William Pickering was one of the greatest publishers of all time, yet there is very little available on his work (and it is scattered across several hard-to-find books). In addition, Pickering was a remarkable book designer who made monumental contributions to the design of books. Therefore, I felt a couple of short texts on his life and work plus an extensive bibliography were needed today; this is what this book will hopefully help fulfill.
I wanted to make a book that would be in sympathy with Pickering’s own design principles, so I used decorative elements that Pickering commissioned in the 19th century, along with the Caslon font, which he championed. I researched decorative materials used by Pickering and his major printer for reproduction in this book. I also used three versions of digitized Caslon—Adobe Caslon, C&C Big Caslon and Founder’s Caslon—in order to achieve the most accurate appearance of the original Caslon fonts. Finally, the selection of illustrations from Pickering’s work was critical, and I went to great lengths to represent the design of his books as well as possible.
The book has already been cited by several book people as the definitive listing of Pickering’s oeuvre. In addition, the illustrations have opened people’s eyes to Pickering’s contribution to the design of books—not only in his own time, but also as an example for subsequent designers, such as D. B. Updike, Bruce Rogers and Stanley Morison.