Enderley, Great Missenden, Bucks.—The round ‘s’ was introduced into English printing about 1791.
(Undated. This is a reply to a letter printed in the issue of 19 Apr. 1928.)
—————
To the Editor of the Times (Literary Supplement)
Sir,—
The Long and Round “s”.
Mr Ryan seems to have been unable to find any discussion of the date of the introduction of the round s in all positions in English printing, but had he looked in those places to which one would naturally turn for information of this kind, he would have found that the date which he assigns to the change is approximately that generally accepted. I would refer him to J. Johnson’s Typographia, 1824, ii. 24 and T. B. Reed’s History of the Old English Letter Foundries, 1887, p. 52, to which I may perhaps be allowed to add my own Introduction to Bibliography, p. 309. It seems clear that, if we ignore a few earlier experiments which were not followed up, the use of the round s in all positions dates in English printing from 1791 or, at most, a year or two earlier, and that by 1800 it was general in all the better kinds of printing. In provincial printing, however, and even in certain London publications the long s was retained until several years later, thus the London Post Office Directory had a long s throughout until 1817; by 1819 a portion had been reset with the round s, but the long form does not disappear until 1825, when the whole book was reset with new type. In America the change may have been somewhat earlier, see Franklin’s letter of 1786 quoted by D. B. Updike in his Printing Types, ii. 229 in which he states that “the Round s begins to be the Mode and in nice printing the Long ſ is rejected entirely”. In any case the printers seem generally to have used the long s correctly or not to have used it at all, and the indiscriminate use of the two forms mentioned by Mr Ryan suggests either a very ignorant printer or a very ill-furnished press.
Yours faithfully,
[Signed:] R. B. McKerrow
(R. B. McKerrow)
(R. B. McKerrow
Enderley
Great Missenden
Bucks.)
—————
Typed, except the signature, the letter ‘ſ’, and several corrections. This is a draft reply to a letter by M. J. Ryan printed in the Times Literary Supplement, 19 Apr. 1928, p. 290, below the heading ‘“The School for Scandal” and the Round “S”’. McKerrow's letter was not published.
