Good, Gray B. R.

"... A kind of low, clammy, soft-footed, zoot-suited, Persian prolixity and Madame Overdone Hotbed, bawdy and Baluchistan tribesman sort of spurious de luxe taste had crept in during . . . the past 20 years. Against all this the good gray typographer, B.R., has set his vertical spine."

This vivid tribute was paid last week by Christopher Morley to the nation's No. 1 printing and book designer, 73-year-old Bruce Rogers. The occasion was the appearance of one of the handsomest books ever published in the U.S.--a Rogers-designed, Rogers-authored textbook, Paragraphs on Printing (William E. Rudge's Sons; $10. Special Edition $25). It contains no less than 100 reproductions of Rogers' fastidious artistry --title pages, half titles, tailpieces, imprints, bookplates, pure type decorations. Notable are three inserts of pages from Rogers' magnificent Oxford Lectern Bible, finished in 1935.

Bruce Rogers does not like to write. He literally spoke Paragraphs on Printing to a colleague, Printer James Hendrickson. The result is 208 pages of notes, sometimes almost essays, on printing theory, technique and history; on book esthetics, paper and binding; even, briefly, on relations with his clients. Example: "There are times when the designer feels that his work is in danger of being spoiled by others. ... He will find, if he remains calm and reasonable (and does not take himself too seriously), that in most instances he will emerge with a large part of his work untouched, and he will find that his own constancy will usually outwear these occasional interferences."

Indiana-born Bruce Rogers (TIME, Apr. 3, 1939) has been of modest means all his working life. Says he: "I don't make money out of my work." The obvious reason is that Rogers has clung to the independence in which he can pursue the highest standards of craftsmanship. In 1912 he left his job as director of fine printing and limited editions at Houghton Mifflin's Riverside Press, has held few full-time jobs since, except for eight years' association with the late William E. Rudge (to whom Paragraphs is dedicated). A widower, he now spends most of his time at his New Fairfield, Conn, house near Candlewood Lake. Honored by degrees from Yale, Purdue and Harvard, he plans another lectern Bible, is finishing up odds & ends of jobs started years ago. His biggest immediate problem: to get his power lawn mower working so that he can run it over his Connecticut acre of grass.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.