French Upper Case

  A    B    C    D    E    F    G   ABCDEFG
HIKLMNO HIKLMNO
PQRSTVX PQRSTVX
âêîôûYZ UJÉÈÊYZ
ÉÈÊAEOEWÇ   ffl  AEOEWÇ !
àè  ù§] fl  ëïü?
»*UJj¦) ffaeilmnorstv 

The layout is shown by Muller: Nouveau Manuel de Typographie (nd but c.1910) as one of the many models of haut de casse, this one being La Française. It includes more accents than Lockwood's 1894 version, and has W, Ç, and some signs in different boxes. It also has additional boxes in the bottom row for the superior characters. The companion Lower is French Lower.

The boxes with A,B, etc are small caps. The a e etc represent superior characters. The ¦ box is a single dagger. Note the location of W, and that like Diderot, the j is in the Upper case and é and ç are in the Lower case. Unlike Diderot and Lockwood, but like Legros (1916), the ; has moved to the lower case. The ì and ò are missing, their boxes being shown empty.

The empty configuration is French Upper, and having the extra small boxes in the bottom row, is unlike the Upper of Moxon (1683), and Diderot (1751), and thereafter the normal English Upper of Smith (1755), Luckombe (1771), Stower (1808), Savage (1841), Mackellar (1870), Southward (1887), Barnhart Bros & Spindler's News (1890s), Stephenson Blake & Co (1922), etc.

Other empty cases
ie with the boxes left blank
Other type layouts
ie with characters assigned to boxes
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This page was written in 1998 by David Bolton and last updated 23 January 2006.