Century-style but without descending J

Question

Hi,

These are samples from a book printed in 1911. I think the font is "Century" but samples online tell me Century characteristically has a descending J capital letter, which this font does not.

There seem to be a lot of modern varieties of "Century" but I would appreciate any help in identifying this 1911 version, and I acknowledge I may be wrong entirely in my original guess.

I can provide further samples if required, and I thank anyone who looks for their time and assistance.

Russell.

Answer 1

This genre is sometimes called “Modern” or “Scotch”, and there were many typefaces designed in the style throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, often simply generically titled “Roman”. It will be a struggle to find an exact match, but something from Monotype or Linotype is a good bet, as books were commonly set on with machine composition by this time. Of those fonts with digital versions, Linotype’s De Vinne is similar, without the descending J. Bitstream’s De Vinne is good.

For an option that is a little different, but much more complete as a tool, see Benton Modern.

https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/253/de-vinne-linotype

Comments

Stewf,

Thank you very much for the informative response. I see from your link that De Vinne is indeed available, so I will pursue whether it has much unicode support, and also if it has the ranging numerals that are used in the original.

The Benton Modern link you gave is good too, and more ... modern. It is probably a better bet as I do have a lot stuff in different alphabets to handle, and it comes with a 30-day free trial.

I can't help but be impressed with the overall look of pages from early last century, set in the commonly used fonts. Sheer personal taste, of course.

Russell.

p.s. I should have added that the 1911 book from which I took the scans was printed by the Aberdeen University Press.