Mr. Shakespeare's blog

Soul of the Age

Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate

Jonathan Bate is one of the great Shakespeare scholar/editors of the late 20th-early 21st century.  He belongs in the company of such early 20th century greats as E. K. Chambers, J. D. Wilson and Alfred Harbage; capable of speculation, but with an unerring centrifugal instinct to fact and truth.  Bate's The Genius of Shakespeare is a groundbreaking summation of the perception of Shakespeare's works, his Arden Third Series edition of Titus Andronicus is the best I know, and his (and Rasmussen's) masterful RSC Complete Works is, well, masterful.  With a buildup like that, it would be hard to say his latest, Soul of the Age, is anything but a very good book, and indeed it is.  That is not to say great.  Great books on Shakespeare are extremely rare, but very good from this scholar is nearly as good as it gets.  The only caution I would suggest is that it is not a beginner's book.  Considerable familiarity with the works of the period and the various controversies over Shakespearean biographical details would be helpful to the reader.  Following the close arguments in several of the set pieces throughout the book would be quite challenging without at least a basic understanding of 16th and 17th century British history and literature.

This book purports to answer the dual questions, "What was it like being Shakespeare? and, What are the most telling ways in which Shakespeare's works embody—or rather ensoul—the world-picture of his age?"  It does so by using Jacques' Seven Ages speech from As You Like It as a substrate on which to build expanding notions of Shakespeare's consciousness and historical notions of the significantly intersecting Elizabethan and Jacobean "moments."  Bate's goal is nothing less than to create an "intellectual biography of the man in the mind-set into which he was born and out of which his works were created."  At first blush the Seven Ages devices would seem a poor fit, but in practice it works well.  Not each "age" is intimately connected with Shakespeare, as we will discuss below, and Bate often shows the Shakespearean moment to transcend the "age."  The approach is not nearly as chronological as the structure might suggest, and the material not neatly, demonstrably internal to the mind of Shakespeare.  It is, however, nonetheless fascinating.

Infancy.

The infancy section, for example, has almost nothing to do with infancy.  It ranges widely to encompass Galileo, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Pythagoras, the Reformation, Elizabeth and Simon Forman, the plague, the legal year, the importance of maps in Elizabeth's reign, Florio's World of Words, Leonard (both of them) and Thomas Digges, the Copernican universe, Horace's distinction between negotium and otium, with their obvious parallels to Shakespeare's business and country lives, and so on.  The broad brush strokes that prepare the canvas are followed by the detailed strokes that paint the life of the theatre beginning in the 1580s leading to Shakespeare's eventual emergence some time near the end of that decade.  A fascinating section deals with English "chorography"—"or the geographical and historical description of a particular region."  Bate cites William Lambarde's Perambulation in this respect, and not for the last time do we meet Lambarde in the course of the book.

Of course Bate does not neglect biographical certainty where it can be obtained, such as the many Warwickshire allusions in the works that make them certainly the work of the boy who grew up in Stratford; but neither does he overdo this obviously well worn material.  His is a fresher, more detailed, more intriguing approach.  He notes, for example, mention in the induction to The Taming of the Shrew of Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, and then reveals that there actually was a Hacket family living there in 1591.  So it goes.  A grand synthesis of overarching trends of the age combined with intimate details of the mental life of our playwright from his known history.

The Schoolboy.

The second age is that of the schoolboy, and while this is the section that has the greatest correspondence with biographically known probabilities, it also broadens to embrace Renaissance humanism's theories of education and government, and moves from there to one of the book's several long set-pieces: an analysis of The Tempest. Finally it ends in a fascinating discussion of the books likely to have been owned by Shakespeare, one of the best sections of the book.

Among many other specialties, Bate is an Ovid specialist of sorts, and has contributed a great introductory essay, "Shakespeare's Ovid," to Nims' definitive modern edition of Golding's 1567 translation of The Metamorphoses.  We get much of Ovid along with a description of Shakespeare's education in the King's New School in Stratford:  "...it is demonstrable from his work that of all the writers on the syllabus Ovid was the one who appealed to him most strongly, and whom he sought out—albeit mostly in English translation—after he left school."  And again, "Scholars have calculated that about 90 percent of Shakespeare's allusions to classical mythology refer to stories included in that epic compendium of tales."

Bate also notes the often overlooked fact that Shakespeare's first acting experience probably occurred in his grammar school:  "...there is no reason to suppose that a pageant of the deserted Ariadne, probably based on the poem written in her voice in Ovid's Heroides, might not have been staged in Stratford in an earlier year, with one of Shakespeare's schoolfellows in the title role.  Or even Shakespeare himself."  In addition to acting, Shakespeare would have been exposed—exposed is probably too tame a word—to Latin to English, English to Latin translation.  "Shakespeare's provincial grammar school education gave him sufficient Latin to base his Rape of Lucrece on a story in Ovid's Fasti that was not translated into English in his lifetime."

From Ovid we are also treated to an analysis of the influence of Seneca on the English tragedy and the importance of Jasper Heywood's translations.  After Ovid, however, no more important source for Shakespeare's works exceeded that of Plutarch's Parallel Lives, and Bate duly considers his influence on Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus.

The Lover.

The lover's age must embrace Shakespeare's marriage and his self-revelations, if any, in the Sonnets.  With regard to his marriage, Bate brings forth the remarkable fact, which I cannot remember to have seen stated elsewhere, that among Shakespeare's contemporaries (based on examination of Stratford parish records for 1570-1630) "only three were in their teens when they married" (which may be a bit deceiving because the age of all men at marriage cannot be determined based on the parish records, but never mind that).  Even more remarkably, there is "only one identifiable teenage Stratford husband in the whole sixty-year period whose bride was pregnant on the day of their marriage: the glover's son, eighteen-year-old William Shakespeare."  In other words, the shotgun wedding supposition seems to be myth, at least based on social norms, and a teenage boy-older pregnant woman "was a very unusual combination."  In his marriage, as in all else, Shakespeare seems to have been unique.  Bate suggests sexual precocity as a possible explanation for Shakespeare finding himself the father of three before age twenty.  Certainly his virtuosity with the language of sex in his works suggests an abiding concern, if not obsession.

While noting the tendency of biographers to flights of fancy regarding Shakespeare's sex life, and possible venereal diseases, Bate's discussion is restrained and fair minded.  Shakespeare clearly imagined himself to have been the victim of marital infidelity, but the operative word is imagined, as Bate points out.  There is no way to know the reality of his sex life based on his language in the plays or the poetry.  The perennial conundrum is the bequest of the second best bed in the will, and it remains a conundrum.  More perplexing is absence of mention of the Blackfriars gatehouse, purchased in 1613, or Shakespeare's shares in the Globe, but here again, so much has been swallowed by silence, and Bate is too cautious a scholar to fantasize.  After a thoroughgoing discussion of the sonnets, Bate tentatively identifies—though hardly insists upon—the rival poet as John Davies of Hereford, spinning a unique interpretation of Mr. W. H. being flattered by Davies' famous penmanship.  Bate admits the possibly fanciful nature of this guess, but it is indeed charming.

The Soldier

Since there is no evidence Shakespeare was ever a soldier (despite some strained theorists) this section is largely concerned with things militaire: Elizabeth as warrior and her great "Tilbury" speech (which Bate says may have been inauthentic, after expanding on it for several pages!); the Armada year; the history plays with their multiple battles and warrior-poets; and more.  This section is home to the book's longest set-piece, where Bate attempts to prove that Shakespeare's Richard II was a source for John Hayward's controversial The First Part of the Life and Reign of King Henry IV, dedicated to the unfortunate Lord Essex whose head suffered much for it.  Bate calls it "A Political Tragedy in Five Acts," and it is a tightly spun, intricate argument which carries us far afield from Shakespeare biography, if not of the catchall "age".  As noted above, this book is not one for beginners, and particularly this section.  The uninitiated will find it heavy sledding.  It may be worth noting that Bate rests his argument on verbal imagery "unlikely to be coincidence," in the manner of authorial attribution in the fifties and sixties, but ultimately it is hard to see that it much matters.  This is a specialist's section.

The long argument about Richard II, Haywood and the Essex rising of 1601 is followed by an apparent afterthought on "Moorish" culture, and an after-after thought on Jacobean geopolitics which feel like remnants too good to waste but apropos of nothing in particular.

