Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, &c.: The 1874 Masterpiece of Colorful Typography

The media could not be loaded.  Very beautiful book of something I've personally never encountered: multicolor wood type. I've done letterpress at an art school, and we didn't have type that had "color separations". I would definitely recommend this book for people who do letterpress, or are lettering artists. As a graphic designer, I wouldn't necessarily use this book since it's just type samples and borders, and nothing in the way of design layouts. My other negative comment is that there isn't a TON of type variety, as in, the form of the letters repeat, just the coloring/pattern on the forms are different. But otherwise, a great source of inspiration.

Esther K. Smith did a tremendous job with revitalizing this rare publication. The amount of care and effort that clearly went into this book is wonderful, a must have for modern artists that enjoy looking to the past for inspiration.

This book is beautiful! The colors, typography and design are top notch. This exceeded my expectations.

Really a fun book, recommended for anyone who is interested in typography, color printing, and/or typography.

The Page type specimen book seems to have generated some awesome praise, especially from non-professional typographers. But from the embossed front cover to the last page this really is an impressive bit of marketing by a wood letter manufacturer.Type makers need to offer their wares to printers with printed samplers showing a few arbitrary words in the various point sizes but William Page took it a step further showing his one and two-color type (in capitals only) centered inside one of the companies decorative borders on each page and obviously two-color type needs to be just that: printed in two colors.I'm assuming that the book's pages are more or less the same size as Page's sampler, the generous margins, color borders and type all come together to create a visual masterpiece (and several pages almost worth framing). The types are all named with their line-height and cost, likewise with borders which are sold in foot lengths. Page ten in the book shows the price list and classification for the number of letters in each alphabet: 2A has three cap Es and two As, 5A has six Es and five As. Oddly none of the fonts offer a dollar sign.The book is a handsome production, printed with a 175 screen on a smooth matt art paper. Esther Smith's essay says that Page printed a thousand copies of the specimen book, incredibly few are known to exist (in past decades what printer would bother to keep a type sampler?) but this book will allow a wider readership to enjoy the art of wood type. You can look inside the book at Westread Book Reviews then click 2022 and June.

This book is exquisite. It is a reproduction of a 19th century catalogue of wood type samples. These type faces concede nothing to notions of subtlety and restraint. They are bold, brilliantly-coloured, and attention-grabbing. Each page shows a combination of type, background patterns, and border design arranged to show off the elements to maximum effect. I have seen many reproductions of such catalogues, but usually they are a pale shadow of the originals. This one is printed on heavy, high-quality paper in a well-bound book with an embossed cover, that feels wonderful in the hands. I plan to spend many happy hours turning these pages. Bravo, Purgatory Pie Press!

This book is a joy to behold: every page is a visual and poetic gem, from the eye-popping colors and intricate letters to the (seemingly) accidental poetry of the sample words: MINGLE KIND BOUND GEM, ROUND MITE FIG, LIGHTHOUSE MUSKETS CEYLON HOUSE, DESPOTIC RICHES INURE... and more. Children too will enjoy flipping through these bright pages, giggling at the random juxtapositions of words.It is no doubt worth reading this book from cover to cover, as one would an ordinary book—though dipping in for the serendipitous pop of words and color and craftsmanship is equally delightful. Logophiles and bibliophiles, designers, poets, and aficionados of vintage posters and even of just plain wood will find much to inspire here.

Drucker, Designer oder einfach nur Interessierte, es gibt nichts Besseres als dieses Buch über wood type

Where OpenType is developing heavily in terms of intelligence, to represent more language families, more special glyphs and also bringing colour into fonts, this book brings is real bookshelf treasure to get a clear vue on how the limits of wooden type were already searched and discovered in the second half of the 19th century. Esther K. Smith did a great job by releasing this book in a broad public, interested in historic culture, craftmenship, bookbinding and typography.I would recommend this edition and I like to rate it with 5 stars.

Buen libro