Edinburgh typeface

The golden typeface adds to the historic feel of the book. When I asked the Flemish typeface designer and researcher Jo De Baerdemaeker about it, he thought it most likely is a version of ‘Tudor Black’. This is a printing type that can be found in the 1922 type specimen book of Miller & Richard, a Scottisch typefoundry founded in 1809 and based in Edinburgh. De Baerdemaeker (in his email to me):

The punches for this typeface were cut by E. P. Prince around 1878. The style, however, is a broken script Bastarda blackletter type, a style reminiscent of the medieval period, where books were handwritten with broad-nib pens (cut quill pens or reed pens). The style itself has been used since the sixteenth century and continues to be used until the present day. I would like to have a look at the first edition of this Cookery book to try to identify the purpose of the printer or typesetter or author for choosing this specific style on the book cover.

I am mentioning that this is a version of the Tudor typefaces, as the punches for embossing text on book covers are different from the steel punches for producing movable types. Hence why some details of the letters might differ slightly from the text face, meant for printing the paragraphs of the book interior. Also the imprint into the thicker surface of the book.

The embossing of the book titles was usually done by the bookbinder. This artisan would heat the metal (brass) type and press it down onto the gold leaf. The gold sticks to the prepared surface, and the pressure and heat cause the lettering to be embossed on the surface of the book cover or on the spine of the book.

I tried hard, but could not find the cover of the first edition. I only know that since the 1920s, this designed-in-Edinburgh typeface started to appear on The Glasgow Cookery Book, adding yet another layer of Scottishness.

Time to open the book.