DESIGN AND BEAUTY IN PRINTING

[New York]: Printed by the Press of the Woolly Whale, 1934. [4], 18 pages. Original printed blue paper covered boards. [15.1 cm.] Boards unevenly sun-faded, light tanning to endpapers, barely perceptible foxing to gutters of prelims. Good plus in original glassine dust jacket (a bit age-toned but showing little wear). FIRST SEPARATE EDITION, printed in celebration of Goudy's 69th birthday. This essay originally appeared in the Craftsmen Number of "The American Printer," Aug. 20, 1922. Goudy discusses the importance of design to the goal of introducing beauty into printing, the ways in which printing may aspire to be an art, and the relationship between typography and the texts it reproduces. "While printing, per se, is not an art . . . it is, nevertheless, a craft that widens and deepens the very foundations of literature & makes secure the world's inheritance of the knowledge of classic Greece and Rome . . . When printing utilizes the beauty of the means itself to the end of communicating a fine or beautiful thought; when the words of the great writer are so richly clothed that the raiment becomes both an interpretation and a tribute to their worth; when we may dwell on typography with pleasure for its artistic beauty, printing becomes then more than a mere craft." --pp. 5-6. Scarce in the trade.