Though Germans invented printing, it is generally held that fifteenth
century German books are less beautiful, on the whole, than the early products of Italian and French presses. Mr., Stanley Morison would not accept this contention, and he has backed his enthusiasm for German " Gothic " type with an imposing folio which includes one hundred and fifty-two good facsimiles of pages from German Incunabula. in the British Museum (Gollancz, £12 12s.). In a brief introduction Mr. Morison discusses the scripts which the first printers took• as models for their founts, and he classifies those founts in five groups—formal pointed Text, round Text, " fere-humanistica or semi-Italian, bastard, and mixed. The facsimiles are arranged in these groups, to each of which is attached a compact commentary. Every serious student of typography should welcome this book, while remembering that Gothic " Text is not nearly so readable as Roman, whatever an admirer like Mr. Morison may say.
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