December 16, 2025 • 39 mins
We've got a special episode from our friends at Cautionary Tales, another Pushkin podcast. On Cautionary Tales, economist and author Tim Harford shares stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, daring heists and hilarious fiascos. They’ll delight you and scare you—but also make you wiser.
In the 1880s, two friends in the flourishing Arts and Crafts Movement in London share a vision: to print the ultimate edition of the Bible. Together they create Doves Press, and its unique font, Doves. But in their quest to make something beautiful, the friends spiral towards an act of incredible ugliness. It's a story of how different perspectives can cause bitter rifts between even the closest of friends.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey everyone, Jonathan here. You know, on Heavyweight we often
talk with people about mistakes they've made. And there's another
show on the Pushkin network called Cautionary Tales that also
wades into those waters about human errors, but it comes
at it from a kind of historical perspective. It's hosted
(00:40):
by economist and author Tim Harford. Tim covers all kinds
of story worthy moments, sometimes tragic ones, you know, like
plane crashes and shipwrecks and collapsing dance floors to kind
of show you what went wrong. And today I was
going to play you a favorite episode of mine. It's
(01:01):
just about regular people, in a way, just making very
poor decisions. It's a story about two men, their book
publishing and the font that destroyed their friendship. I hope
you enjoy it as much as I did, And if
you like what you hear, find more episodes of Cautionary
Tales anywhere you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
November nineteen sixteen, The world has gone mad. Over in
northern France, the Battle of the Somme has been raging.
But here in West London, an old man has been
making his own crazy plans. If I'm foolish, well, what
(01:47):
can be more foolish than the whole world? He writes
in his journal, My folly is of a light kind.
It's true that what he's doing isn't as bad as
trench warfare, but that is the lowest of low bars.
Here he is now limping through the fog and the
darkness along the north bank of the River Thames, struggling
(02:11):
with the weight of the wooden box he's carrying. Look
at him. He's nervous, looking around, terrified that he might
be stopped by a policeman, that they might ask him
about his heavy burden. There are plenty of police around,
after all, there's a war on. Imagine if he was caught,
He'd imagined it himself many times, the police, the public,
(02:36):
the newspapers. What a weird business it is, but set
with perils and panics. I have to see that no
one is near or looking. Yes, don't look too closely
or he'll get nervous. Keep your distance, take your time. There.
He goes down the riverside walk towards Hammersmith Bridge, that
(02:58):
elegant late Victorian suspension bridge across the river. Watch him
heave that box up onto the railings. What's he doing?
If you missed it, not to worry. He'll be back tomorrow,
maybe even later tonight. This is not a moment of madness.
(03:19):
It's a long term project. Hitherto I have escaped detection,
but in the vista of coming nights, I see innumerable
possibilities lurking in dark corners, and it will be a
miracle if I escape them all. If anyone figures out
what he's doing, it will ruin him. But what is
(03:43):
he doing? I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to cautionary tales.
(04:14):
To understand the old man and his folly, we need
to go back almost three decades further, to a lecture
given at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in London
in November eighteen eighty eight. The Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society was all about simple, beautiful design and above all
(04:37):
respectful of the skill of the artisan. In the audience
that evening were some of the greats of the arts
and crafts movement. The lecturer was nervous. His name was
Emery Walker, and he wasn't used to public speaking, especially
not in front of such a distinguished crowd. But his
(04:59):
friend Thomas Cobden Sanderson, the man who had given the
Arts and Crafts movement its name, had urged him to speak,
so Emory did. Thomas Cobden Sanderson and Emery Walker made
an unlikely couple of friends. Thomas Copton Sanderson had gone
(05:21):
to Cambridge, trained to be a fancy lawyer and married
an heiress. Emery Walker was working class, the son of
a coachmaker who dropped out of school at the age
of thirteen because his family needed him to get a job.
There's a wonderfully contrasting pair of portrait photographs of the two.
(05:44):
Walker has a hard wearing tweed three piece suit. It
looks as tough as barbed wire, and he looks like
he sleeps in it. His face, with bushy mustache, is carelined,
cheekbones prominent from under the brim of a black fedora.
His eyes stare almost haunted, and he's clutching a cat
(06:09):
like he's about to crush its rib cage with his
bare hands. And Thomas Cobden Sanderson, He's wearing a big,
white floppy beret so huge it looks like somebody accidentally
dropped the raw dove a pizza on his head. Instead
of a tie, he has a ribbon at his throat,
(06:29):
and he's wearing an artist's gown like a preschooler heading
for the paint box, and a feat artist and a
hard man who's seen some hard times. That's how they
seem Emery Walker may not have gone to Cambridge, but
that evening at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, he
(06:53):
knew what he was talking about. He'd made a career
in printing and photography, with a particular expertise in reproducing
images on the printed page. Despite his nerves, he was
rising to the occasion. Emory's talk was a magisterial history
(07:13):
of type design, printing and illustration from its very beginning
in the fourteen hundreds. In a darkened room, he projected
slides showing the printed page through the ages and highlighting
the way in which early printing existed alongside and in
(07:33):
harmony with manuscripts. Photographically enlarging the images, Emory was able
to show the exquisite craft of fifteenth century type designers
from Venice, the center of the new printing industry in
the fourteen seventies. Then Emory showed a sad decline. After
(07:56):
just a few decades, the quality of printing started to
fall apart The printed page could be beautiful, but it
could also be cheap and mass produced, and printers increasingly
favored the cheap over the beautiful. Nobody had ever seen
such images projected in a lecture, and the content was
(08:20):
as important as the format. Emery Walker was telling the
great arts and crafts masters a story that echoed their
deepest convictions, a story about crude mass production crowding out
elegance and honest craft. With his enchanting slides and the
(08:41):
tragic tale they told, Emery Walker cast a spell. The
most prominent member of the audience fell under that enchantment.
He was William Morris, Oxford educated, wealthy, the creator of
gorgeous floral textiles and wallpapers that are the epitome of
(09:04):
arts and crafts. Inspired, William Morris himself decided to set
up a printing press, a printing press that would reclaim
the book itself as a work of art. Morris established
what became known as Kelmscott Press, and he did nothing
without first asking the advice of Emery Walker. Kelmscott Press
(09:31):
books were collector's items as soon as they were made.
