Zwang by Meyer Levin, G.B. Fischer
Licensed edition by S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, published in 1958 under the G.B. Fischer imprint named after Samuel Fischer’s son-in-law. The American original Compulsion was published by Simon and Schuster, New York, in 1956.
Jacket after a design by Paul Bacon. While latter is purely lettered, the German adaption shows type, too. Interestingly, two pretty similar styles have been used: the bold script on the front is Balzac by Johannes Boehland (Stempel, 1951), while the typeface on the back is Imre Reiner’s Mustang (Stempel, 1956). A mix-up? Or was Balzac simply not at hand in a bigger size?
The interior is set in Trump Mediäval by Georg Trump, a typeface that, according to Paul Shaw, has wrongly been overlooked, although “none of the digital versions [does] justice to its metal forebear”.
Trump Mediäval small caps and italics
Chapter opening in small caps. The right-aligned number is probably from Palatino.
![Paul Shaw: “Georg Trump has pulled off a miracle: an italic that is open, flowing and dynamic […] This is an italic that you can use to set large chunks of text without fear of tiring the reader’s eyes”.
Note the use of tracking as a means of emphasis within italics: ‘muß’ (line 6 of the last paragraph).](https://fiu-original.b-cdn.net/fontsinuse.com/use-images/21/21717/21717.jpeg)
Paul Shaw: “Georg Trump has pulled off a miracle: an italic that is open, flowing and dynamic […] This is an italic that you can use to set large chunks of text without fear of tiring the reader’s eyes”.
Note the use of tracking as a means of emphasis within italics: ‘muß’ (line 6 of the last paragraph).
Italics, small caps, guillemets. There are ligatures for ‘fi’, ‘fl’, ‘ft’ (and ‘ff’, not pictured), but also for ‘ch’ and ‘ck’. Note the compact umlaut in ‘Überlegenheit’ (next-to-last paragraph).
