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Salambo by Gustave Flaubert, Berkley Books

Photo(s) by Steve. Imported from Flickr on Jan 21, 2014. Artwork published in .
Salambo by Gustave Flaubert, Berkley Books
Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Steve and tagged with “roberta”. License: All Rights Reserved.

Berkley Books S1180, 1966. Cover Artist: James Bama

“SALAMBO” is either in Roberta III, an all-caps design claimed by Bob Trogman, or in the virtually identical Xenotype 3481 by Photo-Lettering, Inc., a face with a lowercase that is slightly different from Roberta Regular, shown in Alphabet Thesaurus Vol. 2, 1965 (and in One Line from 1971 as Staudel Xenotype J).

Typefaces

  • Staudel Xenotype J
  • Weiss
  • Anzeigen-Grotesk / Neue Aurora IX

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2 Comments on “Salambo by Gustave Flaubert, Berkley Books”

  1. This is definitely Staudel Xenotype J, which is distinguishable from Roberta III by numerous details, including an “L” with a top serif.

  2. I agree that this is Photo-Lettering’s Staudel Xenotype J (1962). The whole Roberta origin story is murky. I haven’t found a reliably dated source for it from before 1970.

    Also, I haven’t seen full and dated glyph sets for either Staudel Xenotype J and Roberta III Initials by their respective original publishers. Mecanorma’s adapation of Roberta III is shown in a 1974 catalog with an L that does have a top serif. See this snippet from a post-1981 FotoStar catalog that shows this detail, too. In Staudel Xenotype J, B has a tear-shaped top counter. In Roberta III, this shape has a kink at the bottom right – which isn’t present in this application.

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