One of Emory's contributions had been to help with the
typeface based on a Venetian type. Emery photographed the Venetian
Book from the fourteen seventies, enlarging the letters so they
could form the basis for a beautiful, dense black type
(09:53):
called Golden type. It looked almost medieval, and it was
undoubtedly beautiful. But then William Morris died. Now Thomas Cobden Sanderson,
(10:14):
like William Morris, had fallen in love with the idea
of making beautiful books, but he had a different vision
for what a beautiful book could be. While Morris was
HARKing back to medieval manuscripts, Cobden Sanderson wanted something with
more space on the page, a simpler layout, and a
(10:36):
lighter typeface. He thought William Morris had made a mistake
in making a blacker, heavier version of Venetian type. Better
to get something finer, more like the original. As one
critic put it, William Morris's books were full of wine.
Early Venetian pages were full of light. Cobden Sanderson wanted
(11:01):
to make books that were full of light. Cobden Sanderson
shared his dreams with his journal I must before I
die create the type for today of the book beautiful
and actualize it. Paper ink, writing, printing, ornamant, and binding.
(11:21):
I will learn to write, to print, and to decorate
an awe inspiring, daunting project, a project perhaps best undertaken
in company. And so Cobden Sanderson approached Emery Walker, the
man who he had inspired and who had inspired him
(11:42):
in turn. But Walker was more than a colleague, He
was a dear friend. Walker's family lived at three Hammersmith Terraces,
Cobden Sanderson's at seven Hammersmith Terraces. Their families became so
close that they rented a pair of summer cottages in
the country, so that when they went on summer holidays
(12:05):
they'd still be together. When one of his early experiments
went awrye with an element printed upside down, Cobden Sanderson
gave it as a memento to Emery Walker, with the
inscription to a perfect friend, an imperfect souvenir. And the
(12:26):
friends shared a political vision as well as an esthetic one.
They saw each other regularly, not only at the Arts
and Crafts Exhibition Society, but at the Hammersmith Socialist Society.
They believed in the dignity of honest work, the fundamental
equality of every person, on the importance of sharing prosperity.
(12:50):
Their perfect partnership would be called the Doves Press. It
would produce some works of astonishing beauty and an act
of incredible ugliness. Cautionary tales will be back after the break.
(13:26):
What could be more fun than setting up a new
creative enterprise with your closest friend. Late in October eighteen
ninety nine, Cobden Sanderson was excitedly talking to his journal again. Today,
Mother and I have been tidying upstairs in the attics,
(13:48):
where in a few days we hope to begin as printers.
By mother, he didn't mean his mother, He meant the
mother of his children. Annie Cobden Sanderson had been a
huge influence on Thomas. She gave him her family name Cobden,
and her family inheritance, which was a solid source of funds.
(14:12):
Most importantly, she urged him to quit being a lawyer
and give himself over to his real passion, arts and crafts.
Annie was putting up all the money to pay for
this new business. Emery and Thomas were supplying well their
expertise and enthusiasm. Together, the three of them would create
(14:36):
the Dove's Press, which we hope to make us famous
as the Kelmscott Press, Won't it be fun? A few
days later he added, soon mister Walker and myself, sitting
on high stools, will begin printing. Isn't that fun? Quite
a new business. We are wondering what great book we
(14:57):
shall begin with. Perhaps it will be the Bible. O
to be in love. Cobden Sanderson was in love, it seems,
with Emery Walker and the book Beautiful and the Dove's Press.
But the first flush of love does not always last.
(15:21):
The first page of The Dove's Bible hits like a
divine thunderclap in the beginning, fills the first line, big
and red and bold all caps, like a tabloid newspaper headline,
decades ahead of its time. Even bolder. The eye of
(15:43):
in the beginning runs all the way down the page,
alongside the block of text, a strong red vertical line. Stunning, brave,
so beautiful. It is one of the most celebrated pages
in the history of printing. After the shock of that
(16:06):
bold red eye, the beauty emerges from the typeface, which
was called simply Doves. Every Dove's Press book was set
in the same font, Doves type sixteen point. There were
no illustrations and only a few flourishes, such as that
(16:28):
read vertical. The first volume of the Doves Bible was
published in nineteen o three, but the effect is shockingly
clear and modern. Like the Venetian masterpieces before them, Doves
Press pages really were full of light. Dove's type was
(16:52):
a collective effort. Thomas Cobden Sandersen gave esthetic direction, but
Emery Walker had been the inspiration, as well as overseeing
production and photographically enlarging the work of the Venetian masters, who,
of course were themselves part of the collaboration. An employee
(17:12):
of Walker's actually drew the design, and a brilliant craftsman
cut the tiny type punches. And who paid for it
all Annie Cobden Sanderson. The result of this collective effort, Doves,
is often said to be the most beautiful type in
the world. It's elegant, with clean lines and subtle serifhs,
(17:37):
and just the faintest suggestion of the human at work.
One writer described it as slightly rickety, as though somebody
had knocked into the compositor's plate and jiggled every letter
almost imperceptibly. It is unique. Nobody really knows why Emery
(18:02):
and Thomas fell out a family friend later recalled of Walker,
he was the kindest, gentlest of men, and I always
found it hard to believe that he could have had
a row with anyone. Perhaps the problem was that the
two men had different expectations. Emery Walker hadn't married into money.
(18:24):
He had other businesses to run. He knew printing, He
had sourced the machinery, found the right workers, dealt with
the practicalities of setting up Dove's Press, but then he
trusted Thomas to handle the day to day printing. Thomas
Cobden Sanderson may have joyfully imagined Emory at his elbow
(18:44):
as they sat together on high stools printing the book Beautiful.
Emery Walker had other things to do. Walker was a
professional printer, he thought it unnecessary to check every single sheet,
explains Robert Green, a type designer. Copdon Sanderson was not
a professional printer, but he was a perfectionist. This was
(19:07):
the problem between the two men. Coblin Sanderson seems to
have resented Emery Walker's absence, but then again, when Walker
did offer an opinion, Cobden Sanderson was outraged. In nineteen
oh two, Cobden Sanderson set out his grievances in a
(19:27):
letter to Walker. You objected to the adoption of the
original edition of Paradise Lost for our edition. You objected
to the spelling, and you objected to the capitals in
the text, to my arranging of in the beginning, and
to the long initial eye, and said it will never do.
