part of that “On the Qualifications of a Reader or Corrector of the Press”’3; and printer Richard Taylor (1781–1858), whose name forms part of the still-current Taylor & Francis and who ‘obligingly favoured [him] with a few observations on the Greek, intended to assist compositors and readers who are not Greek scholars’ (p. vii). Notwithstanding his preface, Stower’s contemplative but critical reproduction of Smith’s manual embodies in part the modus operandi of modern scholarly editors, as described by Tanselle (1986, 1): ‘All scholarly editors must decide to what extent the texts they present in their editions can be permitted to depart from the documentary texts that have come down to them’. All such work is therefore defined by its historicity; Tanselle writes: ‘[Textual] study has always been, and is in conception, historical’ (p. 2). With this in mind, three words encapsulate Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar: he reinstates, negotiates and modernises. As mentioned on the previous page, Stower acknowledges in his preface his textual appropriation of Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar and Luckombe’s A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing. Stower’s familiarity with the latter publication would have guaranteed his awareness of the extent of Luckombe’s textual omissions to suit his Britanno-centric agenda. In contrast, Stower manifests no desire to impose his authorial, professional will: he reinstates instruction pertinent to the print trade previously dismissed by Luckombe; he negotiates by updating, and at times sympathetically removing, information that would appear anachronistic to his nineteenth-century audience; and he modernises its typographic presentation and editorial content.

Reinstating Editorial Style Stower advertises his reinstating objective via his headings. On first examination of his preliminary matter, readers might assume that Stower had elected to defer to Luckombe rather than Smith because the subheadings in his introductory section, ‘A Concise History of Printing’, are identical to those used by Luckombe—that is, ‘Its Origin’ and ‘Introduction of the 3  Note that no such chapter or article exists in Stower’s manual; however, separate sections on the occupations of corrector and corrector are present.

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Art into England’. However, Stower reduces Luckombe’s 211 pages to a succinct 33, thus situating Luckombe more as a critical resource than as means of textual appropriation. Stower also negotiates a middle ground between Smith’s complex heading taxonomy and Luckombe’s ambiguous two-level simplification by establishing a three-level hierarchy: title heading, chapter heading and italicised subheadings. From this, Stower’s alignment with Smith becomes apparent: he reinstates the content of Smith’s headings while simplifying their typographic presentation. For example, Stower modifies Smith’s ‘Of Italic Letter’ to ‘Of Italic Letter’ (Smith 1755, 12; Stower 1808b, 38), and ‘Of  Points’ to ‘Of Points’ (Smith 1755, 85; Stower 1808b, 79)4; moreover, while Stower maintains ‘Of Numeral Letters’ and ‘Of Arithmetical Figures’, though without Smith’s overarching heading ‘Of FIGURES’, Luckombe removes these headings and subsumes all content underneath ‘FIGURES’ (Stower 1808b, 69–70; Smith 1755, 64–6; Luckombe 1770, 253).5 As observed in the previous chapter, Luckombe’s select omissions from Smith’s text, notably accented letters and Greek and Hebrew numerals, demonstrate his British-centric agenda: to prioritise editorial style relating to the English vernacular. These omissions result in not only dismissing Smith’s professional knowledge of the print trade, but also wilfully impeding the accumulation of technical and linguistic skills by compositors and correctors. Stower’s implicit acknowledgement of Luckombe’s rejection of such intertextual inheritance is evidenced by his reinstatement, more or less verbatim, of Smith’s text. Comparing brief sections also illuminates Stower’s modernising editorial style. For example, Smith (1755, 59) writes of vowels marked with a grave: II. In French, a has a Grave in là, when it is an Adverb, as il est logé là—But la has no Grave when it denotes the Article of the feminine gender ; as la femme, la sœur.

The above example is emblematic of Smith’s entire instruction on accented letters: numerical lists, capitalisation of technical substantives and hanging indentation for each subsequent unnumbered list item. While Stower (1808b, 65) maintains Smith’s text reproduced above  Note though that Stower removes Smith’s initial ‘SECT. 1’ heading.  Curiously, Luckombe (1770, 256) leaves Smith’s heading ‘SCRATCHED FIGURES’ outside his incorporating ‘FIGURES’ heading. 4 5

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verbatim, he replaces the numerical listing and hanging indentation with discrete ­paragraphs with first-line indentation, removes capitalisation for technical substantives and separates the coordinating clauses with a full stop, rather than an em dash, to create two sentences with distinct, albeit adjacent, messages: In French, a has a Grave in là, when it is an adverb, as il est logé là. But la has no grave when it denotes the article of the feminine gender ; as la femme, la sœur.

The latter decision particularly illustrates Stower’s negotiation with the content to achieve clarity of meaning. Another example of such negotiation relates to Greek numerals; Smith (1755, 71) writes: Instead of seven letters which the Romans appropriated to numerate by, the Greeks employed their whole alphabet, and more than their alphabet, in that service : for, besides that, they contrived three symbols more, and made their Numerals to consist of 27 Sorts, which they divided into three classes ; the first of them, to contain Units—the second, Tens ; and—the third, Hundreds.

In contrast, Stower’s (1808b, 72) version edits Smith’s verbosity, once again converts capitalised substantives to lower case and spells out ‘27 Sorts’ so that numbers are consistently presented within body text: Instead of seven letters used by the Romans, the Greeks employed their whole alphabet, and more than the alphabet ; for they contrived three symbols more, and made their numerals consist of twenty-seven sorts, which they divided into three classes ; the first, to contain units—the second, tens; and the third, hundreds.

This comparison yields a question, however: why does Stower retain the first em dash but delete the second? Stower unquestionably understands the application of em dashes in complicated list structures to communicate textual omissions, as demonstrated by his removal of the second em dash. Therefore, is this simply an example of human error or does Stower utilise the em dash visually and rhetorically? More specifically, perhaps the em dash requires readers to pause a little longer over, and reflect on, the concept of containment before proceeding to the latter two list items that pertain also to containment without literally mentioning it.

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One final reinstatement to be considered here is Smith’s emphasis typographically presented with italics. As mentioned in Chap. 6, achieving unity of authorial voice could explain Luckombe’s elimination of Smith’s italicised emphasis. However, Luckombe is indiscriminate in his application: he removes italics not only for technical substantives, which is consistent with the eighteenth-century shift towards typographic sobriety, but also for italicised emphasis of certain words to separate them visually from the body text to reinforce an argument. Such indiscrimination can result in ambiguity. Stower appears mindful of the distinction as there are many occurrences in which he reinstates Smith’s emphasis. For example, for Smith’s (1755, 58) text relating to accented small capitals, ‘however, cannot be done to A and E, which must be kerned, or else be cut and cast, with an accent over them’, Stower (1808b, 64) reproduces this as ‘however, cannot be done to A and E. Those must be kerned, otherwise cut and cast, with an accent over them’. Another example relates to italicising technical terms when mentioned in their literal sense. Smith (1755, 143) writes that ‘when Paragon happened to turn out a Letter of better shape than the rest, it received the name of Perfect Pattern—which the word Paragon implies’; and Stower (1808b, 131) provides this as ‘when paragon happened to turn out a letter of better shape than the rest, it received the name of perfect pattern, which the word paragon implies’. Why does Stower maintain Smith’s first emphasis but not the second since both are identically applied? An explanation could relate to Stower’s removal of italics for technical terms. In Smith’s  The Printer’s Grammar, technical substantives begin with a capital letter and are italicised completely for their first appearance in the text; for all other instances, the substantives retain their capitalisation but are typeset in roman. Smith’s paragon text given above exemplifies this; compare also Smith’s (1755, 95) ‘Sign of Interrogation’ with Stower’s (1808b, 83, 131) ‘note of interrogation’. For Stower, his decision to remove italics for technical substantives perhaps, rightly or wrongly, necessitates such removal, for instances, in the immediate context to avoid ambiguity for his readers. Note, however, Stower often introduces his own italicised emphasis; for example: ‘we multiply the print by a larger number than the last folio of the writing, and so, vice versâ’ (p. 136).

Negotiating Editorial Style Stower’s reproduction of Smith’s text regarding references embodies his complementary negotiating–modernising coordination. Stower commences his instruction with a well-edited five-line version of Smith’s eight-­line definition: ‘References are those marks, or signs, which are used in a work with

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side or bottom notes, to direct the reader to the observations they may contain on that part of the text to which the reference may be attached, the note having the corresponding reference’ (p. 76). And rather than emulate Smith by first describing how they are applied typographically, Stower moves Smith’s identification of each of the reference types—paragraph, section, obelisk, double dagger, parallel and asterism—from the third page of text to become the first page’s second paragraph. Stower also updates Smith’s ‘asterism’ to ‘asterisk’; transposes paragraph and asterisk, as well as moves section to before paragraph, to physically support the asterisk’s importance as the ‘chief’ reference; substitutes ‘dagger’ for ‘obelisk’; and replaces Smith’s numerical single-column list style with unnumbered two columns, centred on the page (Smith 1755, 77; Stower 1808b, 76).6 Next, regarding references’ general typographic representation, Stower reiterates, albeit with modern expression, Smith’s instruction that either superior figures or lowercase italicised letters surrounded by parentheses, ‘beginning with (a), and so on to the end of the alphabet’, are utilised. While Smith explained that crotchets, or square brackets ([]), often substituted for parentheses, Stower leaves this out, indicating that crotchets’ application in this context had become obsolete. Additionally, Stower does not include Smith’s text relating to references’ placement—that is, renumbered anew on each verso page. Rereading Stower’s phrase ‘beginning with (a), and so on to the end of the alphabet’ suggests that contemporary practice involved using, or was being encouraged to use, continued numbering on each verso. Stower’s negotiating–modernising focus continues with his description of each reference type, though typeset as distinct paragraphs without Smith’s numbering. For the asterisk, Stower maintains that the Roman church-books use it to ‘divide each verse of a psalm, and shew where the responses begin’, though the Common Prayer Book favours the colon; that the asterisk stands in for ‘the name of an anonymous person, in satyrical [sic] or libellous works’; and that it denotes ‘an omission, or a hiatus, by the loss of original copy’ (p. 76). In the latter case, the more asterisks that appear, the more original copy omitted. Stower departs from Smith’s instruction by excluding the asterisk’s additional eighteenth-century role as a substitution for flowers: as Smith (1755, 80) states, ‘Asterisms may serve instead of a line of Small Flowers, if they are set to stand progressively’. To implicitly reinforce the asterisk’s obsolescence in this regard, Stower later enlarges Smith’s original half-page of four flower designs into twenty-nine pages of specimens ‘of different sizes, which are cast to all the regular 6

 See also Pollack (2006, 17–18).

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bodies of letter’ (Smith 1755, 139; Stower 1808b, 99–128). While Stower reproduces Smith’s instruction on the dagger, or obelisk, more or less verbatim—delineating the dagger’s numerous religious and secular applications—he deviates from Smith in one principal respect: his nomenclature. In comparison to Smith’s (1755, 78) original ‘The Obelisk, or long Cross, erroneously called the single Dagger’, Stower (1808b, 76) writes: ‘The Dagger, originally termed the Obelisk, or Long Cross’. Stower’s text embodies therefore a rather quick, though less impassioned, change in terminology over an approximately 50-year period. And finally, instead of separate paragraphs numbered four and five, Stower combines the double dagger and parallel—so fleeting that the reader could surmise their inevitable obsolescence: ‘The Double Dagger and Parallel, are considered only as references’; and his edited reproduction of Smith’s instruction on the section and paragraph attest to their anachronism in the nineteenth century. For the paragraph, Stower writes: The Paragraph is less used of any of the references, in consequence of its heavy appearance ; and, except in old bibles, where it is placed to denote the changing of the contents of a chapter, or in common prayer books, to direct the order of the service, and which is called the Rubric, as those lines were formerly printed in red, we may consider it as nearly abolished. (p. 77)

Equally significant is Stower’s adaptive negotiation of Smith’s introduction to pointing. Smith’s (1755, 85) original instruction indicated that the ‘Order in which Points stand with Printers’ is comma, semicolon, colon, full point, signs of interrogation (question mark) and of exclamation, and division (or hyphen), followed by the parenthesis and crotchet (‘Signs of Intercalation’) and the apostrophe (‘Sign of Abbreviation’). In contrast, Stower (1808b, 78) excludes division, parenthesis, crotchet and apostrophe from his preliminary enumeration—he writes that the points ‘consist of a comma, semicolon, colon,7 period or full-point, note of interrogation and note of admiration’—and accordingly separates out the neglected text and places each underneath a specific italicised subheading. Hence, Stower conveys identical importance for all material—points, division, parenthesis, crotchet and apostrophe—rather than the primary and secondary pointing hierarchy inherited by Smith from seventeenth-century grammarian Charles 7  Interestingly, Stower (1808b, 79) erroneously predicts the colon’s demise, stating it has ‘long since [been] considered unnecessary, and now but seldom used’.

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Butler (1633). Stower additionally manages to avoid hierarchy among the points themselves by removing not only any mention of ‘order’ but also Smith’s numbering of paragraphs, which is consistent with Stower’s observed editorial style. In regard to the standardisation of pointing in the print trade, Stower (1808b, 70) agrees with Smith: ‘The want of an established rule in this particular is much to be regretted’.8 Over three paragraphs, Stower provides virtually original copy, ostensibly based on his professional experience, with a few of Smith’s sentences included, though modernised. The quotation below is pure Stower; it expresses his frustration palpably and underlines the commercial implications of poorly punctuated copy: Scarcely nine works out of ten are sent properly presented to the press ; either the writing is illegible, the spelling incorrect, or the punctuation defective. The compositor has often to read sentences of his copy more than once before he can ascertain what he conceives the meaning of the author, that he may not deviate from him in the punctuation ; this retards him considerably. (p. 80)

However, rightly or wrongly, Stower disagrees with Smith in regard to the person ultimately responsible for correct and consistent punctuation within copy: for the first, the printer (and, by extension, the compositor); for the second, author and corrector. Smith (1755, 88) states that ‘every Compositor is not alike verse in Pointing ; and therefore […] ought to submit to the method, or even humour, of Authors, and authorized Correctors’. However, while Stower (1808b, 80–1) concurs that compositors ‘do not possess a perfect knowledge of punctuation’ and that the ‘author should, in the first instance, send his copy properly prepared to the press’, he perceives that the compositor is responsible: [Unless] the author will take responsibility of his pointing entirely on himself, it will be to the advantage of the compositor, and attended with less loss of time, not to meet with a single point in his copy, unless to terminate a sentence, than to have his mind confused by commas and semicolons placed indiscriminately, in the hurry of writing, without any regard to propriety. 8  Compare with Smith’s (1755, 87) voluble original: ‘’Tis true, that the expectation of a settled Punctuation is in vain, since no rules of prevailing authority have been yet established for that purpose; which is the reason that so many take the liberty of criticizing upon that head’. See also Bray (2000, 106).

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Stower admits that authors may prefer a particular punctuation style, ‘either loosely or not’, and directs the compositor accordingly in their manuscript copy or typeset page proofs; however, if the ‘method’ as provided in the above quotation is adopted, Stower promises that it ‘would ensure uniformity to the work, and remove in part from the compositor, a burden which has created no small degree of contention’. Once more, Stower’s instruction points to commercial imperatives impacting on the production of content: the more time the compositor takes to typeset poorly punctuated copy, the more expensive the enterprise.

Modernising Editorial Style Stower’s overt modernisation—where he distinguishes himself within early modern intertextual discourse on editorial style, alongside Moxon and Smith—comprises minutial and substantive editorial aspects. Those to be considered here are hyphenation and spelling, casting-off copy and editorial hand mark-up. In The Printer’s Grammar, Smith (1755, 96) declared the ‘Division, Hyphen, or Connexion’ to be ‘a Mark of the utmost authority, considering that it has given employment not only to a number of Spelling-Book-­ Authors, but also others, of a higher degree, who have engaged in the controversy of Spelling’; however, he judged that, regardless of such attention, ‘none of them has been acknowledged to have carried that important point so as not to want amending or improving’. Simply put, hyphenation in the mid-eighteenth century remained contentious and unstandardised. Owing to this uncertainty, Smith concluded that ‘none can be better judges of [spelling] than Compositors’. Fifteen years hence, with the publication of Luckombe’s (1770) A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing, hyphenation’s uncertainly appeared to remain: Luckombe reproduced Smith verbatim. Stower’s (1808b, 84) instruction on ­hyphenation 28 years on begins with a similarly emphatic judgement on who is ultimately responsible for hyphenating manuscript copy: ‘authors must leave the use of the hyphen to the discretion of the printer’. He also agrees with Smith’s observation regarding the historical lack of standardisation: ‘Without being able to establish a criterion, each [author] arrogated to himself the adoption of his own particular mode, to the subversion of uniformity and propriety’. Where Stower departs from Smith and Luckombe is in his revelation that Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) had eventually effected standardisation in the nineteenth century:

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The dictionary of Dr. Johnson is now looked up to as the highest authority, and the labour of that great man seems to be crowned with complete success. It has silenced those pedantic clamours, and divided opinions, which distracted the attention of the compositor, and he is now able to solve any difficulty, by a reference to this excellent standard of English orthography.

Certainly, other dictionaries were available prior to Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language appearing in 1755. These include Henry Cockeram’s The English Dictionarie (1623), which was the first publication to utilise the term; Thomas Blount’s Glossographia (1656); Edward Phillips’s The New World of English Words (1658); Elisha Coles’s An English Dictionary (1676) and Nathan Bailey’s An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1721). Many were reprinted numerous times and served as a foundation for other publications. For example, Coles based An English Dictionary on Phillips’s The New World of English Words (Starnes 1937; Chira 2005). However, the significance of Johnson’s dictionary—unquestionably, one of many—is that it is emblematic of the eighteenth-century shift  from permissive orthography to prescriptivism. Furthermore, in his The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language, Johnson (1747, 11) remarked that ‘one great end of this undertaking is to fix the English language’.9 (How successful he was in his endeavour is another issue. Johnson (1755, vii) acknowledged in his preface to A Dictionary of the English Language that that he ‘laboured to settle the orthography, display the analogy, regulate the structures, and ascertain the signification of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful lexicographer : but I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own expectations.’) Given that Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar was printed in the same year as Johnson’s dictionary, it is understandable that Smith did not mention him; however, this is not the case for Luckombe: the third edition of Johnson’s dictionary appeared in 1766, four years before A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing. Stower is mindful of the descriptive–prescriptive shift while adaptively reproducing Smith’s content. An example of this is his omission of the following short paragraph on word division: ‘The old Rule, Spell as you speak, does not always stand good ; for we spell, da-mage, ho-nour, jea-lous ; whereas, in pronouncing, the Division seems to rest at dam-age, hon-our, jeal-ous’ (Smith 1755, 98). Despite Smith’s obvious understanding of the complexities inherent in the orthographic and rhetorical representations 9

 See also Rufus H. Gouws and Liezl Potgieter (2010), and Chira (2005).

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of words, reproducing his statement in the nineteenth century would have been anachronistic. From this point, Stower maintains but modernises Smith’s instruction on the application of hyphens for nominal, adjectival and prepositional compounds, as well as their use in tables, indexes and contents pages. However, he provides the following addendum regarding division for his audience: ‘but, like the full point, [divisions] are now generally superseded by dotted rules ; for they will not always come off clear, and frequently cut the paper, unless worked with care’ (Stower 1808b, 86). Stower (1808b, 135) begins his instruction on casting-off copy reproducing Smith more or less verbatim: ‘To cast off manuscript with accuracy and precision, is an essential object, but a very unpleasant and troublesome task, requiring great attention and mature deliberation’.10 He similarly details various unpredictable features of authorial manuscript copy that impede accurate casting off, such as irregularly written copy, erasures, interlineations and variations in the size of paper; and provides advice on how to assess the entire manuscript, also taking into account break lines and chapter and subheading divisions, before commencing the cast-off. He concludes this introduction with his own practical recommendation: ‘These observations should be entered as a memorandum on a separate piece of paper, to assist the memory and save the trouble of re-examining the manuscript’. This represents Stower’s first original contribution to casting off specifically, and editorial procedures regarding manuscript appraisal generally. To appreciate his editorial innovation, it is necessary to review Smith’s (1755, 155) own concluding remarks: In thus looking over the Copy, and observing the mean run of it, we make some mark when we observe the Manuscript to be written closer, or smaller than the mean Writing ; and some other mark, where we perceive it to be wider and larger than ordinary ; that by these means we may allow accordingly, when we come to the places that are differently marked.

While the catalogue of features of manuscript copy that influence accurate cast-off is almost identical for Smith and Stower (though, curiously, Stower does not include Smith’s reference to italics), their formal editorial procedure for manuscript appraisal evidently differs; note that their 10  Smith (1755, 155) writes: ‘To cast off Manuscript, is unpleasant and troublesome work, which requires great attention; and therefore ought not to be hurried, but be done with deliberation’.

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i­ ntermediary, Luckombe (1770, 452), neglects to contribute to this editorial discourse by reiterating Smith. That is, Smith advises his readers to hand-­mark their observations on their manuscript copy, whereas Stower directs his own to create a separate document to refer to without having to return to the manuscript. Modern-day editors commonly undertake manuscript appraisals—where they ascertain, for example, the quality of the author’s writing and whether the manuscript is complete—before starting their copyedit. Manuscript appraisals symbolise a vital component of the formal procedures to which editors adhere in the broader scheme of the production cycle. Hence, modern-day editors can thank Stower for not only originating this formal procedure, but also contributing to making their professional lives easier by eliminating inefficiency. An additional innovation benefitting modern-day editors is Stower’s cast-off method. In The Printer’s Grammar, Stower describes two methods for casting-off copy: the first, his word-based method; and the second, Smith’s letter-based version, which appears to originate from Moxon’s (1683, 251–4) arithmetical method detailed in Mechanick Exercises (explained here in Chap. 2). Using the example of a fictitious work to be ‘printed in pica 8vo, 20 m’s measure, and each line containing 10 words, each page 40 lines’, the stages in Stower’s (1808b, 137) word-based method comprise the following. First, ascertain the total number of words in the manuscript copy: [We] take the number of words in a line of manuscript at 20, the lines in a page at 50 ; we multiply 50 by 20, which will produce 1000 words in a page ; we then multiply 1000 by 422, which are supposed to be the number of folios in the manuscript, and we shall find it contain 422,000 words.

