Baskerville/Franklin Biographical Sketch

Ehague24 Feb 2012

I remember reading about two years ago a short (maybe 15-page) scholarly account of the interactions of Baskerville and Benjamin Franklin. I'd found it as a PDF, and it had inset pictures and illustrations.

I'm pretty sure it was this, but I'm not positive:
http://www.search.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/engine/resource/exhibition/standard/default.asp?resource=4626

At any rate, I was hoping to find it as a PDF (need to show it to someone), but I can't find any online. Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about? Thanks.

eliason24 Feb 2012#

It wasn't this Monticello: the History of a Typeface article, I suppose.

riccard024 Feb 2012#

Neither this, right? ;-)
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/caslon-baskerville-and-franklin-revol...

Ehague24 Feb 2012#

Neither is the exact one I'm remembering, but they're both good.

William Berkson24 Feb 2012#

I don't know the online availability, but the original source for the letter in which Franklin writes Baskerville about his prank is:

John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (London: Nichols & Son and Bentley, 1812), 3: 454-55.

I quote it in my article 'Readability and Revival: The Case of Caslon,' in last summer's edition of Printing History.

Captured from commoncrawl.org on 27 Apr 2015. original URL