Exhibit "A"

We have a mystery on our hands. OK, a pretty small mystery but nevertheless, it's a mystery that begs answers. Path buddy Tim Fowler, from here, here and here, sent his copy of Forster's 1908 classic (well, actually, the 1955 Penguin edition).

But look at the title. Odd "A"s.

Now you can imagine how this might happen. Way back in 1955, Penguin's jobbing typesetter, momentarily distracted by thoughts of lunch and a rather tasty swan sandwich his wife had lovingly prepared for him the evening before, lifted a Gill Sans "A" out of the type tray and slipped it into position, not noticing that it didn't match the other he'd slotted into place just a few seconds earlier.

Hardly his fault. His job was to assemble the lead, he didn't put the wrong "A" into the tray. Perhaps a cleaner had found it kicking around the floor and thinking he was being very helpful and thinking that there's nothing to this type matching lark, dropped it into the little wooden compartment along with all the other "A"'s. They looked the same. An "A" is, after all, an "A".

Fast forward fifty seven years and there's a bunch of saddoes (myself and Tim inlcuded) scratching their typographically interested heads wondering about the anomaly. Of course, identifying the rogue "A", the second one, is one challenge.

Typography maestro Phil Baines wondered if it might be Curwen Sans then ace Toronto-based book designer Michel Vrana suggested Geometric 415/Metro. Our conclusions were inconclusive.

What I would really like to know is whether this error really went unnoticed. It must have been printed in its thousands. Curiously, the peculiarity has been reproduced on modern deck chairs and canvas prints - perhaps it was never corrected.

The investigation continues in ernest.

 

Comments

[Ben Brundell]

Hello again, Richard, after a long absence!

I can't say what this *is* but I can say what it *isn't*.

I think that Curwen Sans was made for and only used by the Curwen Press, so I doubt that Whitefriars Press would have been able to use it.

Metro looks right, but this would have been cast by a line casting machine; rather than in individual character. So it would have been really difficult to mix type in a case with type cast on a long metal slug.

What about Stephenson, Blake's Granby? http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/efscangraphic/granby-sb/bold/

Finally, there are a number of 'variants' within Gill: an alternative 'Q' and 'W', and the initial versions of Gill included a zero that looked more like an 'o' than '0'.

[Richard]

Exciting developments: Two emails in. One from Alan Spain (you know, Alan-Amazing Covers For Ed McBain And Other Things-Spain)…

"I can't imagine how this got past Hans Schmoller, I'm sure it must have fallen on the comp room floor, picked up and put in the wrong case, the choice of typefaces available to typographers were very limited. Check out some old printers type lists, it's there somewhere."

And then, one from Penguin Collectors' Society Chairman Tim Graham:

"Fascinating Feed Blitz this morning on Forster's A Room with a View. I've forwarded it to Steve Hare to see if he's ever come across this error and will let you know the results. It is extraordinary that it slipped past Hans Schmoller's eagle eye. This is certainly worth a Collection Point in the next issue of The Penguin Collector. Would you be willing to write a short piece?"

And what's particularly exciting is Tim G's in town next week so we're hoping to meet up.

[Armstrong]

Here's a crazy thought: what if the erroneous A was actually an intentional attempt to better match the pointy V that follows?

Nah.

[velkannan]

It's an crazy and fantastic thought. I am very much interested to follow this type of this..