John Baskerville, Type-Founder and Printer, 1706-1775

John Baskerville was obsessed with perfection in an age of good-enough. This book traces the unlikely journey of a Birmingham japanner who became the most controversial printer of the 18th century, creating typefaces so beautiful they still bear his name 250 years later. Benton chronicles how Baskerville abandoned a successful career in decorative metalwork to revolutionize typography, developing papers and inks no one had ever seen, and printing editions of Virgil and Milton so exquisite that critics called them too beautiful to read. He faced ridicule from rivals, dismissal from scholars, and financial ruin yet never stopped pushing the boundaries of what printed books could be. This is the story of a stubborn idealist who transformed an ancient craft into high art, leaving a legacy that every designer who types on a computer carries in their pocket.