De Vinne, Theodore L.

▪ American author

in full  Theodore Low De Vinne  

born Dec. 25, 1828, Stamford, Conn., U.S.

died Feb. 16, 1914, New York, N.Y.

      American author of many scholarly books on the history of typography.

      De Vinne entered the employ of Francis Hart, one of the leading printers in New York City, in 1849 and in 1859 became a member of the firm. About 1864 he began to write on printing, at first on the economic aspects of the business, but later on the aspects of typographic style and the history of the craft.

      In 1873 the firm began to print St. Nicholas and soon after took on the Century, the illustrations for which set new printing standards. In 1883 the name of the firm was changed to Theodore L. De Vinne and Company, and it earned a reputation as the most outstanding printing plant in the nation. De Vinne was a founder of the Grolier Club and one of its most active members, printing most of the early books issued by Grolier and writing or editing a number of them. As a printer De Vinne was a craftsman of high standards, but he was not a great creative artist; his simplest books were regarded as his best. De Vinne's most important contributions to typographic literature were The Practice of Typography (1900–04), a series of four manuals; The Invention of Printing (1876); Christopher Plantin and the Plantin-Moretus Museum at Antwerp (1888); and Notable Printers of Italy During the Fifteenth Century (1910).

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