The Booklover and His Books

No objects could be much more unlike than a Babylonian tablet, an Egyptian papyrus roll, and a Mexican book. They are as different as a brick, a narrow window-shade, and a lady'...

The binding of a book is its most conspicuous feature, the part which forms its introduction to the public and by which too often it is judged and valued; yet the binding is not...

The great constructive feature of Mr. Stevens's address, which is one that brings it absolutely up to date, is his call for a school of typography, which shall teach a recognize...

At this point we may even introduce a claim for print as a contributor to literature. There are certainly many books of high literary standing that never would have attained the...

In all these studies one obvious subject of investigation appears to have been overlooked, and that is the actual types of everyday print. Do they vary greatly in legibility? Ar...

and their writings have no relation to adolescence. Yet it is to be feared that most people who have read their works remember them as seen through the cloudy medium of their ow...

Of Goethe himself Carlyle confessed that the reading of his works made him understand what the Methodists mean by a new birth. Those who are familiar with the speeches and writi...

What does a student of five and twenty years ago still remember of his college? My own first and fondest recollection is of the walks and talks, _noctes coenaeque deum_, with lo...

Let us turn now to a different type of community, that represented by the ordinary New England village. How stands the cause of reading there? If there is any person of sound mi...

We now come to the type-page, of which the paper is only the carrier and framework. This should have, as nearly as possible, the proportion of the paper--really it is the type t...

The following chapters were written during a series of years as one aspect after another of the Book engaged the writer's attention. As they are now brought together, the result...

Misprints--to use the handiest term--range in importance from the innocent and obvious, like a turned _a_, and the innocent and obvious only to the expert, like a turned _s_, to...

If anyone questions whether this principle is true or not, the best answer will be to bid him test it. Though it be true universally, some people may not easily apply it, and so...

Milton, John, debt of Daniel Webster to, 110; gave metric hints by spelling, 18; Hazlitt on, 142; his greatness, 72, 73; his spelling, 149, 150; Lamb would say grace before read...