You objected to the position of the title of the
(19:50):
First Book of Genesis on the left hand page, and
said it was hateful. You objected to the table of contents,
and only the other day you objected to my arrangement
of Isaac's address to his twelve sons. He never sent
the letter. Instead, he sat simmering with frustration, but determined
(20:12):
to finish the work on the Great Doves Press books
they had begun together. The small team of printers and
typesetters at Dove's Press worked on nothing but the Bible
for three years. The result, said one critic, was dangerously
near to absolute perfection. While Dove's Press was winning plaudits
(20:39):
from the critics, it wasn't making money. The Bible project
was popular, all five hundred copies sold out in advance,
but there was a limited market for incredibly beautiful, yet
expensive books. The business only kept going because Annie was
subsidizing it from her inheritance, but that inheritance couldn't last,
(21:03):
and all three of them had reason to be frustrated.
Annie because she was effectively bankrolling Thomas's hobby, Thomas because
he was doing most of the work, and Emery because
he could see so much potential in the Dove's style
and the Dove's typeface, if only they could use it
for longer print runs of more affordable books. Four years
(21:28):
after his unsent rant Thomas, Cobden Sanderson finally wrote to
Emery Walker to explain that the relationship was over. My
dear Walker, Now that the Bible, our great work, is finished,
and as moreover, the whole work of the press does
in fact fall upon me, I should like to dissolve
(21:50):
our partnership and to become solely responsible for the press.
It was agreed in the event of dissolution you would
be entitled to a fount of type for your own use.
This I would ask you to exchange for some equivalent,
because I do not think that either of us would
like to say, see two presses at work with the
(22:11):
type which has been hitherto unique. Ah. Yes, that was
a sticking point. Cobden Sanderson touched Dove's type every day,
obsessed over the perfection of the books he was typesetting
and printing, and hated the idea that Walker might take
(22:34):
the Dove's typeface and use it to make something unworthy.
He might print advertisements or use it for product packaging.
Who knew, in truth, Walker had done as much as
anyone to champion the book beautiful and as much as
anyone to create Dove's type. It seemed most likely that
(22:56):
he would use Dove's type to print elegant but affordable books.
There was no technical reason why both men couldn't have
a copy of the type, but Cobden Sana couldn't bear
the thought of Emery Walker using it, and Emery Walker
insisted that he had every right to do so. Walker
(23:18):
may have been the kindest and gentlest of men, but
he wasn't a pushover. If he didn't fight, he wrote
to a friend in nineteen oh nine, the only alternative
is to be a passive resistor and allow him to
despoil me, and that I don't like a few weeks later,
he sued Copden Sanderson. Copden Sanderson shared his reaction to
(23:43):
that news with his journal. He wasn't afraid of being
fined or even imprisoned for nothing on earth will now
induce me to part with the type? I am what
he does not appear to realize, A visionary and a fanatic.
And against a visionary and a fanatic, he will beat
(24:05):
himself in vain. Their mutual friends despaired at the situation,
but eventually one of them, Sidney Cockrell, managed to broker
a compromise. Thomas Cobden Sanderson was sixty eight years old.
Emery Walker was over a decade younger. What if Cobden
(24:28):
Sanderson had exclusive use of the doves type until he died,
and then the metal type and the right to use
it would pass to Emery Walker. Cockrell's idea was a fudge,
and it was not what Walker had been promised, but
reluctantly Walker agreed he might not have done so had
(24:50):
he realized what Thomas Cobden Sanderson was planning. Thomas had
already written to the company who had manufactured the font
a decade before. They had in their storerooms up in
Edinburgh the punches and matrices for doves. The matrices were
molds to make more copies of the Dove's type. The
(25:12):
punches were tools to make more matrices. As long as
they existed, Dove's type would never die. Take the punches
and matrices out of storage, wrote Cobden Sanderson, and send
them to me. Cautionary tales will be back after the break.
(25:45):
Thomas Cobden Sanderson was capable of enraged outbursts of destruction.
One day, for example, he was binding a book and
realized the leather for the binding didn't fit. Here's what
happened next, in his own words, in a burst of rage,
it took the knife and cut the slips and tore
(26:07):
the covers and boards off and toss them to one side. Then,
in a very ecstasy of rage, seized one side again,
saw the leather off the board and cut it and
cut it and slashed it with a knife. Then I
was quite calm again that was a fit of white
hot rage. But now Cobden Sanderson would act in cold blood.
(26:33):
His plan was simple. He had promised that after he died,
Emory Walker would get the Dove's type, but he never
had any intention of fulfilling that promise. Instead, he would
destroy the type utterly. That was no easy task. When
(26:54):
Walker and Cobden Sanderson referred to a fount of Dove's type,
or what we'd call a font. They were referring to
a set of metal letter slugs sufficient to typeset pages
of print. That meant several copies of each letter, perhaps
dozens of copies, as well as copies of punctuation marks
(27:15):
and other symbols. All things considered, a font of type
was a serious assemblage of heavy metal, and Thomas Copden
Sandersen planned to bequeath that heavy metal to the River Thames.
So there we are, in the freezing fog of November
(27:36):
nineteen sixteen, watching a stubborn, stubborn old man shuffling from
the Doves Press Bindery the half mile or so to
the Green and Gold towers of Hammersmith Bridge. He's convinced
that the police will stop him, that there will be
a national scandal. Of course, nobody has any particular reason
(27:58):
to stop an old man with a heavy burden. And
if they did stop him and find that his wooden
toolbox was packed not with tools, but with slugs of
metal type, then so what. Cobden Sanderson had been planning
this for years. The week before Easter nineteen thirteen, he
(28:19):
had made several trips to the bridge, carrying some of
the punches and matrices that would let Emery Walker make
his own font of the Dove's type. At the end
of each trip the same scene, Cobden Sanderson looked west
towards the Dove's Press building itself and the setting sun.
