Stanley Arthur Morison

Stanley Arthur Morison (1889-1967), typographer, was born at Wanstead, Essex, on 6 May 1889. He attended Owen's School, Islington, leaving at the age of fourteen, and was a clerk at the London City Mission, 1905-1912, and assistant at the Imprint, 1913-1914. He joined the Roman Catholic publishers Burns & Oates in 1914, and was a typographer at the Cloister Press, 1921-1922. Thereafter, Morison worked a freelance consultant. He was a part-time consultant for the Monotype Corporation, 1922-1954, and typographical advisor for Cambridge University Press, 1923-1959, and for The Times, 1930-1960. He edited The Times literary supplement, 1945-1947, and joined the editorial board of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1961. He died on 11 October 1967.

The collection features various individuals connected to Stanley Morison: the printer Oliver Joseph Simon (1895-1956) founded the annual the Fleuron with Morison in 1923; he joined the Curwen Press in 1920, and became its Chairman in 1949. The American typographer Beatrice Lamberton Warde (1900-1969) was a close friend of Morison's. Sir Francis Meynell (1891-1975) was the son of Wilfred Meynell, who employed Morison at Burns & Oates; he founded the Nonesuch Press in 1923. Sigfrid Henry Steinberg (1899-1969) was the editor of The stateman's yearbook from 1946.