Second, calculate the total number of words per printed page: 10 words per line multiplied by 400 lines equals 400 words per printed page. Third, determine the total number of pages of printed matter: 422000 divided by 400 equals 1055. And fourth, establish the number of sheets of printed matter: 1055 divided by 16 equals 65 sheets and 15 pages. Simply put, Stower’s cast-off method calculates first how much manuscript copy will occupy the prospective printed page and accordingly the anticipated total number of printed pages. It is a theoretical method that proves so reliable in a practical sense that editors utilise it (at least up to the third step) in the twenty-first century.

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Stower reproduces matter directly from Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar, setting it within double quotation marks, that explains the latter’s letter-­ based cast-off method. This is ironic, given the extent of Stower’s legal appropriation. However, comparing the two texts reveals not only that Stower does not reproduce Smith’s copy verbatim as the quotation marks suggest,11 but that he also grossly simplifies Smith’s method—Stower intends to convey a not-too-subtle message. He achieves this by reducing Smith’s letter-based method to two modest actions rather than reiterate it faithfully. The first action is to ascertain the number of letters contained in a composing stick, manually marking off each text amount in the manuscript copy. Second, utilise the composed text to complete the cast-off: ‘if 2 lines of copy make 3 lines in print, then 4 make 6, 6 make 9, 8 make 12’ (Stower 1808b, 139).12 From this, the reader could assume the process of casting-off copy was extremely time-coming and laborious. Consequently, through textual omission and reduction, Stower upholds the superiority of his word-based method over Smith’s letter-based one. Analysing Smith’s manual uncovers significantly more detail, however: Smith’s (1755, 160) letter-based system comprises three actions that are more complex than Stower would have his readers believe. To complete his letter-based cast-off, Smith first calculated the number of letters in a line of manuscript copy; he provided the example of 40. Second, he multiplied the number of letters in the line by the number of lines in the manuscript page, say 38, which produces 1520 letters in the page. And third, he determined the number of letters for each of the book formats; for example, for the folio format, 1520 is multiplied by 2. Nevertheless, Smith’s letter-based specificity in comparison to Stower’s word-based method hindered casting off because the composite of actions in his method failed to achieve as accurate a cast-off of the entire manuscript. Certainly, Stower simplifies and misrepresents Smith’s text, but his allusions about its comparative inefficiency prove correct. The final aspect to be considered, which represents not only Stower’s modernisation but also his lasting contribution to intertextual editorial 11  Stower (1808b, 138) does not acknowledge Smith as the author of the quoted material, but writes only: ‘As there are two methods of casting off copy, we shall conclude this article with the one laid down in former grammars’. 12  Compare with Smith (1755, 157). Note Moxon’s (1683, 251–2) text: ‘If his Copy and Measure run Line for Line, then consequently 10, 20, 30 Lines of the Copy will make 10, 20, 30 Lines in the Measure; and accordingly he counts what number of Lines in his Copy will make a Page’ and so on.

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discourse, is editorial hand mark-up. As mentioned, Stower authored and printed Typographical Marks used in Correcting Proofs Explained and Exemplified in 1805. Its purpose was to describe the ‘marks and signs employed in correcting proofs’; he released a second edition in 1806. Also featured in Typographical Marks is a page of text, entitled ‘The Exemplification of Typographical Marks’, where inaccuracies have been corrected by hand utilising each of the proofreading marks defined. This was a defining moment: it was the first occasion that a printer’s manual visually captured editorial practice at work (see Fig. 7.1). Both the exemplar and the majority of the text in Typographical Marks are reproduced in Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar. As observed in Chaps. 2 and 4 of this book, Hieronymus Hornschuch prepared the editorial soil in Orthotypographia (1608) by first describing the proofreading marks utilised by correctors, and Moxon and Smith continued this editorial groundwork in Mechanick Exercises (1683) and The Printer’s Grammar (1755), respectively. Stower’s contribution in The Printer’s Grammar (1808) more or less finalised its cultivation for the early modern period.13 Besides Stower’s visual exemplar, specific instances that substantiate this observation are his instruction on text insertion; the transposing of words; the capitalising of content; the representation of punctuation marks in margins and the insertion of hyphens and ellipsis lines, apostrophes, commas (or quotation marks), asterisks and other references, and superior letters and figures. Hornschuch’s (1972, 16) Orthotypographia was the first to feature the caret (^), writing: ‘If anything has been left out, whether it is a letter, word, or punctuation mark, this mark is inserted in the line at the place of the omission, and what has been omitted is written opposite in the right-­hand margin’. Moxon similarly included the caret in Mechanick Exercises; however, Smith omitted it in The Printer’s Grammar, as did Luckombe 15 years later in A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing. After an official absence of approximately 200 years from the printer’s manuals, the caret reappeared first in Stower’s Typographical Marks and then almost immediately in The Printer’s Grammar (1808b, 216): ‘Where a word or 13  Luckombe (1770, 442–4) modernised Smith’s instruction for his audience, without contributing additional material. In the second volume of Typographia, Johnson (1824, 216–20) adapts Stower’s instruction on typographical marks, with an equally adapted piece of text with mark-up visually applied. Johnson contributes to editorial mark-up’s intertextual discourse by providing instruction on copy typeset in the wrong font, including the symbol ‘w.f.’ in the margin, a symbol that persists today. Fourteen years later, Timperley (1838, 54).

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Fig. 7.1  Stower’s (1806) visual exemplar of editorial hand mark-up in Typographical Marks used in correcting Proofs explained and exemplified

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words have been left out, or are to be added to the line, a caret must be in the page where they are intended to come in, and the word or words written in the margin’. Johnson (1824, 216) and Timperley (1838, 54) carried Stower’s editorial legacy by ensuring the caret’s inclusion in their own manuals. Why such a long absence? Perhaps Smith and Luckombe favoured Moxon’s (1683, 224) deference to contemporary grammar textbooks in regard to punctuation: As he [the compositor] Sets on, he considers how to Point his Work, viz. when to Set , where ; where : and where . where to make ( ) where [ ] ? ! and when a Break. But the Rules for these having been taught in many School-­ books, I need say nothing to them here, but refer you to them.

Eighteenth-century grammarians certainly recognised the caret. For example, Anne Fisher’s (1754, 40) fourth edition of A New Grammar with Exercises of Bad English features this instruction: ‘when any Letter, Syllable, Word, or Sentence happens, by Mistake, to be left out in Writing or Printing, this Mark ( ^ ) is put under the Interlineation, in the exact Place where it is to come in’. Instructions for the transposing of words first appeared, once again, in Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia (1972, 16): ‘When words have been transposed this mark [ 1 | 2 ] is put in the margin and the words are marked with numbers over them, and are underlined, in the order in which they are re-arranged’ (see Fig. 2.1). Moxon (1683, 263) then built on Hornschuch’s discourse: where Hornschuch explained that numerals inserted both above the specific copy and in the margin displayed the accurate sequencing of words, Moxon marked the correction visually with a curved line in the body text. Moxon also created his own proofreading symbol to replace the numerals in the margin (see Fig. 2.2). Smith (1755, 276–7) reiterated Moxon’s instruction approximately 70  years later but substituted a large Greek circumflex for the latter’s symbol (see Fig. 4.1).14 Consequently, Smith deviated from Moxon by devising not only his own transposing symbol but also a two-system approach: first, for words or letters, visually mark the copy and insert a circumflex in the margin; and second, for several words, label each word to be rearranged by a numeral above it and insert the numerically arranged order in the margin opposite. 14  Perhaps this is the reason why Smith neglected to reinstate the caret: its similarity to the circumflex.

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In contrast, Stower’s (1808b, 217) instruction embodies a modernised adaptation of Smith’s own: he retains Smith’s two-system approach— ‘where several words require to be transposed, their right order is signified by a figure placed over each word’—though he abandons Smith’s circumflex with the ‘tr’ mark. Johnson (1824, 216, 219) and Timperley (1838, 54) again ensured Stower’s legacy by featuring the ‘tr’ mark in their manuals. Today, editors utilise the slightly amended version of ‘trs’. Moxon’s (1683, 264) Mechanick Exercises was the first manual to provide instruction on how specific words to be capitalised should be marked on typeset page proofs: ‘if Lower-Case Letters be Set instead of Capitals, he dashes them underneath and Writes Capt. in the Margin’. While Smith (1755) omitted this in The Printer’s Grammar, Stower (1808b, 217) both reinstates and extends Moxon’s direction to include large capitals, small capitals and words to be italicised; modern editors inherited this system: If letters or words are to be altered from one character to another, a parallel line or lines should be made underneath the word or letter, viz. for capitals, three lines ; small capitals, two lines ; and Italic, one line : write in the margin, opposite the line where the alteration occurs, Caps. Small caps. or Ital. (See No. 13.)

Stower’s instruction on italicising originates from first Moxon and then Smith (1755, 277), the latter writing: ‘If letters or words of one sort of characters are to be changed into another, they make a stroke underneath the word or letter, and intimate on the Margin in what Letter it is to be, by marking Rom. or Ital. accordingly’. Direction on the representation of punctuation marks in margins dates back to Hornschuch’s (1972, 16) Orthotypographia: ‘All kinds of punctuation, such as colon, semi-colon, question mark, exclamation mark, admiration mark &c., are written in a semicircle and put in the margin, as the comma is here [ (, ]’. Yet, Hornschuch did not include the full stop here; rather, he noted separately that the full stop was written in a circle and placed in the margin. Later, Moxon replaced Hornschuch’s semicircle with an oblique and directed it to be positioned after the text, not before it; Smith maintained the oblique, albeit placing it before the marginal text, not after it. Note that neither Moxon nor Smith explicitly mentioned punctuation marks dissimilar to Hornschuch and Stower: their oblique lines refer to matter to be inserted or amended. In contrast, Stower (1808b, 218) adopts the encircled symbol for all punctuation marks, not just the

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full stop: ‘Where the punctuation requires to be altered, the semicolon, colon, and period, if marked in the margin, should be encircled. (See Note 15.)’ Again, many modern-day editors still adhere to this practice, though an oblique is usually inserted between each to avoid potential ambiguity. For the insertion of hyphens, or divisions, Hornschuch (1972, 16) was once again the originator, explaining: ‘A division mark at the end of a line which cannot take the word in full’ is marked in the margin and written in a semicircle—an identical method to that of punctuation, as related above. While neither Moxon nor Smith mentioned the hyphen in this manner, Stower’s (1808b, 218) adoption is innovative and enduring: he noted a similar but not identical proofreading mark for both the hyphen and ellipsis line (the latter, the modern-day em dash): ‘No. 16 describes the manner in which the hyphen and ellipsis line are marked’. That is, the hyphen or ellipsis line is positioned very closely between two horizontal lines, rather than preceded by a semicircle. Lastly, for the insertion of apostrophes, inverted commas (or quotation marks), asterisks and other references, and superior letters and figures, Stower typifies pure modernisation: he created an entirely new system, one that has persisted into the twenty-first century. Similar to those for the hyphen and ellipsis line, Stower’s description appears lackadaisical in comparison to the detailed instruction before it: ‘No. 17 also describes the manner in which the apostrophe, inverted commas, the star, and other references and superior letters and figures are marked’ (p. 218). Referring to ‘No. 17’ in Fig. 7.1, which appears in the right-hand margin at the bottom of the page, the apostrophe is positioned within an enlarged raised ‘V’; today, a cursive type of ‘Y’ substitutes for Stower’s ‘V’ to indicate more definitively that the apostrophe, quotation mark, asterisk (or other reference) and/or superior letter or figure needs to be inserted but raised above the base line.

Stower’s Editorial Legacy and the Future Just as the editorial proficiency of Smith and Luckombe were evaluated in Chaps. 4 and 6 respectively, what of Stower—did he practise what he preached to the early nineteenth-century English book trade? To understand his editorial practice outside of, but in relation to, The Printer’s Grammar, Almanac for the Year 1386 is examined below, a title that Stower (1812) printed in octavo format at his Hackney premises. However, in this case, Stower acted as not only printer but also scholarly editor:

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while the title page informs readers that the almanac was ‘transcribed, verbatim, from the original antique illuminated manuscript in the black letter’, certain editorial interventions are evident, notably the application of italic and parentheses. It is not known from which text Stower transcribed to produce Almanac for the Year 1386. For example, C. Sherman (1856, 1175) recorded the following in the third volume of Catalogue of the Books Belonging to the Library Company of Philadelphia: ‘Almanac for the year 1386, from the original MSS in black letter ; illustrative of the astronomy, astrology &c. of that day. London, 1812.’ In addition, Robert Chambers’s (1863, 10) edited first volume of The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar records merely that an ‘almanac for 1386 was printed as a literary curiosity in 1812’. Writing towards the mid-­ twentieth century, Curt Bühler (1942, 615) made a similar observation in his article ‘Sixteenth-Century Prognostications’: ‘It is impossible to be quite certain what the immediate source […] is’; however, he did offer a critique of Stower’s production in a footnote on the same page, though curiously neglected to identify him: ‘Whoever made the transcription had only a slight acquaintance with Middle English MSS. None of the abbreviations are expanded; there are numerous obvious misreadings; and occasionally blank spaces are left, apparently to indicate the presence of words which the transcriber failed to decipher.’ The objective here is not to evaluate Stower’s knowledge of Middle English; nevertheless, Bühler correctly observed that white spaces were left to indicate missing copy. Such white spaces occur on two pages only, so Bühler’s choice of ‘occasionally’ is misleading. White spaces do occur at the beginning of sentences, though with the purpose of justifying the text. For italic, Stower (1808b, 39) reiterates in his manual Smith’s (Smith 1755, 12–13) account in The Printer’s Grammar of its invention by Aldus Manutius (‘It was first called Venetian, from Manutius being resident at Venice, where he brought it to perfection’) and its original application (‘to distinguish such parts of a book, as might be said not strictly to belong to the body of the work, as prefaces, introductions, annotations, &c. […] so that at least two-fifths of a work appeared in that character’). He also reiterates that italic ‘is used more sparingly’; however, where Stower departs from Smith’s instruction is how to ‘distinguish such parts of a book’ (p. 13). Smith advised that ‘the adjunct parts of a Work may now be very properly varied by the different sizes of Roman’; in contrast, Stower (1808b, 39) demurs that ‘[in] the present

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age […] the necessity [was] supplied by the more elegant mode of introducing extracts within inverted commas, and poetry and annotations in a smaller-sized type’. He proceeds then to identify italic’s functions: ‘[it] is of service often in the displaying of a title-page, or distinguishing the head or subject-matter of a chapter from the chapter itself ’ and ‘to mark emphatical sentences or words’. Stower consistently applies italic in his title page and headings and for emphatical words in his ‘scholarly edition’ of Almanac for the Year 1386. For the title page, Stower uses italic for part of a subheading (‘Containing Many Curious Particulars’) and editorial comment (‘The manuscript to be disposed of.—Apply to the Printer’). For headings, Stower uses large capitals for first-level headings (‘YE TABUL OF YE SINES.’ [p. 40]) and small capitals for second-level headings (‘of blode latyng’ [p. 32]); however, for the minor third-level headings, he uses italic followed by a full stop, with the body text running on directly afterwards on the same line, such as ‘Palladius. Brynnyg under ye level’ (p.  21). In regard to emphatical words, italic serves to distinguish key terms from normal body text, such as ‘Pisces is a syne in ye whilk ye son es in Feueryere’ (p. 10), and to convey especial emphasis, such as ‘Here it es to note of ye howeres of ye planettys’ (p. 36). Stower utilises parentheses once in Almanac for the Year 1386 to separate his editorial comment from the transcribed verbatim body text. Regarding their application, Stower’s (1808b, 87) instruction in his manual reproduces that of Smith (1755, 104), albeit using simpler nineteenth-­ century language: ‘The use of the parenthesis is to inclose such words or sentences of a period as make no part of the subject, yet at the same time strengthen the argument ; which, however, would read smoothly on were the enclosed matter taken away.’ Stower provides further advice for his nineteenth-century audience: ‘should a point be requisite to mark the sentence, it is placed after the parenthesis’. Such instruction would relate to a parenthetical phrase or incomplete sentence; for entire sentences, complete punctuation would be required within the parentheses. Stower (1812, 4) applies this accordingly in his almanac: ‘And knowe thou that by these 5 strengthes, ar nere desinde al ye domes of astrology and the effectis in ys yat folowyes binethe. (See Frontipece.)’ From this discussion, it is clear that Stower’s modernising editorial practice in Almanac for the Year 1386 conforms to The Printer’s Grammar. Furthermore, three conclusions are apparent regarding both Stower’s editorial legacy, or active stasis, and intertextual discourse on editorial style in

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early modern England. First, Stower provided a striking precedent for successive scholarly editors of printer’s manuals to follow, such as Johnson and Timperley. As mentioned earlier, three words encapsulate Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar: reinstatement, negotiation and modernisation. Stower demonstrated no desire to impose his authorial, professional will over Smith’s content; rather, he reinstated instruction relevant to the print trade hitherto dismissed by Luckombe, negotiated by updating and sympathetically removing anachronistic information, and modernised its typographic presentation and editorial content. Second, Stower’s editorial innovations were significant. He observed the standardisation of hyphenation and spelling, which in turn reaffirmed the eighteenth-century shift to prescriptivism; devised a more efficient and enduring word-based cast-­ off method; and both supplied the first exemplar that visually captured editorial practice at work and improved on the methods for correcting manuscript copy and typeset page proofs. The third conclusion emerges from the analysis conducted thus far. The progress towards editorial standardisation was started by Hornschuch in Germany in the early seventeenth century to assist correctors with their work. It was brought to England and extended for the entire print trade by Moxon 75 years later; had comprehensively reached its pinnacle with Smith in the mid-eighteenth century, particularly in regard to punctuation and was legally adapted and modernised by their successors—Luckombe and Stower, as well as Johnson, Hansard, Timperley and Savage—in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Such evolution manifests a punctuated evolution of editorial style, rather than a gradual one. In other words, the editorial evolutionary garden that was first planted by Hornschuch, and cultivated and nurtured by Moxon and Smith, was then pruned by Luckombe, Stower, Johnson and Timperley in anticipation of the needs of the twentieth-century print trade.

References Bigmore, E.C., and C.W.H. Wyman. 1884. A Bibliography of Printing with Notes and Illustrations. Vol. 2. London: Bernard Quaritch. Bray, Joe. 2000. “Attending to the Minute”: Richardson’s Revisions of Italics in Pamela. In Ma(r)King the Text: The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Page, ed. Joe Bray, Miriam Handley, and Anne C. Henry, 105–119. Aldershot: Ashgate. Bühler, Curt. 1942. Sixteenth-Century Prognostications: Libri Impressi Cum Notis Manuscripts—Part II. Isis 33 (5): 609–620. Butler, Charles. 1633. The English Grammar, or the Institution of Letters, Syllables, and Words in the English Tongue. Oxford: Printed by William Turner, for the Author.

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Chambers, Robert, ed. 1863. The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar, Including Anecdote, Biography, & History, Curiosities of Literature and Oddities of Human Life and Character. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers. Chira, Dora. 2005. Reviewing English Lexicography. Studia Universitatis Babes-­ Bolyai—Philologia 3: 43–47. Ditchfield, G.M. 2008. Toulmin, Joshua (1740–1815). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/27579. Accessed 25 Feb 2019. Fisher, Anne. 1754. A New Grammar with Exercises of Bad English: Or, an Easy Guide to Speaking and Writing the English Language Properly and Correctly. 4th ed. Newcastle upon Tyne: Printed by I. Thompson and Comp. Gould, Stephen Jay, and Niles Eldredge. 1993. Punctuated Equilibrium Comes of Age. Nature 366 (6452): 223–227. Gouws, Rufus H., and Liezl Potgieter. 2010. Does Johnson’s Prescriptive Approach Still Have a Role to Play in Modern-Day Dictionaries? Lexikos 20: 234–247. Hornschuch, Hieronymus. 1972. Orthotypographia. Trans. Philip Gaskell and Patricia Bradford, Historical Bibliography Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Library. Humphreys, Arthur L. 1905. Somersetshire Parishes: A Handbook of Historical Reference to all Places in the County. London: 187 Piccadilly, W. Johnson, Samuel. 1747. The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language Addressed to the Right Honourable Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, One of his Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State. London: Printed for J. and P.  Knapton, T. Longman and T. Shewell, C. Hitch, A. Millar, and R. Dodsley. ———. 1755. A Dictionary of the English Language in which the Words Are Deduced from their Originals, and Illustrated in their Different Significations by Examples from the Best Writers : To which Are Prefixed, a History of the Language, and an English Grammar. London: Printed by W. Strahan, for J. and P. Knapton et al. Johnson, John. 1824. Typographia, or, the Printers’ Instructor. Vol. 2. London: Published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green. Luckombe, Philip. 1770. A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing with Practical Instructions to the Trade in General. Compiled from those Who Have Wrote on this Curious Art. London: Printed and Sold by W. Adlard and J. Browne. Moxon, Joseph. 1683. Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. The Second Volumne [Sic]. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the Sign of Atlas. Pollack, Oliver B. 2006. The Decline and Fall of Bottom Notes, op. Cit., Loc. Cit., and a Century of the Chicago Manual of Style. Journal of Scholarly Publishing 38 (1): 14–30.

