The Enjoyment of Types
 

AUGUST HECKSCHER
 

"AND SO the founding of the Ashlar
Press is announced ... in September, 1930." Thus more than
two decades ago, set in Caslon itahc under a handsome version
of a sixteenth-century Italian phoenix, a notice went out that
seemed to me at the time of considerable importance. Today you
will look in vain for the name of Ashlar in any compendium of
printing establishments. A few books gathering dust on the shelves
of some hundred book-lovers and kind friends, a few happy mem¬
ories, and a love of types that many disparate activities have not
been able to dim—these are all that remain of a once-flourishing
minor enterprise.

The editor has asked me to recall what I can of my early con¬
nection with printing; and I do so for one reason only. I am not
at all under the illusion that what I did can be of antiquarian or
bibliographic interest—far less of interest in the long and rich
history of fine printing in this country. But it has occurred to me
that printing as a hobby is a subject which might well be ex¬
amined; that the examination might serve both as an enticement
and as a warning to others, and that my own experiences with
the Ashlar Press might be convenient as a peg.

Those experiences began at what might be called (though
it certainly did not seem to me at the time) a "tender age." My
brother, two years younger than I, embarked on a course in type¬
setting while recuperating from a serious operation. When the