Manifestoes of Surrealism by André Breton, paperback edition
This is the 1972 paperback edition of André Breton’s Manifestoes of Surrealism. I believe the interior to be the same as the hardcover, but I don’t know for sure. (As with the hardcover, the book design is credited to Quentin Fiore.)
The cover uses skewed Helvetica Compressed [see comments] for the author’s name, and Inserat-Grotesk for the book title. The decorative dingbat is picked up from the hardcover design, and skewed to match the new type. Also, like the hardcover, note the unusual solution for the accent on the E in André, this time using a line parallel to the top bar of the E.
The interior of the book is notable for its use of a different text face for each section.
The title page spread uses Sans Shaded for the title and Anzeigen Grotesk for the author’s name. The translator credits are in Bodoni Italic, and the publisher names are in Helvetica Medium.
The copyright page is in Times New Roman Italic, and the table of contents is in Helvetica.
The section openers are set in Bodoni Bold.
The texts are set in a mix of Baskerville, Century Expanded, Helvetica, and Bodoni Bold.
Within the first manifesto is “Poem,” randomly assembled from headlines and scraps of headlines, reset in many typefaces, including Cheltenham, Baskerville, Vulcan Bold Italic (see Greco, Latin Bold and Latin Wide, Windsor Bold, Beton Bold, and Clarendon.
6 Comments on “Manifestoes of Surrealism by André Breton, paperback edition”
Thank you, Benjamin!
You tracked down most of the typeface IDs – well done! I’ve added a few more that appear in the poem. For those who want to take a closer look, there’s a digitization of this edition at the Internet Archive.
I’m not sold on the ID of Helvetica Compressed for the author’s name. It’s not quite bold enough, and has more contrast. If this is Helvetica Compressed, then in redrawn form with added weight. I don’t have a better suggestion either. The comparison below shows Filmotype Gaucho, slanted. That face is not a match either, at least in this digitization by Castcraft. Maybe it’s simply lettering.
Middle: detail from the book cover
Bottom: OPTI Gaucho, slanted and stretched
Here’s Nick’s post about the dust jacket and cover of the hardback edition from 1969:
Thanks, Florian! Great catch on Vulcan Bold Italic. I had thought that line “The most beautiful straws” was some variation on Bernhard-Kursiv, but of course you’re right.
I had to look it up ;) Vulcan Bold is Mergenthaler Linotype’s copy of Greco negro by the Gans foundry in Spain. Mac McGrew notes that, while the roman is virtually the same, the italic has less slant. David MacMillan shares a scanned specimen for Vulcan Bold (pdf, 79.2MB). Here’s the glyph set:
I’m noticing that the unidentified sans could possibly be Photo-Lettering’s Lenox Hill series. the third volume of Alphabet Thesaurus from 1971 indexes Lenox Hill with the contour, open and shaded styles.
But here is a sample of Lenox Hill 10 and 11 on page 101 if you want to figure this out:
Have any thoughts Flo and the dudes?
It’s definitely a reasonable suggestion, and a likely candidate! Lenox Hill – a vast series – does offer styles in the right weights. Its bold condensed styles have the straight sided rounds with the narrow counters and an R with curved leg. Unlike Gaucho, they also feature ink traps in the N and an E with short bold bars, with the middle one sitting clearly above the center – like on the book cover. With the distortion, no lowercase letters, and limited samples to compare against, it’s difficult to say for sure. But yes, Lenox Hill is the best suggestion so far. I’ve added it. Thanks, Jay.
Here’s a page with five weights of Lenox Hill Condensed, from the Alphabet Thesaurus Vol. 2 (1965). The Condensed 10 weight could be a match for “BRETON”. It did come with an R with curved leg – the sample for the bolder 11 shows both available forms for this letter.