Moxon's Upper Case

´´

s10

s11

s12

||i

ffi

||l

ffl

This English layout is that shown by Moxon: Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing (1683) edited Davis & Carter 1958, 2nd ed 1962 (Dover reprint 1978). It is also shown by Savage: A Dictionary of the Art of Printing (1841), Lockwood: American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking (1894) and Legros & Grant: Typographical Printing-Surfaces (1916). The companion lower case is the Moxon Lower lay.

Note that the ¦ box represents a single dagger. The |t box represents the long s with t ligature, etc. Of the astronomical etc signs, n1 should be Conjunction n2 Trine n3 Opposition n4 Quadrature n5 Ascending s1 Aries s2 Taurus s3 Gemini s4 Cancer s5 Leo s6 Virgo s7 Libra s8 Scorpio s9 Sagittarius s10 Capricornus s11 Aquarius s12 Pisces p1 Saturn p2 Jupiter p3 Mars p4 Sun p5 Venus p6 Mercury p7 Moon n6 Recipe n7 Sextile (or possibly Earth). Also, Moxon shows ||i (ie double long s plus i) twice, in the Dover reprint, but Savage shows ffl and this has been substituted in the lay above. Note, however, that there is no OE and Davis & Carter comment that this was also so for the French, though a few of Plantin's types had one.

The empty case configuration is Moxon, and this pattern of two bays of 49 boxes each remained in use until the present day, and is used by, for example, Diderot (1751), Smith (1755), Luckombe (1771), Stower (1808), Van Winkle (1818), Johnson (1824), Savage (1841), Adams (1844), Harpel (1870), Miller & Richard (1873), Plantin (1876), Lefevre (1880), Southward (1882), Mackellar (1885), Palmer & Rey (1892), Barnhart Bros & Spindler (1890s), ATF (1893), Caslon (1897), De Vinne (1904), Stephenson Blake & Co (1922), Caslon (1925), Cefmor (1955), Harrild (1970), Horsfall (1978), Stephenson Blake (1989), etc.

Other empty cases ie with the boxes left blank		Other type layouts ie with characters assigned to boxes
Full Index of layouts	Glossary of terms used	Sources of the layouts	Introduction
Quantities in a fount of type		Quantities in a case of type
Notes about Job and Double Cases	Notes about Upper cases	Notes about Lower cases	Alembic home page

This page was written in 1997 by David Bolton and last updated 13 April 2009.