In planning the Limited Editions Club Shakespeare the first consideration was of the type, which needed to be bold and vigorous enough to convey to the reader’s eye something of the rugged Elizabethan quality of the text. A large format was necessary to allow for the illustrations and therefore a correspondingly large type was indicated. The first experiments were made at
the Oxford University Press with great-primer Fell types; but when for various reasons it became necessary to print the volumes on this side of the Atlantic, the use of Fell types had to be abandoned and search made for something else comparable in effect.