[FONT HISTORY / NEW HELLENIC GREEK TYPE LETTERS] Προμηθευς Δεσμωτης / Promitheus desmotis [i.e., Prometheus bound]. Designer of the type: Victor Sholderer

AESCYLUS (BC 525-455).

The Lanston Monotype Corporation (Prep. by), Londonioi (London), 1930. 

Original blue cloth. Gilt lettering title on spine, and top edge gilt. Foolscap 8vo. (18,5 x 12 cm). In Greek (Ancient), 39 p. Occasional soiling on spine and margins of boards. Otherwise, a near-fine copy.

First and only edition "with the nine-point size of the New Hellenic Greek type cut by the Lanston Monotype Corporation, which is presented by the designer of the type, Victor Scholderer, British Museum, Bloomsbury, London, W. C. 1.", of Aescylus' "the Prometheus Bound", an ancient Greek tragedy is based on the myth of Prometheus, a Titan who defies Zeus, and protects and gives fire to mankind, for which he is subjected to the wrath of Zeus and punished. Scarce.

This book, whose Greek types were cut by the Lanston Monotype Corporation and designed by Scholderer has no name of a publishing house on the title page and the colophon.

Julius Victor Scholderer (1880-1971) was the designer of "New Hellenic" (1927-1928), a very elegant Greek typeface with original capitals, and a lowercase that is based upon a 15th-century Venetian typeface ascribed to Giovanni Rosso (Rubeus). He published Greek Printing Types 1465/1927 (Mastoridis Publications, Typophilia, 1995). Scholderer was a curator of the British Museum Library. In 1927, Scholderer, on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Greek Studies, got involved in choosing and consulting the design and production of a Greek type called New Hellenic cut by the Lanston Monotype Corporation. He chose the revival of a round, and almost monoline type which had first appeared in 1492 in the edition of Macrobius, ascribable to the printing shop of Giovanni Rosso (Joannes Rubeus) in Venice. New Hellenic was the only successful typeface in Great Britain after the introduction of Porson Greek well over a century before. The Greek Font Society digitized the typeface (1993-1994) funded by the Athens Archeological Society with the addition of a new set of epigraphical symbols. Later (2000) more weights were added (italic, bold, and bold italic) as well as a Latin version. That type of family is called GFS Neohellenic (1993-2000, George Matthiopoulos and Takis Katsoulidis). (Luc Devroye online).

Born in London to German parents, Victor Scholderer was a German bibliographer. He was the son of the artist Otto Scholderer. Scholderer attended St Paul's School and Trinity College, Oxford (winning the Gaisford Prize in 1900). He joined the staff of the British Museum Library in 1904; he was appointed Deputy Keeper of the Department of Printed Books in 1930 and remained in that office until retirement in 1945. His major achievements included producing (sometimes with others) parts 2 to 8 of the Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now in the British Museum (published from 1912 to 1949; he edited parts 5 to 8), and authoring the short-title catalogues of the library's 16th-century Italian and German books (1958 and 1962). He was the Sandars Reader in Bibliography at the University of Cambridge in 1930 and presented the Italian Lecture at the British Academy in 1948. That year, he was elected a fellow of the latter; he also received two honorary doctorates and the Bibliographical Society's gold medal, was appointed a CBE in 1961, and was the dedicatee of a Festschrift in 1970. He also contributed to a book titled "Greek Printing Types 1465-1927, Facsimiles from an Exhibition of Books Illustrating the Development of Greek Printing shown in the British Museum 1927". (Wikipedia).

As of March 2024, the OCLC locates only two institutional paper copies in The British Library, St. Pancras, and the University of Arizona Libraries (556868886, 851839994).