(28:43):
Then he hurled the matrices into the river. He thus
controlled the only font of Dove's type that would ever exist,
and would use it to print the last few Doves
Press books. Now late in nineteen sixteen, he would finish
(29:05):
what had started by destroying that font. But the sheer
scale of the task was incredible. There was over a
ton of metal type at Dove's Press, and Thomas Cobden Sanderson,
now seventy six years old, had to carry every ounce
of it to the bridge and throw it into the river.
(29:28):
His journals vividly record the act and give no hint
that he ever had doubts. I have to see that
no one is near or looking. Then over the parapet,
a box full, and then the audible and visible splash.
One night, I'd nearly cast my type into a boat,
(29:49):
another danger which unexpectedly shot from under the bridge. He
perfected the project However, adapting his toolbox to the task.
At the bridge, I crossed the other side, take a
stealthy look round, and if no one is in sight,
I heave up the box to the parapet, release the
(30:10):
sliding lid, and let the type fall sheer into the river.
At work at a moment he had plenty of opportunity
to practice. Marianne Titcomb, who wrote the definitive History of
Dove's Press, estimates that the old man could not have
carried more than fifteen pounds of type on each half
(30:33):
mile journey to the bridge. To carry the full ton
and more of metal would have taken at least one
hundred and seventy furtive trips. In any case, his journals
show that the whole business took almost six months. He
had plenty of time to stop and reconsider. He never did.
(30:59):
At the end of it all, the most beautiful type
in the world was gone, just so an old man
could be sure that nobody else would ever be able
to use it. The final publication of the Dove's Press
(31:21):
was a catalog of all the books the press had
published over its sixteen years of operation. On the last page,
the last page ever printed by Dove's Press. Thomas Cobden
Sanderson boasted of his deed to the bed of the
River Thames, the river on whose banks I have printed
(31:43):
all my printed books. I the doves Press, bequeath the
Dove's Press, fount of type, the punches, matrices, and the
type in use at the Dove's Press at the time
of my death. Was he serious? It wasn't clear. But
(32:06):
their mutual friend Sidney Cockrell the worst. He wrote to
Cobden Sanderson, telling him that it made a terrible mistake.
I believe that you will come to see that your
sacrifice to the River Thames was neither a worthy nor
an honorable one. Cockrell was wrong. The historian Marion Tidcomb wrote,
(32:30):
Cobden Sanderson never regretted it. Indeed, he took delight in
it and found comedy in the tragedy. Emery Walker eventually
became Sir Emery Walker, a pillar of the art and
design community. His house has been preserved as a museum
(32:52):
of Arts and crafts. The playwright George Bernard Shaw called
him an almost reprehensibly amiable man. The architect Philip Webb
called him the universal Samaritan whose services were laid on
like water. The chief compositor at Dove's Press said that
(33:13):
he carried everywhere with him an atmosphere of genial friendliness.
Thomas Cobden Sanderson had a different description. In a letter
to his lawyers, he once wrote, mister Emery Walker is
and always has been, perhaps must be a tradesman. It's
(33:36):
a line that says more about Cobden Sanderson than about Walker.
In nineteen twenty two, five years after destroying the doves type,
Thomas Cobden Sanderson died. Emery Walker asked Annie to hand
over the type, and when she could not, he sued
(33:59):
it wasn't so much for compensation. What compensation could there
be but over the principle that Cobden Sanderson did not
create the Dove's Type by himself, and the Dove's Type
was not his to destroy. Annie had to pay money
that after years of subsidizing the press, she could hardly
(34:23):
afford both she and Walker, and indeed the whole world
had been impoverished by the stubbornness of a man who
was now beyond atonement. Annie died a few years later,
and her ashes were placed next to his in an
(34:44):
urn in the garden wall of the house where they
lived together and where the Dove's Press had operated, next
door to Emery Walker. Soon after the River Thames burst
its banks. The floodwaters carried both Annie and Thomas away.
(35:07):
Obsession is a strange thing. Almost a century after Thomas
sacrificed Dove's Type to the spirit of the River Thames,
another type designer, Robert Green, went down to the foreshore
at low tide underneath Hammersmith Bridge and poked around in
the shingle. Cobden Sanderson had become obsessed with destroying the
(35:32):
Dove's type. Robert Green had become obsessed with resurrecting it.
At first, he did what Emery Walker had done all
those years before, photographing and enlarging the printed pages and
trying to discern the shape of the metal that had
produced those inked characters. In digital form, Green drew and
(35:55):
redrew Doves over one hundred and twenty times. The obsession
with the type has caused a lot of problems. When
you're up all night trying to get the right curve
in the leg of an R and you're spending three
and nine half hours on it, it doesn't go down
too well with your wife. Annie Cobden Sanderson would have
(36:15):
known the feeling. I'm not really sure why I got started.
In the end, it took over my life, but perhaps
there's no mystery. Green couldn't get over the contrast between
the beauty of the type and the ugliness of Cobden
Sanderson's long act of destruction. As Green says, he claimed
(36:39):
to believe in beauty, claimed to be a socialist. Yet
the most beautiful thing he created he doesn't want to share,
and he decides to throw it in the river rather
than share it with the world. There's only so far
you can get by copying the inked letters on a page.
Though everyone told Green that the Doves type had never
(37:02):
been found, but he wondered had anyone really ever looked
for it, which is why he found himself turning over
pebbles under Hammersmith Bridge, and there it was a letter V,
still in good shape despite ninety eight years being tossed
(37:23):
around underwater. He found two more pieces within twenty minutes.
With the help of professional divers. Green has recovered a
total of one one hundred and fifty pieces. Based on
the recovered type and his own obsessive redraftings. Robert Green
(37:44):
has now issued a digital version of Dove's type something
that anyone can use for a modest fee. He's donating
half of the profits to the Emery Walker Museum. Marion
(38:18):
Titcomb's book The Doves Press is the definitive scholarly history
of the affair. For a full list of our sources,
see the show notes at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales
as written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines,
(38:40):
and Ryan Dilly. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust.
The sound design and original music are the work of
Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos san Juan
at Brain Audio. Ben ad Afhaffrey edited the scripts. The
show features the voice talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford,
(39:01):
Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jupp, the Samonroe, Jamal Westman, and Rufus Wright.
