Specimen of Printing Types and Ornaments — book, Lovell & Gibson, 1847

This is a reprint of one of the very few early Canadian type specimen books. It was published by The Bibliographical Society of Canada in 1975. The source for the reprint was provided by the Toronto antiquarian bookseller Hugh Anson-Cartwright. The introduction was written by Douglas Lochhead – founding librarian of Massey College and close friend of Carl Dair. It was printed by The University of Toronto Press.

The Montreal firm Lovell & Gibson had been in business in various forms since 1835. The partnership was made up of John Lovell and his brother-in-law, John Gibson. For a time, Lovell & Gibson also operated an office in Toronto. Type specimen books were rare during this period, as few printers possessed a large enough collection of typefaces to justify producing more than a single broadside. The original book was printed in red and black – with some gold – and must have made a striking impression on early printers in both Upper and Lower Canada. Modelled after specimen books issued by 19th-century English typefounders, particularly Vincent Figgins and Robert Thorne, the printing does not match the standards of its English counterparts. The typefaces themselves were manufactured in England, and it is likely that a specimen book accompanied the order.

Typefaces now classified as Moderns (or Industrial Moderns) were ubiquitous in the latter half of the 19th-century – the overwhelming majority of books published in the Western world during that time were set in a Modern typeface. Type foundries offered an extensive range of Moderns, most identified by number rather than name. One of the few to survive relatively intact into the 21st-century is Modern No.20 from the English type foundry Stephenson Blake – the typeface used on the spine of this reprint.

In his introduction to the 1975 reprint, Massey College librarian Douglas Lochhead, wrote: “It is the hope of the Bibliographical Society of Canada that this latest edition to its Facsimile Series will stimulate a renewed interest not only in Lovell & Gibson but in other Canadian printer-publishers, particularly those of the nineteenth century.” To which we would like to add; it is our hope that research into early Canadian typefounding will one day see a similar revival. – Rod McDonald