Hand-printed books of poetry,
Plus tips and supplies for fellow letterpress printers.

P&P from £2.50

Printing Tips

Tips & Articles

Getting Started

Product Guides

Where Can I Find...

Quizzes & Things

Apron & Accessories

Beginners Quiz

Elsewhere On The Web...

Idioms

Spacing Sums Quiz

Printing History Quiz

Type Lice

Printing History Quiz

This is longer than the maths quiz and the beginners quiz, with twenty questions all about the history of printing.

There are some really easy questions but some are pretty obscure, so feel free to cheat.

You'll find a few of the answers on our website and most of the rest can be found with a little Googling!

Who's this chap with the unusual beard?

Richard March Hoe
Johannes Gutenberg
Laurens Coster
Aldus Manutius

Which of these has never been used as a measure in printing?

Cicero
Barley Corn
Pica
Petit Roman

Virginia and Leonard Wolf co-founded the their famous private press in 1917. What was it called?

The Kelmscott Press
The Gregynog Press
The Golden Cockerel Press
The Hogarth Press

Firmin Didot is heralded for his influence on modern type design, but he's also in the history books for coining which of these words?

Typograph
Pantograph
Stereotype
Heliotrope

Originally shown as part of BBC4's 2008 Mediaeval Season, who presented the programme about the Gutenberg Press?

James May
Adam Hart Davis
Tony Robinson
Stephen Fry

The first known movable type, created in China around one thousand years a go, was made from which material?

Porcelain
Bone
Wood
Bronze

A kind of block printing called Tarsh was used around 800 - 900 AD to print texts relating to which religion?

Islam
Sikhism
Christianity
Judaism

What change made Playing Cards one of the most printed items of the 15th century?

Gambling prohibition laws were lifted
Paper became more readily available
Demand from soldiers fighting in the Hundred Years War
Movable type was introduced to Europe

Who brought the first printing press to Britain?

Colard Mansion
William Caxton
Richard Field
Wynkyn de Worde

The late Bert E. Smith was renowned for what?

Inventing the Monotype scientific copy-fitting system
Instructor in Machine Composition
Creating highly complex ornamental borders
Front-man of Manchester band The Fall

Who invented lithography?

Toulouse Lautrec
Alois Senfelda
Leonardo da Vinci
Count Rumford

What was unusual about the ordinary type in use at the Clarendon Press?

It had to be cast abroad
They never scrapped any
There was no italic
It had a unique type height

Why did printing the language of Jesus become more difficult in 1942?

The compositors had been called up
The matrices were bombed
The last living Aramaic speaker died
Paper rationing was introduced

What was the name of game played with type in composing rooms?

Sorts Up
Socks Up
Nicks Up
Sorts Out

Which of these was a British printing press?

Silvo
Vim
Ajax
Pears

Which poet printed illuminated books with text and images combined in single copper-plate engravings?

William Blake
John Milton
Phillip Larkin
John Betjeman

The last (newly manufactured) Adana is thought to have been sold in Japan in what year?

1969
1979
1989
1999

Which country first produced metal moveable type?

Thailand
Japan
China
Korea

Which Christmas carol is sung to an extract from a piece of music composed by Felix Mendelssohn to celebrate Gutenberg's printing press?

Good King Wenceslas
Hark! the Herald Angels Sing
In the Bleak Mid Winter
Once in Royal David's City

Which type designer is thought to have been heavily influenced (!) by the designs of his landlord Edward Johnston?

Eric Gill
Calude Garamond
Firmin Didot
John Baskerville

You Might Also Like...

Hand-printed books of poetry, Plus tips and supplies for fellow letterpress printers.

Printing History Quiz

Hand-printed books of poetry,
Plus tips and supplies for fellow letterpress printers.