Here is another gem from fromoldbooks.org, Nathan Bailey’s 1721 printing of Diver’s Proverbs. For those of you who aren’t well versed in 18th century culture, this is a collection of cliche’s and other moral or commen sense one-liners. The book lists them and explains their meanings and origins.

The typography in this edition is a bit economical in its construction: you can tell the project was made on a budget, as the page size is small and the type seems somewhat hurried. Despite this, it is well done. The type is clear and almost magical, it is formal in construction yet somehow retains some playfulness. Also notice the mixture of blackletter fonts (used to set the actual proverb) with a standard serif. For a typographer working in the 1700’s, use of this blackletter, which had stopped being common in printed materials in the 1500s, probably seemed a bit retro-chic. We experience the same thing today when we see concert posters set in waving, curly disco fonts. Or, when we see motorcycle and/or LA indie fashion company logos set in-you guessed it!-blackletter.

Adding to this is the use of 2 ink colors: black and red. The typographer does something that isn’t very common today: accenting the first letter of each capitalized word (notice the first image) in a different color than the rest of the body text. I’m not a huge fan of that usage, although I think it works great setting the drop capitals in the following pages in red. On the title page, it seems that the typographer was just trying to use the red as much as possible, and the letters begin to stand out, creating bullet holes in the composition. Despite this, I see his or her personality showing through again: that sense of whimsy and playfulness which seems to be a theme in the composition and typesetting of this book. Sure, the unneccesary red undermines a harmonious composition, but the surprising introduction of personality redeems the piece.

Not only that, but these illustrations are absolutely delicious. A man reads solemnly whilst riding on the shell of a snail, a portly man with a sausage on a fork drinks aggressively from a mug. In the beer drinking illustration, the movement and other visual elements continually push the eye to the upturned mug: you can look at a different detail, but the eye is then pushed back; then you look at something else, and the eye is pushed back to the mug again. The mug becomes a hub, allowing the eye to move back and forth around the picture, yet always returning.

Two more antique typographic conventions to note: the use of the long s symbol, which looks like a lowercase f, and the convention of ending a page by putting the first word of the following page in the right margin, just below the text block.

Edit (2/28/2009):

Here is an example of an 18th century typographic work in a fanciful or whimsical style (as it is sometimes considered “the first children’s book”), presented for comparison with the above pieces: