Ebook Bruce Rogers Designer of Books

Experiments were continued With the Mon taigne fount until the last volume of the Essays had been set in 1904. He was not entirely pleased with the face as it appeared, even after many alter ations. In a way, the punch-cutter had done his work too well; Mr. Rogers decided that there had been too much 'improvement' over the original, and he resolved to return to Jenson at some later time for a more direct inspiration. Meanwhile the Montaigne was used in an edition of Boccaccio's Life of Dante, a simple and stately book, and later on, in 1908, appeared in the duodecimo Banquet of Plato. In spite of the fact that the type was cut for use on a large page, its use ln the short lines and small pages of the latter book is unexpectedly pleasing. The book cannot, perhaps, be read as fast as if the line were longer or the type smaller; but to put this forward as an objection is to imply that the reader is capable of following Plato's reasoning as swiftly as his eyes can skim the line. Its value in this particular edition lies not in the fact that it can be read rapidly, but in the fact that it presents the text in a manner just sufficiently unusual and impressive to com mand and direct attention. It is used here with out decoration.