The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work
of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohene, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody,
Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey, and Cowen Miller. Cautionary Tales is
a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios
(39:25):
in London by Tom Beryl. If you like the show,
please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes
a difference to us and if you want to hear
the show, add free sign up to Pushkin Plus on
the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm,
slash plus
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey everyone, Jonathan here. You know, on Heavyweight we often
talk with people about mistakes they've made. And there's another
show on the Pushkin network called Cautionary Tales that also
wades into those waters about human errors, but it comes
at it from a kind of historical perspective. It's hosted
(00:40):
by economist and author Tim Harford. Tim covers all kinds
of story worthy moments, sometimes tragic ones, you know, like
plane crashes and shipwrecks and collapsing dance floors to kind
of show you what went wrong. And today I was
going to play you a favorite episode of mine. It's
(01:01):
just about regular people, in a way, just making very
poor decisions. It's a story about two men, their book
publishing and the font that destroyed their friendship. I hope
you enjoy it as much as I did, And if
you like what you hear, find more episodes of Cautionary
Tales anywhere you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
November nineteen sixteen, The world has gone mad. Over in
northern France, the Battle of the Somme has been raging.
But here in West London, an old man has been
making his own crazy plans. If I'm foolish, well, what
(01:47):
can be more foolish than the whole world? He writes
in his journal, My folly is of a light kind.
It's true that what he's doing isn't as bad as
trench warfare, but that is the lowest of low bars.
Here he is now limping through the fog and the
darkness along the north bank of the River Thames, struggling
(02:11):
with the weight of the wooden box he's carrying. Look
at him. He's nervous, looking around, terrified that he might
be stopped by a policeman, that they might ask him
about his heavy burden. There are plenty of police around,
after all, there's a war on. Imagine if he was caught,
He'd imagined it himself many times, the police, the public,
(02:36):
the newspapers. What a weird business it is, but set
with perils and panics. I have to see that no
one is near or looking. Yes, don't look too closely
or he'll get nervous. Keep your distance, take your time. There.
He goes down the riverside walk towards Hammersmith Bridge, that
(02:58):
elegant late Victorian suspension bridge across the river. Watch him
heave that box up onto the railings. What's he doing?
If you missed it, not to worry. He'll be back tomorrow,
maybe even later tonight. This is not a moment of madness.
(03:19):
It's a long term project. Hitherto I have escaped detection,
but in the vista of coming nights, I see innumerable
possibilities lurking in dark corners, and it will be a
miracle if I escape them all. If anyone figures out
what he's doing, it will ruin him. But what is
(03:43):
he doing? I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to cautionary tales.
(04:14):
To understand the old man and his folly, we need
to go back almost three decades further, to a lecture
given at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in London
in November eighteen eighty eight. The Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society was all about simple, beautiful design and above all
(04:37):
respectful of the skill of the artisan. In the audience
that evening were some of the greats of the arts
and crafts movement. The lecturer was nervous. His name was
Emery Walker, and he wasn't used to public speaking, especially
not in front of such a distinguished crowd. But his
(04:59):
friend Thomas Cobden Sanderson, the man who had given the
Arts and Crafts movement its name, had urged him to speak,
so Emory did. Thomas Cobden Sanderson and Emery Walker made
an unlikely couple of friends. Thomas Copton Sanderson had gone
(05:21):
to Cambridge, trained to be a fancy lawyer and married
an heiress. Emery Walker was working class, the son of
a coachmaker who dropped out of school at the age
of thirteen because his family needed him to get a job.
There's a wonderfully contrasting pair of portrait photographs of the two.
(05:44):
Walker has a hard wearing tweed three piece suit. It
looks as tough as barbed wire, and he looks like
he sleeps in it. His face, with bushy mustache, is carelined,
cheekbones prominent from under the brim of a black fedora.
His eyes stare almost haunted, and he's clutching a cat
(06:09):
like he's about to crush its rib cage with his
bare hands. And Thomas Cobden Sanderson, He's wearing a big,
white floppy beret so huge it looks like somebody accidentally
dropped the raw dove a pizza on his head. Instead
of a tie, he has a ribbon at his throat,
(06:29):
and he's wearing an artist's gown like a preschooler heading
for the paint box, and a feat artist and a
hard man who's seen some hard times. That's how they
seem Emery Walker may not have gone to Cambridge, but
that evening at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, he
(06:53):
knew what he was talking about. He'd made a career
in printing and photography, with a particular expertise in reproducing
images on the printed page. Despite his nerves, he was
rising to the occasion. Emory's talk was a magisterial history
(07:13):
of type design, printing and illustration from its very beginning
in the fourteen hundreds. In a darkened room, he projected
slides showing the printed page through the ages and highlighting
the way in which early printing existed alongside and in
(07:33):
harmony with manuscripts. Photographically enlarging the images, Emory was able
to show the exquisite craft of fifteenth century type designers
from Venice, the center of the new printing industry in
the fourteen seventies. Then Emory showed a sad decline. After
(07:56):
just a few decades, the quality of printing started to
fall apart The printed page could be beautiful, but it
could also be cheap and mass produced, and printers increasingly
favored the cheap over the beautiful. Nobody had ever seen
such images projected in a lecture, and the content was
(08:20):
as important as the format. Emery Walker was telling the
great arts and crafts masters a story that echoed their
deepest convictions, a story about crude mass production crowding out
elegance and honest craft. With his enchanting slides and the
(08:41):
tragic tale they told, Emery Walker cast a spell. The
most prominent member of the audience fell under that enchantment.
He was William Morris, Oxford educated, wealthy, the creator of
gorgeous floral textiles and wallpapers that are the epitome of
(09:04):
arts and crafts. Inspired, William Morris himself decided to set
up a printing press, a printing press that would reclaim
the book itself as a work of art. Morris established
what became known as Kelmscott Press, and he did nothing
without first asking the advice of Emery Walker. Kelmscott Press
(09:31):
books were collector's items as soon as they were made.
