THE MANUEL TYPOGRAPHIQUE of PIERRE-SIMON FOURNIER le jeune : Together with Fournier on Typefounding, an English Translation of the Text, by Harry Carter. In FACSIMILE. With an Introduction and Notes by James Mosley. THREE VOLUMES.

Published by Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany, 1995. ISBN: 3886070948.

Three hardcover books, cloth covered boards with paper spine title labels, small 8vo., 4.5x7 inches (11x17.5 cm). Texts in their original French and English. All are ILLUSTRATED with fonts, types, vignettes, etc.

The three facsimile editions are:

Manuel Typographique, Volume I, 1764. Illustrated with 16 folding plates plus 60+ pages of various Greek, Roman, and Financial type fonts. Pagination: [3] including frontispiece and title-page, xxxii, 323, [1] Errata, [1] Approbation, [3] Privilege Du Roi, [16] Folding Plates.

Manuel Typographique, Volume 2, 1766. Illustrated throughout with many pages of types - alphabetical, musical, financial, vignettes, etc. Pagination: xliv, 306.

Fournier on Typefounding, 1930. A facsimile of the English translation of Fournier's Maneul Typographique by Harry Carter, accompanied with his extensive commentary. This third volume also includes an Introduction to this 3 volume edition by Harry Mosley, the editor. 496 pages plus 16 unnumbered 2-page plates.

The Three Volumes are in VERY GOOD condition, Vol. 2 has a some pushing to the covers' spine ends, Vol. 3 has a bend to its upper cover corners that lightly bends the upper corner tips of the inner pages; otherwise all three volumes are tight, bright, sharp, clean and unmarked. A lovely, presentable set.

This three volume set is very hard-to-find.

From the Introduction:

******The chief object of this edition is to publish for the first time a complete facsimile of Fournier's Manuel Typographique. The first volume of this work gives one of only two detailed accounts of the processes of making printing types that were published during the hand press era, and the second volume includes a comprehensive specimen of the types and ornaments of Fournier's own foundry, most of which he cut himself, and it thus provides a record of one of the most remarkable personal achievements in the history of typefounding. The Manuel Typographique is an exquisite example of rococo typography, and the French text is most appropriately read in the dress that its author designed for it.

The work by which this facsimile is accompanied. Fournieron Typefounding, Harry Carter's translation into English of the Manuel Typographique, constitutes the only detailed commentary on Fournier's text that has ever been made. It was originally published in a small edition by the Soncino Press, London, in 1930. A reprint, reproducing the original pages on a slightly enlarged scale, was published in 1973 under the imprint of Burt Franklin, for which Carter wrote a new foreword but did not alter his original text of 1930.******