Topic 4. Transcription

[Stephen Tabor]

At 06:33 PM 1/26/99 -0700, Bob Maxwell wrote:
>Not to beat a dead horse, but do I misunderstand 0H? Supposing we have two
>items, printed the same year, only distinguished by INIURY in one issue and
>INJURY on the t.p. of the second. (Are these by the same printer?) Isn't it
>likely that despite the capitalization on the t.p., the "pattern ...
>employed by the particular printer" of lowercase i/j is going to be the
>same in both, particularly if they are by the same printer? 

No, I chose this example with a specific place and period in mind. The
letter J/j was just coming into English printing in the early 1640's, which
coincided with a flurry of pamphlet publishing and a great deal of
conterfeiting and false-imprint nonsense. Not everybody switched
letterforms at the same time, and I have seen several instances of closely
similar editions with the same imprint, but by different printers using
different conventions. (See ESTC records R208175 and R209862 for an
example.) The great u/v shift occurred in the same way around 1633/4. 


Steve