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Sherman, C. 1856. Catalogue of the Books Belonging to the Library Company of Philadelphia. Vol. 3. Philadelphia: T. K. & P. G. Collins. Smith, John. 1755. The Printer’s Grammar. London: Printed for the Editor; and Sold by W.  Owen, Near Temple Bar; and by M.  Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row. Starnes, D. 1937. English Dictionaries of the Seventeenth Century. Studies in English 17: 15–51. Stower, Caleb. 1806. Typographical Marks, Employed in Correcting Proofs, Explained and Exemplified for the Use of Authors. 2nd ed. London: Printed by C.  Stower, Paternoster Row; for Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, Paternoster Row. ———. 1808a. The Compositor’s and Pressman’s Guide to the Art of Printing ; Containing Hints and Instructions to Learners, with Various Impositions, Calculations, Scales of Prices, &c. &c. London: Printed by the Editor, 32, Paternoster Row, for B. Crosby and Co. Stationers’-Court. ———. 1808b. The Printer’s Grammar ; or, Introduction to the Art of Printing : A Concise History of the Art, with the Improvements in the Practice of Printing, for the Last Fifty Years. London: Printed by the Editor, 32, Paternoster Row, for B. Crosby and Co. Stationers’-Court. ———. 1812. Almanac for the Year 1386. Hackney: C. Stower. ———. 1814. The Printer’s Price-Book, Containing the Master Printer’s Charges to the Trade for Printing Works of Various Descriptions, Sizes, Types and Pages ; Also, a New, Easy, and Correct Method of Casting off Manuscript and Other Copy. London: Printed by the Editor, Hackney, for C. Cradock and W. Joy, Paternoster Row. Tanselle, G.  Thomas. 1986. Historicism and Critical Editing. Studies in Bibliography 39: 1–46. Timperley, Charles H. 1838. The Printers Manual. London: H.  Johnson, 44, Paternoster Row ; Bancks and Co. Manchester. ———. 1839. A Dictionary of Printers and Printing, with the Progress of Literature, Ancient and Modern; Bibliographical Illustrations, Etc. Etc. London: H. Johnson. Todd, William B. 1972. A Directory of Printers and Others in Allied Trades, London and Vicinity 1800–1840. London: Printing Historical Society. Toulmin, Joshua. 1804. The Use of Life and its End. Considered in a Sermon, Preached in the Baptist Chapel at Taunton, October 27, 1793, on the Occasion of the Death of Mr Caleb Stower, Clothier. London: Printed by C. Stower, Charles Street, Hatton Garden. Watts, Ruth. 1991. Revolution and Reaction: ‘Unitarian’ Academics, 1780–1800. History of Education 20 (4): 307–323. Wykes, David L. 2001. Joshua Toulmin (1740–1815) of Taunton. Baptist Quarterly 39 (5): 224–243.

CHAPTER 8

Nineteenth-Century Editorial Style at Work: Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s Piers Plowman

William Langland (c. 1330–c. 1386) spent much of his adult life perfecting his dream-vision poem The Vision of Piers Plowman (Regan 1988). Three surviving versions are dated between 1360 and 1387: the A text, 1370; the B text, c. 1379; and the C text, 1385–6. Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s edition, Visio Willi De Petro Plouhman, was published in 1813. It was based on the C text, and its publication occurred more than 200 years after Robert Crowley’s first quarto edition of the B text in 1550. For his three editions, Crowley updated the grammar and spelling, and supplied marginal notes to elucidate specific features in the poem. The much-­ criticised reprint by Owen Rogers of Crowley’s third edition was published in 1561 (Dahl 1993; Schmidt 1995; Brewer 1996; Hanna 2014). Between 1561 and 1813, extracts appeared in anthologies only. Whitaker’s Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman is therefore the first recognised scholarly edition of Piers Plowman. With 200 years separating Whitaker’s version from his sixteenth-­century predecessors, his success would have depended on presenting a modern version of Langland’s poem for his nineteenth-century audience, in terms of both language and typography. However, achieving this modern version was made difficult by reproducing Langland’s Middle English, its typesetting using the anachronistic black letter font (whose popularity virtually ended in England approximately 100 years earlier) and frequent rubrication, and printing in the unwieldy folio format. While Whitaker’s © The Author(s) 2019 J. Hargrave, The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England, New Directions in Book History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20275-0_8

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presentation of Piers Plowman demonstrated his passionate Romantic medievalism, it cannot be assumed that his audience shared his sentiments or, indeed, his fascination with ‘the unfamiliar language and convoluted expression’ (Brewer 1996, 41). For this reason, Whitaker’s scholarly edition featured a comprehensive introduction in the preliminaries; a commentary, or paraphrasing translation of Langland’s Middle English, at the bottom of each page; and notes in the end matter, providing pertinent historical information and explanations for complex pieces of translation. Successfully creating these paratexts, or modern counterparts to his reproduction on the pages of Langland’s living history—manifested through the Middle English, black letter and rubrication—would have required considerable linguistic and editorial skills. Underpinning the latter would have been the now well-established rules and guidelines of contemporary style guides, such as Caleb Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar (1808). The editorial standards provided in The Printer’s Grammar, which reproduced and built on the editorial legacies of Joseph Moxon (1683) and John Smith (1755), were commonplace in the nineteenth century. To appreciate the extent of this influence on Whitaker’s presentation of the text and his editorial decisions, the objective of this chapter is to present a comparative textual analysis of Whitaker’s text with his contemporaneous style guide, Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar. Through an examination of first Whitaker’s usage of black letter and rubrication, and then his punctuation style in his commentary, or ‘paraphrasing’, this chapter demonstrates how Whitaker’s interpretative but practical application of contemporary editorial style assured clarity of content while also presenting the fourteenth-century poem in a more accessible style to his nineteenth-­century readers. Moreover, such comparative analysis reinforces the observation offered in previous chapters about the value of early modern style guides as bibliographic tools to connect editorial theory and practice, thereby revealing the hands-on interaction of stakeholders in the print trade.

Thomas Dunham Whitaker: Vicar, Antiquarian, Editor Research into the life of Reverend Dr Thomas Dunham Whitaker (1759–1821) provides a picture of an eclectic professional whose ambition and intellectual endeavours incited admiration and passionate defence by at least one of his contemporaries, printer and fellow antiquarian John Nichols (1745–1826).

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Thomas Dunham Whitaker was born on 8 June 1759 at the rectory of Raynham, Norfolk, where his father William had been the curate since 1756. The following year, on 3 October, the family relocated to the paternal estate Holme, in Cliviger, Lancashire, when William Whitaker’s elder, unmarried brother passed away. Over the next several years, Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s educational experiences were varied, as enumerated by Nichols (1822, 871) in Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century: ‘He received the rudiments of education from the Rev. John Shaw, of Rochdale ; and after an interval of weakly health, was placed under the Rev. William Sheepshanks, at Grasington in Craven, and in 1775, at St John’s College, Cambridge’. In November 1780, he ‘proceeded’ with his law degree with the ambition to study and then practise civil law; however, the death of his father in June 1782 necessitated his return to Holme, although he did eventually graduate in 1801.1 Whitaker’s contemporaries and later-nineteenth-century critics viewed his career to be a natural consequence: he was ordained deacon in 1785, admitted ‘to the order the priesthood’ in 1785, appointed ‘perpetual Curate of Holme, a Chapel founded by his ancestors’ in 1787, became magistrate for the county of Lancaster in 1799 and for the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1801, and appointed to the vicarages of Whalley in 1809, Heysham in 1813 (from which he resigned in 1818) and Blackburn in 1818 (Nichols 1822; Langland and Skeat 1873).2 One recent critic, Alan Crosby (2013), appears initially to interpret Whitaker’s endeavours more cynically: after his marriage to Lucy Thursby at a Leeds parish church, Whitaker ‘assumed the mantle of a country squire’, where ‘[he was] determined to enter the church, but with no ambition beyond that of ruling in the locality’ and although he was ‘ordained in 1785 he sought no living’. However, he proffers the following immediately after this, albeit with similar condescension: All this might imply that Whitaker was interested merely in aggrandizement, financial and social, but that was not the case. He was an assiduous and meticulous pastor, and proudly claimed that he preached at least once a year in each of the churches and chapels of his great personal empire.

1  See also Gorton (1851, 42); The Annual Biography and Obituary, for the Year 1823, p. 211. 2  See also The Annual Biography and Obituary, for the Year 1823, p. 212; The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle 1822, vol. 92, part I, p. 83.

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As mentioned above, Whitaker was admired and defended unreservedly by his contemporaries. Nichols (1822, 871) referred to Whitaker as an ‘exemplary Divine and very able Topographical Antiquary’, that he was ‘allied to a constellation of ecclesiastics, whose erudition and talents were superior to their stations’ and that ‘[in] the fields of verse, he never rambled, though no man could better appreciated the merits of poetry’. In his obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine, written by Nichols under the pen name ‘Sylvanus Urban’, Whitaker was lauded both as ‘an able writer and excellent man’ and as ‘a literary man […] he was distinguished not less for industry and acuteness in research, accuracy or reasoning, and extent of knowledge, than warmth of imagination and vigour of style’.3 Furthermore, in response to critics who accused Whitaker of ‘severity’, Nichols (1822, 877) wrote: ‘But morose, indeed, must he be, who will not make allowance for [Whitaker’s] delicate health, and a highly nervous constitution, which at times of subordination, of turbulence, and disaffection, constantly kept in a state of irritation’. In a footnote accompanying a letter from Whitaker to Thomas Wilson reproduced in Miscellanies, F. R. Raines (1857, 167) declares ‘[he] may truly say as his great kinsman Dean Nowell said of Bucer’: ‘He was known to Britain by the sanctity of his life and eloquence of his tongue, and known to the world by his learned writings. He is not extinct, since his fame lives, and his writings live, and he himself lives to the world and to God.’ Churton’s Life of Nowell, p. 14.

John Gorton (1851, 42) describes Whitaker in A General Biographical Dictionary as ‘an acute and industrious antiquary and author’; he adds later in the entry that Whitaker ‘had the character of being a profound theologian, a good scholar, and an active magistrate’. Moreover, in a letter dated 7 August 1820 to ‘Sylvanus Urban’ in the Gentleman’s Magazine, author ‘Antiquariolus’ proclaims: ‘Amidst the wavering of politicks and religious opinions, amidst the shameful indifference,—the fearful disaffection of the present hour, the Loyalist and the Christian feel a sort of ­support in the noble decisiveness of Dr Whitaker ; and they rejoice on any occasion that may bring such a man to their remembrance’.4 And although Langland scholar W. W. Skeat (1873, lxiv) judges that ‘Whitaker attempted  The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle 1822, vol. 92, part I, p. 83. This text appears verbatim in The Annual Biography and Obituary, for the Year 1823, p. 213. 4  The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle 1820, vol. 90, part II, p. 104. 3

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far too much ; his projected designs were always on a grand scale, and the performance fell short of what he intended’, he acknowledges ‘his great warmth and enthusiasm, and […] restless energy and activity in all his duties, whether clerical, magisterial, or editorial’. Whitaker himself alludes to the ‘grand scale’ of his project History of the Deanery of Craven in a letter to Wilson on 1 March 1806: In short, it is no less than ‘A History of the Roman Empire connected with that of the Christian Church,’ upon a new plan. For this, however, I have large materials ; the first fifteen years of my residence here [in Holme] after leaving college, were principally devoted to the study of the Greek and Latin Historians of this period, together with select works of the Fathers. (Wilson and Raines 1857, 186)

Whitaker’s energetic literary activity amounted to 28 articles written from 1809 to 1819 for The Quarterly Review—Nichols and Lyons (1872, xl) itemise these articles in their fourth edition of An History of the Original Parish of Whalley, although they admit that the list, while ‘probably not complete, is so far as it goes authentic’; as well as nineteen publications between 1794 and 1820 and four released posthumously between 1823 and 1878. For the early years, the production of Whitaker’s publications remained close to home. His first printer, Thomas Wright from Leeds, printed four sermons in 1794–6, such as Religion and loyalty connected; being the substance of a discourse preached in St. Johns church, Leeds, on the general fast day, February 28th, 1794. And published at the request of the congregation. Based in Blackburn, J.  Hemingway printed A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of Blackburn, on Saturday the 10th of August, 1799. This time in partnership though still operating in Blackburn, Hemingway printed with an unknown ‘Crook’ the first edition of An History of the Original Parish of Whalley in 1800–1. According to Nichols and Lyons (1872, xvii), Whitaker commenced working on his history in 1797, the first portion of which was submitted for publication in early 1800, the second in 1801 and the third in a complete volume the same year as the second. The next publication period of 1805–18 occurred in London with John Nichols and son John Bowyer Nichols, with the exception of two printed in Leeds in 1816. Nichols and Lyons explain Whitaker’s reason for the move: in a letter sent to John Nichols on 3 November 1802, which accompanied his prospectus for History of the Deanery of Craven, he reveals that

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as he ‘suffered many inconveniences from County Printers’, he felt ‘directed by many considerations to [Nichols], and especially as a Brother Antiquary and Topographer’ (p. xix). Here, Whitaker identifies neither Wright nor Hemingway and Crook; however, in a letter to Richard Gough on 16 February 1803, Whitaker relates in detail the inconveniences suffered during the printing of An History of the Original Parish of Whalley: The work, as you cannot but have observed, abounds with errors of the press, the history of which was this, that having been persuaded to print the book in a neighbouring town I committed the care of the press to a respected friend the Vicar of the same place, who discharged his trust very faithfully. But we have since discovered that when the foul copy was struck off and sent to him for correction the workmen without waiting for the return of it struck off the whole impression, and when this operation was over, in order to impose upon him, corrected the types according to his emendations and returned a clean copy, the only one which was ever printed. (p. xx)

Consequently, Nichols and Son printed History of the deanery of Craven in 1805, a second edition of which was released in 1812; the second edition of An History of the Original Parish of Whalley in 1806 (although Nichols and Lyons consider this not an entire reprint owing to its ‘many cancellations, additions and supplements’ [p. x]), as well as a revised and enlarged third edition in 1818; Whitaker’s single Latin text in 1809: De Motu per Britanium civico annis 1745 et 1746; the edited volume The life and original correspondence of Sir George Radcliffe in 1810; and An account of the parish of Cartmell in 1818, though printed in partnership with Richard Bentley. A hiatus from Nichols and Son transpired in 1813–15, though the printing of Whitaker’s books continued in London. John Murray, whose printery was located in Albemarle Street, printed Visio Willi De Petro Plouhman in 1813. Whitaker’s edited version of Ralph Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodiensis : or, the Topography of the Ancient and Populous Town and Parish of Leedes was printed in 1815 by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown. Moreover, the years 1816 and 1820 signalled Whitaker’s reconciliation with the county print trade. In 1816, two printeries operating in Leeds and Wakefield, Robinson and Holdsworth and J.  Hurst respectively, printed two titles: the second edition of Ducatus Leodiensis and The History of Leeds and Elmete; and in 1820, T. Rogerson, who operated in Blackburn, printed two sermons, such as A Sermon [on Luke vi. 35, 36] Preached at St. John’s Church, in Aid of a Subscription for the Relief of the Poor, in the Town

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of Blackburn. Also in 1820, Whitaker’s final publication, A series of views of the abbeys and castles in Yorkshire, was printed in London by Thomas Davison. Before undertaking textual analysis of Whitaker’s editorial practice manifest in Visio Willi De Petro Plouhman, it is interesting to conclude this section with a contemporary perspective—in this case, that of John Nichols (1822, 873), Whitaker’s most ardent supporter: His style was nervous, yet elegant ; concise, yet fluent ; averse to the modern barbarisms and affectation with degrade the English tongue, but never hesitating to naturalize a foreign word, so it were of respectable origin, and would conform to the usages of its adopted country. In the use of simile and quotation he was remarkably happy ; but, above all, excelled in the faculty of painting (if it may be so called) the object before him—of seizing at once the chief features, whether of scenery, architecture, or human character, and by a few well-chosen epithets, or by a masterly stroke, conveying a rapid but finished picture to the mind.

The question to be addressed now is whether Whitaker’s ‘painting’ of Langland’s fourteenth-century poem achieved its nineteenth-century purpose: to share his passionate Romantic medievalism.

Whitaker’s Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman Catherine Regan (1988, 1) describes Langland as ‘a one-poem author’ for The Vision of Piers Plowman ‘absorbed all of his creative energy for much of his adult life’. As identified in this chapter’s introduction, there are three surviving versions: the A text, published in 1370; the B text, c. 1379; and the C text, 1385–6. These were labelled by Skeat. A fourth version, the Z text, was identified and edited by A. G. Rigg and Charlotte Brewer (1983); the veracity of which controversially divided Langland scholars. For example, A. V. C. Schmidt (1995, xvii) made the following observation in his critical edition of the B text based on Trinity College Cambridge MS B. 15. 17: ‘Although rejected by Skeat as merely a poor A-text, it has been accepted by some scholars, including the present editor, as an early, draft version of the poem, anterior to A.’ Whitaker’s 1813 version of Langland’s The Vision of Piers Plowman was lengthily entitled Visio Willi De Petro Plouhman: Item Visiones Ejusdem De Dowel, Dobet, Et Dobest, or, the Vision of William Concerning Peirs Plouhman, and the Visions of the Same Concerning the Origin, Progress, and Perfection of the Christian Life. As also mentioned earlier, its publication

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occurred more than 200 years after Crowley’s first quarto edition of the B text in 1550; his second edition appeared in the following year.5 Two editorial interventions observed in Crowley’s utilitarian text reflect its comparative modernity: he updated the grammar and spelling, and supplied marginal notes to elucidate specific features in the poem. Crowley’s third edition was reprinted by Rogers in 1561 (Dahl 1993; Brewer 1996; Hanna 2014). While Rogers altered the text minimally, he deviated from Crowley by removing his marginalia and inserting the Crede of Piers Plowman (Regan 1988). Between 1561 and 1813, extracts appeared in anthologies only: a few lines were included in Elizabeth Cooper’s The Muses Library; or a Series of English Poetry from the Saxons, to the Reign of Charles II, published in 1737 (Brewer 1996; Kelen 2007); Thomas Wharton’s three-­ volume History of English Poetry (1774–81) was, according to Brewer (1996, 23), ‘the first work since Crowley to print substantial portions of the text’6; and Joseph Ritson’s three-volume The English Anthology (1793–4) featured an excerpt from Passus V (Brewer 1996; Dahl 1993; Kelen 2007). Whitaker’s critical departure from his predecessors is evidenced on the title page of Visio Willi De Petro Plouhman, where he states that his text is ‘printed from a manuscript contemporary with the author, collated with two others of great antiquity, and exhibiting the original text’, specifically HM 137, Hm 114 and Oriel College Oxford 79. However, numerous errors undermine the authority that Whitaker seeks to imbue his text, as observed by Skeat (1873, liv): There is little reason for calling the author Robert, since he so often called himself William. Again, the text written in or soon after a. d. 1362 was the A-text; the C-text must be some thirty years later. Consequently, Whitaker’s edition does not exhibit ‘the original text,’ but the text as it stood after two recensions. Neither is Whitaker’s text really ‘collated’ with two other MSS; the readings cited in the Notes from his ‘MS B’ are not more than fifty, and those from ‘MS C’ not more than twenty.

5  Crowley ceased printing in 1551 when he was ordained deacon, ‘trading the printing press for the pulpit’ (Regan 1988, 6). 6  Brewer (1996, 30) states later that ‘Warton quotes substantial sections from the poem, totalling about 500 lines in all, to illustrate Langland’s “imagination” and to give the reader examples of “striking specimens of our author’s allegorical satire, [which also] contain much sense and observation of life, with some strokes of poetry”’. See also Kelen (1996, 89).

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Readers encounter next a scathing review of his predecessor’s B text in the introduction: ‘Crowley’s editions of the Visions are printed from a MS of late date and little authority, in which the division of the passus’s [sic] is extremely confused, and the whole distribution of the work perplexed’ (Langland and Whitaker 1813, xix).7 Whitaker does concede that Crowley’s edition was hampered by the difficulties inherent in the original text: ‘The work is altogether the most obscure in the English language, both respect to phraseology, to the immediate connection of the author’s ideas, and to the leading divisions of the subject.’8 However, the implied criticism here is that Crowley neglected to resolve these issues and that they remained unresolved until Whitaker produced his critical edition: ‘In this edition the first of these difficulties, it is hoped, will be removed by the glossary, the second the commentary, and the third, at least diminished, by the following attempt at an analysis of the entire work’. Whitaker provides this passus-by-passus analysis directly after articulating this objective (pp. xix–xxx). In this way, Whitaker promotes the authority of his text over Crowley’s own. He reinforces his authority shortly afterwards when he contrasts the manuscripts he utilised to compile his edition with those selected by Crowley. Crowley’s manuscripts derived from ‘lower authority’, whereas Whitaker acquired his three (HM 137, Hm 114 and Oriel College Oxford 79) through significantly more collegial means: ‘To the friendship of Mr Heber the present Editor has been indebted for two MSS of these Visions, severally marked in the notes A and B; and to the kindness of Mr Copleston for a third, belonging to Oriel College in Oxford’ (p. xxxi).

Editorial Style in Practice: Whitaker and Stower Appearing five years after Stower’s (1808) The Printer’s Grammar, Whitaker’s typography, featuring black letter and rubrication, is representative of the movement from Enlightenment to Romantic ideology: a renewed interest 7  Later in the century, Skeat observes (1873, lviii) Whitaker’s error: ‘Crowley’s words (to be found in Pref. II. p. xxxii) distinctly imply that date a. d. 1409 appeared in an “auncient copye” which “it chaunced him to se” rather than in the one which he chose to print from. Besides, the B-text was not written till A. D. 1377’. 8  Skeat (1873, liv) provides the following interpretation of Whitaker’s proficiency: ‘Only, I believe, by the old observation that the eye only sees that which it has been trained to see. It is clear that, as a scholar, he frequently misunderstood his author ; and that, as a transcriber, he often failed in deciphering the not very difficult characters in which the MS. is written. The two causes together are quite sufficient to account for such mistakes as, despite all his care, are certainly to be found in his edition.’

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in medieval literature, which was no longer disdainful of the past (Stock 1974; Brewer 1996). His endeavour is purity of living history, of ‘introducing readers to Langland on Langland’s own terms’ (Kelen 2007, 124). As Sarah Kelen observes, ‘The typography of Whitaker’s edition selfconsciously imitates medieval manuscript practice by printing in a rubricated black letter (with proper nouns printed in red), by preserving the antiquated characters thorn (þ) and yogh (ȝ), by using a Tironian “et” consistently for both the English “and” and the Latin “et”, and by incorporating scribal abbreviations such as “oþ” for “other”’ (p. 108).9 Whitaker also replaces the punctus elevatus, which was utilised in medieval manuscripts, with a period (elevated to the mid-line) to indicate metrical pauses.10 Through this, Whitaker demonstrates that he recognises the function of the punctus elevatus to convey the necessary caesural pause but chooses a different manner to express it. His application of these devices enables him to present Langland’s fourteenth-century text as the author originally intended but in a fashion that would be appreciated by his nineteenthcentury audience. Whitaker (1813, xl) articulates this in his introduction, when he reiterates his objectives: […] first, to disentangle the whole plan of the visions, which had never been attempted before; secondly, to lay open the obscurities, and to reconcile the apparent inconsistencies of the allegory; afterwards, to clear the connection of the author’s ideas and the transitions from one argument to another; and, lastly, to trace innumerable allusions, of which, from their fugitive and temporary nature, at the distance of more than four centuries, many must, after all, be abandoned as hopeless.

