Christopher Morley, A Typophile’s Kind of Author

I’ve been reading Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop, a delightful book full of great little observations written in that style so prevalent during the 40’s. I’ve been writing down a bunch of passages that caught my eye, but on the train this morning I ran into one that I had to share. If you love type, you’ll appreciate Aubrey’s (who works in the advertising/publicity business) description of the delightful Miss Titiana,

Titania’s face, shining with young vitality, seemed to him more “attention-compelling” than any ten-point Caslon type-arrangement he had ever seen. He admired the layout of her face from the standpoint of his cherished technique. “Just enough ‘white space,'” he thought, “to set off her eyes as the ‘centre of interest.’ Her features aren’t this modern bold face stuff, set solid,” he said to himself, thinking typographically. “They’re rather French old-style italic, slightly leaded. Set on 22-point body, I guess. Old man Chapman’s a pretty good typefounder, you have to hand it to him.”