Savage New Upper Case

  A    B    C    D    E    F    G   ABCDEFG
HIKLMNO HIKLMNO
PQRSTVW PQRSTVW
XYZAEOEJU XYZAEOEJU
äëïöü   âêîôû§¦¦
1234567    à     è     ì     ò     ù    ¶     *  
890£çhairk áéíóú||¦

This English layout is shown by Savage: Dictionary of the Art of Printing (1841, reprinted Thoemmes 1998). It represents the position after the long s and its ligatures were discarded (pioneered by John Bell). The figures now move down nearer to the compositor's hand, diaeresis vowels move higher up, and grave and acute vowels swap rows so that acute are nearest to hand. The same lay is shown by Lockwood: American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking, 1894, as the English Upper, except that ¶ and * swap positions with || and ¦. The lay is similar to the Johnson New of Johnson: Typographia (1824), except that J and U swap boxes, the £ is excluded, and em rules are included, and the acute vowels and grave vowels swap rows. Johnson also showed a Proposed Upper lay, which Savage considered to be no improvement.

The companion lower case is the Savage New lay, or Southward Bookwork (i.r.o. Lockwood), and an earlier long s Upper is the Luckombe lay.

Note that the boxes with A,B, etc are small caps. The ¦ box represents a single dagger, and ¦¦ a double dagger.

The empty configuration is that of Moxon, and Smith (1755), Luckombe (1771), Stower (1808), Mackellar (1870), Southward (1882), Barnhart Bros & Spindler's News (1890s), Stephenson Blake & Co (1922), Miller & Richard (?same period), Caslon (1925) etc.

Other empty cases
ie with the boxes left blank
Other type layouts
ie with characters assigned to boxes
Full Index of layoutsGlossary of terms usedSources of the layoutsIntroduction
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and Double Cases
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This page was written in 1998 by David Bolton and last updated 14 February 2006.