Please note that this book is no longer available directly from the Fleece Press.

In Praise of John Baskerville, a tribute by F. E. Pardoe
Illustrated by Anthony Christmas

The sixth miniature by the Fleece Press is a short biography of the wonderful John Baskerville. Written by a great friend of the Press, Bill ‘F.E’ Pardoe, and illustrated by another great friend whose engravings have graced several Fleece Press miniatures, Anthony Christmas, this book bursts at the seams. John Baskerville’s life was extraordinary, and fitting it into just 68 pages alongside seven Acetal engravings was a work of genius by Bill.

Baskerville began life as a gravestone cutter, moved on to japanning and veneering, and came to printing, publishing, type-founding, and type design around his mid forties. It is this this later pursuit he is best known for, and, of course, why the Fleece Press chose to publish a miniature book in praise of him. However, as Bill Pardoe notes:

I suspect he probably launched into [his type-founding, printing, and publishing venture] as a rich man’s hobby, just as some men take up owning racehorses; and it must have been pretty nearly as expensive for him, for if there is one continuing motif in the pattern of Baskerville’s printing career, it is the quest for perfection, and what seems to have been his complete neglect of the economic facts of the world of publishing and printing.'

Despite this, we are very glad that Baskerville continued with his calling, as he gave so much to the art and left us with some truly wonderful additions to printing, including, most notably, a long-lived, elegant and eponymous typeface. Like the subject of our earlier miniature, Stanley Morison, this is a commemoration of a great name in printing and publishing and one that the Press was only too pleased to produce.

Of course, no book on John Baskerville could be complete without a word about the time since his death. In the second image shown here, the text begins to discuss Baskerville’s burial arrangements, which, for one reason or another have been disturbed several times. It is a fascinating detail that is well worth reading into, if you don’t already know the story.

This book was published in 1994, in an edition of 260, priced at £36.