Baskerville

Baskerville, JOHN, a celebrated English printer and letter-founder, was born in 1706 at Sion Hill, Wolverley, Worcestershire. A footman to start with, he afterwards became a writing-master in Birmingham, and from 1740 carried on the business of japanning there with great success. About 1750 he began to make laborious and costly experiments in letter-founding, and succeeded in making types which have scarcely yet been excelled. The quarto Virgil printed by him at Birmingham (1756), in Macaulay's words 'was the first of those magnificent editions which went forth to astonish all the librarians of Europe,' and which, 55 in number, included Milton, Juvenal, Congreve, Addison, the Bible, a Greek New Testament, Horace, and Catullus. He died, bequeathing £12,000, 8th January 1775. A foe to all that he termed 'superstition,' he chose to be buried in his own garden, whence, the ground being wanted for building purposes, his remains were exhumed in 1826.