Centaur Types

Beskrivning

October House, Chicago. 1949. (4), 72, (4) pages. Tall 8vo. Full grey cloth cover with gilt spine titling, dust jacket with a tiny tear at top of spine. Only top edge cut. One of a thousand copies, this one unnumbered.

This book was written by Bruce Rogers in 1948 and documented and showed his famous typeface. BR printed it himself the following year under his studio name, October House, in an edition of 1000 copies. A few copies came onto the market and have long been a rarity. The majority of the edition was donated to The Purdue Libraries. However, part of that edition has been released for sale. A new dust jacket has been printed for these copies. History and the creation of Centaur, as well as detailed studies of the letterforms and type samples.

”The Centaur type is an original design of rare cultivation and grace. Because of its classic elegance and its aristocratic Renaissance ancestry, the type calls for special handling. Indeed it has had no success in advertising or commercial printing. On the other hand, among devotees of fine printing it has been accepted as one of the great type designs, and once the cutting was completed for the Monotype machine,, it was welcomed by sensitive designers and printers for many of their best books and ephemera.” (Joseph Blumenthal, p. 33).

“…it [Centaur] appears to me one of the best Roman founts yet designed in America–and, of its kind, the best anywhere.” (D. B. Updike, Printing Types II p. 217).