Book wise... latest acquisition...

My most recent wander over to that store of wonder The Strand (oh, what a NYC treasure!) reaped a new book for my shelf: Handicrafts of New England by Allen H.Eaton.

This book is a first edition, from 1949. It has the soul of cast metal typesetting, a bygone art. The text in this book is beautiful, each letter a miniature 3 dimensional work of art. Can you tell I used to be a typesetter? Albeit, I worked in typesetting during the phototype days, but even then typography was given great care. The text in this book is set in Linotype Caledonia. Gorgeous.

Chuckle... FULLY ILLUSTRATED is written on the cover. Didn't mean the same thing then as it does now! Still, it has some wonderful photographs in it and all but one are black & white.

It's an exciting find for me seeing how I'll be living in New England again soon. I'm only up to page 31 (374 pgs total) but enjoying it very much. The author drops a lot of names. In fact it appears most of the book is about specific artists living in New England during the time he authored it.

Wonderful quote:
"We have lately become convinced that accurate work with carpenter's tools, or lathe, or hammer and anvil, or violin, or piano, or pencil, or crayon, or camel's hair brush trains well the same nerves and ganglia with which we do what is ordinarily called thinking." -- Charles Eliot

Superb!!