What FONT did Hetzel Jules Verne books use

[an...@julesverne.ca]

Can anyone tell me what font Hetzel Editions used, and is there a similar or exact match to that font today?

.. Andrew Nash

[Ariel Pérez Rodríguez]

Hi Andrew,

I can tell you about the font they used in the Musée des familles.

We have reproduced it almost exactly in a book we published in Ediciones Paganel (Hispanic JV Society).

Re the Hetzel editions it will be interesting to know.

I will try to compare the font against two or three websites that can identify them and I will get back to you with the results.

Best,

Ariel

On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 1:14 PM an...@julesverne.ca <an...@julesverne.ca> wrote:

Can anyone tell me what font Hetzel Editions used, and is there a similar or exact match to that font today?

.. Andrew Nash

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[james]

I suppose you mean the body text.  Did it remain the same across the entire history of the series?

If you don't get a prompt answer where someone has a good answer, I can investigate with the books and resources that I have here.

James D. Keeline

[Ariel Pérez Rodríguez]

@Andrew

Looking at the first years of publications....

The in-18 Hetzel editions appears to be close to this one (Founders Caslon)

https://www.myfonts.com/fr/products/12-roman-177880-founders-caslon-358027

In-8 Hetzel (deluxe) appears to be

https://www.myfonts.com/fr/products/regular-vine-street-317999

Publications in the Musée des Familles is

1906 French News

https://webfontfree.com/en/download/1906FrenchNewsW00-Normal

The one in the Mgasin d'education et de récreation seems to be closer to this one

https://www.myfonts.com/fr/products/narrow-1820-modern-96277

or this one

https://www.myfonts.com/fr/products/cond-regular-school-book-66973

@James

Can you bring some other points to the table using your tools?

[Alex Kirstukas]

For the in-8s, Hetzel’s printers used a popular typeface called Didot, aka Firmin Didot, after its designer. Firmin Didot was such a beloved type designer that even some fonts he didn’t design, such as Bodoni and Walbaum, are called “Didones” to show they’re in his general style. 

The hitch is that Didot’s fonts look VASTLY different as metal type than they do as computer fonts: the digital versions exaggerate the thick-and-thin line contrasts, and look much lighter and spindlier than their 19th-century counterparts.

That’s why fonts scanned directly from 19th-century sources, like the ones Ariel mentions, often look more authentic than the “real” Didot. (And it’s also why, for the NAJVS magazine, we don’t use Didot but a different didone font based on J. E. Walbaum’s designs.)

On Feb 21, 2024, at 10:45 PM, Ariel Pérez Rodríguez <ari...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[james]

Alex has used one of the sites that attempts to identify a modern computer font from an image.  I use them myself.  Examples include:

https://www.myfonts.com/pages/whatthefont

https://www.whatfontis.com/

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/matcherator

They are better for display fonts (or typefaces) than body text.

This one takes a different approach by asking a series of questions about the details of specific characters that can help to distinguish a body typeface.

http://www.identifont.com/identify.html

The focus on computer fonts means that many of them will be designs inspired by a metal typeface but often featuring a lot of differences from the vintage one.  For example, the posters for the Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland in California (and some of the other parks) makes use of an historic typeface called Rubens.  It was popular enough that people have tried to make computer fonts so people could use it for other purposes.  But the posters only show some of the letters so the designers often guessed at the missing letters.  The capital M is present but the capital W is not used.  Here is a specimen from an 1887 Palmer & Rey catalog (top).

The two computer fonts that are available are called Rubens and Ravenscroft.  The latter name was inspired by Thurl Ravenscroft who is the deep voice in the group that sings the theme song "Grim Grinning Ghosts".  Notice that neither, even the one with the same name is 100% identical to the vintage metal typeface.

The purpose in mentioning all of this is that one of the computer fonts identified by Alex with the tool on MyFonts.com is called "Founders Caslon".  Caslon is a family of typefaces with a long history.  Very likely "Founders Caslon" is inspired by one of these.  It may be close enough.

When making some print-on-demand books to be issued through Lulu.com, I wanted to use a typeface that was one of the ones used for books written by Edward Stratemeyer.  Through correspondence, I learned that he had a few favorites for his own books and those of his Stratemeyer Syndicate productions.  There was one, Scotch Roman, that he specifically did not like.  Among the ones he did like were Caslon (for books published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard) and something called Old Style No. 1.  The versions used in books tended to be from the ones cut for the Linotype machines.  These were invented in the 1880s and adopted by publishers fairly late in the time that Verne stories were published.  So we can be sure that only some of them might have used this.  Most would be set by hand.  Often the typefaces for this purpose can have small differences.  Even when the shapes are similar, the proportion and spacing can vary a bit.

Here is a Caslon of the type 

In terms of computer fonts, the closest of this I could find was called Caslon Old Face Regular.  I have also found that Adobe Caslon is similar.

There are certain characters that tend to distingush a typeface.  These include the Q, g, j, W, w, &, numbers and so on.  The more you look, the more you will see nuances that may be important or not.

When one of the websites pulls up a suggested computer font, you want to learn, if you can, when the design was first made.  Is it a pre-computer design?