The Justice

This sections concerns itself primarily with tracing Shakespeare's possible legal "training" (or "knowledge," as displayed in the plays).  It has him as his fathers early representative at Clement's Inn during the "lost years," and is as good a guess as any.  Shakespeare's unusually deep knowledge of legal terminology have led many to posit just such a connection, and suppose him to have been at least for a time "some sort of noverint or apprentice lawyer."  One is apt to credit these arguments, even though they are based on the same sorts of fantasies that argue other matter, simply because Shakespeare so commonly adopts the neutral anonymity of a lawyer.  The suppositions about law expand to politics, and Bate concludes that "Shakespeare's political beliefs are as elusive as his religion, his sexuality, and just about everything else about him that matters."  It is the biographer's common lament.

The Pantaloon

The pantaloon is a stock character in the commedia dell'arte: the lean and slippered authority who thwarts the will of the young lovers, the laughable older man now the butt of jests by his lively children.  Whether this fits Shakespeare in any significant way is dubious, but Bate sticks with the Seven Ages metaphor faithfully.  This section does contain the best brief summary of "the contours of Shakespeare's career,"  that I have read, and this section alone, from pages 333-342, are worth the price of the book.  Bate makes much, and deservedly so, of the fact that Shakespeare cannot be shown to have acted after 1603, when he is listed as an actor in Jonson's Sejanus, coupled with the "shame" sonnets which linguistic analysis seems to date from this same period:  "The inference must be that he stopped acting around the time of the 1603-4 plague outbreak.  Perhaps the sense of shame that he alludes to in sonnets 110-112, written around this time, had something to do with his decision."  Of course, this is hardly proved, but the temptation to some sort of certainty is so great that even as careful a scholar as Bate gives it rather more weight than it can bear.  In any event, the curative sentiments of the book that explode the "myth" of Shakespeare's retirement after around 1611 are welcome, if the mystery remains.

As with all biographers starting with Rowe, Shakespeare's biography always becomes the occasion for literary criticism.  If it were not so, the biographies would be slim indeed.  Never mind, because this section deals with King Lear in a delightful chapter titled "The Foolosopher" that does not need the excuse of biographical relevance. 

Oblivion

This final "age" is interesting because it labels Shakespeare an "epicurean":  "Add to Stoicism an acknowledgment of the needs of the body and the raw materiality of things, then what do you get?  The answer is a powerful philosophy that had a largely bad press in the Renaissance, but that might actually have been the closest Shakespeare came to belief."  These are rather startling words, but Bate goes far in supporting them.  After an extended discussion of Shakespeare's love for certain of his characters, Bate says "Enobarbus might just be the closest Shakespeare came to a portrait of his own mind."  Enobarbus, Bate notes, "embodies the pliable self."  This biography, if more brittle in several of its arguments than pliable, is still a very good one, remarkable for careful analysis and possessing a charm in the way it  teases weighty meaning out of airy events.  If it is at times ponderous, it redeems itself more often in winning clarity.  It is MUST reading for Shakespeareans.

April 23: World Book Day

April 23 is World Book Day.  Though not as well known as Shakespeare's birthday, alas, it is celebrated throughout the world in small ways.  On this day UNESCO seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property!:

"23 April: a symbolic date for world literature for on this date and in the same year of 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo. It was a natural choice for UNESCO's General Conference to pay a world-wide tribute to books and authors on this date, encouraging everyone, and in particular young people, to discover the pleasure of reading and gain a renewed respect for the irreplaceable contributions of those who have furthered the social and cultural progress of humanity.

"The idea for this celebration originated in Catalonia where on 23 April, Saint George's Day, a rose is traditionally given as a gift for each book sold. The success of the World Book and Copyright Day will depend primarily on the support received from all parties concerned (authors, publishers, teachers, librarians, public and private institutions, humanitarian NGOs and the mass media), who have been mobilized in each country by UNESCO National Commissions, UNESCO Clubs, Centres and Associations, Associated Schools and Libraries, and by all those who feel motivated to work together in this world celebration of books and authors."

The following is a message from Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO on the occasion of World Book Day:

Since 1996, the World Book and Copyright Day, celebrated on 23 April, has been a unique opportunity for us to reflect together on new issues relating to the book, viewed concomitantly as an industry, an art, and an essential tool in ensuring quality education for all.

The Day may be placed within the context of the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012), the theme of which is "Literacy as Freedom", thus calling to mind the emancipatory effect of books. Such linkages are of the essence, especially if the book is to be a major medium for teaching men and women, as well as the most marginalized social groups, to read and write at a time when one adult in five worldwide can do neither.

The book, an instrument of knowledge and a means of sharing, must further each person's education, fulfilment and empowerment. It thus contributes to enjoyment of the universal right to education and to effective participation by each individual in social, political and cultural life.

