Bruce Rogers, A Life in Letters, 1870-1957
Austin: W. Thomas Taylor, 1989. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 125 copies in a special binding (total edition 2125), quarto size, 238 pp., signed by author. Fine / near fine. Item #CNJL173
Bruce Rogers (1870-1957), American typographer and inventer of the "Centaur" typeface (based on the Renaissance-period printing of Nicolas Jenson), is considered by many to be one of the greatest book designers of the twentieth century. He designed books for the Riverside Press, Cambridge, where he cut his first typeface, "Montaigne," named for the first book it appeared in, "The Essays of Montaigne," 1903; he designed "Centaur" while working as house designer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1916, he worked for the Cambridge University Press, and a few years later returned to the U.S. where he met William Edwin Rudge and was employed by him at his Mount Vernon Press. During this time he also designed books for Harvard University Press and served as typographic advisor to Lanston Monotype. In 1928, Rogers returned to England where he produced what many have called "the most important and notable typographic achievement of the twentieth century," his Oxford Lectern Bible. This book forms an intimate look at the life of this innovative typographer, through the many letters he wrote as he worked in both England and the United States. Included also are reproductions of book pages he designed, including two-page foldouts of pages from the Oxford Lectern Bible.
___DESCRIPTION: Quarter black leather with orange paste paper boards, rust goat leather spine label with gilt lettering and ornament, black-and-white frontispiece of Bruce Rogers, title page in black and red, included are thirty plates of examples of his book design, many in two colours, and including two-page foldouts; Centaur type, Mohawk Superfine paper, quarto size (11" by 7.75"); pagination: [i-vi] vii-xvii [xviii-xx] 1-215 [216] [1 colophon], one of 125 copies in a special binding (there are 2000 copies of the regular edition), signed by the author on the half-title page; loosely laid in is a letter from the publisher apologizing for the delay in shipping, signed by the publisher. In the publisher's original plain white wrapper.
___CONDITION: A fine copy; the covers clean, the corners straight, the binding tight with solid hinges, the interior is clean and bright, and free of prior owner markings; clean, crisp, as new; a small speck of rubbing on the bottom corners of the boards. Dust wrapper is near fine with mild edge wear on the bottom edge and spine. Publisher's letter is fine with slight edge wear on the bottom edge.
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Price: $325.00