One of Emory's contributions had been to help with the
typeface based on a Venetian type. Emery photographed the Venetian
Book from the fourteen seventies, enlarging the letters so they
could form the basis for a beautiful, dense black type
(09:53):
called Golden type. It looked almost medieval, and it was
undoubtedly beautiful. But then William Morris died. Now Thomas Cobden Sanderson,
(10:14):
like William Morris, had fallen in love with the idea
of making beautiful books, but he had a different vision
for what a beautiful book could be. While Morris was
HARKing back to medieval manuscripts, Cobden Sanderson wanted something with
more space on the page, a simpler layout, and a
(10:36):
lighter typeface. He thought William Morris had made a mistake
in making a blacker, heavier version of Venetian type. Better
to get something finer, more like the original. As one
critic put it, William Morris's books were full of wine.
Early Venetian pages were full of light. Cobden Sanderson wanted
(11:01):
to make books that were full of light. Cobden Sanderson
shared his dreams with his journal I must before I
die create the type for today of the book beautiful
and actualize it. Paper ink, writing, printing, ornamant, and binding.
(11:21):
I will learn to write, to print, and to decorate
an awe inspiring, daunting project, a project perhaps best undertaken
in company. And so Cobden Sanderson approached Emery Walker, the
man who he had inspired and who had inspired him
(11:42):
in turn. But Walker was more than a colleague, He
was a dear friend. Walker's family lived at three Hammersmith Terraces,
Cobden Sanderson's at seven Hammersmith Terraces. Their families became so
close that they rented a pair of summer cottages in
the country, so that when they went on summer holidays
(12:05):
they'd still be together. When one of his early experiments
went awrye with an element printed upside down, Cobden Sanderson
gave it as a memento to Emery Walker, with the
inscription to a perfect friend, an imperfect souvenir. And the
(12:26):
friends shared a political vision as well as an esthetic one.
They saw each other regularly, not only at the Arts
and Crafts Exhibition Society, but at the Hammersmith Socialist Society.
They believed in the dignity of honest work, the fundamental
equality of every person, on the importance of sharing prosperity.
(12:50):
Their perfect partnership would be called the Doves Press. It
would produce some works of astonishing beauty and an act
of incredible ugliness. Cautionary tales will be back after the break.
(13:26):
What could be more fun than setting up a new
creative enterprise with your closest friend. Late in October eighteen
ninety nine, Cobden Sanderson was excitedly talking to his journal again. Today,
Mother and I have been tidying upstairs in the attics,
(13:48):
where in a few days we hope to begin as printers.
By mother, he didn't mean his mother, He meant the
mother of his children. Annie Cobden Sanderson had been a
huge influence on Thomas. She gave him her family name Cobden,
and her family inheritance, which was a solid source of funds.
(14:12):
Most importantly, she urged him to quit being a lawyer
and give himself over to his real passion, arts and crafts.
Annie was putting up all the money to pay for
this new business. Emery and Thomas were supplying well their
expertise and enthusiasm. Together, the three of them would create
(14:36):
the Dove's Press, which we hope to make us famous
as the Kelmscott Press, Won't it be fun? A few
days later he added, soon mister Walker and myself, sitting
on high stools, will begin printing. Isn't that fun? Quite
a new business. We are wondering what great book we
(14:57):
shall begin with. Perhaps it will be the Bible. O
to be in love. Cobden Sanderson was in love, it seems,
with Emery Walker and the book Beautiful and the Dove's Press.
But the first flush of love does not always last.
(15:21):
The first page of The Dove's Bible hits like a
divine thunderclap in the beginning, fills the first line, big
and red and bold all caps, like a tabloid newspaper headline,
decades ahead of its time. Even bolder. The eye of
(15:43):
in the beginning runs all the way down the page,
alongside the block of text, a strong red vertical line. Stunning, brave,
so beautiful. It is one of the most celebrated pages
in the history of printing. After the shock of that
(16:06):
bold red eye, the beauty emerges from the typeface, which
was called simply Doves. Every Dove's Press book was set
in the same font, Doves type sixteen point. There were
no illustrations and only a few flourishes, such as that
(16:28):
read vertical. The first volume of the Doves Bible was
published in nineteen o three, but the effect is shockingly
clear and modern. Like the Venetian masterpieces before them, Doves
Press pages really were full of light. Dove's type was
(16:52):
a collective effort. Thomas Cobden Sandersen gave esthetic direction, but
Emery Walker had been the inspiration, as well as overseeing
production and photographically enlarging the work of the Venetian masters, who,
of course were themselves part of the collaboration. An employee
(17:12):
of Walker's actually drew the design, and a brilliant craftsman
cut the tiny type punches. And who paid for it
all Annie Cobden Sanderson. The result of this collective effort, Doves,
is often said to be the most beautiful type in
the world. It's elegant, with clean lines and subtle serifhs,
(17:37):
and just the faintest suggestion of the human at work.
One writer described it as slightly rickety, as though somebody
had knocked into the compositor's plate and jiggled every letter
almost imperceptibly. It is unique. Nobody really knows why Emery
(18:02):
and Thomas fell out a family friend later recalled of Walker,
he was the kindest, gentlest of men, and I always
found it hard to believe that he could have had
a row with anyone. Perhaps the problem was that the
two men had different expectations. Emery Walker hadn't married into money.
(18:24):
He had other businesses to run. He knew printing, He
had sourced the machinery, found the right workers, dealt with
the practicalities of setting up Dove's Press, but then he
trusted Thomas to handle the day to day printing. Thomas
Cobden Sanderson may have joyfully imagined Emory at his elbow
(18:44):
as they sat together on high stools printing the book Beautiful.
Emery Walker had other things to do. Walker was a
professional printer, he thought it unnecessary to check every single sheet,
explains Robert Green, a type designer. Copdon Sanderson was not
a professional printer, but he was a perfectionist. This was
(19:07):
the problem between the two men. Coblin Sanderson seems to
have resented Emery Walker's absence, but then again, when Walker
did offer an opinion, Cobden Sanderson was outraged. In nineteen
oh two, Cobden Sanderson set out his grievances in a
(19:27):
letter to Walker. You objected to the adoption of the
original edition of Paradise Lost for our edition. You objected
to the spelling, and you objected to the capitals in
the text, to my arranging of in the beginning, and
to the long initial eye, and said it will never do.