Furthermore, having only recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we must stress that books are of no avail if we do not guarantee their free circulation. Concern over the "free flow of ideas by word and image", enshrined in UNESCO's Constitution, must be kept alive so that we can continue to promote universal access to books. As you can see, it is both our understanding of genuine quality education for all, and respect for the universality of human rights and fundamental freedom for all; that are at stake in issues relating to the book and its circulation.

On the occasion of the 14th World Book and Copyright Day, I therefore solemnly call on all countries and on UNESCO's partners and friends to join us in common reflection on the place of the book in our educational and cultural policies and on its contribution to the emergence of creative diversity that is deemed more useful than ever.

In addition to World Book Day celebrations and initiatives,  what better day to announce the availability of the World Digital Library.  "The World Digital Library makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.  The principal objectives of the WDL are to:

• Promote international and intercultural understanding;
• Expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the Internet;
• Provide resources for educators, scholars and general audiences;
• Build capacity in partner institutions to narrow the digital divide within and between countries."

Content selection in the library is not yet great, though significant even now, it will grow with time and cooperation between participating libraries and institutions.  James Billington, US Librarian of Congress, has created this YouTube video to explain US involvement in the WDL.

As Shakespeare's original editors famously said in another context, ""Reade...therefore; and againe, and againe."  What better day than World Book Day to reaffirm our commitment to world peace through world literacy.

Becoming Shakespeare: A Brief Review

Becoming Shakespeare by Jack Lynch.

The subtitle of this work is "The unlikely afterlife that turned a provincial playwright into the bard," which sounds a lot more purposeful and linear than the book turns out to be.  In truth it is nothing more of a mildly interesting overview done in an entertaining but definitely non-scholarly style for the curious Shakespeare beginner.  The events and characters recounted are related to Shakespeare, Shakespearean theatre or the texts, at least tangentially, but it is not the analytical or historically cogent argument you might imagine by reading the book's promotional material on the dust jacket or by believing the promise implicit in that sub-title.

The tone is quite elementary, aimed at the lay reader who probably has not read even a general history of seventeenth or eighteenth century Britain, but may have some vague notions about the events of the nineteenth century.  If you have read Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives you have gone beyond the scope of this book (and have gained a wider body of knowledge on most of the same topics offered here). The stated purpose of this book is to act as "...a kind of biography that begins with Shakespeare's death and runs to his three hundredth birthday, focusing especially on what happened between about 1660 and 1830."  The intended audience is "...those who have never thought about what happened after the death of the immortal Bard" (p. 8).  If you are among this audience, you will find the book worthwhile and entertaining.  If your purposes are more serious, however, or if you are looking for careful analytical historical narrative building on a thesis about Shakespeare's reputation, you will be disappointed.

The Restoration stage and its two authorized companies occupies the early story.  Killigrew and his star actors are given rather short shrift in favor of Davenant, whose more compelling (hinted) provenance always makes him a favorite.  Then the seventeenth century Shakespeare revisions, particularly those of Tate and Cibber take over the narrative.  Entertaining anecdotes abound.  Especially featured is one on the inimitable Nell Gwyn which has just about nothing to do with Shakespeare but adds entertainment value to the book.  Rather a lot of space is devoted to Garrick, which is proper in a book purporting to describe the growth of Shakepseare's reputation, but nearly nothing is said about Garrick's collection of Shakespeare texts which are undoubtedly his greatest contribution to modern scholarship and the textual tradition.

The great old actors each get their paragraphs:  Mrs. Siddons, the Kembles, Perdita Robinson, Dorothy Jordan, Edmund Kean.  The material presented, however, is just a bare introduction.  You will know the names, and a few of their notable roles and, of course, remarkable foibles--anything gossip-worthy--but not a great deal more about the state or growth of Shakespearean acting after reading this book.

From actors the author takes on a brief introduction to the texts and their editors, giving them similar treatment.  We get a whirlwind tour of textual editing through the eighteenth century: Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, Johnson.  Lynch is a Johnson expert, so we would expect a rather thorough treatment of the great Doctor's engagement with Shakespeare, but it does not materialize.  His treatment remains superficial and light.  There is barely a mention of Steevens and Reed, and not much more of Malone (though Malone gets a little more coverage in connection with the Ireland forgeries, but not for his groundbreaking scholarship in dating the texts, renovating certain quarto readings, and promoting interest particularly in the poetry after it had been savaged by by Steevens).  We get from this "afterlife" very little penetrating detail.  Think of it more of an "overview" of points of interest generally related to Shakespeare, rather than a "history" or "intellectual biography."

