A familiar book-trade story: a book sells out, is declared out-of-print. A few years pass and a box of fresh copies of this item turns up in some clear-out or tidy-up in a distributor’s warehouse or a publishing office. This has just happened with Typography papers 6, which we published in 2005. We have 30-odd copies for sale.

Typography papers 6 was the first issue of this irregular, non-annual ‘journal’ that we published, taking over the publishing role from its editors and producers at the Department of Typography, University of Reading. More than most Typography papers it was a special issue, with all its articles treating some aspect of lettering in Italy of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Typography papers 6 took its start from Nicolete Gray’s work on the ‘Newberry alphabet’: the fifteenth-century alphabet manuscript book that is now part of the collection of the Newberry Library, Chicago. A full reproduction of the alphabet, introduced by Nicolette Gray, leads on to essays by Giovanni Mardersteig, Paul Stiff, and James Mosley – each in its own way seminal.