Figure 332
Julian Hibbert’s Uncial Greek Types used in Book of the Orphic Hymns, London, 1827
From HathiTrust (scan)
1827
As in all periods when particular attention was paid by printers to making fine books, the cultivated amateur was not lacking, and one such man, now forgotten, was Julian Hibbert. He was an interesting character who, besides having a hand in the social and political reforms of his day, undertook to reform the Greek fonts then used in printing. In 1827, he brought out at his private press in his house in London, The Book of the Orphic Hymns, “in uncial letters, as a typographical experiment”. Hibbert says of his alphabet that it
was first composed from the inspection of Inscriptions in the Musæums of London and Paris, and thus it is no wonder if it still retains more of a sculptitory than of a scriptitory appearance.
The fonts had considerable charm, but were at the time considered—if they were considered at all—as complete failures; and were afterwards melted.