The Definitive Dwiggins no. 178 addendum—The Mystery of the York Mysteries Solved
Facsimile of “The Wefferes” page. Reproduced in Four Episodes from the York Mysteries of the Fourteenth Century (Boston: The Tavern Club, 1906). Photograph by Eric Frazier.
When I posted The Definitive Dwiggins no. 178 a few months ago I was unaware that I already had the answer to the “mystery” of The York Mysteries in a folder of material from the Bruce Rogers / Pforzheimer Collection at the Library of Congress. [1] Among the ephemera that Rogers collected is a copy of Four Episodes from the York Mysteries of the Fourteenth Century (Boston: The Tavern Club, 1906). It is apparently the only one extant as the title does not come up in WorldCat and The Tavern Club itself does not have one.
Four Episodes is not a book as I had surmised but a pamphlet or program to accompany theatrical performances of excerpts from the play. [2] It is a single sheet folded to create four pages. Not only did W.A. Dwiggins do the title page, but he also lettered the large initial and first line of p. 3. [3] The pamphlet is set in Caxton Black, a facsimile of William Caxton’s first type, a bâtarde, and Lombardic caps for initials. [4] It was printed in vermilion and black by The Heintzemann Press of Boston, where Dwiggins worked during part of 1906. [5] The job is not listed in Dwiggins’ surviving account books, so it is possible that it was done in return for “desk space”. [6]
The back page of the pamphlet (reproduced above) is identical to the two-color “The Wefferes” page pasted into Dwiggins’ scrapbook, thus confirming my guess as to where it had come from. The missing title was proofed—it is a separate item on the opposite page—but not used. I suspect it was dropped because “The Wefferes” was not one of the episodes that was performed.
Below is the remainder of the pages from Four Episodes from the York Mysteries of the Fourteenth Century. Desite solving the mystery of where those pages in Dwiggins’ small scrapbook came from, there remains the mystery of where Heintzemann acquired an image of “The Wefferes”.
Title page of Four Episodes from the York Mysteries of the Fourteenth Century (Boston: The Tavern Club, 1906). Design and calligraphy by W.A. Dwiggins; printing by the Heintzemann Press. Photograph by Eric Frazier.
Four Episodes from the York Mysteries of the Fourteenth Century (Boston: The Tavern Club, 1906), p. [2]. Photograph by Eric Frazier.
Four Episodes from the York Mysteries of the Fourteenth Century (Boston: The Tavern Club, 1906), p. [3]. Opening line calligraphy by W.A. Dwiggins. Photograph by Eric Frazier.
Early Venetian Printing Illustrated (Venice: Ferd. Ongania, London: John C. Nimmo, and New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1895), p. 119.
Notes
1. Library of Congress, Special Collections, Bruce Rogers / Pforzheimer Collection, Box 52, Folder 6.
2. See A Partial (and not Impartial) History of the Tavern Club, 1884–1934 by M.A. DeWolfe Howe (Cambridge, Massachusets: Riverside Press, 1934). Howe says the performances took place March 7 and 9, 1906.
3. The initial T is a variant of the one in the Caxton Initials designed by Frederic W. Goudy in 1905. Dwiggins’ letter is marked by a calligraphic ending to the curled stroke.
4. Caxton Black was designed in 1855 by Vincent Figgins foundry. See A History of the Old Letter Foundries by Talbot Baines Read (London: Elliot Stock, 1887), p. 343, note 5. “A Sketch Biography of William Caxton, England’s First Printer” by Henry Lewis Bullen in The Inland Printer vol. 66, no. 6 (March 1921), p. 769 has the incorrect date of 1877. The type was subsequently copied by MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan and later became part of the American Type Founders catalogue. The initials look like Initials Series 38 and 39 from the Cincinnati Type Foundry. See “Lasance’s Initials: A Tradition in American Catholic Typography” by Claudio Salvucci in Liturgical Arts Journal (8 November 2017).
5. The Heintzemann Press was the preeminent press in New England at the time. It was established by Carl Heintzemann (1854–1908), a German immigrant, in 1879. In 1906 it was located at 185 Franklin Street. See “The Work of the Heintzemann Press” by George French in The American Printer vol. XXXI, no. III (May 1901), between pp. 212 and 213.
6. Mabel Dwiggins said that Dwiggins worked three days a week at the Heintzemann Press in 1906. See “W.A.D.” Sec. 5 May ’58 by MHD [Mabel Hoyle Dwiggins] in University of Kentucky, Margaret King Library, C.H. Griffith Papers, Box 8, Folder 1.
7. See Early Venetian Printing Illustrated (Venice: Ferd. Ongania, London: John C. Nimmo, and New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1895), p. 119 bottom center. Ongania took the angel from Commentarii in Aristotelis libros de Anima by S. Thomae Aquinatis, (Venice: Utino Papiense [Otinus Papiensis de Luna, 1496).
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