This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Excerpt from Two Centuries of Bruce Rogers: With a Prologue "B R's Secret Passion" Fifteen sonnets OF petrarch. Selected and Translated by T. W. Higginson. Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, 1903. Narrow 12mo. Boards, vellum back. Limited to 430 copies. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Roughly fifteen years after Gutenberg printed the first substantial book in Mainz in 1455, Nicolas Jenson of Venice produced what has been universally recognized among the most beautiful typefaces ever created. Based on the humanistic calligraphy of the Renaissance, an even and infinitely various set of lowercase letters that had evolved from the Carolingian minuscules of the ninth century, Jenson's types were a miracle of proportion and evenness of color. In the late nineteenth century, it was imitated by Morris in his Golden Type of 1892 (far too heavy), and in the next by Cobden-Sanderson with his Doves Type, Goudy with his Deepdene, and Hunter Middleton with his Eusebius. But it was really not until Bruce Rogers, following his stint at the Riverside Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he first attempted a version of the type in his Montaigne font, tackled the challenge of creating a roman equal to (and in some ways surpassing) the Jenson original. The proof of his success is that it has been used, and held in high esteem, ever since. The story behind the type, the many permutations through which it went, the myths that accrued and surrounded it (many based on Rogers's somewhat erratic and chimerical memory) are all exposed in this fully documented account of the type's genesis and development. All the variations are included, from the 16-pt. roman originally produced for the exclusive use of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to its conversion to the Monotype machine under the supervision of Stanley Morison, a typewriter version, a short-lived film version, and its ultimate appearance as a digital face. Included as well is a discussion of the Arrighi italic, developed to accompany the roman by Frederic Warde and Stanley Morison at the Monotype Corporation. The book has been designed and set in a new digital version of Centaur, often and justly called "the noblest roman of them all," created by Jerry Kelly. The authors have unearthed, mined, and refined a trove of typographic material to create the definitive history of what many consider the most beautiful typeface created by an American in the last century and used, to immortal effect, in two of the century's greatest books, T.E. Lawrence's Odyssey of Homer and the Oxford Lectern Bible. Illustrated with many examples in full color, with a dust jacket printed letterpress, issued in an edition of only 1,000 copies, this is a book no certified member of the lunatic fringe of type fanatics can afford to ignore.

In 1948, the world-renowned book designer Bruce Rogers wrote a brief text that documented and illustrated his creation of the Centaur typeface several decades earlier: The Centaur Types. The book was privately printed by Rogers himself under the name of his design studio, October House. This limited edition of the book was transferred to the Purdue University Libraries at the time of his death along with his other papers and books. Over the years remaining stock of the original private printing has found its home in the Special Collections of the Libraries, and although known as something of a collector's item by those who are aware of the few copies in circulation, it is here available to the general market for the first time in both paperback and digital versions. The Centaur Types is a fascinating book for several reasons: in the designer's own words, we learn of the evolution of the typeface and of his interest in the art and craft of creating type; it demonstrates different and comparable typefaces, and gives examples of Centaur from six to seventy-two point; and it stands as a fitting example of fine bookmaking from one of the master book designers of the twentieth century.