The Natural Proportions of the Well-Made Book

A book is a thing to be read--we all start with that--and we will assume that the reader is a sensitive as well as a sensible person. Now, the first thing to be noticed is that it is the act of reading and the circumstances of that act that determine the size of the book and the kind of type used; the reading, not what is read. A good type is suitable for any and every book, and the size of a book is regulated not by what is in it but by the fact that it is read held in the hand (e.g. a novel), or at a table (e.g., books of history or reference with maps or other necessarily large illustrations), or at a desk or lectern (e.g., a missal or a choir book), or kept in the pocket (e.g. a prayer book or a travelers’ dictionary).

On the contrary, some hold that size of books and style of type should be specially chosen for every book; that such and such a size is suitable for Shakespeare; such and such for H. G. Wells’ novels, such and such for T. S. Eliot’s poems; that the type suitable for one is not suitable for another; that elegant poetry should have elegant type, and the rough- hacked style of Walt Whitman a rough-hacked style of letter; that reprints of Sir Thomas Malory should be printed in “Black Letter” and books of technology in “sans-serif.” There is a certain plausibility in all this, and even a certain reasonableness. The undignified typography of the Daily Mail Year Book is certainly unsuitable for the Bible; a fine italic might be suitable for Milton but unsuitable for “Tono-Bungay” (a novel by H. G. Wells); sans-serif may be suitable for a translation of Jean Cocteau but might be unsuitable for a pocket prayer book. And as to size: it is impossible to print the Bible on too grand a scale, but third-rate verse might look and be absurd in a book requiring a lectern to hold it. Nevertheless, the reasonable producer of books starts with the principle that it is the reading, not the reading matter, which determines the size of book and style of type; the other considerations come in only as modifying influences. In planning a book, the first questions are: Who is going to read this, and under what circumstances?

If, then, there are normally four sizes of books, it would seem that there should be four sizes of type. A pocket book demands small type, say 8-point (Editor’s note: The text you are reading is set in 8.5-point type), for reasons of space. A book held in the hand demands type of about 10 or 12 points on account of the length of the human arm and the normal power of human eyesight, assuming a normally legible type. Table books and lectern books, normally read further from the eye, demand types of still larger sizes, say 14- or 18-point or over. But the sizes of types named here are not binding on anybody; it is only the principle we are concerned with.

The proportions of books were formerly determined by the sizes of printing papers. These were always oblong in shape (probably because this was the shape most easily handled by the makers, or, perhaps, because the skins of animals used for writing on in medieval times are of this shape, and so books followed suit) and when folded in half and in half again and so on, made a narrow folio, a wide quarto, a narrow octavo, etc. But with the machine-made papers now almost universally used, these proportions are only retained by custom, the width of the web of paper and the direction of the grain being the only determining factors.

Books printed on machine-made paper can, these factors understood, be of any shape that pleases you. And thus the commercial book designer is, to a greater degree than his predecessor, released from the thraldom of any considerations but that of what will sell.

As to what does or should sell, we may say that the things that should form the shape and proportions of the page are the hand and the eye; the hand because books of wide proportions are unwieldy to hold, and the eye because lines of more than 10-12 words are awkward to read. (With longer lines, set solid, i.e. without leads (spaces) between them, there is difficulty in following from one line to the next, and, even if the type be leaded, a long line necessitates a distinctly felt muscular movement of the eye and, in extreme cases, of the head.) As to the height of a page, this again is governed by the needs of hand and eye; a very tall page necessitates either a distinct movement of the neck of the reader or a changing of the angle at which the book is held in the hand, and such things are simply a nuisance.

It may be that there are other considerations than those of physical convenience that have helped to determine the normal octavo page; it may be that such a proportion is intrinsically pleasing to the human mind. It is, however, sufficient for us to see that there is a physical reasonableness in this proportion, and we may safely leave the discovery of other reasons to professional aestheticians.

The shape of the page being given, it remains to discover the best proportions for the lines and mass of type printed upon it. Here again physical considerations are a sufficient guide. Two things are to be thought of: the type and the margins.

Let us consider the margins first. The inner margin exists simply to separate a page from the one opposite to it, and need be no wider than is enough to keep the printed words clear of the bend of the paper where it is sewn in binding. The top margin, again, needs only to be sufficiently wide to isolate the type from the surrounding landscape of furniture and carpets (just as a “mount” or frame is used by painters to isolate a picture from wallpaper, etc.). On the other hand, the outer and bottom margins need more width than is required for mere isolation, for it is by these margins that the book is held in the hand; enough must be allowed for thumbs, and the bottom margins need more than the side or outer ones.

These physical considerations being allowed for, we may now consider the margins in relation to one another, and it will be seen at once that, taking one page at a time, i. e. half the “opening,” slightly more must be allowed to the top margin than is required for mere isolation; for if you make the top and inner margins equally narrow, the outer margin wide and the bottom still wider, the text will appear to be being pushed off the top. We may say then that the general rule should be: a narrow inner margin, a slightly wider top margin, an outer margin at least double the inner, and a bottom slightly wider than the others; the exact proportions being left to the judgment of the printer.

It is to be noted that unless the outer margin be at least double the inner, the two inner margins, seen together when the book is opened, will appear to be pushing the text outwards off the page.

