In this encyclopedic book, David Shields provides invaluable, thought-provoking discussions of wood type as a physical object, along with the manufacture, marketing, use, and cataloging of it. In doing so, he opens new windows onto nineteenth-century print culture and its materiality. Shields frames the book with Rob Roy Kelly's lifelong project of acquiring and cataloging wood type, culminating in the landmark 1964 publication, American Wood Type 1828–1900. Far from limiting the book, this exploration of Kelly's career provides a compelling peek into the mid-twentieth-century network of librarians and booksellers who were interested in the relatively new endeavor of collecting the history of printing. While The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection is destined to become the essential resource for American wood type, its accessible style and beautiful illustrations will also engage anyone interested in the history of American printing.
~Jill Gage
David Shields has produced a rich and beautiful book that explores for the first time the entire culture surrounding this important and beloved art form. Shields’s new work thoroughly delivers on Kelly’s original promise, creating an indispensable book for anyone who loves typography. It is certain to become a classic.
~Jonathan Hoefler
406 pages of the most comprehensive biography and scholarship on Kelly and his collection...[Shields'] exhaustive attention to detailing the types and their makers and the eloquent reverence he displays for Rob Roy Kelly is far more valuable than the curiously inexpensive cover price...An impeccable volume.
~PRINT
Wood type is bold and beautiful, and a hefty book like this one...seems fitting. It offers a wealth of information about the specimens in the Rob Roy American Wood Type Collection at the University of Texas (UT) in Austin, Texas, their classifications and the manufacturers who created them while also telling a finely detailed history of Kelly’s journey acquiring wood type, designing and printing specimens, and researching their histories...Beautifully printed, the book comes with a brilliant green-ribbon bookmark and vibrant red/orange endsheets in a pattern drawn from the collection’s borders and rules.
~Communication Arts
[The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection] is not just a must-have for any wood-type aficionados. The book sets a new typographic history bar.
~Fontstand News
[The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection] is a sumptuous book, beautifully printed on heavy paper, fully illustrated with types from the collection. This is an important work and should be considered, along with Kelly's original book, an indispensable resource for anyone interested in graphic design and typography...Highly recommended.
~CHOICE
