The Definitive Dwiggins no. 223—Cold Type

Cold Type (Boston: S.D. Warren Co., 1925). Cover design probably by W.A. Dwiggins. Image courtesy of Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University.
Cold Type: A primer on the power of the printed word (Boston: S.D. Warren Co., 1925). Title page design typography by W.A. Dwiggins. Image courtesy of Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University.
Let’s be Misers with Golden Selling Hours, published in 1925, was the subject of The Definitive Dwiggins no. 222. …
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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 438—Book jackets for Alfred A. Knopf [Part Two: 1936–1941]

W.A. Dwiggins contributed designs to 328 books published by Alfred A. Knopf according to Dwight Agner, author of The Books of WAD: A Bibliography of the Books Designed by W.A. Dwiggins (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Press of the Nightowl, 1974). I use the phrase “contributed” because he did not design all of these books in the conventional understanding of the term. Agner’s list includes books where Dwiggins was responsible for: 1. the typography, binding, and jacket; 2. the typography and binding; …
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The Song of the Twisted: Being a Tale of Woe Told by the Victim

Frank Holme (late 1890s?). Image courtesy of Special Collections, University of Arizona.
In 2015 I discovered an amusing yet fascinating manuscript of doggerel in the Frederic and Bertha Goudy Collection at the Library of Congress. [1] The manuscript, entitled “The Song of the Twisted: Being a Tale of Woe Told by the Victim” was written, lettered, and illustrated by Frank Holme (1868–1904), the celebrated newspaper artist and proprietor of the School of Illustration in Chicago. It tells the story of how Holme …
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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 365—Voyages to Vinland (1942)

Voyages to Vinland: The First American Saga translated by Einar Haugen (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942) includes translations of material from Hauk’s Book, the Flatey Book, and AM. 557 (a manuscript in the Arnamagnean Library in Copenhagen) that concern the Viking voyages to the eastern seaboard of the North American continent in the 11th century. [1] The book was designed by W.A. Dwiggins. It is not among his most famous works in the field, though its jacket is included …
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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 294—Stories of Our Earth

W.A. Dwiggins was at heart an artist, an illustrator. His posthumous reputation as a type designer, a book designer, and a marionette maker has overshadowed the fact that what he most wanted to do was illustrate books. His work as an illustrator has often been denigrated. One reason is that he had no single, defining style. Instead, he tailored his approach to the perceived needs of the story. An obscure, but excellent example of this are his spare illustrations for Stories …
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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 335—The Pageant of Color: Old Hampshire Bond

The Hampshire Paper Co. was established in South Hadley Falls, Massachusetts in 1866. Its signature paper was Old Hampshire Bond, first manufactured around 1889. [1] Off and on between 1912 and 1925 W.A. Dwiggins did promotional work for the company and its leading paper stock. The earliest instance occurred at the end of 1912 and the beginning of 1913 when he designed the cover of a booklet titled “Backing Up Your Salesman”. Instead of working directly with Hampshire Paper, he …
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The Definitive Dwiggins No. 222—Let’s be Misers with Golden Selling Hours

Let’s be Misers with Golden Selling Hours (Boston: S.D. Warren Co., 1925). Cover illustration probably by W.A. Dwiggins.
One of the areas of W.A. Dwiggins’ career which is significantly underreported in W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design by Bruce Kennett (San Francisco: Letterform Archive, 2018) is his work for the paper industry and individual paper companies between 1914 and 1936. [1] Based on his surviving account books Dwiggins did at least one job for as many as 37 different paper …
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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 87—Happyland

The Young Idea: A Magazine of Character Study, Questions of the Hour, Field Work in Botany, Birds and Insects. Sample page from 1905.
The Round Robin: An Illustrated Magazine; Good Reading for Boys & Girls vol. XXVI, no. IV (April 1913). Cover design signed WV.
From The Young Idea to Happyland
At the beginning of 1913 Lawrence A. Rankin (1887–1955) took over The Young Idea, a monthly children’s magazine which had been in existence for twenty-five years. He renamed it The …
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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 116—The End of Childhood (1890–1895)

Wanderings
The unexpected death of Moses Dwiggins in January 1890 left his widow Eva, and their young son Willie, adrift in the world. Without her soulmate and source of livelihood, Eva stumbled about for the next five years, trying to achieve a stable life. Willie, only 9 1/2 years old at the time of his father’s death, was old enough to understand his mother’s grief, but too young to be able to do much about it.

This post is the next installment …
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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 105—Addendum to W.A. Dwiggins’ Ancestry, Part III: Moses and Eva Dwiggins

Five artifacts associated with Moses and Eva Dwiggins survive in the W.A. Dwiggins Collections at the Boston Public Library: two programs for theatrical events, one each involving Moses and Eva, their marriage license, a certificate for Moses as a medical examiner for an insurance company, and a book entitled Living Poems. [1] All are of interest beyond their use as documentation of W.A. Dwiggins’ parents’ lives. [2] They are fascinating for their design and typography which is typical of the …
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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 69—Vague

Vague no. 7 (1915) is probably the strangest project that W.A. Dwiggins ever worked on. It is a hilarious satire of the avant-garde art and literature of its time with a few jabs at advertising along the way. But, true to its name, it is not easy to recognize all of its allusions or to understand all of its jokes.
Vague no. 7 front with belly-band (1915). Design by W.A. Dwiggins.
Vague was published in the spring of 1915 by J.J. …
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The Definitive Dwiggins no. 67—Drawings that Sell Goods

In the spring of this year I traveled to Boston to hear Bruce Kennett deliver the annual W.A. Dwiggins Lecture at the Boston Public Library. It was a good talk. Although there were a few mistakes, I learned some new things about Dwiggins. One of them was that Dwiggins had parodied three of his contemporaries in an article he had written (under the name of his alter ego) about illustrations in  advertising. I had read  “Drawings that Sell Goods” by …
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