Whitaker is therefore mindful of his ‘unmapped journey’ (Justice 2014, 55) as the first recognised scholarly edition of Piers Plowman. Tempering this living history is exercised through his interpretative application of editorial style. For example, when describing the purpose of his commentary, Whitaker (1813, xl) writes: ‘This part of the work, the single use of which was perspicuity, has been written with the greatest possible simplicity of style, as well as with a certain air of antiquity, which suited the subject and the text.’ Whitaker’s use of black letter and rubrication, together with his  See also Skeat (1873, lxi).  M. B. Parkes (1992, 44) states that ‘[originally] the punctus elevatus seems to have consisted of a punctus surmounted by an acute accent or virgule (the pes), but by the twelfth century this stroke had evolved to a shape like a “tick”’. 9

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punctuation style, exemplify this further. Each of these are studied below, with specific reference to Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar. In regard to black letter, Stower (1808, 41) makes his opinion very clear: It is descended from the Gothic character, and is therefore by others termed Gothic. It is now abolished in England, except in very few instances; and even in acts of parliament it is, in a great measure, dispensed with. Its extinction altogether cannot be regretted by printers, to whom it is more expensive than Roman or Italic, its broad face requiring an extraordinary quantity of ink, which always gives the best coloured paper a yellow cast, unless worked with that of a superior quality.

Nicolas Barker (2010, 250) confirms in his article ‘The Morphology of the Page’ that black letter, which was ‘first adopted by English printers for vernacular texts’, was ‘[already] rare by the seventeenth century’.11 Therefore, it is not surprising that Whitaker’s edition, ‘which faithfully represented the author’s original’ (Dahl 1993, 66) by reproducing Langland’s C text entirely in black letter (see Fig. 8.1), received condemnation for being ‘barbarous’, too expensive and ‘inaccessible’ to readers (Brewer 1996, 45). One notable nineteenth-century English critic, Isaac D’Israeli (1766–1848), wrote in the first volume of Amenities of Literature, published in 1841, that the text must remain a sealed book. The last edition of Dr Whitaker, the most magnificent and frightful volume that was ever beheld in black letter, was edited by one whose delicacy of taste unfitted him for this homely task. (D’Israeli 1841, 303)

Furthermore, D’Israeli admitted that ‘[much] was expected from this splendid edition’; nonetheless, ‘the subscription price was quadrupled, and on its publication every one would rid himself of the mutilated author’. Later in the century, Skeat (1873, lii) supplied specific information regarding subscription rates and costs of production: It was published by subscription, the number of subscribers (whose names are given) being two hundred, at five guineas apiece; increased to seven guineas for such copies as came into public sale. It was got up in so expensive a manner that the mere cost of printing, exclusive of woodcuts and binding, was £401 6s. 7d.  See also R. B. McKerrow (1913, 307).

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However, Whitaker’s Romantic aesthetic, albeit expensive to produce and purchase, was unquestionably nostalgic, a ‘yearning to touch history’ (Justice 2014, 56), to represent Langland in its purest form and thereby reveal early modern England’s literary origins (Brewer 1996). While Stower (1808) does not mention red ink or its application in The Printer’s Grammar, Moxon (1683, 330) describes the two kinds of red used in typesetting for different text types in his Mechanick Exercises: he states that vermillion ‘is the deepest and purest Red, and always used to Books of Price’. In contrast, ‘Red-Lead is much more faint and foul, and though more used than Vermillion, yet used only to Books of Vulgar Sale and Low price’. Owing to the vividness of the red ink on the page and the text’s elaborate presentation overall, it can be assumed that the printer of Whitaker’s edition, Joseph Harding, utilised a red more similar to vermillion than red-lead. Red ink traditionally served to separate certain textual elements from the main text. According to Margaret Smith (2010, 187–8), this ‘textual articulation’ was a hierarchical ‘system within a book that signals to the reader the structure of the text and the relationships of parts of a text to each other’. In regard to Piers Plowman, specifically Oxford’s Corpus Christi College MS 201, an early fifteenth-century scribal manuscript of the poem, Noelle Phillips (2013, 440) explains that the scribes applied red ink to accent ‘the voices of the text: public voices, unstable and shifting voices, the corrupt voices of flatterers, the importance of mutual dialogue’, thereby separating and emphasising these voices from the body text. Phillips observes also more generally that rubrication ‘directs readers’ attention and privileges certain ideas and characters; because it influences one’s visual absorption of the page, it also shapes the reading experience as a whole’ (p. 445).12 However, as in the case of black letter, the use of red ink petered out during the sixteenth century when printing monochromatic texts became standard, with the temporary exception of, for example, liturgical and legal books (Smith 2010). Why then does Whitaker employ this anachronistic textual element? 12  It is interesting that Skeat (1873, lxi) found the application of red ink troubling: ‘I confess I was much surprise to find that, in the case of proper names, the words printed in red letters are no sort of guide to the words written in red letters ; indeed, the deviations of the print from the MS are so frequent in this respect that the task of rectification became irksome ; and as no good result came of it (for the scribe is very capricious, and even writes words in red which are not names at all), I had no choice but to abandon all notice of this pecularity’.

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Whitaker faithfully utilises red ink in its traditional manner, as described by Smith (2010) and Phillips (2013), to not only enhance the reading experience but also to present Langland’s living history in a similar manner to his scribal predecessors. As Phillips (2013, 445) explains: ‘The way the scribe’s style mimics and modifies Langland’s own […] suggests his interest in presenting his version of the poem as both authoritative and authorial’. Therefore, Whitaker employs red ink to separate specific textual elements from the body text, such as headings, Latin scriptural text, quotations and the various voices in dialogue—that is, direct speech. For example, Fig. 8.1 features red ink for the header and Latin scriptural text, which is also the direct speech of personified Conscience who is providing instruction for king and clergy (Langland and Whitaker 1813, 8). However, his employment of red ink also encompasses, and symbolises, Whitaker’s application and interpretation of editorial standards, with regard to italic, from both the nineteenth century and earlier. For the first, the function of italic is to convey textual emphasis or importance; for the second, it both communicates emphasis and distinguishes proper nouns from general body text—that is, prioritising certain voices over others and highlighting place names. It is through the latter application that Whitaker further places his readers in closer proximity to Langland’s living history. In regard to nineteenth-century application of italic, Stower (1808, 39) writes in The Printer’s Grammar that italics served as a ‘more elegant mode of introducing extracts within inverted commas, and poetry and annotations in a smaller-sized type’, and ‘often in the displaying of a title-­ page, or distinguishing the head or subject-matter of a chapter from the chapter itself’; additionally, italic was ‘made use of to mark emphatical sentences’.13 Stower derived his instruction on italicisation from Smith’s (1755, 14) The Printer’s Grammar, in which he detailed that the correct functions of italic were: […] for varying the different Parts and Fragments, abstracted from the Body of a work—for passages which differ from the language of the Text— for literal citations from Scripture—for words, terms, or expressions which some authors would have regarded as more nervous; and by which they intend to convey to the reader either instructing, satyrizing, admiring, or other hints and remarks.

 See also Bray (2000, 108).

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Fig. 8.1  Page 8 of Passus I of Whitaker’s Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman, featuring red ink for the header; Latin scriptural text, which is also the direct speech of personified Conscience; the names of God (‘Criste’, ‘Lordes’); and the place name ‘Malverne’. (Fisher Library, the University of Sydney, 821.15 J1 15)

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For a contemporary definition of the word ‘emphasis’, John Greenwood’s (1711, 226–7) An Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar is instructive: ‘An Emphasis is used for the Distinction of such Word or Words, wherein the force of the Sense doth more peculiarly consist, and is usually expressed by putting such kind of Words into another Character, as the Italick’.14 Understanding the function of italic in regard to textual emphasis and proper nouns prior to the eighteenth century requires reference to Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises. As explained in Chap. 2, Moxon (1683) advised that body text typeset in roman required proper nouns to be set in italic, and body text in italic necessitated proper nouns in roman; words of ‘great Emphasis’ were typeset in italic and, depending on the distinction to be conveyed, sometimes started with a capital. Not long after the publication of Mechanick Exercises, Robert Monteith (1704, 15) confirmed Moxon’s instruction in The True and Genuine Art, of Exact Pointing: ‘Proper Names of Persons, Places, Dignitaries, Offices; &c. together with the Words of Foreign Languages.’ However, Moxon (1676) authored and printed Regulæ Trium Ordinum Literarum Typographicarum: or The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters, for which he utilised architectural principles to illustrate literally how each letter was constructed (see Chap. 3). Examining The rules of the three orders of print letters reveals that black letter approximates roman type; Whitaker’s edition is consistent with this observation. Skeat (1704, xx) similarly discerned this: ‘He […] adopted a black-letter type, as coming nearer than Roman type to the characters of the MS’. How then did Whitaker communicate emphasis and distinguish proper nouns? Analysing Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman uncovers Whitaker’s approach using red ink. Figure 8.1 provides an example of red ink employed for the place name ‘Malverne’, where Will, the weary main character, decides to rest one May morning and eventually falls asleep, and for the proper names ‘Crist’ and ‘Lordes’. Figure 8.2 also features red ink for the names of God (‘Messias’, ‘God’), the proper name of ‘Moses’ and the personifications of ‘Mede’ and ‘Conscience’ (Langland and Whitaker 1813, 61). Moreover, Whitaker highlights on this page the words ‘placebo’ and ‘dirige’—the Roman-Catholic Church now labels these as the Vespers or Matins of the Dead (Kuhn 1983, 986). This latter example demonstrates Whitaker’s application of red ink for emphasis, which is verified by the italicisation of placebo and dirige in his commentary, or paraphrasing translation of the medieval vernacular, at the bottom of the page.  See also Bray (2000, 111).

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Fig. 8.2  Page 61 of Passus IV from Whitaker’s Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman, featuring red ink for the names of God (‘Messias’, ‘God’), Latin text, the proper name of ‘Moses’ and the personifications of ‘Mede’ and ‘Conscience’. The page also includes italicised text of placebo and dirige in the paraphrasing text at the bottom. (Fisher Library, the University of Sydney, 821.15 J1 15)

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Considering the substantial use of black letter and red ink in Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman, it is apparent why Whitaker’s very personal endeavour was commercially unsuccessful: considerably more ink was required for printing the text in blackletter and red ink in comparison to monochromatic Roman and italic, making the enterprise more expensive; and two impressions were required, which meant the printing press was in use longer than for a monochromatic version, like Crowley’s and Rogers’s. This would have translated into fewer texts being printed, distributed and sold. However, given that Whitaker’s perceived intention was to touch living history, to represent Langland’s authorial intention in its purest form, it can be argued that he succeeded in this endeavour, at least, by using visual typographical elements reminiscent of Langland’s lifetime. Editorially, Whitaker utilises a similar visual, living approach, yet the rules underlying this are consistent with those in Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar. Where his application differs—specifically, his ‘pointing’, or punctuation, style—actually further manifests Whitaker’s visual, living approach. The points to be considered here are colons, semicolons, inverted commas (or quotation marks), parentheses and em rules (now termed ‘em dashes’). In general, according to Stower (1808, 83), ‘[all] the points, except the comma and the full stop, have a hair space placed between them and the matter to distinguish them’, which is demonstrated in Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman (see Fig. 8.2, where the two semicolons in the paraphrasing translation have a hair-space on either side). How then does Whitaker utilise each of the points in a visually editorial manner to express, and temper, Langland’s living history? For the colon, Stower writes only: ‘The colon […] has been superseded in almost every instance, either by the semicolon, ellipsis line, or metal rule, and in some cases the comma’ (p. 83). However, texts from the mid-­ seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, such as Whitaker’s Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman, manifest consistent, standard use of colons and thus prove Stower’s prediction incorrect—not to mention the colon’s modern, and very necessary, persistence. Therefore, for a contemporaneous definition of the colon, it is necessary to refer to Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar. Smith (1755, 93) writes: ‘[The colon] shews where the first part of a paragraph has been digested by Comma’s and Semicolons, for making observations, objections, or enlargement upon it, before the Full-­ point puts a stop to it.’ That is, the text after the colon features an elucidation, elaboration or further observation about the text that preceded the

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colon. M. B. Parkes (1992, 65) supports this in Pause and Effect: ‘a colon is an expression which is rhythmically complete, but where the thought is ineffectual on its own without the rest of the period’. The following paraphrasing translation from Passus I demonstrates Whitaker’s (1813, 2) non-conformist interpretative application of the colon that reflects his visual, living approach: ‘beheld all the wealth and woe of the world : together with its virtues and vices, truth and treachery’. While a comma here, not a colon, would be more accurate because the items (‘wealth’, ‘woe’, ‘virtues’, ‘vices’, ‘truth’ and ‘treachery’) are sequentially listed, Whitaker has an agenda in mind: to bring to the reader’s attention and reinforce certain themes, and thereby engage the reader further into Langland’s textual world. The colon achieves this in two ways. First, the allocated pause for the colon is greater than that for the comma: Stower (1808, 83) writes that the colon’s ‘allowed time is till the reader can count three’, rather than the comma’s short pause of one count. Therefore, the reader is compelled here to pause to reflect rather than continue to read after a one-second pause. Second, the colon visually separates this remaining text from the preceding text in the sentence. Hence, Whitaker conveys more thematic emphasis through visual editorial means. Moving on to semicolons, Stower writes: ‘The semicolon is allowed double the space of time for its pause to the comma […] it enforces what has been illustrated by the comma, and allows the reader an opportunity to acquire a perfect view of the sentence, before it is terminated by the full point’ (p. 82). That is, the text after the semicolon is attached conceptually to the text that preceded it, so closely aligned that a full stop between them would negate the wider meaning; as Smith (1755, 92) states: ‘[it] keeps part of the argument together’. However, the semicolon use in the paraphrasing translation in Passus I, as identified in the previous paragraph, does not follow Stower’s rule, indicating Whitaker’s interpretative editorial application. It reads: ‘men of every condition, occupied in their several callings ; some laboring long, and resting seldom’ (Langland and Whitaker 1813, 2). If punctuated strictly according to Stower’s ­instruction, a colon would have been inserted here rather than a semicolon as the text after the semicolon contains observations about the ‘men of every condition’—that is, he specifies who these men are and judges their labours as virtuous or corrupt. It does not reinforce the text before it but elucidates it. Why then the semicolon? While the semicolon keeps each section of the sentence, or argument, together, the semicolon acts purely as a slight respite between the comparatively short start of the sentence and

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the longer cataloguing afterwards, which includes numerous commas. It also serves to pause the reader sufficiently enough to consider who these men might be before answering their silent query, but a pause not long enough to draw their own conclusions—they need to heed the text that follows.15 For inverted commas, or quotation marks, Stower (1808, 82) explains that they are ‘used to denote extracts or quotations from other works, in dialogue matter, or any passages or expressions not original’.16 Parkes (1992, 59) confirms this: ‘Quotation marks were gradually accepted during the first half of the eighteenth century, and were used with increasing frequency to indicate quotations in English books in the second half of the century’. However, Whitaker (1813, 2) appears to disrupt Stower’s rule in the second-last line of the Passus I paraphrasing translation: ‘while many for the love of God, “live hard,” and deny themselves’. Rather than the inverted commas designating text that is not original, it appears to denote text that has been given more or less verbatim. Curiously, though, Whitaker subverts at times his inverted commas style, as shown for this later paraphrasing translation: ‘He lived with love, the first of the cardinal virtues, and closing gates (hinges) of the kingdom of heaven’ (p. 7). This sentence is intriguing for two reasons: first, the earlier interpretation of Whitaker’s use of inverted commas to communicate a verbatim translation does not apply here—no inverted commas surround ‘closing gates’; and second, Whitaker’s use of parentheses after this phrase, for ‘(hinges)’. Why no inverted commas? Perhaps it was an oversight? Perhaps Whitaker did not require more emphasis at this point? Perhaps the line would have appeared too ‘busy’ with the parenthetical text following directly afterwards? Or perhaps his emphasis focused more on the parenthetical text than the translation? Having no answer to this quandary is frustrating, though no less exciting for its interpretative possibilities. For parentheses, Stower (1808, 87) explains that: ‘[the] use of the parenthesis is to inclose [sic] such words or sentences of a period as make no part of the subject, yet at the same time strengthen the argument; which, however, would read smoothly on were the enclosed matter taken away’. Simply put, the parenthetical text is not integral to the argument of the sentence but strengthens it; that if it were removed from the sentence, 15  Parkes (1992, 49) notes that the semicolon in the sixteenth century ‘[reflected] the needs of those who were accustomed to the habit of silent reading’. 16  See also Bray (2000, 110).

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the sentence would still make sense. Whitaker’s text certainly conforms to this rule. Returning to the paraphrasing translation identified towards the end of the previous paragraph, Whitaker (1813, 7) inserts his commentary on the phrase ‘closing gates’ within parentheses in order to strengthen his argument; they also serve to visually separate from, but also add to, the original text, emphasising his own interpretation for the reader. Other examples include: ‘For a great cat of the court (a king, now become a tyrant) overleapt them at pleasure’ (p. 9), ‘we shall go eastward to Heaven (the source of light)’ (p. 19), and ‘David himself (endeth ? defineth) it—as the sentence sheweth’ (p. 26). The latter example is significant as Whitaker expresses his uncertainty regarding his translation. The question mark ostensibly invites his readers to confirm his translation or suggest an alternative. Lastly, Stower (1808, 83–4) writes for the em rule: ‘The m-metal rule, though it cannot be denominated a point, is frequently used in peculiar works ; sometimes as a substitute for the comma, at others for the colon ; and is found particularly serviceable in rhapsodical writing, where half sentences frequently occur.’ For the second-last line of the paraphrasing translation on page 7 of Passus I, Whitaker (1813) inserts an em dash: ‘I will not impugn it, although love and learning ought to govern the great election—besides that conscience forbids me to plead against it for the church’s sake’. Any of the uses enumerated by Stower (1808) are applicable here, particularly the one relating to rhapsodical writing; however, again, Whitaker provides a visual editorial distinction, or physical separation, here to impart further emphasis and meaning. Other examples include: ‘I do remember the words of David—and his sentence will not lie’ (p. 26) and ‘That is the gift which God bestoweth on all true men living—namely, grave to die an happy death, and great bliss thereafter’ (p. 55). For the first example, the em dash could substitute for a comma; for the second, a colon. Hence, Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s Romantic medievalism is epitomised in Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman by presenting William Langland’s living history, and by introducing Langland to his nineteenth-century audience on Langland’s own terms. The fascination with which Whitaker perceived Langland’s content is unmistakeable: the anachronistic black letter and rubrication and the text’s elaborate presentation. Therefore, how did Whitaker balance his Romantic medievalism with his objective to achieve clarity of content while simultaneously providing a modern text that is accessible to his nineteenth-century audience? He achieved

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these interdependent objectives through his interpretative application of nineteenth-­ century editorial standards as delineated in Stower’s  The Printer’s Grammar, albeit often wilfully deviating from them to achieve his passionate vision, namely through his use of colons, semicolons, inverted commas, parentheses and em dashes in his paraphrasing translation. While Whitaker’s editorial style, relating in particular to his punctuation, was not representative of instruction given in nineteenth-century style guides, his 1813 edition of Piers Plowman is significant for its ambition, for its consistent editorial treatment through the modern paratexts, and in how comparatively analysing texts with their contemporary style guides yields insight into hands-on labour of stakeholders in the early modern print trade.

References 1820. The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historicle Chronicle. Vol. 90, Part 2. 1822. The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle. Vol. 92, Part 1. 1823. The Annual Biography and Obituary, for the Year 1823. London: A. & R. Spottiswoode. Barker, Nicolas. 2010. The Morphology of the Page. In The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume V: 1695–1830, ed. Michael F. Suarez and Michael L. Turner, 248–267. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bray, Joe. 2000. “Attending to the Minute”: Richardson’s Revisions of Italics in Pamela. In Ma(r)king the Text: The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Page, ed. Joe Bray, Miriam Handley, and Anne C.  Henry, 105–119. Aldershot: Ashgate. Brewer, Charlotte. 1996. Editing Piers Plowman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crosby, Alan G. 2013. Whitaker, Thomas Dunham (1759–1821). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/29226. Accessed 26 Feb 2019. D’Israeli, Isaac. 1841. Amenities of Literature. Vol. 1. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. Dahl, Eric. 1993. Diuerse Copies Haue it Diuerselye: An Unorthodox Survey of Piers Plowman, Textual Scholarship from Crowley to Skeat. In Suche Werkis to Werche: Essays on Piers Plowman, in Honour of David C.  Fowler, ed. Míc˙eál F. Vaughan, 53–80. East Lansing: Colleagues Press. Gorton, John. 1851. A General Biographical Dictionary. Vol. 4. London: Henry G. Bohn. Greenwood, James. 1711. An Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar. London: Printed by R. Tookey.

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Hanna, Ralph. 2014. The Versions and Revisions of Piers Plowman. In The Cambridge Campanion to Piers Plowman, ed. Andrew Cole and Andrew Galloway, 33–49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Justice, Steven. 2014. Literary History and Piers Plowman. In The Cambridge Companion to Piers Plowman, ed. Andrew Cole and Andrew Galloway, 50–64. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kelen, Sarah A. 2007. Langland’s Early Modern Identities. New  York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kuhn, Sherman. 1983. Middle English Dictionary, Part 4. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Langland, William, and W.W. Skeat. 1873. The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman, Part 3, ed. W.W. Skeat. London: Published for the Early English Text Society, N. Trübner & Company. Langland, William, and Thomas Dunham Whitaker. 1813. Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman, item visiones ejusdem de Dowel, Dobet et Dobest. Or, the Vision of William Concerning Peirs Plouhman, and the Visions of the Same Concerning the Origin, Progress and Perfection of the Christian Life. Ascribed to Robert [or Rather William] Langland and Written in, or Immediately After, the Year 1362. Printed from a MS. Contemporary with the Author, Collated with Two Others; … Together with an Introductory Discourse, a Perpetual Commentary, Annotations, and a Glossary, by T. D. Whitaker. London: B.L. L.P. McKerrow, R.B. 1913. Notes on Bibliographical Evidence for Literary Students and Editors of English Works of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The Library TBS-12 (1): 213–318. https://doi.org/10.1093/libraj/TBS-12.1.213. Monteith, Robert. 1704. The True and Genuine Art, of Exact Pointing ; as Also What Concerns the Distinction of Syllables; the Marking of Capitals; and Italick, or Different Character : To Be Used, in Prints and Manuscripts, as Well Latine, as English. Edinburgh: Printed by John Reid Junior. Moxon, Joseph. 1676. Regulæ trium ordinum literarum typographicarum, or, The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters viz. the Roman, Italick, English Capitals and Small : Shewing How They Are Compounded of Geometrick Figures, and Mostly Made by Rule and Compass, Useful for Writing Masters, Painters, Carvers, Masons, and Others That Are Lovers of Curiosity. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon. ———. 1683. Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. The Second Volumne [sic]. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the Sign of Atlas. Nichols, John. 1822. Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century : Consisting of Authentic Memoirs and Original Letters of Eminent Persons : And Intended as a Sequel to the Literary Anecdotes. London: Printed for the Author by John Nichols and Son. Parkes, M.B. 1992. Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West. Aldershot: Ashgate.

