Manuel Typographique, Utile aux Gens de Lettres, & a ceux qui exercent les differentes parties de l'Art de l'Imprimerie.
Paris, 1764-1766[68]. Two volumes. 4 x 6 1/4. xxxii, Frontis of a printing shop by Gravelot, 316, (5) pages + 16 foldout plates; allegorical frontis, xliv, 306 pages including 5 foldout plates of music printing. Handsome contemporary leather bindings, morocco spine labels, spines gilt with printers' flowers ornaments, a.e.g. Dutch gilt endpapers are signed in the design by the Ausberg papermaker Johann Echinger. Joints & tips rubbed; spine crown chipped on Vol. I; some toning oof page margins. A very good, pleasing copy. Item #7393
Fournier had planned a four volume set to encompass all aspects of printing, but lived to complete only these two. The first deals with the process of making type. (Moxon's Mechanick Exercises and the Manuuel are the only detailed studies of type founding in the age of the handpress.)
Volume II is a specimen of type from Fournier's foundry as well as several others in Europe; there are 250 pages of specimens with about a 100 devoted to exotic faces, 15 to music and over 30 to ornamental material. In addition to its inherent typographic importance the work has been characterized as an exquisite example of rococo typography.
Bigmore & Wyman I p. 128; Birrell & Garnett #37; Updike I p. 260-66; Audin nos. 55, 56; Dreyfus p. 102. PMM Fine Printing #112. Grolier Club 100 Books Famous in Typography.
Price: $4,900.00