Diderot's Upper Case

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This French layout is the haut de casse shown in Diderot's Encylopedia (1751-80). It is also shown in Bertrand-Quinquet: Traite de l'imprimerie (1798). A somewhat similar casseau superieur is shown by Momoro: Traité élémentaire de l'imprimerie ou le manuel de l'imprimeur (1793), but with k in the upper case, and not ct (which is in his lower case) and without ¶. Diderot's equivalent bas de casse is Diderot Lower.

The boxes with A,B, etc are small caps, and those with | are the long s ligature. The ¦ box is a single dagger. Note the location of W, and that é is in the Lower case. Perhaps by mistake, ç is shown in both the upper and lower case, and lower case w is omitted from both. It should perhaps replace the ç in the upper, being adjacent to W. Alternatively, it replaces (or shares) the small cap w.

The empty configuration is that of Moxon, and Mackellar (1885), Southward (1887), Barnhart Bros & Spindler's News (1890s), Stephenson Blake & Co (1922), Miller & Richard (same period), Caslon (1925) etc.

Other empty cases ie with the boxes left blank		Other type layouts ie with characters assigned to boxes
Full Index of layouts	Glossary of terms used	Sources of the layouts	Introduction
Quantities in a fount of type		Quantities in a case of type
Notes about Job and Double Cases	Notes about Upper cases	Notes about Lower cases	Alembic home page

This page was written in 1997 by David Bolton and last updated 8 August 2013.