JOHN FELL, THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, AND THE FELL TYPES. The punches and matrices designed for printing in the Greek, Latin, English, and Oriental languages bequeathed in 1686 to the University of Oxford Morison, Stanley; Harry Carter (Assistant) Arts: Decorative

Large Folio. xvi [i], 278 [1]pp., 12 plates, including frontispiece. Original blue cloth with gilt-stamped emblem on cover, gilt lettering and emblem on spine. Gray endpapers. Color frontispiece of John Fell. Title page with publisher's device and part of lettering in brown. Decorative initials. First Edition, limited to 1000 copies, printed from handset type cast at the press in the matrices given by Fell. List of illustrations and abbreviations at front. "The present volume, substantial as it may feel in the hands of the reader, is in fact a limited treatment of the formidable seventeenth-century personality who was a Delegate of the Press and Dean of Christ Church, became Vice-Chancellor of the University, and finally Bishop of Oxford: John Fell. Ample though the dimensions of the book may seem, the space given to Fell's writings is markedly less than would be desired by a specialist of seventeenth-century English theological, controversial, and devotional literature. The present book is intended as a contribution less to biography and theology than to bibliography and typography." (Preface) Profusely illustrated with plates of offset reproductions of paintings of notable personalities, variant typefaces, matrices, woodblocks for initials, and type founder's molds on plates as well as in-text typefaces, title pages, and musical scores. Six appendices at rear: List of the published writings of John Fell; the type founding equipment bequeathed to the University.; the Fell type specimens; the University's other ancient types.; Fell's announcements and proposals; Books in Fell Type published by the University of Oxford. Followed by list of Type-Faces discussed in this book, a glossary of terms relating to type founding, a list of old books used at the University Press, Oxford, related to English Point-Bodies and to typical Dutch and French old bodies, a list of authorities cited, and a general index. Light wear along edges of binding. Previous owner's name inked to front free endpaper.