Which is not to say it is not done well.  It is just a bit disappointing after the buildup of the publicity blurbs on the book cover and promises of the book's introduction.  The book is only remarkable for its odd revolt against its basic style when very much too much attention is paid to Nahum Tate's revision of Lear.  One would almost think that a knowledge of Tate's treatment actually had much at all to do with today's understanding of Shakespeare, though it can be said to have a bit to do with his reputation, and more to do with late seventeenth and early eighteenth century tastes in general.  One suspects it is material the author had lying about and sensed a perfect opportunity to use it.

The chapters lurch from not necessarily closely related topics, touching on the best known anecdotes about ancillary Shakespearean associates.  We learn a bit about Bowdler's Family Shakespeare--though not a word about the first revolutionary edition of Shakespeare in the nineteenth century, Singer's edition.  The book also glances forward as far as Jan Kott's Shakespeare Our Contemporary, but in a minor way, and no mention at all is made of the revolution in textual studies in the early twentieth century that has done so much to stoke today's Shakespeare industry.  Though Kott gets mentioned--and one is not sure why--the names of Greg, McKerrow, Pollard, J. D. Wilson, E. K. Chambers, even Sindney Lee are not.  Perhaps they were regarded as "out of range," but if so, why Kott?

Far too much space is dedicated to the insipid Ireland forgeries, which cannot really be said to have done much for Shakespeare's reputation.  Ditto to the Collier forgeries.  The chapter on forging Shakespeare seems to have been included simply because of its inherent interest in the idea of literary forgery, because a connection between the forgeries and the growth in appreciation of Shakespeare is never established except in the most tenuous way.  The chapter is more a commentary on human foibles, credulity and the deep seated needs of forgers than on Shakespeare.

Mention is made, quite properly, of Garrick's Jubilee celebration and the provenance of Stratford as a tourist center.  Very little is made of the Tercentenary, unfortunately, where original work is wanted.  The book is simply too superficial, which is unfortunate from the more experienced reader's perspective.  It would provide a good introduction to any of these topics for one who hasn't one, but as I have said above, reading Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives would be better.

The book is presented without notes or any sort of critical apparatus, clearly aimed at the general reader, but does contain a helpful narrative "for further reading" section that the new student will find useful.

A Short History of the Printed Word: A Review

Let's take a quiz:

1. What two things do each of these words represent:

• Baskerville
• Bodoni
• Caslon
• Garamond
• Gill
• Goudy
• Jenson
• Zapf

[Answer: 1. A man, more specifically a man who is a punch cutter and type designer; and 2. a typographic font.]

2. Define these terms:

1. charioscuro
2. grisaille
3. intaglio
4. rotogravure
5. mezzotint
6. textura
7. planographic
8. versal

[Answers: a: shaded picture; b: monochrome illustration representing relief; c: printing from an incised plate from which ink is drawn; d: intaglio printing process in a rotary press; e: intaglio etching in which a metal plate is roughened evenly and then smoothed to bring out an image; f: a calligraphic form of blackletter; g: printing from a flat surface, as in lithogrpahy; h: large decorative initial letter; ]

3. With what better known historical figure were the following printers or publishers associated?

1. Wynkyn de Worde
2. Richard Field
3. Nicholas Jenson
4. Jean Jannon
5. George Cruikshank
6. Giambattista Bodoni
7. Henry Jarvis Raymond
8. Johann Froben

[Answers: a: Caxton; b: Shakespeare; c: Eusebius; d: Richelieu; e: Dickens; f: Carlos III; g: Mark Twain h: Erasmus]

4.  Match these inventors with their inventions.

Ottmar Mergenthaler Tolbert Lanston Friedrich König Nicolas Louis Robert William Nicholson Giovanni da Spira

paper roll making machine monotype machine page numbers linotype machine curved stereotypes cylinder power press

[Answers: 1-d; 2-b; 3-f; 4-a; 5-e; 6-c]

4. Explain the difference between the monotype and linotype machines.

[Answer: Monotype casts individual letters and assembles them in lines, Linotype casts type line by line in slugs.]

5. Essay question:  Discourse on the techniques and importance of the history of the Printed Word, emphasizing Western civilization.

