Oresteia. by PROCTOR, Robert. AESCHYLUS.

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  • Another image of Oresteia. by PROCTOR, Robert. AESCHYLUS.
  • Another image of Oresteia. by PROCTOR, Robert. AESCHYLUS.
  • Another image of Oresteia. by PROCTOR, Robert. AESCHYLUS.
The first book to be printed with Robert Proctor’s superb Greek typeface - an important piece of typographical history

~ Oresteia.

London Published by Emery Walker, Sydney Carlyle Cockerell and Alfred William Pollard. Printed by Charles Whittingham & Co at the Chiswick Press. 1904

Aeschylus’s trilogy of Greek tragedies, set in Proctor’s splendid ‘Otter’ type, the first book to be set in this typeface. Printed in red and black on hand-made paper. One of 225 copies. Pp. 194. 4to., original holland boards (linen backed, blue paper covered boards), printed paper spine label. A handsome unopened copy in the original state, housed in a modern solander box with paper label, a little browning to the boards, otherwise very good.

The arresting Greek type used by Proctor in this edition was based on the celebrated Alcala typeface of 1514, which was cut by order of Cardinal Ximenes for use in the New Testament of the great Complutensian polygot Bible. Proctor, who was a bibliographer at the British Museum, died before his Otter type used in print. He bequeathed the type to Emery Walker and Sydney Cockerel who printed this beautiful edition of the Oresteia and were so pleased with the result that they reused the type for the Odyssey (1909) and The Four Gospels (1932).
Inserted loose is a 2pp. rave review in The Athenaeum, (c.1904).

Updike, II, p.215
Stock ref: 11548
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