Harry Carter remains, in Francis Meynell’s words, ‘one of the least-known best-known men in the world of books’. Many people know his name, perhaps through his part in Stanley Morison's masterwork John Fell, or his History of Oxford University Press, or his discovery of the origin of the Janson types. But few can know that his expertise spanned every detail of type and books; from punch-cutting and typecasting to jobbing printing, from the design of government publications to the identification of ancient punches and matrices. Harry Carter had done them all; his scholarship came from first hand study of original sources and from practising the ancient crafts and their modern developments. This talk pays tribute to a modest man of exceptional talent and lasting importance.

Martyn Thomas is a collector of fine printing and co-author of The Fell Revival (with Martyn Ould, Old School Press, 2000). His latest book, Harry Carter, Typographer, is the first biography and bibliography of Harry Carter. It was written in collaboration with John A Lane and Anne Rogers.