If you did not score 100% on the objective portion of the quiz, AND if your answer to number 5 did not extend to 300 pages, lavishly illustrated, touching on the tools, techniques, inspiration, uses, principal figures, historical trends, and future of printing as an artistic and popular means of communication and expression, then click over to Amazon and purchase A Short History of the Printed Word by Warren Chappell and Robert Bringhurst.

The book was originally written by Chappell (1904-1991) in 1970 and published by Alfred Knopf, to whom it is dedicated.  It was revised and republished by Bringhurst, well known (in typographic circles) author of The Elements of Typographic Style, in 1999.  Bringhurst memorializes Chappell in his Preface by saying:

"Chappell spent his whole life designing and illustrating books, and making texts and blocks and metal type and other components, out of which to make the books he made.  There was, in 1970, no process of type manufacture, no medium of illustration, and no technique of printing with which he was not personally and viscerally familiar."

The reason for the revision and republication of a classic work was twofold, first "...procedures and techniques that had been current for half a millennium when he [Cappell] was writing...have all but disappeared in the last three decades" and "Chappell's original plan...was to make this book a collaboration.  It is now, in its second life, exactly that" (x).  With that brief introduction we are launched, no, immersed, in the world of typography, presses, printing surfaces, inks and papers, fonts and punches.  The most honored here are the punch cutters, not the authors, but the authors are not forgotton, and are memorialized throughout in the book's numerous illustrations.  This is a show me, tell me, explain to me, move me to thought book.  Definitely not for dummies, but neither is it a tedious technical treatise. 

The book begins by touching on the Chinese and Korean origins of printing, but this is very much a book about printing in the Western tradition.  Think France, England, the low countries, Germany, Italy and, eventually, America, and you will have compassed the reach of this short history.  We early learn the techniques of printing: letterpress, intaglio, planographic; and then begin our march from Gutenberg to Adobe Systems.  Little time is spent contemplating why, exactly, technologies proliferated when they did, even though they had been known (often) long before they spread.  It is enough to say, for example, that "Europe was not, evidently, ready for printed books before Gutenberg appeared" (p. 14).  It is a book more about the how and when of typography and printing, not so much about the why, or why not.

We learn, therefore, about papermaking, punch cutting, calligraphy, nibs and wood block cutting.  We learn much about the aesthetics of the alphabet as expressed in type over the course of western history.  We learn of such formal intricacies as "transitive italic serifs" and "half unicals," "Carolingian miniscules" and the development of fifteenth century textura (blackletter) which sounds pretty obscure, but is delivered gracefully and with full illustrations.  The narrative never veers too far to the technical, and is always supplemented by examples from well known works to help us relate to the technical discussion.

Consider this from the discussion of fifteenth century printing:

"Another major step [in the history of human civilization] was the division of the stream of writing into standardized units of transmission.  That is a fancy way of saying chopping the text up into pages.  Simple as it sounds, this step was slow in coming.  Cutting up the scroll into uniform but arbitrary portions, and sewing them down the side to make a codex—a manuscript book—must at first have seemed a leap into arid technological abstraction" (p.39).

Did it?  We who stand at the other end of that abstraction, who are in the process of abandoning pages for continuously scrolling computer screens and the arbitrary units of eInk on the screen of a Kindle or other eReader would like to know.  Unfortunately, the authors are more intent in keeping the discussion tied to the concrete historical technologies—though they can hardly be blamed for this—and only tantalize us with speculations like the one above.  It's too bad, because I would be keen to know what experienced typographers think of the end of the print era.  We get some of that in Bringhurst's discussion of digital fonts in the books closing chapter, but surprisingly little.  This is very much a book rooted in paper-ink-press, and mostly handpress, technology.

The general story of the early chapters is the development of blackletter (think Gutenberg's Bible and the other masterpieces of European incunabula) and the ultimate ascendancy of roman type.  The heroes of the book are its punch cutters, who in nearly every case are font designers, cutters, casters, printers and publishers rolled into one—though publishers early on were often divorced from the more technical (and laborious) aspects of printing.  Men like Johann van Speyer, printer of St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei, the first book in Europe printed with page numbers; Nicolas Jenson, first to produce a Greek type; Lambert Palmart, first printer in Spain; William Caxton, printer of the first book in English, his own translation of Raoul Le Févre's Le Recueil des histoires de Troyes; Erhard Ratdolt, first to print a decorative title page to his edition of Euclid's Elements, printed in Venice; the great Albrecht Dürer, perfecter of amazingly intricate woodcutting techniques; Aldus Manutius, founder of the Aldine press and practical patron of Renaissance humanism.  These men, mostly of the Mainz diaspora, in the latter half of the fifteenth century are the book's early subjects and soul.

