Item #4187 Twelve Popular Tales. Henry Cabot Lodge, ed.
Twelve Popular Tales.
Twelve Popular Tales.
Twelve Popular Tales.

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Twelve Popular Tales.

Boston: The Howe Memorial Press, Perkins Institution and Mass. School for the Blind, 1880. Small folio, black calf spine with raised type lettering-piece, marbled paper over boards. 97 ff. printed on one side only in raised type.

An unrecorded book for blind children printed with Samuel Gridley Howe’s raised type.

The contents include: Jack the Giant-Killer; Jack and the Bean-Stalk; Little Red Riding-Hood; Puss in Boots; The Sleeping Beauty; Cinderella; Bluebeard; Hop-O-My-Thumb; Beauty and the Beast; The Princess and the Nuts; Fortunatus; and History of Sir R. Whittington and his Cat.

A physician, abolitionist, author, and nineteenth century America’s greatest champion of the disabled, Howe (1801-1876) became director of the newly formed New England Institution for the Education of the Blind (later the Perkins Institution) in 1831—the first school for the blind established in the United States. Within a few years, he developed an embossed typeface known as “Boston Line” or “Howe” type, based on that of French educator of the blind Valentin Haüy. Howe contracted with printer Stephen Preston Ruggles to design a Boston Line Type press, the first fruit of which, Acts of the Apostles, was published in 1835. Howe’s typeface strips away all flourishes, reducing each letter to a simple form. As with all embossed type for the blind, the letters are larger than those of a conventional book.

The specialized purpose of this book lends it a special beauty. It is printed on a crisp, parchment-like paper that is a pleasure to handle, and the raised lettering has an unexpected visual charm. Naturally, it invites the attempt to read by touch--a difficult task that draws one into the world of the blind, however momentarily, and provokes certain deeper considerations.

Like most of the books printed with Howe’s raised type, this title is rare. No copies recorded in OCLC, or in American Book Prices Current (1975 to present).

CONDITION: Rubbed, leather coming away with some loss at foot of spine, lower hinge cracked through, cords still holding lower cover but it is quite loose, contents clean, a few minor tears, damp-stain to lower right corner of rear paste-down.

Item #4187

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