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Phillips, Noelle. 2013. Seeing Red: Reading Rubrication in Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 201’s Piers Plowman. The Chaucer Review 4: 439–464. Regan, Catherine A. 1988. The Shaping and Reshaping of Piers Plowman: Interaction of Editors and Audiences. Literature in Performance 8 (2): 1–13. Rigg, A.G., and Charlotte Brewer. 1983. William Langland, Piers Plowman: The Z Version. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Schmidt, A.V.C. 1995. Introduction. In The Vision of Piers Plowman: A Critical Edition of the B-Text Based on Trinity College Cambridge MS B.15.17, ed. A.V.C. Schmidt, vxii–lxxxvi. London: J. M. Dent. Smith, John. 1755. The Printer’s Grammar. London: Printed for the Editor; and Sold by W.  Owen, Near Temple Bar; and by M.  Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row. Smith, Margaret M. 2010. Red as a Textual Element During the Transition from Manuscript to Print. In Textual Cultures: Cultural Texts, ed. Orietta Da Rold and Elaine Treharne, 187–200. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. Stock, Brian. 1974. The Middle Ages as Subject and Object: Romantic Attitudes and Academic Medievalism. New Literary History 5 (3): 527–547. Stower, Caleb. 1808. The Printer’s Grammar ; or, Introduction to the Art of Printing : A Concise History of the Art, with the Improvements in the Practice of Printing, for the Last Fifty Years. London: Printed by the Editor, 32, Paternoster Row, for B. Crosby and Co. Stationers’-Court. Whitaker, Thomas Dunham. 1872. An History of the Original Parish of Whalley, and Honor of Clitheroe : To Which Is Subjoined an Account of the Parish of Cartmell, ed. John Gough Nichols and Ponsonby Annesley Lyons. 4th ed. / rev. & enl. by John Gough Nichols and Ponsonby A.  Lyons. ed. London: George Routledge and Sons. Wilson, Thomas, and F.R. Raines. 1857. Miscellanies: Being a Selection from the Poems and Correspondences of the Rev. Thomas Wilson. Manchester: Printed by Charles Simms and Co. for the Chetham Society.

CHAPTER 9

Authorial Editorial Practice at Work: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Poems (Ashley MS 408)

Ashley MS 408 might be considered a type of palimpsest. Its original content is the printed pages of the first edition of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Poems on Various Subjects, which was published in 1796. The palimpsestic material includes Coleridge’s handwritten mark-up—his marginalia or annotations—of his corrections on these printed pages, both interlineally and within margins. This mark-up includes changes to the numbered lines of poems; additional copy to be inserted, such as an advertisement as preliminary matter; his commentary, or notes; and directions to the compositor and/or printer. Coleridge’s mark-up reveals his familiarity with using proofreading symbols, and how he both emulated and adapted the instruction provided in contemporary printer’s manuals, specifically Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises (1683) and John Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar (1755). Hence, this final chapter explores how Coleridge’s mark-up in Ashley MS 408 provides evidence of not only how early modern printer’s manuals influenced authors’ correction of typeset page proofs, but also how marginal spaces offered authors the textual landscape to communicate with, and often judge the proficiency of, stakeholders within printing houses—in this case, compositors and printers. Through this, marginal spaces represent the means by which authors were able to equitably share the same working spaces as their professional counterparts.

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Margins, Marginalia and Samuel Taylor Coleridge The definition of ‘marginalia’ according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is ‘[notes], commentary, and similar material written or printed in the margin of a book or manuscript. Also (in extended use): notes, comments, etc., which are incidental or additional to the main topic’. The OED, definition is noteworthy for two reasons. The first is that it distinguishes the two types of marginalia: handwritten and printed. This is pertinent as only printed marginalia have been considered so far in this book. For example, Chap. 5 featured an examination of the differing treatments of marginal notes, or references, by Henry Billingsley and Isaac Barrow in their edited versions of The Elements of Euclid, which were published in 1570 and 1660 respectively. For this, the location of marginalia on the printed page was defined with reference first to Moxon’s (1683, 236) Mechanick Exercises (‘Marginal Notes come down the Side or Sides of the Pages (for if there be two Columns in a Page, the Marginal Notes may come down both sides’) and then to Smith’s (1755, 75) The Printer’s Grammar (‘References are called, all such Marks and Signs as are used in matter which has either side or Bottom notes; and as serve to direct the Reader to observations which are made upon such passages of the text as are distinguished by them, and demand a Reference of the same likeness to be put to the Notes by which the Matter is illustrated, or otherwise taken notice of’). The second reason for the noteworthiness of the OED definition is that it does not identify whose hand produces the written marginalia. While Heather Jackson (2001, 13) reiterates the definition of ‘marginalia’ in the OED, she also highlights its geographical physicality: ‘“Marginalia”, the plural of the Latin […] the adjective ‘marginalia’ meaning “in the margin”’. However, for her purposes, Jackson admits directly afterwards that she ‘[uses] it with some latitude […], taking it to refer to notes written anywhere in a book, and not merely in the margins’. The hands that she identifies are those of readers: ‘“Readers” in these pages usually, though not invariably, means readers other than the author of the book being annotated.’ Kiri Wagstaff (2012, 2) also recognises the written marginalia of readers when offering her own definition in her paper ‘The Evolution of Marginalia’: ‘The term most generally encompasses all reader modifications, including marginal notes, underlining, highlighting, and dog-earing’. Furthermore, Wagstaff observes that marginalia provide ‘a uniquely intimate glimpse into the reader’s mind in the process of reacting

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to a text’. William Sherman (2008, 3) offers a similar interpretation when considering the marginalia produced by readers in Renaissance England; however, he prioritises the verb/noun ‘mark’: ‘Renaissance readers also marked texts in the more physical and social senses captured in the phrase “making one’s mark”—making books their own by making marks in and around them and by using them for getting on in the world (as well as preparing for the world to come).’ Sherman’s phrase ‘making books their own’ captures the first of three broad reasons why nineteenth-century readers annotated their books1: marginalia signifies ownership. According to Jackson (2001, 19), this type of annotation is the most common: she writes that ‘the first impulse of any owner appears to be the impulse to stake a claim’. The second relates to pedagogy—that is, the practice of annotating textbooks and other references encourages critical thinking and independence: ‘A marked or annotated book traces the development of the reader’s selfdefinition in and by relation to the text’ (p. 87). The third is that reading practices of the early modern period were socially collaborative—they were shared experiences: ‘The exchange of annotated books among friends continued through the Victorian period and into the twentieth century, but the practice was established in the eighteenth century, when […] reading was more often than not a social activity’ (p. 65).2 Integral to these practices were annotators’ updating, interpretation of or commentary on texts; their consequent expression of judgement; their crossreferencing of specific passages with those of other authors (Sherman 2008; Coleridge 2001); and the desire for a more intimate dialogue with authors, no matter how frustrating this one-sided dialogue might have been. For example, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) wrote the following in his notebook in December 1804: It is often said that books are companions. They are so, dear, very dear companions ! But I often, when I read a book that delights me on the whole, feel a pang that the author is not present, that I cannot object to him this and that, express my sympathy and gratitude for this part and mention some 1  Sherman (2008, 16) reproduces Elaine Whitaker’s (1994, 235) cataloguing of Renaissance readers’ annotation practices: ‘although readers’ alterations are idiosyncratic, they fall broadly into the following scheme: I.  Editing [A.  Censorship, B.  Affirmation,] II.  Interaction [A.  Devotional Use, B.  Social Critique,] III.  Avoidance [A.  Doodling, B. Daydreaming]’. 2  See also Wagstaff (2012, 4) and O’Connor (2014, 71–2).

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facts that self-evidently overset a second, start a doubt about a third, or confirm and carry [on] a fourth thought. At times I become restless, for my nature is very social. (Coleridge and Coleridge 1895, 91–2)

Coleridge was an enthusiastic, dedicated annotator whose friends offered him copies of their books frequently for review. Modiano (1985, 257) recounts an amusing anecdote in ‘Coleridge’s marginalia’: fearing his imminent death, in 1811 he wrote in Charles Lamb’s copy of Donne’s Poems the following lament: ‘I shall die soon, my dear Charles Lamb! And then you will not be vexed that I bescribbled your Books!’3 Rather than express his vexation, Lamb encouraged Coleridge to continue with his annotations; indeed, according to Jackson (2001, 155), Lamb became ‘the chief publicist of Coleridge’s skills as an annotator’. Coleridge apparently heeded Lamb’s advice as the quantity of his marginalia was significant: Modiano (1985, 257) observes generally that over a thirty-year period Coleridge’s ‘body of work had no parallel among English authors’, whereas Wagstaff (2012, 2) enumerates how ‘Jackson helped [George Whalley] compile “8000 of Coleridge’s notes from 450 titles (700 volumes) by 325 authors”’ for Marginalia, a multi-volume collection of Coleridge’s annotations. Not counted among this were seventy ‘lost’ books whose annotations have been verified as belonging to Coleridge but whose ‘whereabouts are unknown’ (Jackson 2001, 150). However, Coleridge is acknowledged not simply for this output: the OED credits him with the first use of marginalia in English in 1832, which Jackson and Whalley (2001, xvi) and Wagstaff (2012, 2) confirm. In November 1819, Coleridge had published a reflection on Sir Thomas Browne, one of his favoured seventeenth-century writers, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, entitled ‘Character of Sir Thomas Brown as a Writer’ (Ashton 1996). Featured in a letter to the magazine’s editor preceding the reflection, which was written by a ‘G. J.’,4 was the word ‘marginalia’: ‘The following is transcribed from the blank leaf of a copy of Sir T. Brown’s Works in folio, and is a fair specimen of these Marginalia ; and much more nearly than any of his printed works, gives the style of Coleridge’s conversation’ (Coleridge 1819, 197). Coleridge’s marginalia exhibits standard readerly traits: marks of ownership, pedagogical use and, as already witnessed, shared reading e­ xperiences with his peers. Regarding marks of ownership, Coleridge’s annotations 3 4

 See also Jackson (2001, 96).  Jackson (2001, 7) hazards that Coleridge employed this ‘cover’ as ‘an editorial fiction’.

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were regularly accompanied by his signature ‘STC’ or his pseudonym ‘ESTESE’. For the latter, the Greek capital letter sigma was often substituted for the capital S: ‘EΣTHΣE’ (Ashton 1996, 204, 229), a pun that translates phonetically into the Greek for ‘He hath stood’ (Knox 2010, 427). Jackson and Whalley (2001, 266) observe in a footnote to Coleridge’s ‘Estese’s Epitaph’ that he created the pseudonym in 1799; part of this epitaph is reproduced below: ESTESE’s αυτοειϕταιον. Here lies a Poet—or what once was he. Pray, gentle Reader, pray for S. T. C. That he who threescore years with toilsome Breath, Found death in Life, may now find life in death.

As his autoepitaphion and pseudonym intimate, Coleridge, the writer, had a problematic relationship with his critics. The phrase ‘Found death in Life’ could allude to not only ill-health but also his critics’ negative reviews of his work, and ‘He hath stood’ conveys Coleridge’s determination to persevere despite this criticism. Coleridge expressed his displeasure frequently in writing; for example, the first volume of Biographia Literaria begins with this woeful sentence: ‘It has been my lot to have had my name introduced both in conversation, and in print, more frequently than I find it easy to explain, whether I consider the fewness, unimportance, and limited circulation of my writings, or the retirement and distance, in which I have lived, both from the literary and political world’ (Coleridge 1817, 4). Furthermore, William Christie (1996, 38) observes in ‘The printer’s devil in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria’ that ‘literary life, according to Coleridge, urgently needed defending; from the fact that it was being undermined by the “broad predetermined abuse of the Edingburgh [sic] &c”—abuse, that is, from the very Reviews that should have been encouraging and ennobling it’.5 Coleridge’s position is ironic given his literary criticism in not only Biographia Literaria, but also such periodicals as The Critical Review,6 the nature of which was often unapologetically scornful and condescending. This is exemplified in Coleridge’s (1797a, 198) review of Matthew Lewis’s Gothic novel The Monk for The Critical Review in February 1797: 5 6

 See also Knox (2010, 426) and Engel (2002, 63).  Coleridge wrote for The Critical Review in 1794 and 1796–8; see Erdman (1961, 47).

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We have been induced to pay particular attention to this work, from the unusual success which it has experienced. It certainly possesses much real merit, in addition to its meretricious attractions. Nor must it be forgotten that the author is a man of rank and fortune.—Yes ! the author of the Monk signs himself a Legislator ! We stare and tremble.

Coleridge’s contradictory position appears more problematic when considering the fact that nineteenth-century reviewing in periodicals such as The Critical Review or Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine derived from, and represented lifeblood for, print culture. According to Christie (1996, 40), ‘With rise of printing and the demand for printed material came the rise […] of the entrepreneurial reviews and magazines as part of a sort of massive bureaucracy organizing reading, and reading about reading’. That is, as Samuel Kernan (1989, 5) observes (and Christie reiterates), ‘[the] “reality” of literature […] was authenticated and reinforced by various secondary legitimisations—criticism, literary history and biography, standard editions, anthologies and collections—which the printers now found profitable to produce and sell’ (Christie 1996, 40–1). Coleridge’s sensitivity evidenced here provides insight into his handwritten mark-up in Ashley MS 408, specifically his corrections that communicated his displeasure of, and impatience with, the work of stakeholders within printing houses, namely compositors and printers. Examining Coleridge’s annotations reveals, according to Modiano (1985, 259), ‘his innumerable debts’—that is, they include moments in which Coleridge pedagogically reproduces, references or builds on the ideas of others and thus showcase the considerable breadth of his knowledge and reading. Jackson (2001, 150) surveys this breadth in Marginalia: The range of reading is impressively broad and eclectic. Coleridge can be seen to have annotated books from the whole span of Western civilization and from every period of European publishing history to this time of his death. He annotated books in English, German, Italian, Latin, and Greek, with some excursions into French and Hebrew. He read knowledgeably in the areas of literature, theology, philosophy, science, and politics; he also enjoyed history, biography, and books of travels.

More specifically, Jackson enumerates that, of the titles that Coleridge annotated, sixty-three related to German philosophy; fifty-four, contemporary politics; fifty-two, ‘religious controversy’; and forty-eight, ‘contemporary

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literature in English’. Coleridge’s proficiency with both German language and philosophy, for instance, manifests on the verso of the title page of Biographia Literaria, where an extract from Goethe’s Propyläen is first reproduced verbatim and then translated (Engel 2002, 63).7 Modiano (1985, 262) provides an example of Coleridge’s pedagogical annotations: in his annotated copy of Lorenz Oken’s Lehrbruch der Naturphilosophie, ‘there is a note on a piece of paper bound with the volume which contains a reference to Karl Christian Wolfart and briefly discusses animal magnetism’. Moreover, Modiano (1985, 266, 268) has witnessed in marginal notes in Coleridge’s annotated copies of Carl Alexander Ferdinand Kluge’s Versuch einer Darstellung des animalischen Magnetismus, als Heilmittel (1815, pp.  164–5) and J.  A. Reimarus’s Uber die Gründe der menschlichen Erkenntniss und der natürlichen Religion (1787, pp. 15–17) Coleridge frequently citing ‘Christian von Wolff’s notion that “Into every act of perception imagination flows effectively”, [which] comes from Ernst Platner […] even though Coleridge was acquainted with Wolff’s works’. From this, and put very simply, it is evident that Coleridge was a very experienced annotator. As Wagstaff (2012, 4) observes, ‘Coleridge […] marked up multiple copies of the same book in different ways (e.g. personal use, critical commentary, and critical editing)’. Underpinning the successful execution of these ‘different ways’, as critical reader, was Coleridge’s meticulous mark-up practices. Jack Stillinger (1994, 11) mentions in Coleridge and Textual Instability that Coleridge’s meticulous nature manifested in almost all aspects of his life: ‘But he was also— some of the time, at least—almost obsessive in his exercise of precision, accuracy, and even (occasionally) punctuality.’ The first of these practices according to Jackson (2001, 160)—that is, the manner in which Coleridge annotated—depended on the expectations of his audience: ‘They had to be legible; therefore they are generally written in a clear hand, and in ink’. However, he substituted pencil lead for ink at times, such as for his brother-in-law Robert Southey’s titles, owing to the inferior quality of paper; Coleridge complained that ‘“the paper retains the Ink but the Ink will not retain the Letters”’. And second, Coleridge created an efficient albeit at times eccentric ‘shorthand system’, such as ‘to criticize Southey’s part of the poem Joan of Arc’ (p.  29), a poem they co-authored in 1814. In this instance, Jackson (2003, 66) notes in 7

 See also Schroeder (1999, 30).

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a separate publication, A Book I Value: Selected Marginalia, that Coleridge marked his annotations in red pencil: S.E. means Southey’s English, i.e. no English at all N. means Nonense. J. means discordant Jingle of sound—one word rhyming or half-­ rhyming to another proving either utter want of ears, or else vert long ones. L. M. = ludicrous metaphor. I. M. = incongruous metaphor. S. = pseudo-poetic Slang, generally, too, not English. Hence, the margins on the page were habitable zones for Coleridge— rather than typifying textual limitation, these spaces harboured elastic creativity, as observed by Modiano (1985, 257): ‘Coleridge developed his finest thinking in fragmentary form, and the marginal annotation became for him the most comfortable and productive method of composition’. This is as true for his authorial editorial mark-up in Ashley MS 408 as for his critical annotations.

Coleridge’s Poems (Ashley MS 408) As previously mentioned, Ashley MS 408 might be considered a type of palimpsest. Its original content is the printed pages of the first edition of Coleridge’s Poems on Various Subjects, which was published on 16 April 1796 (Stillinger 1994; Ashton 1996). The imprint on the title page of Poems provides the following: ‘London: Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson, and J. Cottle, Bookseller, Bristol’; the printer is not identified here or elsewhere. ‘G. G. and J. Robinson’ are booksellers (and brothers) George and John Robinson, who had operated in partnership since 1784 with the latter’s son, George, on Paternoster Row in London (Raven 2007; Stillinger 1994). Joseph Cottle, a bookseller and stationer based in Bristol and patron of Coleridge,8 bought the copyright of Coleridge’s poems for thirty guineas in 1794 (Ashton 1996). Ralph Manogue (2007) hazards that this first edition was ‘probably printed’ by Nathaniel Biggs, a master printer with whom Cottle established a partnership at St Augustine’s Back, Bristol, in 1798 and which continued until 1800. Coleridge’s Poems 8  In a letter to Cottle dated 7 March 1795, Coleridge (1956, 153–4) asked for Cottle’s assistance with paying his accommodation bill in Bristol: ‘Can you conveniently lend me five pounds, as we want a little more than four pounds to make up our lodging bill’.

