Stanley Morrison
By Berthold Wolpe
Date Added: 17/07/2009
Article
Mr. Stanley Morison was described in The Times obituary as a typographer, scholar and historian of the press. In these three capacities he excelled. As adviser to the Monotype Corporation he exercised a lasting influence on the production and design of new - and the revival of earlier - printing types. These were brilliantly used under his guidance at the Cambridge University Press. His efforts in designing a new type for The Times and the typographic reshaping of this paper are world-known. A handlist of his literary work names about 200 items. Many among these are concerned with the history of calligraphy. It is impossible to do full justice to the many facets of his work in the limited space of this JOURNAL, but it is important to us to state here that Stanley Morison, a Vice-President of this Society, wrote for many years a strong and beautiful italic hand. He once stated: 'To my mind handwriting must be 'natural' because it must be fast. I like to see an obviously speedy piece of script. I hate a letter which exhales the scent of some calligraphic cosmetic. Give me a true cursive, let it run as fast as one can make it and at the same time make it sufficiently regular. If keeping the pen on an uninterrupted line helps let us by all means make it a rule to write so; but it is my experience that it is a restful and b an assistance to speed to run on or to take off at will - that will which operates automatically as the result of experience.' See E. E. Reynolds, Junior Exercises in English. Cambridge University Press, 1932; also plate 92 of Renaissance Handwriting, Faber, 1960.