Item 19 - Letter from F. H. Fobes to R. B. McKerrow

1 single sheet

Box 561, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts.—Offers a solution to a technical difficulty referred to in An Introduction to Bibliography in connection with the two-colour process. Is puzzled by the locative ‘Parisius’ (cf. Add. MS a. 355/4/25).

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Transcript

F. H. Fobes. | Box 561 | Amherst | Mass.
Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.,
January 9, 1928

Ronald B. McKerrow, Esq.,
C/o The Clarendon Press, Oxford,

My dear Sir:

I have read with much interest your Introduction to Bibliography. May I make a suggestion about the two-color process which you discuss on pp. 335-6? The ‘technical difficulty’ which you suggest in your note on p. 336, though I have found from my own experience as an amateur that it is real, can, I think, be obviated by using strong, heavy paper for the mask and by cutting it carefully. I suspect that a more serious difficulty arises from the shrinkage of the moistened paper: if the proportion of red to black is small and the red is printed first, a slight shrinkage may make it difficult or, in work set solid, impossible to secure perfect register without remoistening; whereas if the black is printed first it is generally possible, without too much labor, to alter the position of the ‘red’ words in the forme to allow for even a serious shrinkage.

If you have any information about the origin of the locative ‘Parisius’, which has often puzzled me and which seems not to [be] dealt with in the ordinary books on palaeography, I should be most grateful to receive it. {1}

Very truly yours,
Francis H. Fobes

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Typed, except signature, and the name and address in the first line. McKerrow has written at the head ‘ans [i.e. answered] 29 Feb 28’.

{1} McKerrow consulted the British Museum on this point. See Add. MS. 355/4/25.