Text of a lecture entitled ‘A Beautiful Book’ handwritten by Emery Walker. Undated and found in the book ‘London County Council Catalogue of Book Exhibition’. [Transcriber’s note: Where some words that would not be hyphenated normally contain a hyphen it is to replicate those places where, in the original text, a word has been split because it would not all fit on the end of a line. CAW].
(Front page)
Emery Walker
16 Clifford’s Inn
E.C.
1
“ A beautiful book” is a phrase one commonly hears, and generally I think, it connotes a volume containing fine pictures or designs. Sometimes, especially in the case of books printed before the end of the fifteenth century the expression is literally true, but oftener the work on ex-amination will be found, notwithstanding the delightful drawings or engravings it may contain, to lack the first req-uisite of a work of art, that is to say, harmony.
(Pencilled cross) I propose to-night to show a series of photographs upon the screen, which shall illustrate if possible what is really essential to the production of a book, [unreadable crossing out, possibly where] that on its own humbler plane, shall be considered as a work of art/ as much as is a fine work of architecture, or say a fresco by Giotto, and this though not containing a single decoration or picture.
Let us first consider what are necessary materials that go to the making of a book. Paper, and the impression of inked type, may I think be said to be to a printed book, what stone and timber bricks and mortar are to a house. In house-building the first things to be considered are not the paintings and the carvings which may decorate the structure, but the materials
used
2
Used for the walls floors and roof. Unless these are sound and well proportioned, all the painters and carvers in the world will, and should fail, to make our house beautiful. Printing like all other arts and crafts, has its position and scope mainly defined by mechanical conditions. It is only when it is exercised strictly with reference to these limitations, that it is entitled to be considered as an art at all.
First then as to paper. No one I think will dispute, that for durability and appearance, apart from the question of cost, handmade paper is the best [inserted and handsomest]. One is glad to know in these days of competion [sic] made in “Germany” or “Holland” that English hand-made paper still holds, or more than holds its own. Paper It is most pleasant to the eye when the natural colour derived from the rags it is made of, has not been [unreadable crossing out] bleached out of the [unreadable] which is and an artificial colour substituted. This is done Paper makers do this to secure uniformity of tone, so that [inserted] the paper of a book printed to day may exactly match [inserted] one printed last year. Good paper is made by machinery, but some times the makers or their customers are not content that it should stand on its own bottom as machine-made paper but imitate the cross wires that are a necessary evidence of the mould of all paper made by hand of the sort called “laid paper”./ These I am informed have no more to do with the [Transcriber’s note: there is a pencil line on the page which may indicate that it was crossed out]
manufacture
(Page three)
Than the [inserted] butter pat of a cow which [Wm.] Phil May’s little girl asked should be put on the margarine “becos mother’s got [visitors] company”. The modern fashion of leaving the edges of a bound book uncut or untrimmed, especially when the book is printed on hand-made paper, has led to the initiation in machine made paper even of the “deckle” edge – the natural edge of hand-made paper, a most ingenious contrivance having been invented to thin the edge artificially by running water over it while it is in process of manufacture. Excellent paper [unreadable crossing out] suitable for all but the most expensive books can be made by machinery, but such paper made wholly from rags , hand [sized] with an unglazed surface is difficult [3 ureadable words crossed out] to find. We get instead a soft thick paper free indeed from china clay, and in consequence light in weight, but disagreeable to the touch and [unreadable crossing out] perhaps doomed to early decay [In pencil X I may perhaps]. Next as to type. The operations of cutting the punches, striking the matrices, casting the type and composing it into books pages being identical as to labour, whether the face of the letter be ugly or beautiful. [Unreadable crossing out of original beginning of sentence and inserted above The printer should] take the greatest care [illegible word crossed out] to obtain the best designed letters possible. Now there is an underlying assumption that a book is intended to be read. The best type therefore, is that which is [cleverest or dearest] and most readable. Letters are purely forms, and
we
(Page 4)
we cannot “go to Nature” for inspiration, for their shapes. Nor have we, what we might call a living standard of beautiful letters in our current hand-writing. But we can see in the types of the early printers and in the hand-writing of their contemporaries the calligraphers, the utmost beauty of form our present alphabet is perhaps capable of receiving. We cannot if we would, suddenly change the faces of our types. The law of evolution applies here as in the natural world and our letters are the lineal descen-ants of those of the fifteenth century printers [inserted who in turn derived them from the scribes]. Large type being more readable than small, we must use the largest we can, always considering it however in relation to the size of the page. Besides small types though useful for books of refer-ence and for economising space in cheap ones, are wanting in the dignity and grace of the larger ones [inserted letters]. There is no room for the design so to speak.
Even when we have obtained a satisfactory type, the effect of the printed page may be quite spoiled in “setting up” the type if care is not taken to space the words rather closely together but above all equally. Nothing looks worse than the accid-ental meandering white lines or “rivers” which one so often sees in modern books, and hardly ever in the old ones. I saw [There are several attempts at the wording of the next section as follows; original black ink version a day or two since ago followed by next version in pencil: some time. Both versions are crossed out in pencil before the final version in pencil once was decided on. Thus the final wording reads I saw once] a book printed in a fine Venetian type of the fifteenth century that looked quite commonplace
through
(Page 5)
through the non-observance of this rule. [Inserted in pencil I am informed etc]. Lastly, if the pages are placed on the paper so as to allow of a due proportion of margin (what that proportion is I hope to show on the screen presently) we shall have a beautiful book without the introduction of a single illustration. If the illustrations are [unclear section crossed out both in black ink and pencil possible reading high up and replaced with the word inserted] they must be in mechanical relation to the type letterpress, in other words the picture should [originally be simply altered to simply be] a more elab-orate piece of type. If an illustration cannot be printed on the paper best adapted to the letter [inserted such a picture replacing it which has been crossed out in pencil] will not add to the beauty of the book, as a whole. [inserted To be successful it to replace It] must be designed in accord-ance with its mechanical and decorative relation to the printed page. By decorative I do not mean that the block must be what is strictly called ornamental (although personally I think that the most satisfactory book illustrations have always something of an ornamental character about them) but that it should look as if belonged to the page[s], and not as though it had no more to do with it than a botanical specimen put there to dry.
