“My books … shall be my company”
I’m seeing a production of The Merchant of Venice in the spring, so it is time for a reread. My copy is from the New Penguin Shakespeare series. I bought the plays a few at a time, as I worked my way through the canon. Soon, I was going from store to store trying to find all the plays in that New Penguin series. I had to branch out further – to Amazon, then Amazon CA, then Amazon UK and finally Amazon AU. I managed to collect all the titles but one: Cymbeline.
This particular Penguin Shakespeare series was in print until about 1997. The book design is simple and elegant. The
cover formats are a soft yellow background using woodcut art appropriate to each title. The title typeface is a beautiful, metal cut of Trajon* and on the back cover, a quote from the play appears in a calligraphic, old style font. The text that is set on the inside is luxuriously letter- and line-spaced [tracked and leaded]. The notes and the commentary on the play are accessible and enlightening. It’s the perfect reading experience with design, content and format melding.
Kindle 2 – supposed to be great. But for those of us who enjoy reading particular editions or translations of books, I doubt it’s an option.
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* With apologies to Carol Twombly, there’s a cut of Trajon referenced in the 1983 book, Rookledge’s International Typefinder,
which matches the title font exactly. I’ve been googling Trajon versus Trajan with no results. If anyone has any information on this – I’m curious.
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“My books … shall be my company” – The Taming of the Shrew