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features fifty-one poems, including ‘Monody on the Death of Chatterton’, ‘Songs of the Pixies’; thirty-six ‘effusions’ or smaller poems, four of which were written by Charles Lamb; and ‘Religious Musings’. Coleridge provided a preface as preliminary matter, in which he explained his rationale for composing the poems; and approximately nine pages of explanatory notes, errata page and advertisement for his other publications, such as The Watchman, as end matter. The palimpsestic material comprises Coleridge’s hand mark-up in ink of his corrections to the first edition of Poems, either in the margin or interlineally; handwritten additional copy to be inserted, namely an ‘advertisement’ or preface as preliminary matter; corrected typeset proofs of the second edition; ‘two successive proofs of “Ode on the Departing Year” set up as “a separate Foolscap Octavo Pamphlet” and corrected in Coleridge’s hand’ (Stephens 1974, 391–2); his commentary, or notes; and his directions to his compositor, which are often scathing in tone. Cottle organised for Biggs to print the second edition in 1797, entitled Poems, by S.  T. Coleridge, Second Edition, To which are now added Poems of Charles Lamb, and Charles Lloyd; the Robinsons were once again the London booksellers. Of these, Coleridge contributed ten new poems; Lamb, approximately forty pages of poems; and Charles Lloyd, one hundred pages of poems (Stillinger 1994). Coleridge’s mark-up—his authorial metalanguage, or editorial practice—in Ashley MS 408 reveals both his familiarity with using proofreading symbols, and how he both emulates and adapts the instruction provided in contemporary printer’s manuals, specifically Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises and Smith’s The Printer’s Grammar. As discussed in Chap. 2, Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises was not only the first printer’s manual published in English for the contemporary book trade: it was also the first to feature proofreading symbols, or marks, and to provide advice both to correctors regarding their use and to authors for the correct presentation of their manuscript copy. In his ‘Advertisement to Authors’, Moxon (1683, 265) urges authors to ‘examine his Copy very well e’re he deliver it to the Printer, and to Point it, and mark it so as the Compositer may know what Words to set in Italick, English, Capitals, &c.’ For authors to complete the second task, Moxon recommends directly afterwards: ‘For his Italick Words he draws a line under them thus : For English Words he draws two lines under them thus; and for Capitals a line of Pricks thus , or else draws a line with Red Inck.’ His closing remarks to authors provides them with a glimpse into the practicalities of a printing house—that is, how the presentation of manuscript copy affects compositors’ execution of their work:

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Thus in all particulars he takes care to deliver his Copy perfect : For then he may expect to have his Book perfectly Printed. For by no means he ought to hope to mend it in the Proof, the Compositer not being obliged to it : And it cannot reasonably be expected he should be so good Natured to take so much pains to mend such Alterations as the second Dictates of an Author may make, unless he be very well paid for it over and above what he agreed for with the Master-­ Printer. (p. 266)

While not addressing authors directly but the print trade generally, Smith (1755, 273) similarly lists and describes in The Printer’s Grammar the use of proofreading marks, and identifies authors’ responsibility to provide accurate, presentable manuscript copy for typesetting: ‘it is an Author’s province to prevent mistakes […] either by delivering his Copy very accurate, and fairly written, or by carefully perusing the Proof-sheet’. Further on, Smith advises that if mistakes persist in the typeset page proofs, it is not the compositors who are ‘answerable’ for them but correctors and authors— probably much to the latter’s potentially justified dismay and outrage: The manner in which Correctors take notice of faults in a Proof, is by particular symbols and signs, that are marked in the Margin, opposite the line that has the faults in it : for it is a General Law in Printing, That whatsoever fault is not marked or taken notice of in the Margin, the Compositor is not answerable for, if it passes unobserved, and not corrected. (p. 275)

Coleridge’s hand-marked corrections include changes to the numbered lines of poems; the emendation of single words or phrases; the replacement of blocks of text with new copy; and his adherence to, and frequent adaptation of, proofreading marks. An example of Coleridge’s correction of the numbered lines of poems is provided in Fig. 9.1, which is a page from the first edition of his poem ‘Religious Musings’. Here, Coleridge (1796/97, f. 16v) strikes through poem line numbers to be deleted and indicates the correct ones on their respective lines in the margin. He uses an identical style on this page for emending words, striking through ‘Dost roam’ on corrected line 281 and ‘Lifteth’ on new line 282 and writing the respective replacement text ‘Roamest’ and ‘Dost lift’ interlineally, or directly above. Such mark-up adheres generally to the simple strikethrough system, as articulated by Smith (1755, 275): ‘If [correctors] espy a wrong letter in a word, they draw a short stroke through it, and make another short stroke in the Margin, behind which they mark the latter that is to make the word right; and this they do to all other faults that may happen in the same line; always drawing a perpendicular stoke thro’ the wrong letter, and marking

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the right one in the Margin, with a similar stroke before it’. In this case, Coleridge marks his corrections interlineally, or above the line, not in the margins (except for the numbers). Though Coleridge frequently marks the substitute text in the margin as well, with or without the oblique before the corrected word (see Figs. 9.3 and 9.5).9 For blocks of text to be replaced, Coleridge adapts Moxon’s instruction on using the caret for text insertion. Moxon (1683, 262) advised that ‘[if] a Word or Words, or Letter, or Point be Left out he makes this mark ^ where it is Left out for a mark of Insertion, and Writes in the Margin what must come in’; Smith (1755) provided no advice regarding the application of the caret. In contrast, Coleridge (1796/97, f. 16v) strikes through the text block for lines 291–5 with multiple lines, inserts three spaced carets above line 291 and aligned left, and then writes the substitute copy on the blank verso directly opposite, with the spaced carets similarly placed above the first line (see Fig. 9.1).

Fig. 9.1  Coleridge’s corrections to numbered lines and specific words, and replacement of blocks of text in Ashley MS 408 (f. 16v). (British Library)  Note that Moxon (1683) indicated the oblique be placed after the marginal copy, which is standard practice today. 9

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Coleridge’s heavy hand mark-up for the page headed ‘Notes on the Monody to Chatterton’ is evidence of both his use of proofreading marks and his adherence to the instruction in contemporary printer’s manuals (see Fig. 9.2). For the deletion of textual matter, Coleridge (1796/97, f. 36r) strikes through with parallel lines the subheading ‘on the Monody to Chatterton’ and writes the deleatur in the margin opposite to direct the compositor to remove it. Similar deletion also occurs for lines four to six. This corresponds to Smith’s (1755, 276) instruction: ‘If a letter or letters, word or words are set double, or otherwise require to be taken out, they draw a dash cross the superfluous word, or a parallel stoke down the useless letter, and make this mark of deleatur […] in the Margin’. To italicise words, Coleridge underlines ‘attempted’ and writes ‘Ital.’ in the margin to indicate that the compositor needs to italicise this word. Once again, this abides by Smith’s instruction: ‘If letters or words of one sort of characters are to be changed into another, they make a stroke underneath the word or letter, and intimate on the Margin in what Letter it is to be, by marking Rom. or Ital. accordingly’ (p. 277). In the middle of the s­econd-­last line, immediately after the brief sentence ‘Walpole writes thus’, Coleridge (1796/97, f. 36r) positions first one caret below the base line and then another in the margin opposite with quotation marks above and slightly to the left to communicate that the text after the quotation marks is cited material. Neither Moxon (1683) nor Smith (1755) explain in their manuals how to insert quotation marks using proofreading symbols; such instruction does not feature in English printer’s manuals until Caleb Stower’s (1808, 216–18) The Printer’s Grammar. In this way, Coleridge’s mark-up demonstrates how he adapts contemporary proofreading marks to suit his requirements. Further evidence of Coleridge’s observance of contemporary proofreading marks features in Fig. 9.3. Here, Coleridge (1796/97, f. 61r) strikes through the third line and writes the replacement text between the first and second lines: ‘O’er Nature struggling in portentous birth’. He deletes a punctuation mark after ‘Jubilee’ and places the deleatur directly beside it, this time with an oblique before it according to Smith’s (1755, 275) instruction. On the next line, Coleridge (1796/97) marks a caret after ‘Truth’ and indicates in the margin with another caret and an encircled full stop that a full stop needs to be inserted. Lastly, he manually capitalises the ‘T’ of ‘they’ directly after the inserted full stop. Again, neither Moxon (1683) nor Smith (1755) explain in their manuals how to insert punctuation marks such as the full stop using proofreading marks explicitly; such instruction

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Fig. 9.2  Coleridge’s use of contemporary proofreading marks, such as the deleatur and ‘Ital’, in Ashley MS 408 (f. 36r). (British Library)

eventually emerges in Stower’s (1808, 218) The Printer’s Grammar: ‘Where the punctuation requires to be altered, the semicolon, colon, and period, if marked in the margin, should be encircled.’ This example appears to capture a nascent editorial practice, of which dedicated authors like Coleridge were aware, that was awaiting standardisation in the early nineteenth century.

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Fig. 9.3  Coleridge’s use of contemporary proofreading marks, such as the caret, in Ashley MS 408 (f. 61r). (British Library)

In the first edition of Poems, Coleridge’s notes appear after each poem, opening with headings such as ‘Notes on the Monody to Chatterton’ (see Fig. 9.2), rather than as a footnote at the bottom of each page or collectively as endnotes in an appendix. For additional notes to be inserted by the compositor for the second edition, Coleridge (1796/97, f. 24v–25r) writes on the opposite blank verso first the line to which the note refers, headed as ‘Note 316’ for the poem ‘Religious Musings’ (see Fig. 9.4a), and then the note itself. In this case, for line 316 (‘Ev’n now the storm begins: each gentle name’) on the recto, his handwritten note explains that the ‘passage alludes to the French Revolution : and then the subsequent paragraph to the downfall of Religious Establishments’ and so on. Furthermore, on the third line of hand mark-up on the verso, Coleridge had neglected to include the word ‘paragraph’. To remedy this, he inserts ‘paragraph’ above his writing at the appropriate place, with two carets directly underneath. In contrast, Coleridge’s (1797b, 141) notes in the second edition appear as footnotes (in Fig. 9.4b). This final copy applies now to line 320, not 316. As observed in Chap. 4, Smith (1755, 75) was the first of the authors of printer’s manuals to define references (‘References are called, all such Marks and Signs are used in matter which has either side or bottom Notes’) and provide instruction on how they should be typeset (‘References which are used in Works with Notes to them, are variously represented,

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tho’ oftener by Letters, than other characters’). Hence, for Coleridge’s (1797b, 141) second edition of Poems, the compositors typeset according to an adapted design: they correctly placed the footnotes at the bottom of the page; however, superior letters or characters usually placed within the text to notify readers of the accompanying footnotes were replaced by the thinly spaced double rule with headings, such as ‘Note to Line 320’, with title capitalisation.

Fig. 9.4  (a) Coleridge’s handwritten note on the blank verso for line 316 of ‘Religious Musings’ in Ashley MS 408 (f. 24v–25r). (British Library); (b) the typeset footnote in the second edition

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Coleridge’s handwritten ‘directions’ on the typeset pages vary from practical instructions to the compositor on where to position copy to effusive exasperation over poor typesetting to criticism regarding the ‘printer’s’ proficiency with the English language. For the first, Coleridge’s (1796/97, f. 1r) sobriety is apparent when he advises the compositor where to insert his ‘Advertisement’ or preface. For this, he writes his direction on the blank recto preceding the next recto that features his handwritten ‘Advertisement’ copy: ‘N. B. To be placed before the poems which I have retained’. For the second, Coleridge (1796/97, f. 49r) becomes exasperated when he observes in his ‘Notes’ section that excessive white space had been left between three paragraphs on the one page. Writing identical copy between each paragraph, Coleridge exclaims: ‘Good heavens! What a gap!’ Another example of his irritation occurs on the blank verso that immediately follows the opening title page for the poem ‘Ode on the Departing Dear’ (f. 58r). Here, he complains that his previously supplied ‘Motto’ had not been included on that title page: ‘The Motto —! Where is the Motto —? I would not have lost the Motto for a kingdom. ‘Twas the best part of the Ode’ (f. 59v). According to Stephens (1974, 401), Coleridge had ‘intended the quotation from Æschylus’ Agamemnon to be printed’. And for the third, while checking content under the ‘Strophe II’ subheading for the same poem, Coleridge (1796/97, f. 60v) becomes vociferous when he discovers that a grammatical error had been introduced into the typeset pages: an ill-placed apostrophe modifying a verb into a possessive noun (see Fig.  9.5). The line ‘Love illumine’s Manhood’s maze’ on the page clearly features Coleridge’s mark-up to ­correct the error. He strikes through the apostrophe—so determinedly that he inadvertently includes the ‘s’ in his action, thus requiring him to write ‘illumines’ entirely in the margin opposite (with an exclamation mark)—and writes the following lament alongside: ‘That villainous apostrophe belongs to the Genitive Case of Substantives only—it should be illumines. O that Printers were wise!’ Stillinger (1994, 12) explains in Coleridge and Textual Instability that the second edition ‘was a long time in production and changed shape several times’ and that Coleridge was proofreading ‘“loose sheets” from April through June [1797], finding many printing errors in the process’ (p. 13). Therefore, were Coleridge’s strident exclamations ‘Good heavens! What a gap!’ and ‘O that Printers were wise!’ unfortunate products of the second edition’s lengthy and problematic production process, or were they representative of a more complex author–publisher/bookseller relationship?

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Fig. 9.5  Coleridge’s virtually inconsolable lament over his printer’s (or compositor’s) incorrect grammar in Ashley MS 408 (f. 60v). (British Library)

Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that even while Coleridge laments the perceived shortcomings of printers, particularly their ignorance of grammar, he maintains his editorial attention to detail by underlining words in his annotations that would require italics—if they were to be printed—to convey his heartfelt emphasis.

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Coleridge’s mark-up in Ashley MS 408 therefore provides evidence of not only how early modern printer’s manuals influenced authors’ correction of typeset page proofs but also how they judged the proficiency of such stakeholders as compositors and printers. In this way, Coleridge’s mark-up—his authorial metalanguage or editorial practice—made it possible for him to share the same working space as publishers and various stakeholders, such as compositors and printers, in printing houses. This sharing of space through authorial metalanguage afforded by contemporary style guides, no matter within the conceptual and/or literal margins of the page, returned to authors their equal engagement in the book-­ making process. In Proof-reading in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Percy Simpson (1935, 42) provided evidence for authors visiting their printers on-site to check page proofs; however, from the eighteenth century, printers preferred their authors to correct their proofs off-site, unless the checking was urgent.10 Therefore, while not inhabiting the literal space of on-site stakeholders, authors could not be entirely sidelined—their use of the same language as that of the print trade enabled their hands-on labour to sit alongside, accompany and even challenge the negotiation and typesetting of content on the page.

References Ashton, Rosemary. 1996. The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Christie, William. 1996. The Printer’s Devil in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria. Prose Studies 19 (1): 37–54. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 1796/97. Poems. Shelf no. 674B. British Library. ———. 1797a. The Monk: A Romance. The Critical Review, or, Annals of Literature 19: 194–200. ———. 1797b. Poems, by S. T. Coleridge, Second Edition, to which Are Now Added Poems of Charles Lamb, and Charles Lloyd. London: Printed by N. Briggs for J. Cottle, Bristol, and Messrs Robinsons, London. ———. 1817. Biographia Literaria ; or the Biographical Sketches of my Literary Life and Opinions. Vol. 1. London: Rest Fenner. ———. 1819. Character of sir Thomas Brown as a Writer. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 23: 197–198. ———. 1956. Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Earl Leslie Griggs, vol. 1, 1785–1800. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.  This was supported later by Malone (2006, 404). See also Johns (1998, 102–4).

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———. 2001. The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. H.J.  Jackson and George Whalley, Vol. 75, Marginalia, Part VI: Valckenaer to Zwick. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, and Ernest Hartley Coleridge. 1895. Anima Poetæ: From the Unpublished Note-Books of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge. London: William Heinemann. Engel, James. 2002. Biographia Literaria. In The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge, ed. Lucy Newlyn, 59–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Erdman, David V. 1961. Coleridge on Coleridge: The Context (and Text) of his Review of “Mr Coleridge’s Second Lay Sermon”. Studies in Romanticism 1 (1): 47–64. Jackson, Heather. 2001. Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books. New Haven: Yale University Press. Jackson, H.J. 2003. A Book I Value: Selected Marginalia. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Johns, Adrian. 1998. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kernan, Samuel. 1989. Samuel Johnson and the Impact of Print. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Knox, Julian. 2010. Coleridge’s “Cousin-German”: Blackwood’s, Alter-Egos, and the Making of a Man of Letters. European Romantic Review 21 (4): 425–446. Malone, Edward A. 2006. Learned Correctors as Technical Editors: Specialization and Collaboration in Early Modern European Printing Houses. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 20 (4): 389–424. Manogue, Ralph A. 2007. Cottle, Joseph (1770–1853). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/6407. Accessed 27 Feb 2019. Modiano, Raimondo. 1985. Coleridge’s Marginalia. Text 2: 257–268. Moxon, Joseph. 1683. Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. The Second Volumne [Sic]. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the Sign of Atlas. O’Connor, Francis X. 2014. Literary Folios and Ideas of the Book in Early Modern England. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Raven, James. 2007. The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade 1450–1850. New Haven: Yale University Press. Schroeder, Steven. 1999. The Metaphysics of Cooperation: A Study of F. D. Maurice. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Sherman, William H. 2008. Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Simpson, Percy. 1935. Proof-Reading in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. London: Oxford University Press.

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Smith, John. 1755. The Printer’s Grammar. London: Printed for the Editor; and Sold by W.  Owen, Near Temple Bar; and by M.  Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row. Stephens, Fran Carlock. 1974. Cottle, Wise, and “MS. Ashley 408”. The Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America 68: 391–406. Stillinger, Jack. 1994. Coleridge and Textual Instability: The Multiple Versions of the Major Poems. New York: Oxford University Press. Stower, Caleb. 1808. The Printer’s Grammar ; or, Introduction to the Art of Printing : A Concise History of the Art, with the Improvements in the Practice of Printing, for the Last Fifty Years. London: Printed by the Editor, 32, Paternoster Row, for B. Crosby and Co. Stationers’-Court. Wagstaff. 2012. The Evolution of Marginalia. LIBR 200–10, San Jose University. www.wkiri.com/slis/wagstaff-libr200-marginalia-1col.pdf. Accessed 27 Feb 2019. Whitaker, Elaine. 1994. A Collaboration of Readers: Categorization of the Annotations in Copies of Caxton’s Royal Book. Text 7: 233–242.

CHAPTER 10

Conclusion

The principal focus of this book entailed an investigation into the evolution and practice of editorial style in early modern England, from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. Its two objectives were to provide a historical study of the evolution of editorial style and its progress towards standardisation through an examination of early modern style guides; and to explore how multiple stakeholders—authors, editors and printers—either directly implemented, or uniquely interpreted and adapted, the guidelines of these contemporary style guides as part of their inherently human editorial practice. Therefore, to interpret in an editorial sense Shakespeare’s notable observations from As You Like It—‘All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players’—the stakeholders in the print trade (‘the players’) perform their work not only idiosyncratically but also interdependently to publish content. The resources to which they referred, namely their style guides, both directed and enabled these editorial performances. Conducting comparative textual analyses of early modern style guides from Hieronymus Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia (1608) to Caleb Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar (1808)—including John Johnson’s Typographia, Or, The Printers’ Instructor (1824), Thomas C. Hansard’s Typographia (1825), Charles H. Timperley’s The Printer’s Manual (1838) and William Savage’s A Dictionary of the Art of Printing (1841) as support—addressed this book’s first objective: a punctuated evolution © The Author(s) 2019 J. Hargrave, The Evolution of Editorial Style in Early Modern England, New Directions in Book History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20275-0_10

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Editorial innovation

of ­editorial style was observed, not a gradual one, through a process of generational intertextual inheritance. Hornschuch published the first printer’s manual in Leipzig, Germany, for correctors primarily but authors as well. Joseph Moxon in Mechanick Exercises extended Hornschuch’s teaching in 1683 to provide the English print trade with its own manual. John Smith represented the pinnacle of editorial style in 1755, when he explained in The Printer’s Grammar the fundamentals of not only letters and their typography and typesetting but also, for the first time in the one English manual, the specifics of punctuation. Luckombe, Stower, Johnson, Hansard, Timperley and Savage reproduced verbatim, adapted and modernised the texts of Moxon and Smith to varying degrees. It is true that Luckombe observed the modern use of quotation marks; however, Stower was the only modernising editor in the nineteenth century to contribute editorial innovation. Figure 10.1 offers a visual representation of the punctuated evolution of editorial style—the number of editorial innovations in the printer’s manuals of Hornschuch, Moxon, Smith, Luckombe and Stower. All contribute to the generational intertextual inheritance of discourse on editorial style; Johnson and Timperley participated in this discourse, albeit their publications represented their inheritance mostly through their verbatim reproduction. Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia resides outside the geographical scope of this book; however, as the global print trade’s first printer’s manual, it needs to be recognised appropriately. 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Hornschuch (1608)

Moxon (1683)

Smith (1755) Luckombe (1770)

Stower (1808)

Editor Fig. 10.1  A punctuated evolution of editorial style

John Johnson (1824)

C. H. Timperley (1838)

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Hornschuch (1972) outlined how to ensure the proper sequencing of pages; instructed on the correct placement of catchwords (or directions) and signatures; listed and described proof-correction marks, such as the caret, space and deletion marks; offered guidelines on how to correct page proofs—the first ever in print; and advised authors regarding the proper preparation of manuscript copy. Hornschuch consequently prepared the editorial groundwork for all forthcoming authors such as Moxon. The innovations of Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises (1683) included the justification and spacing of copy; the typesetting of title pages, headings and multi-lined capitals; instruction on capitalisation and italicisation; explanation of how to cast off copy using an arithmetical cast-off method; the typesetting of marginalia; amendments and additions to proofreading marks, specifically the use of obliques not semicolons to separate consecutive mark-up on the same line; the devising of ‘Out’ and ‘See the Copy’ instruction and simplification of  the transposal (or rearrangement) of words; a standardised process for checking page proofs; and more detailed advice for authors to hand-mark their manuscript copy to assist compositors with accurate typesetting. While comparative analysis of Hornschuch’s Orthotypographia and Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises revealed the indebtedness of the latter to the former, namely his inheritance of proof-correction symbols, Moxon’s enduring editorial legacy is his standardisation of the editorial process from reception of authorial manuscript to its final correction. In regard to The Printer’s Manual, Smith’s (1755) editorial innovations, including the supply of common information not yet presented to the print trade in the one manual, were instruction on the application of roman, italic, blackletter; the complexities of kerning; small and large capitals; ligatures; accented letters; figures/numbers, including foreign languages, such as Greek and Hebrew; punctuation (known at that time as ‘pointing’), such as colons, semicolons, question marks, hyphens, apostrophes and parentheses; referencing and the symbols used; spaces and spacing; quadrats (rules) and braces; a letter-based cast-off method; the typesetting of running titles and headings; the indentation of body text after headings; the typesetting of prelims, such as contents pages and prefaces; the typesetting of end matter, such as indexes; and amendments to proofreading marks, namely reinstating Hornschuch’s close-up ( ᴗ ) symbol, providing more specific instruction on run-on text and including ‘stet’, the first time to appear in an English manual. Moreover, Smith’s manual was the first to feature Greek abbreviations; various foreign alphabets, such as Arabic, Syrian, Coptic and Chinese; algebraic and geometrical sorts, such as addition, subtraction, division and mul-

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tiplication operators; celestial and astronomical signs; and musical signs. Through this Smith’s place at the pinnacle of editorial style’s progress towards standardisation is clear, albeit at times being underpinned by the work of Dominque Fertel (1723). Moreover, as witnessed in Chap. 4 of this book, Smith’s instruction in The Printer’s Grammar sought to standardise the print production process. Luckombe’s (1770) The History of the Origin and Progress of Printing contained virtually no innovation, besides a modern demonstration of quotation marks, where inverted commas are placed at the start and end of a quotation only. Instead, Luckombe legally—and liberally—reproduced content from the manuals of Moxon and Smith to achieve his Britanno-centric agenda. In contrast, Stower (1808) observed in The Printer’s Grammar the standardisation of hyphenation and spelling; devised a more efficient and enduring word-based cast-off method; supplied the first exemplar that visually captured editorial practice at work; and improved on methods for correcting manuscript copy and typeset page proofs, namely textual insertion; the transposing of words, the capitalising of content, the representation of punctuation marks in margins, and the insertion of not only hyphens and ellipsis lines, but also apostrophes, inverted commas (or quotation marks), asterisks and other references, and superior letters and figures. Johnson’s (1824) single innovation must be recognised, as illustrated by Fig.  10.1: his contribution to the intertextual discourse of editorial mark-up was providing instruction on how to correct copy typeset in the wrong font and devising the symbol ‘w.f.’ that is accordingly inserted in the margin, a symbol that persists today. Consequently, Stower demonstrated no discernible agenda, besides modernising the typographic and editorial instruction of Moxon and Smith for his nineteenth-century audience. The second objective of this book was to witness how the rules and guidelines of early modern style guides were idiosyncratically interpreted, implemented and adapted by contemporary editors, printers and authors at work as part of their inherently human editorial practice. Moxon demonstrated how his publications, such as A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie (1659), manifested an editorial style that mirrored the one provided in his Mechanick Exercises. Through this, the concept of ‘architecture of the page’ was developed to demonstrate how Moxon’s output worked towards standardising instruction on, or documenting, the early modern living page—that is, providing a virtual template of the page for not just successive publications produced in the eighteenth century but

