FRY (Joseph). A Specimen of Printing Types, by Joseph Fry and Sons, Letter-Founders, Worship-Street, Moorfields, London, 1785.1785

[London, s.n., Folio broadside (515 x 420 mm), single sheet printed on both sides, the fonts are arranged in 4 columns, lower portion of blank margin cut away (not effecting text), containing specimens of 67 different Roman types, 9 black-letter, 12 Hebrew, Greek, Samaritan, Persian and Arabic types, and printed ornaments, with folds and some light browning to verso but overall a very good copy. Joseph Fry (1728-1787) Typefounder and chocolate manufacturer, who in 1764 entering into partnership with William Pine, a printer, and opened the Fry Letter Foundry in Bristol. The types were fine interpretations of Baskerville's and Caslon's work. The copies of Caslon were so good, that they were advertised as being interchangeable with the original, a claim that upset the Caslons so much that their 1785 specimen was prefaced with a bitter denunciation. Fry had wide business interests, one being Fry's Chocolates. He retired from his foundry in 1787, handing it over to his sons Edmund and Henry. This specimens was also issued in Chambers Cyclopaedia; or an Universal Dictionary of Arts & Science, 1786. Berry & Johnson, p. 40; Mosley, 108; Updike, vol. II, p. 118; Reed, pp. 298-314.