The Noord-Hollands Archief has begun to digitise materials from the archives of Joh. Enschedé of Haarlem, one of the longest-existing printing companies. One work this initiative has now made accessible everywhere is the monumental 1978 edition of Dr. Charles Enschedé’s 1908 book Typefoundries in the Netherlands, translated into English and edited by Harry Carter, Netty Hoeflake and Lotte Hellinga and printed by Bram de Does. (See discussion on TypeDrawers here, here.)

The book is handset in metal type, Jan van Krimpen's Romanée. Weighing in at 4.5kg, it includes extensive showings of historic metal types in Enschedé’s collections dating back as far as the fifteenth century, including full character sets and resettings of entire ornamented title pages and page layouts. These were mostly cast and typeset for the 1908 edition: due to the survival of the standing metal type they could be reprinted again for the 1978 edition. The paper was specified by de Does. It's an astonishing experience seeing historic typefaces cast and printed with modern technology, frequently revealing a staggering crispness the printing technology of their time often could not show.

De Does' design uses Romaneé with footnotes and section headings in the margin. A Lombardic capital-style C (see discussion below) is used as a bracket to mark additional information breaking into Enschedé's text. The body text is not set in columns.

Enschedé's 1893 commemoration of the foundry's 150th anniversary has also been digitised by Google.

Page layout, with footnotes at the bottom of the page.

Pages 404-5, display layout of modern-face types

Interlaced capitals of c. 1578, probably by Hendrik van den Keere (see John A. Lane’s 1995 article and 2004 book on the Plantin-Moretus collections, p. 42.) The Lombardic initial C is used as a bracket indicating an addition to Enschedé's original text. The translation uses ‘fount’, the normal use for metal type.

Engrossing initials, perhaps conceived by Willem Silvius. There were similar ‘secretary’ script types around the same time, both in the Low Countries and in London, and the James foundry had two in the spectacular “court hand” style. Both styles appear in an auction specimen of 1782; there's some more information in Carter and Ricks’ edition of Rowe Mores, pp. 112-3.

The oldest roman type for which matrices survive, Cologne, c. 1527. Enschedé were able to fill out the character set through electrotyping and cutting replacement characters.

In 1931, the Limited Editions Club in New York commissioned Jan van Krimpen to design a two-volume series for the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. Shown in the images, the Odyssey is hard-bound with a dark blue cloth surface, contained in a yellow slipcase.

The book title "The Odyssey of Homer" only appears on the spine in all caps, embossed in gold. Other than drop caps, there is no illustration inside. The pages' top edge are gold glided, and the reading edges are deckled. Some pages are not even cut open.

There are four kinds of watermark on many pages, indicating this paper is specially made for the job: lettering "The Limited Editions Club"; lettering "Homer's Odyssey"; ornament; and human figure.

This Homer was also the first use of Van Krimpen's own typeface, Romanée, casted at 16-point. Romanée was an upright style originally conceived to accompany Enschedé's Kleine Text Cursyf ("[for] Small Text Italic" in English), rediscovered in its archive. At that point, Van Krimpen had yet to design his own Romanée italic. Therefore the introduction, which is set completely in italic, uses Monotype Van Dijck.

This book has an edition of 1500, all signed by Van Krimpen himself. Photos are taken from my own copy, No. 352.

Peter Matthias Noordzij of TEFF (The Enschedé Font Foundry) partially digitized Romanée with Fred Smeijers in 1995. This digital Romanée was based on the 16-point metal, and only has an upright. It was used to set a Van Krimpen biography, titled Adieu æsthetica & Mooie pagina's, and also a subsequent small booklet, presumably an exhibition catalog, titled The Aesthetic World of Jan van Krimpen. Perhaps because the italics were never completely digitized, TEFF's digital Romanée was never released.

In TypeCon 2016 I met Smeijers, and asked him why it stalled. He responded, "[he and PMN] had a difference of vision" in how the italics should be digitized.

Watermark: “The Limited Editions Club”

Watermark: “Homer’s Odyssey”

Watermark: ornament.

Watermark: Human figure.

A retrospective on the works of the Utrecht-based private press “De Renildis Handpers”, 1957–1987. A short introduction set in Eric Gill’s Joanna is followed by spreads featuring reproductions of pages from various Renildis editions.

Reproduced pages from Renildis editions. Left: 1968, Dutch national anthem set in Codex; right: Rondeau CX set in Post-Mediäval.

Left: from Denken und Lesen und Schreiben und Drucken by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, set in Wilhelm-Klingspor-Schrift and Codex; right: excerpts from other editions, set in Vendôme, Romanée and Codex.

Left: Symbolum Nicaneo-Constantinopolitanum, set in Wallau (with uncial caps) and Delphin; right: Tussen de blauwe lucht en de kiezelgrond by Lodewijk van Deyssel, set in Mercator smal mager.