John Fell, The University Press and the ‘Fell’ Types

This exhaustive account of John Fell (1625–86) and the types he procured for the press at Oxford University was commissioned by the University in 1925, but the volume was not published until forty-two years later. The Fell types themselves are a rather incongruous accumulation, including fonts cut by Garamond, Granjon, Hautlin, Van Dijck, Walpergen, and others; a real hodgepodge. The quality of the Fell fonts varies greatly. This folio volume was set in several of the types Fell had acquired. Running to more than 300 folio pages, it is one of the last great monumental letterpress books to be handset.

Full Disclosure: We swiped the above description from the Grolier Club’s exhibition of One Hundred Books Famous in Typography. (See other books from the exhibition that we offer here.)