The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection
The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection
A History and Catalog
2023 50 Books | 50 Covers Award, The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)
2024 Honorable Mention, Design Awards, Graphis
2024 Finalist, Typography Competition, Communication Arts Magazine
A beautifully illustrated exploration of the Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection.
The Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection is a comprehensive collection of wood type manufactured and used for printing in nineteenth-century America. Comprising nearly 150 typefaces of various sizes and styles, it was amassed by noted design educator and historian Rob Roy Kelly starting in 1957 and is now held by the University of Texas. Although Kelly himself published a 1969 book on wood type and nineteenth-century typographic history, there has been little written about the creation of the wood type forms, the collection, or Kelly.
In this book, David Shields rigorously updates and expands upon Kelly’s historical information about the types, clarifying the collection’s exact composition and providing a better understanding of the stylistic development of wood type forms during the nineteenth century. Using rich materials from the period, Shields provides a stunning visual context that complements the textual history of each typeface. He also highlights the non-typographic material in the collection—such as borders, rules, ornaments, and image cuts—that have not been previously examined. Featuring over 300 color illustrations, this written history and catalog is bound to spark renewed interest in the collection and its broader typographic period.
406 pages of the most comprehensive biography and scholarship on Kelly and his collection...[Shields'] exhaustive attention to detailing the types and their makers and the eloquent reverence he displays for Rob Roy Kelly is far more valuable than the curiously inexpensive cover price...An impeccable volume.
Wood type is bold and beautiful, and a hefty book like this one...seems fitting. It offers a wealth of information about the specimens in the Rob Roy American Wood Type Collection at the University of Texas (UT) in Austin, Texas, their classifications and the manufacturers who created them while also telling a finely detailed history of Kelly’s journey acquiring wood type, designing and printing specimens, and researching their histories...Beautifully printed, the book comes with a brilliant green-ribbon bookmark and vibrant red/orange endsheets in a pattern drawn from the collection’s borders and rules.
[The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection] is not just a must-have for any wood-type aficionados. The book sets a new typographic history bar.
[The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection] is a sumptuous book, beautifully printed on heavy paper, fully illustrated with types from the collection. This is an important work and should be considered, along with Kelly's original book, an indispensable resource for anyone interested in graphic design and typography...Highly recommended.
The Rob Roy American Wood Type Collection is an extraordinary book that will be enjoyed by historians, design educators, and typophiles. The book is an excellent resource for anyone who is interested in the collection but perhaps unable to make a trip to visit it. It is a beautiful book and not only is it a testament to the significance of Rob Roy Kelly’s work and to the significance of this important yet almost forgotten element of American history. As Shields reminds us, 'The history of America…was printed in wood type.'
In this encyclopedic book, David Shields provides invaluable, thought-provoking discussions of wood type as a physical object, along with the manufacture, marketing, use, and cataloging of it. In doing so, he opens new windows onto nineteenth-century print culture and its materiality. Shields frames the book with Rob Roy Kelly's lifelong project of acquiring and cataloging wood type, culminating in the landmark 1964 publication, American Wood Type 1828–1900. Far from limiting the book, this exploration of Kelly's career provides a compelling peek into the mid-twentieth-century network of librarians and booksellers who were interested in the relatively new endeavor of collecting the history of printing. While The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection is destined to become the essential resource for American wood type, its accessible style and beautiful illustrations will also engage anyone interested in the history of American printing.
David Shields has produced a rich and beautiful book that explores for the first time the entire culture surrounding this important and beloved art form. Shields’s new work thoroughly delivers on Kelly’s original promise, creating an indispensable book for anyone who loves typography. It is certain to become a classic.
- Acknowledgments
- I An Introduction
- II
- A. Rob Roy Kelly—“Midwestern Pluralist and Pragmatist”
- B. Stephen Saxe, “Reflections on American Wood Type 1828–1900”
- C. Tracy Honn, untitled essay
- D. The Collection after Kelly
- III
- A. A Time Line of American Manufacturers
- B. Production Methods
- C. Planing Patterns
- D. Manufacturer’s Stamps in Collection
- E. Hand-List of Known American Wood Type Specimen Catalogs to 1901
- IV
- A. Classification System
- B. Style Descriptions
- V
- A. Type Specimens
- — 001–123 specimen pages
- B. Type Specimens from Other Collections and Three Unaccounted Faces
- — 001–016 specimen pages
- C. Borders, Ornaments, and Cuts
- — 001–019 specimen pages
- D. Adobe Wood Type, Adobe Originals, 1988–1994
- Appendix A. Hand List of 1964 Folio
- Appendix B. Bibliography of Kelly Texts and Collected Papers
- Appendix C. Bibliography of Kelly’s Donations, with Current Locations
- Appendix D. Rob Roy Kelly’s Teaching Appointments
- Notes
- Reference Bibliography
- Index
