As printing from movable type was perfected in the fifteenth century, the mysteries of its practice were guarded by a privileged few. The rapid spread of the new art depended on the reliable mechanism for transferring knowledge. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, the pioneers of manufacturing technology and scientific inquiry were prying away at trade secrecy. This book shows the history of printing manuals from 1683 to the end of the nineteenth century, including some of the rarest in existence from the Cary Collection at Rochester institute of Technology.

Published in 1981: Authors of early English and American printers's manuals casually appropriated text from their predecessors. The practice, common enough not to require explanation or acknowledgement ( much less apology), was documented by Lawrence C. Wroth in 1935. Citing borrowed passages and devising a literary family tree, Wroth measured the original work of typographical writers from Moxon to De Vinne, with much more praise for them but with less for those in between. The author who, whose Typographia is reprinted here, was found to be the worst and boldest of offenders.