That Eliot sample is definitely not a Baskerville.

If this was hand-set, then from what I can see, my guess is it was set in ATF’s Caslon Oldstyle No. 471, 12-point.

Thanks Kentlew – yes indeed – the Eliot sample is definitely not Baskerville! I should have posted up other examples from the Hogarth Press that look as though they used baskerville aswell as Caslon.

ATF's Caslon 471 looks identical – and yes indeed it was hand-set. Thanks again for your insight – I'll see what the St.Brides holds in-store and update the post – hopefully during the week.

FB

Hi Kent — and anybody else who's interested, after heading down to St. Brides Library today, and going through a couple of books, I'm pretty sure that the Woolf's used Caslon in their earlier hand-printed editions produced at the Hogarth press. Some text from one of the books (The handprinted books of Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1917-1932 / by Donna E. Rhein. ISBN: 0835716945);

[Just off Fleet Street they happened upon] "The Excelsior Printing Supply co., where they bought a small handpress, complete with instruction booklet and some *Old Face* type for £19. 5s. 5d."

I assume *Old Face* type is meant in the broader sense of the word (classification) and having looked at the printed pieces (most of which are somewhat poor reproductions of the Title pages – not full text blocks) it seems to tally that it was Caslon or something very similar, I was focusing on the swash characters used (A, P and R), the inward curling second leg of the italic lowercase h and the numerals to identify the type.

Thanks again Kent! Apologies for the poor image quality!

FB

Silly me; in London, of course, the Woolfs would not have been using ATF fonts. Their “Old Face” would more likely have come from Stephenson, Blake & Co., successor to the original Caslon foundry. That’s my guess.

Indeed, and here I present a proof I pulled yesterday of the S&B Founders Old Face Caslon; Identical! – more or less. Lowercase b and d are in the wrong order and the lowercase q is missing – it was the end of the day when I decided to compose this, so a bit tired and not concentrating 100% – it was more to just get an idea of how the type looked printed. Enjoy!

FB