You will get many suggestions. This might be a good resource to look at.

http://home.att.net/~mforder/

Nice resource, James!

I would lean toward a didone like Walbaum, ITC Bodoni Twelve, LTC Bodoni

or scotch face like DeVinne Text or MT Scotch Roman (released in 1904, but has many of the characteristics of text face popular in the late 1800s).

and I’ll chime in that Storm’s Walbaum is a revival but a very nice one. It has some very nice flourons of the era in the OpenType version, “Th” ligatures and other nice details.

Old Standard
http://www.thessalonica.org.ru/en/fonts.html

IMO even the DeVinne Text weight is a bit too light.
Old Standard has all the ff ligatures, although no small caps or bold.

Bodoni and Walbaum were not in use at that time.

If only Shinntype’s Scotch Roman was available, eh Nick?

While it is from a slightly earlier time, Monticello would be appropriate, and better, I think, than Walbaum or Bodoni for the time, place, & content.

Matthew Carter made the PostScript version of Monticello for Princeton University Press, as it had been used in their Thoreau series. This was done in partnership with Linotype as they had done some preliminary digitization.

The fonts are available from Carter & Cone, or I believe Linotype. The C&C has all the goodies, but as it is a Type 1 font, they’re spread out across multiple fonts. Monticello is essentially the same as Oxford, and could be thought of as a Scotch.

URW Modern Extended is nice and dark in color, it prints well on poorer stock. Use a didone like HTF Didot or Bodoni 72 for the titling, and you’ve got a nice, historically-appropriate design I would think.

I agree that while DeVinne is nice, it is too light for most applications; yet another casualty of the early digitization era.

I would imagine Font Bureau’s FB Scotch is nice, but I haven’t seen it anywhere other than their pdf specimen sheet.

FB Scotch is not sold via their retail site; one has to contact FB directly to negotiate the license.

John, I got a bit carried away with adding characters to my Scotch. It didn’t seem like such a big deal ramping up one font to 1500+, but it’s a bit of a grind finishing the family—haven’t got around to the Asian Cyrillic Bold Italic Swash Caps yet—and I do intend to release the whole family together.

I want to thank you each for your very helpful suggestions. And thanks for the link to the 1800’s Emphemera page, jupiter.

I’m mulling over my options.

To thicken the plot, I tracked down a couple of scanned pages from an acquaintance in Hawaii. He’s now uploaded them to his website. For whatever interest it might hold, the links are:

http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/BroBill/1883-02.jpg
http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/BroBill/1883-03.jpg

I’m going to post these to the Type ID forum and hope for the best. At least then I’ll know the identity of the font(s) to which I don’t have access.

The body-text font doesn’t seem *particularly* distinctive, at least in my fairly-uninformed opinion, other than the upper-case “J.” But the title-font surely must be identifiable from a mile away if one has the right set of eyes.

Again, thanks much for the help.

Chris

When in doubt, use Caslon.

The EF Baskerville is similar to the text font.

You’ve got a mix of other faces used on the title page, and elsewhere I suspect.

Also take a look at Oldstyle #7.

& don’t get too bothered if a face hasn’t got small caps. They were not that common at the time, and I bet the guys down in Lamoni did not have them. Few Midwest country printing shops had them even by the 1960s, I can tell you that from experience.

& Monticello for sure; look at that.

But also make sure you have asked yourself how important it is that the job be set in a “historically-tenable font.” I don’t mean you should set it in just anything, but think about the purpose of your work. And the audience for your work.

powers

Does have smallcaps—

I’m not familiar with this Oldstyle #7, Will. Which foundry digitized? There is Century Oldstyle which is the Bentons’ renovation of Phemister’s Miller & Richard Old Style for ATF. It’s a pretty good match for the sample, actually.

> Does have smallcaps—

Indeed. I sure overlooked that. Thanks.

Oldstyle #7 is a Linotype face. Credited to the Bruce Foundry, 1902. I don’t have reference material here so cannot check more. Adobe sells it, and until just now looking at MyFonts I had never known that Bitstream has something called Bruce Old Style that is very similar, but appears to be lighter.

I rarely use Oldstyle #7, but there are times when it is just right.

powers

While all the suggestions here are sound, in my experience the best way to call up this era is with ITC Bodoni Twelve, which has all the bells and whistles you will need, especially oldstyle figures. It is really outstanding.

Thanks, mondo!

Maybe off topic, but Emigre had an article about 7 years ago on the Mormons, focused on language.

The Truth shall set you free

Hi Chris!

I am currently writing a biography of William Smith and thought you might want to know that the pamphlet is online at

http://www.olivercowdery.com/smithhome/1883Wilm.htm

It was transcribed by Dale Broadhurst in Hawai’i. Dale may have a complete copy of the original pamphlet so you can see the font. He does reproduce the jacket cover above, in case you don’t have that. He’s a really nice guy and can be reached at dbroadhu@hawaiiantel.net

I’d love to get a copy when you’re done!

What is your interest in William Smith, btw?

Connell O’Donovan
Santa Cruz CA

What about GFS Bodoni? It DOES have the bold and smallcaps, and the contrast is similar to ITC Bodoni 12’s.

But that example has Jannon-esque lower case a, so does a Modern match?