[DA - A Journal of the Printing Arts]


`Though an angel should write, still 'tis devils must print.'
    -- Thomas Moore, 1779-1852, Irish musician and songwriter




[DA 54, Spring / Summer 2004]

Number 54, Spring / Summer 2004

THADDEUS HOLOWNIA
AND LOUIS BLAKE DUFF

A Brief History
of the Anchorage Press:
The First Twenty Years

by Andrew Steeves

Louis Blake Duff:
A Neglected Icon
in Canada's Print History
by Peter Saracino

The Making of
Emblemata Amatoria:
Amorous Verses
by Wesley W Bates

Dizzy and Out of Breath:
Running the Goat Books
and Broadsides
by Phil Hall

Includes a wood engraving
by Wesley W Bates
printed letterpress
by Juanita Wilkins



You may also
be interested

in Headpieces

or perhaps Tailpieces?

or even a few colorized dingbats
we used on a promotional bookmark

or more Initials?

perhaps these
which appeared
in DA 57?

or these
which appeared
in DA 58?

or these
which appeared
in DA 59?

or these
which appeared
in DA 60?

or these
which appeared
in DA 61?

or these
which also appeared
in DA 61?


Dingbats, Ornaments
and Fanciful Initials

Tim Inkster

The Main Street of Erin Village backs on to a millpond that was flooded in the mid-nineteenth century to further the commercial interests of Mundell Lumber, which continues to retail dry goods into the early part of the twenty-first century. West of the millpond and rising above it 250 vertical feet there is a sizeable glacial `moraine' -- millions of tons of dolomite (mostly) furrowed out of the Credit River Valley ten thousand years earlier and pushed up into a modest sequence of rolling hills.

Elke and I walked those hills, frequently, in the fall of 1971, and one day we happened on the stone foundation of a barn that had fallen into ruin. In the foundation there were boxes,

and boxes, and boxes of books.

Hundreds of copies in fact of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress amongst other titles that were of little interest except that some of the multiple editions of Pilgrim's Progress had been typeset rather well, with intriguing ornamental initials such as you see here.


[the letter A] [the letter B] [the letter E]


The Devil's Artisan intends to present an ever-larger digital library of these images, available at no charge for download as shareware, for the favour of which we would appreciate a credit to `Walter Inkster, the Devil's Artisan'.


[the letter F] [the letter G] [the letter I]


It amuses me, some, that these images are now to be made available on the World Wide Web, and that my father was prematurely dismissed in the 1970s for insisting that the future of Bell Telephone lay in the direction of fibre optics.


[the letter K] [the letter L] [the letter N]


My father, as it turns out, was correct.


[the letter T]


This alphabet is, of course, incomplete. Whether this is a function of the limitations of my source, or because the other letters never existed, I wouldn't know.

To download what you see here, right-click on any letter, which should give you the option of viewing it in a rather large scale or saving it to your local machine. This stratagem works fine in Netscape, Mozilla and Konqueror. I'm less sure about Explorer. You may also be interested in Headpieces or perhaps Tailpieces?

The originals are about an inch and a half high, and were scanned at 600 dpi.

Questions, comments or suggestions about this web page, e-mail publisher Tim Inkster. I would be particularly grateful to hear from anyone who knows what this letterform is called, or anything about its likely origins. For story suggestions for the Devil's Artisan or other editorial concerns
please e-mail editor Don McLeod.

If you're intending to subscribe to the Devil's Artisan, you may be interested to know that we now accept subscription orders paid by VISA (only, not Amex or MasterCard) by voice phone at (519) 833-9158 or (preferably) fax at (519) 833-9845. Please include your name, VISA card number and expiry date on your faxed order. Please also include a voice telephone number or an e-mail address in case of trouble. Please do NOT send us credit card information via e-mail (it's dangerous).

A down-loadable subscription form in Adobe "PDF" format is available by clicking here. Back issues of the Devil's Artisan are also available on abebooks.com

ISSN 0225-7874


A Rogue's Gallery   |    The Gauntlet Press   |    The Anchorage Press   |    The Gourmet Vandercook  |    The Porcupine's Quill

Headpieces   |    Ornamental Initials  |    Tailpieces  |    Sample Issue  |    Back Issues


The Devil's Artisan would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Canada Magazine Fund (CMF) through the Support for Arts and Literary Magazines (SALM) component
toward our editorial and production costs. Thanks, as well, for the generosity
of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council
and the Upper Canada Brewing Company.


Contents © 2006 The Devil's Artisan. Updated: 08 Mar 2008 by Tim Inkster
Web page created 97-10-08 by Brenda J. Sharpe




[A Vampire Bat]


To tour the beginnings of a digital library
of dingbats, start here.