The second one called "Regular Vine Street" sounds like it might be named to evoke the typeface called DeVinne.  Theodore DeVinne was a prolific type designer and there are many variants.  The computer font may be called DeVinne Regular but the name can vary depending on which repository is used.  This one is the computer font that is a pretty good match for the metal typeface.  Notice the tail on the capital Q which is significantly different from the one for Caslon Old Face.

But I could completely see one of Didot's faces being used.  A French publisher might well take the design from an historic French type designer.  Like DeVinne, there are many variations of styles named Didot or designed by him.

The type foundries routinely copied one another's designs.  So even when you are dealing with metal typefaces, there will be similar-appearing typefaces from several foundries.  They can differ in tiny ways.

The quality of our scans, especially for PDFs with heavy JPEG compression, can make identification of a typeface challenging.  it is best when one can use an original printed work and get a high-resolution scan or photograph.

But perhaps all of this is far more than matters.  Often you want something that creates the same emotion of the old typeface, like when I used Adobe Caslon on my Stratemeyer reprints.  It is not 100% identical to the old type but close enough to give the sense of the style.  

On my Stratemeyer website I sometimes explore typefaces used for series books under the "What The Font" tag:  https://stratemeyer.org/?s=%22What+the+font%22  In Facebook groups on series books I have also done similar studies for non-Stratemeyer series.  It is fun but quite a rabbit hole of exploration sometimes.

James D. Keeline

[Alex Kirstukas]

Just to give credit where it’s due - it was Ariel who found all those modern computer fonts, not me :)

On Feb 22, 2024, at 12:44 AM, james <ja...@keeline.com> wrote:

Alex has used one of the sites that attempts to identify a modern computer font from an image.  I use them myself.  Examples include:

https://www.myfonts.com/pages/whatthefont

https://www.whatfontis.com/

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/matcherator

They are better for display fonts (or typefaces) than body text.

This one takes a different approach by asking a series of questions about the details of specific characters that can help to distinguish a body typeface.

http://www.identifont.com/identify.html

The focus on computer fonts means that many of them will be designs inspired by a metal typeface but often featuring a lot of differences from the vintage one.  For example, the posters for the Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland in California (and some of the other parks) makes use of an historic typeface called Rubens.  It was popular enough that people have tried to make computer fonts so people could use it for other purposes.  But the posters only show some of the letters so the designers often guessed at the missing letters.  The capital M is present but the capital W is not used.  Here is a specimen from an 1887 Palmer & Rey catalog (top).

The two computer fonts that are available are called Rubens and Ravenscroft.  The latter name was inspired by Thurl Ravenscroft who is the deep voice in the group that sings the theme song "Grim Grinning Ghosts".  Notice that neither, even the one with the same name is 100% identical to the vintage metal typeface.

The purpose in mentioning all of this is that one of the computer fonts identified by Alex with the tool on MyFonts.com is called "Founders Caslon".  Caslon is a family of typefaces with a long history.  Very likely "Founders Caslon" is inspired by one of these.  It may be close enough.

When making some print-on-demand books to be issued through Lulu.com, I wanted to use a typeface that was one of the ones used for books written by Edward Stratemeyer.  Through correspondence, I learned that he had a few favorites for his own books and those of his Stratemeyer Syndicate productions.  There was one, Scotch Roman, that he specifically did not like.  Among the ones he did like were Caslon (for books published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard) and something called Old Style No. 1.  The versions used in books tended to be from the ones cut for the Linotype machines.  These were invented in the 1880s and adopted by publishers fairly late in the time that Verne stories were published.  So we can be sure that only some of them might have used this.  Most would be set by hand.  Often the typefaces for this purpose can have small differences.  Even when the shapes are similar, the proportion and spacing can vary a bit.

Here is a Caslon of the type 

In terms of computer fonts, the closest of this I could find was called Caslon Old Face Regular.  I have also found that Adobe Caslon is similar.

There are certain characters that tend to distingush a typeface.  These include the Q, g, j, W, w, &, numbers and so on.  The more you look, the more you will see nuances that may be important or not.

When one of the websites pulls up a suggested computer font, you want to learn, if you can, when the design was first made.  Is it a pre-computer design?

The second one called "Regular Vine Street" sounds like it might be named to evoke the typeface called DeVinne.  Theodore DeVinne was a prolific type designer and there are many variants.  The computer font may be called DeVinne Regular but the name can vary depending on which repository is used.  This one is the computer font that is a pretty good match for the metal typeface.  Notice the tail on the capital Q which is significantly different from the one for Caslon Old Face.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jules-verne-forum/0d2997b1-4e34-42c4-a857-6243749b192fn%40googlegroups.com.

[an...@julesverne.ca]

Thank you so much for the investigative work.

I will make note of these fonts.

Thank you... Andrew

---

From: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of an...@julesverne.ca <an...@julesverne.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2024 10:14 AM
To: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [JVF] What FONT did Hetzel Jules Verne books use

 

Can anyone tell me what font Hetzel Editions used, and is there a similar or exact match to that font today?

.. Andrew Nash

--
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To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to jules-verne-fo...@googlegroups.com.

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