I must offer my best thanks to Mr. Gleeson White, without whose most valuable help the book might never have been finished. He has allowed me to draw upon his remarkable collection of modern illustrated books for examples, and I am indebted to many artists for permission to use their illustrations, as well as to Messrs. George Allen, Bradbury, Agnew and Co., J. M. Dent and Co., Edmund Evans, Geddes and Co., Hacon and Ricketts (the Vale Press), John Lane, Lawrence and Bullen, Sampson Low and Co., Macmillan and Co., Elkin Mathews, Kegan Paul and Co., Walter Scott, Charles Scribner's Sons, and Virtue and Co., for their courtesy in giving me, in many cases, the use of the actual blocks.
To Mr. William Morris, who placed his beautiful collection of early printed books at my disposal, from which to choose illustrations; to Mr. Emery Walker for help in many ways; to Mr. John Calvert for permission to use some of his father's illustrations; and to Mr. A. W. Pollard who has lent me some of his early Italian examples, and has also supervised my bibliographical particulars, I desire to make my cordial acknowledgments.
A reprint of this book being called for, I take the opportunity of adding a few notes, chiefly to Chapter IV., which will be found further on with the numbers of the pages to which they refer.
As touching the general subject of the book one may, perhaps, be allowed to record with some satisfaction that the study of lettering, text-writing, and illumination is now seriously taken up in our craft-schools. The admirable teaching of Mr. Johnston of the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal College of Art in this connection cannot be too highly spoken of. We have had, too, admirable work, in each kind, from Mr. Reuter, Mr. Mortimer, Mr. Treglown, Mr. Alan Vigers, Mr. Graily Hewitt, and Mr. A. E. R. Gill; and Mrs. Traguair and Miss Kingsford are remarkable for the beauty, delicacy, and invention of their work as illuminators among the artists who are now pursuing this beautiful branch of art.
So that the ancient crafts of the scribe and illuminator may be said to have again come to life, and this, taken in connection with the revival of printing as an art, is an interesting and significant fact.