_Typographic Debut_ Notes on the Long ſ and other Characters in Early English Printing.
From _An Introduction to Bibliography_ by Ronald B. McKerrow. Copyright 1927 by the Clarendon Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
From the beginning of printing until towards the end of the eighteenth century ſ was used initially and medially and s finally, following of course the practice of the MSS. There were certain exceptions: Sweynheim and Pannartz, setting up the first press in Italy at Subiaco in 1465, used a type transitional in character though with marked gothic features, which used the long ſ in all positions, a practice which may have been imitated from Neapolitan MSS. of the period. Other printers sometimes followed the same usage in Roman type.
The first book to discard ſ is said to have been Joseph Ames's _Typographical Antiquities_ of 1749, but this was regarded as an eccentricity, and the normal ſ is used in Herkert's edition of 1785-90. The effective introduction of the reform has been credited to John Bell who in his _British Theatre_ of 1791 used s throughout, the same practice being followed in the Boydell _Shakespeare_, of which vol. I appeared in 1792.[21]
It is worth noting that Capell in his _Prolusions_, 1760, had attempted a modification of the usual practice. He there uses s medially for a z-sound, retaining ſ for an s-sound, thus: easily, visible, rais'd, &c., but verſes, purſuit, ſatiſfy.
In London printing the reform was adopted very rapidly and, save in work of an intentionally antiquarian character, we do not find much use of ſ in the better kind of printing after 1800. The provincial presses seem, however, to have retained it somewhat longer and it is said to have been used at Oxford until 1824.
As a general rule, until early in the seventeenth century there was only one capital letter, I (in Roman) or [Illustration: J] in black-letter), for the letters now represented by I and J; and only one capital letter V (in Roman) or [Illustration: U, V]] (in black-letter) for the letters U and V. As was pointed out by F. W. Bourdillon, this has in early French books the odd result that a _libraire juré_ is liable to appear in capitals as "I V R E." When reprinting a black-letter text in Roman it seems logical to represent these by I and V in all cases, though some editors have preferred to use J and U, perhaps because the black-letter forms approximate more closely to these letters in shape.