From its beginnings in Mainz printing spread to more than 1,100 print shops in 200 cities by 1500, but it retained a surprising connection to handwriting. In fact, this is one of the book's interesting observations.  Bringhurst explains it by paraphrasing Marshal McLuhan, "...the primary content of any new medium is usually a form made familiar by the medium that immediately precedes" (p. 280).  It is unfortunate he does not go on to extend the idea to the digital age, but a little reflection will confirm the notion.  This review is densely textual.  It uses hyperlinks and a few graphical illustrations, imitating a book's index and printed illustrations, but it could as easily, using the available technology, be audible, or a video with audio narrative, or a series of illustrations in an animated flash presentation, but the computer and eReader age is still young enough to be fully imitative of its predecessor age of print and paper.  We see this change gradually emerging in the digital age, but we hearken back to our bookish roots, like children snuggling beneath our comforting blankets.  Later in the book Chappell especially, but Bringhurst too, have some fairly negative things to say about "flatland" as Bringhurst calls digital "print," but I believe their remarks proceed more from snobbery and nostalgic connections to the old technologies than from clear-eyed reason.

In the book's chapter on the seventeenth century it departs from the strictly technological and illustrative and engages in a discussion of censorship in England which is very interesting (and atypical of the rest of the book).  Milton's Areopagitica is quoted at length:

"...We should be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thuys committed, sometimes a martyrdom..." (p. 124).

Why the authors chose to use England as their example is hard to say, since the Catholic Index or Germanic reformation could have served as better examples, but perhaps the point is that the age of censorship was also the age of the King James Bible and the First Folio, though as examples of the printer's art these books are hardly praiseworthy.  Perhaps the point to be taken, also, is that the seventeenth century was the beginning of the age of the newspaper, which flourished in spite of, and often because of, official censorship.  The first European newspaper was Avisa Relation order Zeitung published at Augsburg and Strasbourg in 1609, the first English newspaper Nathaniel Butter's Corante, in 1621 (Butter is a familiar figure to Shakespeare students).  Whether royalist or protectorate overlords were the censors, "To be a printer was a dangerous calling, and it continued to be so even after the relaxed conditions that followed the Declaration of Rights and the subsequent lapsing of the licensing laws" (p. 156).

The eighteenth century is called the age of "typographic rationalism," and its heroes are William Caslon and John Baskerville, in England, the Fournier and Didot families in France, Giambattista Bodoni in Italy, the Enschedé brothers in Amsterdam, and Joaquím Ibarra, Gabriel de Sancha, and Francisco Manuel de Mena in Madrid.  It was the age of Steele, Addison and Defoe, and their famous journals; the age, also, of a wide scale spread of newspapers across England and America. 

The principal technological developments of the industrial revolution and early nineteenth century began to drive printing.  The invention of the all iron press, designed by Earl Stanhope in 1800, wood engraving techniques invented by Thomas Berwick, the invention of lithography by Aloys Senefelder (1796)—a failed playwright who became self published and had to go so far as inventing his own methods of publication—the invention of the steam powered cylindrical press by Friedrich König; the Foudrinier paper making machine; and the invention of stereotype and electrotype all contributed to a breach between what developed into the worlds of small-scale handpress "fine" printing, and large-scale, popular, mass-produced commercial printing as exemplified in the London Times.  In 1814 the Times used a modified double-cylinder steam powered press as invented by König to print 1,100 sheets per hour.  By 1868 the Times was printing 20,000 sheets per hour.  As more developed countries adopted new technologies for printing, their old equipment migrated to less developed countries.  "Printing arrived...in Uruguy in 1807, Burma in 1816, Costa Rica in 1827, New Zealand in 1830, and in Thailand around 1836" (p. 212).

The great inventions of the latter half of the nineteenth century were the Linotype and Monotype machines, which automated the process of cutting, casting, and setting type.  The linotype casts type in lines as  single slugs, which are then automatically assembled.  "With the Linotype, type became disposable, and every job the printer set was made of fresh, new type, unused, unworn" (p. 215).  From this point, the book becomes less interested in technology and more interested in its products, the small press magazines; American periodicals, like Harper's Monthly, the Atlantic, Century Illustrated, and Scribner's Magazine.  It also discusses the English arts and crafts movement, exemplified in the work of William Morris and his associates, none too fondly.

