Death and the Joyful Woman by Ellis Peters
Death and the Joyful Woman was written by Edith Pargeter (1913–1995) under her pen name Ellis Peters and earned her the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Shown here is the dust jacket for the first American edition, published in Doubleday’s Crime Club imprint in 1961.
The uncredited design features lettering, not typography. However, the word “Death” is patterned after a typographic style. Characterized by terminals in the shape of bracketed diamonds with elongated vertical spurs, it was first shown as wood type by William H. Page & Co in 1859 [RRK]. Names used by the various manufacturers include Gothic Tuscan Pointed and Antique Tuscan No 10.
A similar design was shown as foundry type by White in c.1858 and later, in 1867, by Farmer as Five Line Pica Ornamented No. 1. In 1964, Headliners presented a phototype adaptation named W 145, made as part of the Morgan Press Collection. Joe Redick’s digital interpretation Ironwood (Adobe, 1990) is caps only. The Fontry’s Iron Horse (2008) offers a lowercase.
Five Line Pica Ornamented No. 1 as shown by Farmer, Little & Co. in their 1867 specimen. The a in this version is pretty close to the jacket lettering; the e has a horizontal middle part. The lettering artist apparently took a shortcut and used an upside-down a.
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