You objected to the position of the title of the
(19:50):
First Book of Genesis on the left hand page, and
said it was hateful. You objected to the table of contents,
and only the other day you objected to my arrangement
of Isaac's address to his twelve sons. He never sent
the letter. Instead, he sat simmering with frustration, but determined
(20:12):
to finish the work on the Great Doves Press books
they had begun together. The small team of printers and
typesetters at Dove's Press worked on nothing but the Bible
for three years. The result, said one critic, was dangerously
near to absolute perfection. While Dove's Press was winning plaudits
(20:39):
from the critics, it wasn't making money. The Bible project
was popular, all five hundred copies sold out in advance,
but there was a limited market for incredibly beautiful, yet
expensive books. The business only kept going because Annie was
subsidizing it from her inheritance, but that inheritance couldn't last,
(21:03):
and all three of them had reason to be frustrated.
Annie because she was effectively bankrolling Thomas's hobby, Thomas because
he was doing most of the work, and Emery because
he could see so much potential in the Dove's style
and the Dove's typeface, if only they could use it
for longer print runs of more affordable books. Four years
(21:28):
after his unsent rant Thomas, Cobden Sanderson finally wrote to
Emery Walker to explain that the relationship was over. My
dear Walker, Now that the Bible, our great work, is finished,
and as moreover, the whole work of the press does
in fact fall upon me, I should like to dissolve
(21:50):
our partnership and to become solely responsible for the press.
It was agreed in the event of dissolution you would
be entitled to a fount of type for your own use.
This I would ask you to exchange for some equivalent,
because I do not think that either of us would
like to say, see two presses at work with the
(22:11):
type which has been hitherto unique. Ah. Yes, that was
a sticking point. Cobden Sanderson touched Dove's type every day,
obsessed over the perfection of the books he was typesetting
and printing, and hated the idea that Walker might take
(22:34):
the Dove's typeface and use it to make something unworthy.
He might print advertisements or use it for product packaging.
Who knew, in truth, Walker had done as much as
anyone to champion the book beautiful and as much as
anyone to create Dove's type. It seemed most likely that
(22:56):
he would use Dove's type to print elegant but affordable books.
There was no technical reason why both men couldn't have
a copy of the type, but Cobden Sana couldn't bear
the thought of Emery Walker using it, and Emery Walker
insisted that he had every right to do so. Walker
(23:18):
may have been the kindest and gentlest of men, but
he wasn't a pushover. If he didn't fight, he wrote
to a friend in nineteen oh nine, the only alternative
is to be a passive resistor and allow him to
despoil me, and that I don't like a few weeks later,
he sued Copden Sanderson. Copden Sanderson shared his reaction to
(23:43):
that news with his journal. He wasn't afraid of being
fined or even imprisoned for nothing on earth will now
induce me to part with the type? I am what
he does not appear to realize, A visionary and a fanatic.
And against a visionary and a fanatic, he will beat
(24:05):
himself in vain. Their mutual friends despaired at the situation,
but eventually one of them, Sidney Cockrell, managed to broker
a compromise. Thomas Cobden Sanderson was sixty eight years old.
Emery Walker was over a decade younger. What if Cobden
(24:28):
Sanderson had exclusive use of the doves type until he died,
and then the metal type and the right to use
it would pass to Emery Walker. Cockrell's idea was a fudge,
and it was not what Walker had been promised, but
reluctantly Walker agreed he might not have done so had
(24:50):
he realized what Thomas Cobden Sanderson was planning. Thomas had
already written to the company who had manufactured the font
a decade before. They had in their storerooms up in
Edinburgh the punches and matrices for doves. The matrices were
molds to make more copies of the Dove's type. The
(25:12):
punches were tools to make more matrices. As long as
they existed, Dove's type would never die. Take the punches
and matrices out of storage, wrote Cobden Sanderson, and send
them to me. Cautionary tales will be back after the break.
(25:45):
Thomas Cobden Sanderson was capable of enraged outbursts of destruction.
One day, for example, he was binding a book and
realized the leather for the binding didn't fit. Here's what
happened next, in his own words, in a burst of rage,
it took the knife and cut the slips and tore
(26:07):
the covers and boards off and toss them to one side. Then,
in a very ecstasy of rage, seized one side again,
saw the leather off the board and cut it and
cut it and slashed it with a knife. Then I
was quite calm again that was a fit of white
hot rage. But now Cobden Sanderson would act in cold blood.
(26:33):
His plan was simple. He had promised that after he died,
Emory Walker would get the Dove's type, but he never
had any intention of fulfilling that promise. Instead, he would
destroy the type utterly. That was no easy task. When
(26:54):
Walker and Cobden Sanderson referred to a fount of Dove's type,
or what we'd call a font. They were referring to
a set of metal letter slugs sufficient to typeset pages
of print. That meant several copies of each letter, perhaps
dozens of copies, as well as copies of punctuation marks
(27:15):
and other symbols. All things considered, a font of type
was a serious assemblage of heavy metal, and Thomas Copden
Sandersen planned to bequeath that heavy metal to the River Thames.
So there we are, in the freezing fog of November
(27:36):
nineteen sixteen, watching a stubborn, stubborn old man shuffling from
the Doves Press Bindery the half mile or so to
the Green and Gold towers of Hammersmith Bridge. He's convinced
that the police will stop him, that there will be
a national scandal. Of course, nobody has any particular reason
(27:58):
to stop an old man with a heavy burden. And
if they did stop him and find that his wooden
toolbox was packed not with tools, but with slugs of
metal type, then so what. Cobden Sanderson had been planning
this for years. The week before Easter nineteen thirteen, he
(28:19):
had made several trips to the bridge, carrying some of
the punches and matrices that would let Emery Walker make
his own font of the Dove's type. At the end
of each trip the same scene, Cobden Sanderson looked west
towards the Dove's Press building itself and the setting sun.
(28:43):
Then he hurled the matrices into the river. He thus
controlled the only font of Dove's type that would ever exist,
and would use it to print the last few Doves
Press books. Now late in nineteen sixteen, he would finish
(29:05):
what had started by destroying that font. But the sheer
scale of the task was incredible. There was over a
ton of metal type at Dove's Press, and Thomas Cobden Sanderson,
now seventy six years old, had to carry every ounce
of it to the bridge and throw it into the river.