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those of today. Barrow’s (1660, 1686, 1705) objective when translating The Elements of Euclid from Greek to Latin to English was pedagogical and content-driven: he employed capitals to highlight keywords, italic to emphasise paratextual matter, and both a three-level cross-referencing system and the method of intermingling words with symbols to afford user-­ friendly negotiation between theory and practice. In contrast, Simson’s (1756) translation promoted the superiority of his authority—his legacy— and the inferior ‘otherness’ of myriad editors who preceded him. He achieved his visibility through his specific application of double quotation marks and his ‘Notes’ appendix. Lastly, Whitaker’s (1813) Romantic medievalism endeavoured to present William Langland’s fourteenth-­ century dream-vision poem Piers Plowman on Langland’s own terms but in a manner that would be sufficiently palatable to his nineteenth-century audience. Whitaker’s use of black letter and red ink, together with his punctuation style in his ‘paraphrasing’ translations, exemplifies this. Whether these editors succeeded or failed is not an issue, particularly in the case of Whitaker; rather, their editorial performances symbolise intrinsically human, personal endeavours and the comparative analyses of these endeavours with contemporary styles guides offered potential reasons why they made certain editorial decisions over others. In addition, the final chapter explored how Coleridge’s (1796/97) mark-up in Ashley MS 408 revealed his familiarity with using proofreading marks, and how he both emulated and adapted the instruction provided in contemporary style guides, specifically those of Moxon and Smith. Indeed, certain editorial mark-up appeared to foreshadow the instruction of Stower; this included how to insert punctuation marks such as full stops into typeset pages. Through this, a more general understanding was obtained of not only how early modern style guides influenced authors’ correction of typeset page proofs, but also how marginal spaces on the typeset page offered authors the textual landscape to communicate with, and often judge the proficiency of, stakeholders within printing houses, such as compositors and printers. Through this, marginal spaces represented the means by which authors were able to equitably share the same conceptual and literal working spaces as their professional counterparts—not in the habitable zones of the printing house, but the elastic margins of the page. Therefore, both critically mapping the editorial style guides of early modern England and using comparative textual analyses of select publications to understand how the style guides were variously inter­ preted, implemented and adapted by contemporary authors, editors and

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printers provide modern stakeholders in the print trade with an appreciation of how editorial style evolved. The evolution of editorial style was a punctuated one through a process of generational intertextual inheritance, rather than a gradual one. Certainly, editorial styles guides, either early modern or contemporary, cannot be treated equally owing to their chronological, social and cultural differences. According to Janssen (2000, 162), for the early modern context, ‘Those who use these manuals as a source of typographical techniques and practices should consider that these techniques and practices were so pluriform that a manual cannot possibly reflect “a definite” reality, not even “a likely” reality’. Nevertheless, the comparative textual analyses of specific style guides—from Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises to Stower’s The Printer’s Grammar—illuminated editorial style’s journey to standardisation, which has served to inform modern editors’ ‘definite’ reality. Furthermore, considering these guides through an editorial lens, rather than a principally typographical one, assists with refashioning modern perspectives on early modern book-making specifically and book history more generally. It also offers an alternative textual bibliographic approach: that is, marrying theory and practice using early modern styles guides as a catalyst yields insight into the handson technical labour of stakeholders and their specialised interactions in the negotiation and typesetting of content before proceeding to print.

References Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 1796/97. Poems, ed. British Library. Euclid, and Isaac Barrow. 1660. Euclide’s Elements; the Whole Fifteen Books Compendiously Demonstrated. London: Printed by R.  Daniel for William Nealand. Euclid, and Isaac Barrow. 1686. Euclid’s Elements. The Whole Fifteen Books Compendiously Demonstrated by Mr. Isaac Barrow, Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge. And Translated Out of the Latin. London: Printed for Christopher Hussey and E.P. in Little Britain. Euclid, and Isaac Barrow. 1705. Euclide’s Elements; the Whole Fifteen Books Compendiously Demonstrated to Which Is Added Archimedes Theorems of the Sphere and Cylinder, Investigated by the Method of Indivisibles. London: Printed by E.  Redmayne, and to Be Sold by J.  Sprint at the Sign of the Bell in Little-Britain. Euclid, and Robert Simson. 1756. The Elements of Euclid viz. the First Six Books, Together with the Eleventh and Twelfth. In This Edition, the Errors, by Which Theon, or Others, Have Long Ago Vitiated These Books, Are Corrected, and Some

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of Euclid’s Demonstrations Are Restored. By Robert Simson, M. D. Professor of Mathematics in the University of Glasgow, ed. Gale. Glasgow: Printed by Robert and Andrew Foulis Printers to the University. Fertel, Martin Dominique. 1723. La science practique de I’imprimerie. St Omer: Par Martin Dominque Fertel. Hornschuch, Hieronymus. 1972. Orthotypographia. Trans: Gaskell, P. and Bradford, P., Historical Bibliography Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Library. Janssen, Franz A. 2000. The First English and the First Dutch Printer’s Manual: A Comparison. Quaerendo 30 (1): 154–163. Johnson, John. 1824. Typographia, or, the Printers’ Instructor. Vol. 2. London: Published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green. Langland, William, and Thomas Dunham Whitaker. 1813. Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman, item visiones ejusdem de Dowel, Dobet et Dobest. Or, the Vision of William Concerning Peirs Plouhman, and the Visions of the Same Concerning the Origin, Progress and Perfection of the Christian Life. Ascribed to Robert [or Rather William] Langland and Written in, or Immediately After, the Year 1362. Printed from a MS. Contemporary with the Author, Collated with Two Others; … Together with an Introductory Discourse, a Perpetual Commentary, Annotations, and a Glossary, by T. D. Whitaker. London: B.L. L.P. Luckombe, Philip. 1770. A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing with Practical Instructions to the Trade in General. Compiled from Those Who Have Wrote on This Curious Art. London: Printed and Sold by W. Adlard and J. Browne. Moxon, Joseph. 1659. A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie: Or an Easie and Speedy Way to Know the Use of Both the Globes, Cœlestial and Terrestrial. In Six Books. London: Printed by Joseph Moxon: And Sold at His Shope on Corn-hill, at the Signe of Atlas. ———. 1683. Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. The Second Volumne [sic]. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch, at the Sign of Atlas. Smith, John. 1755. The Printer’s Grammar. London: Printed for the Editor; and Sold by W.  Owen, Near Temple Bar; and by M.  Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row. Stower, Caleb. 1808. The Printer’s Grammar; or, Introduction to the Art of Printing: A Concise History of the Art, with the Improvements in the Practice of Printing, for the Last Fifty Years. London: Printed by the Editor, 32, Paternoster Row, for B. Crosby and Co. Stationers’-Court.

Index1

A Accented letters, 6, 8, 93–96, 172, 175, 176, 192, 259 used in French, 95, 96, 192 Ackerberg-Hastings, Amy, 143 Active stasis, 12, 15, 185, 209 Alberti, Leo Baptista, 57 Alignment, 42, 75, 138n9, 192 Almanac for the Year, 188, 207–209 Amenities of Literature (1841), 223 Ames, Joseph, 101, 153, 163, 164 An Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar (1711), 90, 98, 227 Anglo–American New Critics, 2 An History of the Original Parish of Whalley (1872), 217, 218 Annotations, 89, 97, 134, 137, 208, 209, 237, 239, 239n1, 240, 242–244, 253 See also Marginalia Apostrophes functions of, 109

grammatical function, 110, 252 stakeholders responsible for, in content, 109 Apostrophus, see Apostrophes Architectural typography, 63, 66 Architecture, 60 early modern theories, 56–61 of letters, 60–64, 79, 88 of the page, 65–67, 72, 79, 260 Ashley MS 408, see Poems (Ashley MS 408) (1796/97) Asterisks functions of, 98 substitution for small flowers, 98 Asterism, see Asterisks Authorial copy, 27 Authors inviolable manuscript, 27 mark-up of manuscript copy, 50, 110, 115, 259 original intention, 27 perceptions of authorship, 155, 156

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

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INDEX

Authors (cont.) poorly prepared copy, 28, 86 preparation of manuscript copy, 4, 27, 28, 259 punctuation of copy, 197 B Bacon, Francis, 57, 59, 60 Baigent, Elizabeth, 160, 161 Barker, Nicolas, 66, 72 Baron, Naomi, 88n3, 101 Barrow, Isaac, 14, 123–149, 128n6, 129n7, 137n8, 138n9, 238, 261 application of capitals, 131, 132 application of italics, 131, 132 editorial intermediation, 132–143 editorial legacy, 124, 261 editorial objective, 138 editorial style, 133 intermingling of words and symbols, 132, 141, 143, 261 italicisation of breakout text, 132, 134, 138, 138n9, 146, 149 pedagogical objective, 125, 128, 138, 143, 144, 261 referencing, 132, 137, 139, 141, 143 Barrow-Green, June, 127, 129n7, 137n8 Biggs, Nathaniel, 244, 245 Bigmore, E. C., 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 85 Billingsley, Henry, 59, 60, 125, 126, 132, 136, 137, 139, 141–143, 147, 238 Biographia Literaria (1817), 241, 243 Black letter, 15, 61, 63, 67, 69, 72, 73, 75, 84, 88, 89, 89n4, 89n6, 101, 208, 213, 214, 221–224, 227, 229, 232, 261 Bland, Mark, 66 Bliss, Carey S., 29, 61 Blum, Christopher, 124

Bodies of type, 88, 91, 116, 165 Braces application of, 117, 177 definition of, 117 for omission of text, 71 in tables, 71, 117 in title pages, 71 Breakout text, 132, 134, 138, 138n9, 146, 149 Brewer, Charlotte, 220n6 Brightland, John, 94, 95, 98–100, 102, 103n20, 104, 104n22, 107, 109 Bringhurst, Robert, 24, 24n4 Butler, Charles, 25, 48, 49, 88, 100n15, 104, 104n22, 196 C Capitalisation, 42, 50, 65, 69, 131, 143, 149, 157, 165, 167, 192–194, 251, 259 Capital letters, 8, 27, 39, 40, 42, 49, 66, 77, 92, 106, 119, 135, 174, 194, 241 Caret, 22, 45, 113, 203, 205, 205n14, 247, 248, 250, 259 Carter, Harry, 29, 29n8, 32, 33, 61 Casting-off copy features in authorial copy that impede, 200 Moxon’s arithmetical method, 44, 110, 201 Smith’s criticism of the word-based method, 111 Smith’s letter-based method, 110, 201, 202 Stower’s word-based method, 201, 202 Casting offs, see Casting-off copy Catchwords, 26, 40, 259 Chicago Manual of Style (2017), 1

 INDEX 

Chiswell, Richard, 37 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 240n4, 241n6, 244n8, 261 adaptation of proof-correction marks, 15 as annotator, 240, 243 correction of the numbered lines of poems, 246 criticism of printers’ proficiency, 252 deletion of textual matter, 248 emendation of words, 246 ‘ESTESE’ pseudonym, 241 exasperation over poor typesetting, 252 familiarity with proof-correction marks, 15 hand mark-up, 242, 245, 248, 250 handwritten directions, 237, 245, 250–252 as literary critic, 241 marginalia characteristics, 237–244 marginalia output, 240 pedagogical annotations, 125, 240, 242, 243 placement of footnotes, 241, 250, 251 replacement of blocks of text, 246, 247 shorthand system (for annotations), 243 ‘STC’ signature, 241 as writer, 240, 241 Colons, 101 in biblical references, 104 rhetorical function, 83, 88, 100, 103, 148 in tables, 104 Comes Commercii; or, The Trader’s Companion (1783), 162, 176 Commas function of, 101, 102 grammatical function, 103, 147, 148

267

introduction into England, 101 rhetorical function, 88 Common nouns, 42, 94, 112, 118, 119, 131, 135 Compositor errors, 25 Compositors abiding by author’s copy, 112 case, 93 casting-off copy, 110 composing copy, 43, 112, 202 faulty composition, 26, 86 ‘good Workmanship,’ 40 inaccurate redistribution of type, 26 and punctuation of copy, 45, 197, 198 spelling errors, 27 and spelling variation, 171 The Compositor’s and Pressman’s Guide to the Art of Printing (1808), 189 Compound words, 107 Concordances, see Marginalia A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing, 3, 14, 16, 116, 153–180, 185, 191, 198, 199, 203, 260 Copyright, 153, 158 authorial acknowledgement, 137 copyright infringement, 157 copyright periods, 158 development of legislation, 155 early modern perception of improvement, 155 legal appropriation, 154–160, 202 literary property, 155 Lord Byron’s borrowings from Coleridge, 156 Copyright legislation Copyright Act 1814, 155 Copyright Act 1842, 155 Donaldson v. Becket (1774), 155 government and lack of enforcement, 159

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INDEX

Copyright legislation (cont.) legislative instability, 159 Licensing Act 1662, 33, 155, 157–159 Statute of Anne 1710, 155, 159, 160 Correction inserting punctuation marks, 8, 22, 45, 248, 260, 261 insertion of hyphens, 203, 207, 260 italicising text, 97, 110, 119, 131, 134, 138, 139, 143, 149, 173, 192, 194, 195, 206, 228, 248, 259 text deletion, 22 text insertion, 203, 247 transposal of words, 50 Correctors, 31n11 checking catchwords, 259 checking final pages, 47 checking lower-case sorts in typeset pages, 99 checking page proofs, 15, 22, 25, 45, 50, 97, 113, 115, 120, 164, 198, 210, 237, 254, 259, 261 and compositor errors, 25 ideal characteristics of, 4, 113 role, 25 technical work, 38 use of hyphenation, 26 Cottle, Joseph, 244, 244n8, 245 Crotchets, 8, 97, 99, 104, 108, 109, 137, 195, 196 functions of, 97 Crowley, Robert, 213, 220, 220n5, 221, 221n7, 229 Culpable plagiarism, 155–157 D Darwin, Charles, 11 Davis, Herbert, 29, 29n8, 32, 33, 61 Daye, John, 59, 125

de Vinne, Theodore L., 29, 61 Dee, John, 57, 59, 60, 125, 126 Deleatur, 10, 22, 24, 114, 248, 249 Der in der Buchdruckerei wohl unterrichtete Lehr-Junge, 10, 115 A Dictionary of Printers and Printing (1839), 85, 163, 186, 189 A Dictionary of the Art of Printing (1841), 12, 257 A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), 107, 198, 199 Diëresis, 49, 95, 175 Die Wol-eingerichtete Büchdrückery, 6–8, 10 Diple, 102 Display scripts, 66 D’Israeli, Isaac, 223 Divisions, see Hyphens Donaldson v. Becket (1774), 155 Double dagger (‡), 97, 137, 195, 196 Dryden, John, 72 Dunn, Samuel, 162, 176–179 E Early modern architectural theory, 55 Early modern living page, 13, 79 documenting the early modern living page, 13, 55–79, 260 Editorial decisions, 124, 142, 143, 214, 261 Editorial innovation, 2, 12, 15, 50, 115, 137n8, 200, 210, 258, 259 Editorial performances, 14, 257, 261 Editorial practice, 2, 21 authorial, at work, 2, 15, 237–254, 259 correction, 2, 153, 259 mark-up, 198, 203, 203n13, 204, 244, 260, 261 Editorial standards, 27, 113, 214, 225, 233 Editorial style, 1, 11

 INDEX 

appropriation, 14, 153–180 critical mapping of, 13, 20, 30 eighteenth-century, at work, 13, 83–120, 123–149 evolution, 2, 11–12, 14, 15, 39, 45, 49, 55, 153, 257, 262 modernising, 185–210 nineteenth-century, at work, 185–210, 213–233 punctuated evolution, 2, 11–13, 15, 16, 210, 257, 258 seventeenth-century, at work, 19–50 standardisation, 2, 15, 27, 83, 100, 260 Editorial theory, 2, 13, 19, 83, 149, 153, 214 Eighteenth-century shifts, 120, 146, 194 permissive to prescriptive orthography, 108, 199 rhetorical to grammatical punctuation, 83 typographical, 14, 78, 89, 103, 146, 147, 194 Eldredge, Niles, 11, 12, 185 The Elements of Euclid(e), 14, 123–149, 238, 261 The Elements of Euclid viz. the First Six Books, Together with the Eleventh and Twelfth (1756), 127, 143 Ellipsis line, see Hyphens; Proof-­ correction marks Em dashes, see Em rules Emphatical words, 66, 70, 90, 173, 209 application of italic to, 88, 90 Em rules, 169, 170, 229, 232 Emmons, Paul, 57 The English Grammar (1633), 25, 48 Ernesti, Johann Heinrich Gottfried, 6–8, 10 editorial approach, 7 Exclamation marks, 8, 25, 105, 106n25, 206, 252

269

F Feather, John, 158n7, 158n8 Fertel, Martin Dominique, 8, 9, 95–98, 108, 109, 260 influence on John Smith, 9, 95, 98, 108, 109, 260 Figures, 40, 91, 93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 108, 109, 137, 166, 175, 176, 192, 192n5, 195, 203, 207, 227, 258–260 Fisher, Alice, 95n9, 96n11, 98–100, 102, 103n20, 104n22, 105, 205 Foreign-language words, 42, 66, 90, 118, 119, 146–147 Formatbüchlein darinnen abgesetzte Figuren wie man die Columen aussschiessen soll, 4 Fryer, Benjamin, 11 Full stops, 100 grammatical function, 105 used to abbreviate words, 105 G Gaskell, Barber and Warrilow, 3–6, 8, 9 Gaskell, Philip, 6 Gathering of pages, 22 A General Biographical Dictionary (1851), 216 Generational intertextual inheritance, 12, 13, 16, 153, 155, 174, 175, 258, 262 Gessner, Christian Friedrich, 4, 8–10, 115 Gibson, George, 144, 149 Glosses, 66 Goldstein, Joel A., 127, 143, 144n13, 149 Gould, Stephen Jay, 11, 12, 185 Grafton, Thomas Anthony, 24 A Grammar of the English Tongue (1746), 94, 95, 98

270 

INDEX

Greenwood, James, 90, 94n8, 95n9, 98–100, 102–104, 104n22, 106 Greg, W. W., 2 H Hallerberg, Arthur E., 29 Handover, P. M., 29 Hanging indents, 69, 70, 134 Hansard, Thomas C., 12, 12n3, 33n14, 86, 116, 117, 162, 210, 257, 258 Hatton, Edward, 162, 176, 186–188 Headings alignment, 75, 192 and italic, 75, 94, 110, 134, 139, 196, 259 spacing, 75, 259 Heath, Thomas, 124–129, 143, 144 Heidenreich, Tobias, 4 Herigon, Peter, 129, 141 Hill, Henry, 132 Homonyms, 27 Hooke, Robert, 35 Hornschuch, Hieronymus, 3–7, 12, 13, 19–28, 21n2, 28n7, 40, 45–48, 55, 86, 94, 113–115, 203, 205–207, 210, 257–259 instruction on hyphens, 207 instruction on transposal of words, 115 recommendations to authors, 4, 21 substantive focus, 22 technical instruction, 21, 22, 27 House style, 1 Houston, Keith, 24n4, 97n12, 102n19 Howard-Hill, T. H., 41, 171 Howsam, Leslie, 123 Hugh of St Victor, 57–59 Hunter, Michael, 61 Hyphenation

of compound words, 107 in the mid-eighteenth century, 107, 198 stakeholder responsible for, in copy, 107 and standardisation, 107, 210, 260 Hyphens earliest application, 106 for textual omissions, 107 typesetting, 107 I Ideal corrector, 44 Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century (1822), 215 Imprint, 32, 69, 71, 86n2, 158, 189, 190, 244 Indentation, 42, 66, 75, 94, 112, 113, 132, 134, 135, 138n9, 146, 192, 193, 259 Indexes typesetting, 112, 259 use of italics in, 113 Inscriptions, 61, 64, 65, 67, 69, 93, 105, 118, 175 Inverted commas, 102, 103, 145, 170, 180, 207, 209, 225, 229, 231, 233, 260 typesetting, 96 Italic eighteenth-century functions of, 132 for emphatical words, 70, 88, 90, 173, 209 for foreign-language words, 119 in indexes, 113 literal reference to letters and words, 119 nineteenth-century functions of, 208, 225, 227 original function of, 89, 90

 INDEX 

for proper nouns, 70, 90, 131, 133, 146, 227 seventeenth-century functions of, 133 for textual emphasis, 119, 130, 147, 172, 225, 227 Italicisation, 119, 138, 143, 227, 259 J Jackson, Heather, 240n3, 240n4 Jagger, Graham, 29, 36, 37 Janssen, Frans, 5 Janssen, Frans A., 29, 38, 38n25, 262 Johns, Adrian, 26n6, 29, 34, 36n19, 38 Johnson, John, 12, 203n13, 205, 206, 257, 260 Johnson, Samuel, 107, 198, 199 Justification of copy, 39, 49, 66, 67, 171, 259 K Keill, John, 126, 129 Kerning, 41, 65, 67, 69, 72, 91–93, 259 Kinross, Robin, 38 L Lamb, Charles, 240, 245 Langland, William, 15, 213–216, 219, 220n6, 221–225, 227, 229, 230, 232, 261 Large capitals marking on copy for typesetting, 94 traditional function of, 93 La science practique de I’imprimerie, 8, 95–97, 108, 109 Leading, 41, 65, 67, 69, 70, 221 Lennard, John, 25