The remainder of the sections for which Chappell is primarily responsible deal with printing in America in the early and then post-war twentieth centuries.  You would expect this to be the richest in detail, being the period in which Chappell was actively employed in the field, but it is rather lightly covered.  His primary interest is a nostalgic engagement with the earlier history of printing.  The work of Edward Johnston and his associates are emphasized, as are the type designers of the 1920s, notably Eric Gill.

The emphasis in the latter part of the book is on fine printing, rather than printing in general.  "Four things are required in a fine book: excellence of writing, editing, design, and physical production" (p. 246).  This will come as a surprise to many authors, but our authors consider the book in the totality of its historical import, not just the meaning of the words.  This becomes a bit problematic as the book moves to its conclusion.  One gets the sense that one is overhearing the veteran's trope, rather than a clear headed analysis.  Consider this:

"Trade presses are, by definition, at the mercy of the market, and it is only in fortunate conditions that the market knows or cares what quality is" (p. 247);

and this:

"In the age of mass production, books in which design and production are held to the highest standard have come almost entirely from the private press" (247-248).

The loss of "three dimensionality" (minimal as it is) and a "sculptural quality" in printing are lamented and offset printing and photographic processes in general are criticized, as are the paper quality used by mass printers, adhesive bindings, and generally everything about mass produced printing.

"When the only form in which a book exists is a form that cannot last, then the essence of the form, the thing that makes a book a book, has been betrayed" (p. 270).

This is a serious criticism of post-war printing technology, which should be taken even more seriously by those of us in the digital age, where paper, ink, physical print and binding are about to disappear.  Will we still have books when books abandon their physicality?  The early indication is, yes.  Today I purchased the entire works of Charles Dickens for my Amazon Kindle for just pennies, and it downloaded within a minute, wirelessly.  Bleak House is still Bleak House, but now I can keyword search the entire text, annotate and bookmark to my hearts content—and the Kindle automatically backs up my annotations on the Amazon web site—when my eyes weary may Kindle will read to me (though the voice is inhuman enough to make this a little disconcerting), and I can quickly search the web for related documents, all on the same device.  The point is, I can still participate in reading Bleak House on my Kindle as I have read it in many different physical editions before, with the added advantages of a digital tool.  It is still a book.  A book, contra-Chappell and Bringhurst, is primarily an artistic vision, not a physical thing.

"It is possible that printed books as repositories of human experience and creativity may in time be overshadowed or even replaced by digital replicas.  Once made, such replicas are very quickly copied and easily stored in a small space—but they cannot be read without a prosthesis.  They are invisible and useless without the intervention of an exceedingly complex, electrically powered machine.  Such a scheme may look good to accountants and to marketers.  But for authors and for readers, there can be no substitute for a well-designed, well-printed, well-bound book that one can see and feel as well as read.  A tangible, stable, well-made page is just as desirable, and just as useful, now as it was in the fifteenth century" (p. 272).

I think not.  Before there were books, there were hand-written symbols on parchment, or stylus on wax, or chisel on stone, or whatever.  Whether the thing be recorded in wax, on animal skin, on cut paper, or on magnetic or optical media, underlying it all is a system of symbols, a system of literacy, the vision of an author, and social conventions that make the interchange of this complex information system possible.  The media is only incidental to the process.  True each media will have its own advantages and disadvantages, claim our allegiances and hatreds, but they exist only because of the thing communicated through them.  This bit of special pleading at the end of this excellent book spoils it a bit with the pale cast of fogeyism, but there is a serious warning to be taken from Chappell and Bringhurst as we enter the post-print-and-paper age:  our systems must insure the permanence of our works over time.  This is the 64,000 dollar question of the digital age that no one has yet answered.  How do we insure that the works we produce today can be read, or even known to have existed, in future millennia?  In an age where all available information will double every 72 hours, how do we decide what to archive and how and where?  The answer is certainly in not abandoning the advantages of digital media, or in clinging nostalgically to physical books, but in tempering our expansive creativity with the archivist's wisdom, wherever that may be found.  In this respect, the warnings at the end of  A Short History of the Printed Word, are apt.