The Whole Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner

1785

de Beer Eb 1785 D

London: Printed at the Logographic Press, and sold by J. Walter, Printing-House Square, Black-Friars

Lucky happenstance had John Walter (1739-1812), a coal merchant, an underwriter for Lloyds of London, and bankrupt, purchasing the patent for ‘logography’ from one Henry Johnson. Logography was a new form of type-setting that was supposedly faster and more accurate than conventional type-setting because it allowed more than one letter – sometimes whole words and short phrases – to be set at a time. By May 1784 Walter was in business, printing some 40 titles by this process, including this edition of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1785). Logography was not a success. The exercise did, however, lead him to establish The Daily Universal Register, which was re-launched on 1 January 1788 as The Times. This Crusoe volume (one of two) is not only a fine example of an innovative printing process, but it adds greatly to the 18th century materials already in Special Collections.