271

Liberal arts, 11, 57–59, 61 Liberal–mechanical arts dissonance, 62, 78–79 Licensing Act 1662 banning of provisional printing, 33 pre-publication licensing, 33, 157 printing rights, 157, 158 Ligatures, 7, 93, 99, 259 Linnaeus, Carolus, 93 Literary property, 155 Litterae notabiliores, 66 Lloyd, Charles, 245 Long, Derek, 29, 34 Lower-case letters, 49, 63, 69, 91, 97, 107, 206 Lower-case sorts, 93, 99 typographic use of, 93 Luckombe, Philip, 3, 12, 14, 16, 23, 116, 117, 153–180, 161n12, 163n13, 172n20, 185, 190–192, 192n5, 194, 198, 199, 201, 203, 203n13, 205, 207, 210, 258, 260 application of em rules, 170 approach to italics, 163 Britanno-centric agenda, 117, 165, 174, 176, 180, 185, 191, 260 capitalisation style, 167, 168 contribution to an intertextual discourse tradition, 157, 164, 175 editorial instruction, 14, 174 editorial legacy, 176–180 editorial omissions, 174 hyphenation style, 168–170 instruction on capital letters, 174 and legal appropriation, 154–160 nineteenth-century critics of, 163 nomenclature and presentation of the founts, 167 and plagiarism, 154–160, 162, 163 punctuation style, 169, 179 and quotation marks, 12, 170, 180

272 

INDEX

Luckombe, Philip (cont.) removal of Smith’s typographical emphasis, 172 reordering of Smith’ text, 165 simplification of headings, 117, 167, 192 sober modernisation, 165, 167, 169, 172, 179 and spelling, 157, 165, 166, 170 and textual appropriation, 14, 153 treatment of accented letters, 175 two-level heading hierarchy, use of, 166 unification of authorial voice, 167, 171, 194 use of quotation marks, 12, 170, 258 M Malone, Edward, 23 Manicule, 8, 137 Manuscript appraisals, 200, 201 Manutius, Aldus, 89, 100, 101, 208 system of punctuation, 101 Marginalia definition of, 238 geographical physicality, 238 handwritten, 237, 238 and ownership, 239, 240 and pedagogy, 239, 240 on the printed page, 237, 238 as references, 238, 242, 243 and social collaboration, 239 Marginal notes, 111, 136–139, 141, 147, 149, 213, 220, 238, 243 See also Marginalia; References Margins as habitable zones, 244, 261 literal working spaces, 261 Mark-up, 2, 15, 24, 47, 48, 50, 94, 110, 113, 175, 198, 203, 203n13, 204, 237, 242–246, 248, 250, 252, 254, 259–261

authorial metalanguage, 245, 254 Maruca, Lisa, 30, 30n9, 31, 34, 34n15, 34n16, 36n18, 38, 87 Mathematical Praeface, 137 Mazzeo, Tilar J., 155 McCreery, John, 190 McKenzie, D. F., 33, 159 McKerrow, R. B., 89n4, 101, 105n24 McKitterick, David, 5, 9, 87, 89n5, 165 Mechanical arts, 11, 36, 37, 57–62, 57n4, 79 and architecture, 59 Mechanick Exercises, or The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing (1683), 3–6, 11–16, 12n3, 19–50, 38n25, 55–79, 124, 127, 131, 133–136, 143, 149, 153, 157–160, 167, 168, 185, 201, 203, 206, 224, 227, 237, 238, 245, 258–260, 262 Mechanick Exercises, or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Arts of Smithing, Joinery, Carpentry, Turning, Bricklayery (1678), 35 Mechanick Exercises, or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works Began Jan. 1, 1677, 11, 56 Monteith, Robert, 90, 103, 106n26, 110, 227 Mosley, James, 5 Moxon, James, 30, 31, 55, 56 Moxon, Joseph, 3, 11, 13, 15, 19–50, 29n8, 30n9, 33n13, 36n21, 37n22, 55–79, 83, 94, 113, 149, 153, 158, 159, 165, 167, 172n20, 185, 202n12, 214, 237, 247n9, 258 architectural principles, 55–79, 227 association with Robert Hooke, 35 checklist for checking page proofs, 50, 259 and copyright, 12, 157

 INDEX 

deference to contemporary grammar textbooks, 205 documenting the early modern living page, 13, 56, 79, 260 editorial focus, 39 editorial legacy, 13, 79, 214, 259 explanation of compositors’ ‘good workmanship,’ 39 explanation of alignment, 65 explanation of justification, 39, 65 in Holland, 30, 32 Hydrographer to the King, 29, 32 ideal corrector, perceptions of, 44 imprint, 31, 56, 60, 67, 72, 158–160 inky-fingered businessman, 30 instruction of architectural typography, 63, 66 instruction on casting-off copy, 39, 43, 198, 201 instruction on headings, 259 instruction on indentation, 65, 134 instruction on italic, 50, 206, 259 instruction on kerning, 91, 259 instruction on marginal notes, 136 instruction on the placement of directions, 39, 66 instruction on the placement of signatures, 40, 259 instruction on title pages, 40, 41, 64 instruction on transposal of words, 50, 115 instruction on using red ink, 224 instruction on using the caret, 247 interest in architecture, 56 and marginalia, 39, 50, 66, 238, 245, 259 political rehabilitation, 31, 55 pragmatic self-fashioning, 38 on presentation of foreign-language words, 42

273

on presentation of headings, 42, 66, 67, 75 on presentation of obsolete English, 42 printing legacy, 29, 32 publishing output, 33 recommendations to authors, 21, 119 relationship with the Royal Society of London, 34, 36, 61, 62 self-positioning, 31, 55, 61 on spacing between words, 64 on spacing of copy, 67 substantive focus, 39, 40 technical instruction, 22 unsullied gentleman-printer, 30, 38 use of multi-lined capitals, 39, 50, 67, 77, 78, 259 use of rules, 61, 71 Multi-lined capitals, 39, 49, 67, 77, 78, 259 Murray, John, 218 N Nealand, William, 126, 127, 129 Neu-auffgesetztes Format-Büchlein, 4 Neu-vorgestelles auf der löblichen Kunst Nuch-druckery gebräuchliches Format-Buch, 6 A New Grammar with Exercises of Bad English (1754), 98, 205 Nichols, John Bowyer, 160, 161 Nichols, John Gough, 214–219 Nightingale, Joseph, 191 Norman, Jeremy, 6 ‘Notes on the Monody to Chatterton,’ 248, 250 Nourse, John, 143 Nue-verfassetes auff der löbel. Kunst-­ Buchdruckery nützlich zu gebrauchendes Format Buch, 6

274 

INDEX

O Obelisk (†) religious use, 97, 98, 196 secular use, 97, 196 Obsolete English, 42, 66 Octothorpe, 24, 24n4 The Origin of Species, 11 Ong, Walter J., 19 Orphans, 65, 66, 132 Orthotypographia (1608), 3–7, 12, 13, 19–28, 21n1, 115, 203, 258, 259 Oughtred, William, 32, 127, 129 (Out), 50, 106, 115, 259 P Page sequencing, 22, 47, 259 Pankow, David, 7, 9 Paragraph (¶), 8, 44, 97, 104, 113, 115, 137, 148, 165, 193, 195–197, 199, 230, 232, 250, 252 Parallel (║), 33, 63, 97, 99, 114, 137, 195, 196, 240, 248 Parentheses, 8, 25, 97, 99, 108, 109, 137, 195, 208, 209, 231–233, 259 Parkes, M. D., 102 Periods, see Full stops; Punctuation Pigeon-holes, see White space Placement of directions, 39, 66 Plagiarism, 153, 154 apologist discourse on, 154 contemporary definition of, 155 culpable, 155–157 discourse of condemnation, 154 early modern definition of, 154 and historical relativism, 154, 155 history of, 154, 162 moral culpability, 154 The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language (1747), 199

Poems (Ashley MS 408) (1796/97), 15, 187, 237–254 Poems, by S. T. Coleridge, Second Edition, To which are now added Poems of Charles Lamb, and Charles Lloyd (1797), 245 Poems on Various Subjects (1796), 237, 244 Pointing, see Punctuation Pollack, Oliver, 94 Porter, James E., 155 Practical Perspective, or, Perspective Made Easie (1670), 56, 70 Pre-publication licences, 33, 157 Pre-publication licensing, 157 Printer’s fist, see Manicule The Printer’s Grammar (1755), 3, 6–10, 12–16, 25, 28, 50, 65, 70, 71, 73, 78, 83–120, 86n2, 124, 127, 134, 136, 145–147, 149, 153, 157, 160, 162, 164, 166, 170, 173, 176, 177, 214, 225, 229, 237, 238, 245, 246, 258, 260 The Printer’s Grammar (1808), 14–16 reintroduction of the caret, 203 three-level heading hierarchy, 137, 192 The Printer’s Manual (1838), 12, 163, 257 The Printer’s Price Book (1814), 189, 190 Printing rights, 157, 158, 160 Print letters black letter, 61, 227 italic, 61, 69 roman, 61, 69, 227 Professionalisation of writing, 155 Proof-correction marks caret, 22, 45, 113, 203, 205, 250, 259 close-up, 114, 259

 INDEX 

commas, 145, 148 crotchets, 23 deleatur, 10, 24, 114, 249 Eng, 47, 115 full stops, 206 hyphens, 45 Ital, 115, 206, 248 joined letters, 22 new paragrahs, 115, 116 (Out), 46, 50, 115, 259 parallel lines, 22, 114, 206 Rom, 115, 206, 248 run-on, 45, 115 (See the Copy), 50, 115, 259 space insertion, 45 stet, 11, 115 transposal of words, 47, 50, 115, 259 turned letters, 22, 114 Proofreading marks, see Proof-­ correction marks Proper nouns, 28, 42, 49, 66, 70, 90, 105, 112, 129, 131, 133, 146, 225, 227 Punctuated equilibrium, 11, 185 Punctuation, 89n5, 104n23, 169 apostrophes, 8, 49, 93, 100, 102, 108–110, 196, 203, 207, 252, 259, 260 colons, 8, 99–101, 103–105, 104n23, 170, 195, 196, 206, 207, 229, 230, 232, 233, 249, 259 commas, 8, 45, 49, 96, 99–104, 106, 108, 110, 145, 147, 148, 169, 170, 196, 197, 203, 206, 207, 209, 225, 229–233, 260 crotchets, 8, 97, 99, 104, 108, 109, 137, 195, 196 dieresis, 95, 175 ellipsis, 203, 207, 229, 260 em rules, 170

275

evolution of, 2, 11–12, 15, 16, 100, 210, 257, 258 exclamation marks, 8, 25, 105, 106n25, 206, 252 first appearance of, 101 full stops, 8, 42, 45, 73, 100, 105, 129, 130, 134, 147, 193, 206, 248, 261 grammatical, 83, 88, 110, 147 hierarchy of points, 99, 101 hyphens, 8, 45, 106, 107, 169, 196, 198, 200, 203, 207, 259, 260 inverted commas, 102, 145 parentheses, 8, 25, 99, 108, 109, 137, 169, 195, 208, 209, 229, 231–233, 259 purpose of, 100, 105, 108, 133, 147 question marks, 101, 105, 105n24, 196, 206, 232, 259 quotation marks, 12, 84, 102, 145, 146, 149, 170, 202, 203, 207, 229, 231, 248, 260, 261 rhetorical, 83, 88, 103, 147 rhetorical–grammatical duality, 100, 147 rules, 48, 259 semicolons, 8, 25, 49, 99, 101, 103–105, 129, 145, 147, 148, 169, 173, 196, 197, 207, 229, 230, 233, 249, 259 stakeholders responsible for, 107 standardisation of, 107 Punctuation marks, 22, 25, 45, 91, 101, 148, 169, 203, 206, 248, 260, 261 origin of, 25 Punctuation theory, 88 Q Quadrats, 91, 93, 99, 146, 259

276 

INDEX

Question marks, 101, 105, 105n24, 196, 206, 232, 259 Quotation marks, 12, 84, 102, 102n19, 145, 146, 149, 169, 170, 202, 203, 207, 229, 231, 248, 258, 260, 261 See also Inverted commas R Red ink, 224n12 obscelence in sixteenth century, 224 traditional functions of, 224 See also Rubrication Reed, Talbot Baines, 29, 61, 163n13 Reference symbols asterisks (∗), 8, 97, 138–140 dagger (†), 8 double dagger (‡), 97, 137 obelisk (†), 97, 99, 137 paragraph (¶), 8, 97, 137 parallel (║), 97, 99, 137 section (§), 8, 97, 137 References, 38, 93, 94, 96, 97, 104, 108, 109, 111, 136–138, 137n8, 173, 194–196, 203, 207, 238, 239, 242, 250, 260 typesetting, 259 Referencing, 97n12 corrections to, 97 eighteenth-century approach to, 97 Regulæ Trium Ordinum, Literarium Typographicarum, or The Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters (1676), 5, 6, 60–65, 67, 78, 79, 227 ‘Religious Musings,’ 245, 246, 250, 251 Rhetorical–grammatical punctuation duality, 100 Rhetorical punctuation, 103, 147 Richardson, Samuel, 86, 86n2 Ritter, Robert, 3

Robinson, George and John, 161n12, 218, 244 Rogers, Owen, 213, 220, 229 Roman–italic complementarity, 90, 146 intermingling, 118 reversal, 133–135, 138 Rose, Mark, 155n2, 155n3, 158, 158n6 Royal Society of London, 30, 36n18, 37n23, 37n24, 61 Rubrication, 214, 221, 222, 224, 232 See also Red ink Rudd, Thomas, 126, 132 Rules brass rules, 71, 72 editorial purpose of, 71 first editorial mention, 71 physical printing, 71 Running heads, 67, 72–76 S Salmon, Vivian, 88, 100n15, 100n16 Savage, William, 12, 12n3, 257, 258 Schmatz, Daniel Michael, 6, 7 Scholarly editors, 191, 210 Section (§), 97, 137 (See the Copy), 46, 115 Semicolons, 25, 147, 169, 173 first use of, 101 grammatical function, 148 rhetorical function, 88 Sherman, William, 239n1 Signatures, 4, 22, 22n3, 39, 40, 40n27, 66, 112, 241, 259 Sign of abbreviation, see Apostrophes Signs of intercalation, see Parentheses Simpkins, Diana M., 127n5, 128, 128n6 Simpson, Percy, 21n1, 27, 28n7, 31n11

 INDEX 

Simson, Robert, 14, 123, 143, 144n13, 148, 261 application of italics, 146 application of quotation marks, 145 application of semicolons, 147, 148, 169 editorial intermediation, 145–149 fashioning authority, 145, 149, 261 Skeat, W. W., 215, 216, 219, 220, 221n7, 221n8, 222n9, 223, 224n12, 227 Small capitals, 61, 63, 73, 93–96, 112, 167, 172n20, 194, 206, 209 Smith, John, 3, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 23, 50, 70, 85n1, 86, 86n2, 89n4, 95, 99–101, 100n15, 104n23, 106, 106n26, 112n27, 113, 114, 149, 153, 164, 165, 167n15, 172n20, 175n21, 192n4, 192n5, 197n8, 200n10, 202n11, 202n12, 203n13, 205n14 association with the German print trade, 8, 84 attention to minutiae, 88, 165 capitalisation errors, 168 capitalisation style, 167 cataloguing bodies of type, 88, 91, 165 complex heading structure, use of, 166 content-driven focus, 87, 116 and copyright, 12 definition of kerned letters, 92 on the deletion of textual matter, 248 on the dual function of commas, 101 editorial legacy, 14, 116–120 editorial practice, 110, 116 first use of stet, 11, 115, 259 on evolution of punctuation, 100 on how to mark large capitals on copy for typesetting, 94, 246 ideal corrector, perceptions of, 88

277

ill-health, 85, 85n1 instruction on accented letters, 95, 175 instruction on braces, 71 instruction on capital letters, 174 instruction on casting-off copy, 200 instruction on colons, 104 instruction on crotchets, 97 instruction on figures, 96 instruction on Greek numerals, 193 instruction on hyphenation, 108, 198 instruction on inverted commas, 102 instruction on italic, 173, 225 instruction on kerning, 65 instruction on lower-case sorts, 99 instruction on referencing, 96, 99, 173 instruction on running heads, 73 instruction on run-on text, 259 instruction on semicolons, 103, 104, 145, 147 instruction on the usage of parentheses, 108 instruction on the use of apostrophes, 109 instruction on transposal of words, 115 instruction on upper-case sorts, 93 italicisation of words, 119 letter-based cast-off method, 110 mark-up instruction, 113 on measuring up the pages of manuscript copy, 112 nineteenth-century critics of, 86 pinnacle of editorial style, 12, 83–120, 260 on print letters, 65 and quotation marks, 170 recommendations to authors, 110 self-positioning, 88 sober instructions to compositors, 86

278 

INDEX

Smith, John (cont.) on typesetting indexes, 96 on the typesetting of inverted commas, 102, 103 on typographical applications of full points, 105 use of complex heading structure, 117 Southey, Robert, 243 Spacing of copy, 49, 66, 67, 259 Spelling impact on typesetting, 135 standardisation of, 41, 171 variation, 88, 171 Stationers’ Company, 33, 34, 157, 158 Statute of Anne, 155, 160 Stedall, Jacqueline, 127 Stet, 11, 115, 259 Stower, Caleb, 3, 12, 14–16, 23, 186n2, 191n3, 192n4, 196n7, 202n11, 203n13 active stasis, 12 application of em rules, 229 approach to black letter, 223 approach to emphatical words, 209 approach to headings, 192 approach to references, 70, 194, 195, 200, 207, 223 association with the Unitarian Fund, 188 contribution to an intertextual discourse tradition, 164 editorial legacy, 14, 205, 207–210 editorial style, 185–210 instruction on asterisks, 195, 203, 207 instruction on casting-off copy, 200 instruction on colons, 229, 233 instruction on hanging indents, 192, 193 instruction on hyphenation, 260 instruction on hyphens, 200, 260

instruction on inserting punctuation, 258 instruction on italic, 206 instruction on mark-up, 203, 261 instruction on parentheses, 195, 209, 231 instruction on quotation marks, 258 instruction on semicolons, 229 instruction on spelling, 107, 210 instruction on transposal of words, 210 and legal appropriation, 202 and manuscript appraisals, 201 modernising editorial style, 14, 192 negotiating editorial style, 194–198 nineteenth-century critics of, 185–210 original contribution to casting-off copy, 197 on poorly punctuated copy, 198 presentation of technical terms, 194 printing output, 188 reinstating editorial style, 191–194 reintroduction of the caret, 205 renaming ‘obelisk’ as ‘dagger,’ 195, 196 as scholarly editor, 191, 207, 210 textual appropriation, 12, 185, 190–192 typesetting of punctuation marks, 206, 260, 261 using Luckombe as a critical resource, 192 Struck, Samuel, 6–8, 84 Styles guides, 1, 3, 16, 123, 153, 262 Superior letters, 97, 137, 203, 207, 251, 260 T Tacquet, André, 141 Taylor, Gary, 79

 INDEX 

Taylor, Henry, 155, 156, 156n4 Taylor, Richard, 191 Textual appropriation, 12, 14, 153, 185, 190–192 Thomas-Stanford, Charles, 124 Timperley, Charles H., 12, 12n3, 85, 86, 163, 186, 189, 203n13, 205, 206, 210, 257, 258 Title pages emphatical words on, 209 and italics, 70 justification of, 41, 67, 69, 259 leading, 65, 67, 69, 70 standardisation of, 41 Toulmin, Joseph, 188 Transposal of words, 50, 115 Treadwell, Michael, 157, 159 The True and Genuine Art, of Exact Pointing (1704), 90, 227 A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie, or an Easie and speedy way to know the Use of both the Globes, Cœlestial and Terrestrial. In six BOOKS (1659), 13, 32, 55, 56, 66–79, 159, 260 Turned letters, 22 Typesetting capital letters, 39, 66 emphatical words, 70, 88, 90, 173, 209 foreign-language words, 39, 66 headings, 39, 42, 49, 66, 67, 112, 259 large multi-lined capitals, 39, 50, 66, 67, 259 marginalia, 50, 259 obsolete English, 39, 42, 66 placement of directions, 66 proper nouns, 66, 70, 227 running heads, 67 title pages, 39, 49, 64, 66, 67, 69, 112, 259

279

Typographia: An Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Art of Printing (1825), 12, 33n14, 116, 162, 257 Typographia, Or, The Printers’ Instructor (1824), 12, 203n13, 257 Typographical Marks used in correcting Proofs explained and exemplified (1805), 189, 203, 204 U Unitarianism, 188, 189 Upper-case letters, 49 Upper-case sorts, 93, 117–120, 166 V van Dijck, Christofel, 5, 62, 63 Vietor, Johann Ludwig, 4 Vignola, Or the Compleat Architect (1655), 32, 56 The Vision of Piers Plowman (1360–87), 15, 213, 219, 261 Visio Willi de Petro Plouhman, item visiones ejusdem de Dowel, Dobet et Dobest (1813), 219 Vitruvius, 59, 62, 63 W Wagstaff, Kiri, 239n2 Whitaker, Thomas Dunham, 221n7, 221n8, 261 application of colons, 229, 230 application of em rules, 229 application of quotation marks, 229, 231, 261 application of semicolons, 229 condemnation for using black letter, 213, 214, 221, 222, 229

280 

INDEX

Whitaker, Thomas Dunham (cont.) critical departure from his predecessors, 213, 220, 221, 225 editorial style, 213–233 endeavour (purity of living history), 214, 215, 222, 229, 261 later-nineteenth-century critics of, 215 literary output, 217, 224 paraphrasing translation, 214, 227, 229–233, 261 punctuation style, 15, 214, 223, 229, 261 Romantic aesthetic, 224 Romantic medievalism, 15, 214, 219, 232, 261 typographic practice, 229

usage of black letter, 15, 214 usage of italic, 223, 229 usage of rubrication (red ink), 15, 213, 214, 221, 222, 225, 227, 229, 232, 261 White space, 39, 66, 73, 171, 177, 208, 252 excessive, 66, 252 Whites, see Leading Whitney, Elspeth, 58 Widows, 66, 132 Wolffger, Georg, 4, 5 Words of emphasis, see Emphatical words; Italic Worms, Laurence, 29 Wren, Christopher, 35, 62, 78 Wroth, Lawrence, 5, 9 Wyman, C. W. H., 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 85