(29:28):
His journals vividly record the act and give no hint
that he ever had doubts. I have to see that
no one is near or looking. Then over the parapet,
a box full, and then the audible and visible splash.
One night, I'd nearly cast my type into a boat,
(29:49):
another danger which unexpectedly shot from under the bridge. He
perfected the project However, adapting his toolbox to the task.
At the bridge, I crossed the other side, take a
stealthy look round, and if no one is in sight,
I heave up the box to the parapet, release the
(30:10):
sliding lid, and let the type fall sheer into the river.
At work at a moment he had plenty of opportunity
to practice. Marianne Titcomb, who wrote the definitive History of
Dove's Press, estimates that the old man could not have
carried more than fifteen pounds of type on each half
(30:33):
mile journey to the bridge. To carry the full ton
and more of metal would have taken at least one
hundred and seventy furtive trips. In any case, his journals
show that the whole business took almost six months. He
had plenty of time to stop and reconsider. He never did.
(30:59):
At the end of it all, the most beautiful type
in the world was gone, just so an old man
could be sure that nobody else would ever be able
to use it. The final publication of the Dove's Press
(31:21):
was a catalog of all the books the press had
published over its sixteen years of operation. On the last page,
the last page ever printed by Dove's Press. Thomas Cobden
Sanderson boasted of his deed to the bed of the
River Thames, the river on whose banks I have printed
(31:43):
all my printed books. I the doves Press, bequeath the
Dove's Press, fount of type, the punches, matrices, and the
type in use at the Dove's Press at the time
of my death. Was he serious? It wasn't clear. But
(32:06):
their mutual friend Sidney Cockrell the worst. He wrote to
Cobden Sanderson, telling him that it made a terrible mistake.
I believe that you will come to see that your
sacrifice to the River Thames was neither a worthy nor
an honorable one. Cockrell was wrong. The historian Marion Tidcomb wrote,
(32:30):
Cobden Sanderson never regretted it. Indeed, he took delight in
it and found comedy in the tragedy. Emery Walker eventually
became Sir Emery Walker, a pillar of the art and
design community. His house has been preserved as a museum
(32:52):
of Arts and crafts. The playwright George Bernard Shaw called
him an almost reprehensibly amiable man. The architect Philip Webb
called him the universal Samaritan whose services were laid on
like water. The chief compositor at Dove's Press said that
(33:13):
he carried everywhere with him an atmosphere of genial friendliness.
Thomas Cobden Sanderson had a different description. In a letter
to his lawyers, he once wrote, mister Emery Walker is
and always has been, perhaps must be a tradesman. It's
(33:36):
a line that says more about Cobden Sanderson than about Walker.
In nineteen twenty two, five years after destroying the doves type,
Thomas Cobden Sanderson died. Emery Walker asked Annie to hand
over the type, and when she could not, he sued
(33:59):
it wasn't so much for compensation. What compensation could there
be but over the principle that Cobden Sanderson did not
create the Dove's Type by himself, and the Dove's Type
was not his to destroy. Annie had to pay money
that after years of subsidizing the press, she could hardly
(34:23):
afford both she and Walker, and indeed the whole world
had been impoverished by the stubbornness of a man who
was now beyond atonement. Annie died a few years later,
and her ashes were placed next to his in an
(34:44):
urn in the garden wall of the house where they
lived together and where the Dove's Press had operated, next
door to Emery Walker. Soon after the River Thames burst
its banks. The floodwaters carried both Annie and Thomas away.
(35:07):
Obsession is a strange thing. Almost a century after Thomas
sacrificed Dove's Type to the spirit of the River Thames,
another type designer, Robert Green, went down to the foreshore
at low tide underneath Hammersmith Bridge and poked around in
the shingle. Cobden Sanderson had become obsessed with destroying the
(35:32):
Dove's type. Robert Green had become obsessed with resurrecting it.
At first, he did what Emery Walker had done all
those years before, photographing and enlarging the printed pages and
trying to discern the shape of the metal that had
produced those inked characters. In digital form, Green drew and
(35:55):
redrew Doves over one hundred and twenty times. The obsession
with the type has caused a lot of problems. When
you're up all night trying to get the right curve
in the leg of an R and you're spending three
and nine half hours on it, it doesn't go down
too well with your wife. Annie Cobden Sanderson would have
(36:15):
known the feeling. I'm not really sure why I got started.
In the end, it took over my life, but perhaps
there's no mystery. Green couldn't get over the contrast between
the beauty of the type and the ugliness of Cobden
Sanderson's long act of destruction. As Green says, he claimed
(36:39):
to believe in beauty, claimed to be a socialist. Yet
the most beautiful thing he created he doesn't want to share,
and he decides to throw it in the river rather
than share it with the world. There's only so far
you can get by copying the inked letters on a page.
Though everyone told Green that the Doves type had never
(37:02):
been found, but he wondered had anyone really ever looked
for it, which is why he found himself turning over
pebbles under Hammersmith Bridge, and there it was a letter V,
still in good shape despite ninety eight years being tossed
(37:23):
around underwater. He found two more pieces within twenty minutes.
With the help of professional divers. Green has recovered a
total of one one hundred and fifty pieces. Based on
the recovered type and his own obsessive redraftings. Robert Green
(37:44):
has now issued a digital version of Dove's type something
that anyone can use for a modest fee. He's donating
half of the profits to the Emery Walker Museum. Marion
(38:18):
Titcomb's book The Doves Press is the definitive scholarly history
of the affair. For a full list of our sources,
see the show notes at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales
as written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines,
(38:40):
and Ryan Dilly. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust.
The sound design and original music are the work of
Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos san Juan
at Brain Audio. Ben ad Afhaffrey edited the scripts. The
show features the voice talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford,
(39:01):
Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jupp, the Samonroe, Jamal Westman, and Rufus Wright.
The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work
of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohene, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody,
Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey, and Cowen Miller. Cautionary Tales is
a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios
(39:25):
in London by Tom Beryl. If you like the show,
please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes
a difference to us and if you want to hear
the show, add free sign up to Pushkin Plus on
the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm,
slash plus
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