With a normal octavo page of 5 inches wide and 7 1/2 inches high, and supposing that we allow margins as follows: inner, 1/2 inch; top, 3/4 inch; outer, 1 inch, and bottom, 1 1/6 inch; we shall get a type page 3 1/2 inches wide by 5 2/3 inches high (i. e. 34 lines of pica type, 12 pt., set solid). This allows for a line of an average length of 10-12 words in pica, and pica is a good, ordinary size for a book held in the hand. Obviously these dimensions may be varied slightly without destroying the rationality or normality of the page, and type slightly larger or smaller than pica (12 pt.) can be used without extravagance or loss of legibility; though it is obvious that, for reasons of physical convenience, a variation that entails a lengthening of the line to more than 12 or 13 words is a variation in a direction less commendable than one that entails a shortening of the line. The dimensions given may therefore be taken as a norm.

The bulk of the book is also a thing to be considered. By increasing the margins and leading the type, the number of pages will be increased, and this may be desirable on various grounds. For instance, where great legibility is required, the leading of the type is helpful; or where the text is short and the book consequently a very thin one, the increase of margins and the use of leads may give that bulk to the book that habit has made pleasant.

Even the business of bookselling makes its legitimate demands; books commend themselves to buyers by their weight, bulk and size as well as by their titles or their typography, and this is not entirely foolish. Books have got to be handled as well as read, and they have got to stand on shelves. Nevertheless there is no occasion to go to extremes in this matter, and it is as foolish to make a thick book of a short story as it is, by small type and cramped margins, to make one volume of a book that is properly two.

As to binding: The continental practice of issuing books in sheets, or simply sewn with a paper wrapper, is much to be praised. The English (Editor’s note: and the American) book buyer’s insistence on a stiff cover, even for the cheapest books, has been met by the invention or development of the “case,” i. e. a stiff cover that may be applied after the sheets are sewn, and is designed for making in large quantities.

The only objection to such cases is that they nearly always retain certain conventional ornamentations that are derived from the “binding” of former times and are not appropriate to machine-made things. For sixpenny novels, the work is done from end to end by machine--including the ornaments on the sides and back. For more expensive books, some parts of the work are still done by hand, e. g. the pasting of the end-sheets and the insertion of head bands of particoloured cloth. But except for individual private customers, “binding,” i. e. the sewing of the sheets and the lacing of the whole thing to the cover so that book and cover are one thing, is not done at all.

Doubtless the ordinary products of commercial printing are not suitable for any other treatment, and while the cry is for cheaper and cheaper books, anything but what can be done by machine is out of the question. Printing done by machinery on machine-made paper may well be cased in machine-made casing, but printing done by human beings on paper made by human beings ought to be bound by human beings. . . .

Obviously there is only one just cause for the limitation of an edition, and that is the size of the market. Provided you are concerned to make books as well as they can be made--and this not so much in a spirit of piety (though we do not disdain the virtue of Prudence) as in a spirit of reasonableness, for ultimately there is no happiness in a world in which things are not as good as they can be--the size of your edition will depend simply upon your judgement and experience as to the number of possible buyers. And if, owing to the time factor, you cannot supply in a reasonable time all who would buy, then you can produce second and third editions.

We may here go into the question of the artificial limitation of numbers in order to capture a “collectors” market. Properly understood, this is a purely “business” matter, and the printer whose first concern is quality is not a man of business. Let us suppose that both the craftsman and the industrialist have produced as many of their respective products as they can sell. What further can either of them do?

The craftsman can introduce into his workshop a bit of machinery, and, without its being noticeable to his customers, produce the same number of books more cheaply and therefore more profitably. He will continue to produce the same number, but now, instead of that number being the largest number he can sell, it will be the most profitable number.

The industrialist can introduce into his factory a book designer who has studied in the museums where they store pre-industrial productions, and, by careful watching of the work of “private” presses and of the market supplied by them, he may produce, at a considerably higher price than they cost him to make, a “limited” edition that will make almost as much appeal to collectors as the work of Cobden-Sanderson and his predecessors. This is simply a matter of business.

There are, then, two principles, as there are two worlds. There is the principle of best possible quality, and the principle of greatest possible profit. And there is every sort of compromise between the two. Whether, as seems probable, industrialism win a complete victory, or human nature so far reassert itself as to overthrow industrialism, is not here our concern. For the present we hold simply to the conviction that the two principles and the two worlds can exist side by side, industrialism becoming more strictly and nobly utilitarian as it recognizes its inherent limitations, and the world of human labor, ceasing any longer to compete with it, becoming more strictly and soberly humane.

From Eric Gill, “An Essay on Typography” (David R. Godine: $15.95; 133 pp.), with a new introduction by Christopher Skelton. This justly celebrated essay, long out of print, has been re-issued by a publishing house distinguished for the excellence of its typography. The new Godine edition reproduces a 1936 British edition that enacted a number of Gill’s ideas and was, as a result, not just interesting on the subject of typography but typographically interesting.

“Born in 1882 in Brighton, England, Eric Gill displayed interest and talent in lettering and architecture at an early age. Encouraged by W. R. Lethaby of the Central School of the Arts and Crafts, he began carving letters and attending the classes of Edward Johnston. In 1903, he struck out on his own, beginning his life-long career as a self-employed craftsman.

“By 1925, . . . Gill had started drawing alphabets (one of which was to eventually become Perpetua) as well as formulating the principles later collected in his celebrated ‘Essay.’ ”

From the book jacket. Eric Gill, self-portrait.