Geoffroy tory biography of donald

Daily Telegraph obituary, Oct 2012

Sir Geofroy Tory, who has died 99, was a long serving diplomat who watched Winston Churchill monitor the progress of the Battle of Britain and organised the repatriation to Dublin of the body of a fellow Foreign Office official, the executed traitor Roger Casement. He was also a convinced dowser.

Tory was ambassador to Ireland when, in the mid-1960s, Harold Wilson’s government was keen to improve relations with Ireland, itself determined to build better economic ties with Britain. In 1965, as a sign of the thaw, Casement’s body was exhumed from the cemetery at Pentonville Prison where it had lain since he was hanged for an attempt to secure Germany’s assistance in the 1916 Easter Rising. When his body was back in Ireland, hundreds of thousands of people filed past the coffin before Casement was given a full state funeral, at which Eamon de Valera, then 82 and in frail health, was one of the mourners.

During negotiations prior to the body’s handover, Tory met Nicolas O’Nuallain, secretary to the department of the Taoiseach, to discuss the potential transfer to Ireland of Casement’s so-called “black diary” in which the former consul to the Congo and Peru allegedly detailed homosexual affairs, rumours of which are thought to have hampered his appeals for clemency. In the event Tory and O’Nuallain noted that the diary’s return would require a debate at Westminster and decided “to let sleeping dogs lie”.

Geofroy William Tory was born on July 31 1912 to William Frank Tory and the former Edith Wreghitt. He was educated at King Edward VII School, Sheffield, where he was captain of cricket, and Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he was an exact contemporary of Donald Maclean, of the Cambridge Spy Ring.

After securing a double First in French and German, Tory joined the Dominions Office, where he was p

Champ Fleury: Art et Science de la Vrai Proportion des Lettres (1529)

Champ Fleury by Geofroy Tory Translated into English and Annotated by George B. Ives, Designed and printed by Bruce Rogers (1529)[1927]
Slipcase, dust jacket over casebound, vellum-backed decorated paper-covered boards, gilt-stamped spine and gilt top edge. H320 x W224 mm, 234 pages. One of 390 copies. One of only ten books printed in the original foundry Centaur type by Rogers. Acquired from Donald A. Heald Rare Books, 26 May 2021.
and
Champ Fleury: Art et Science de la Vrai Proportion des Lettres (1529)[1998]
Geofroy Tory
Sewn paperback, glued to black card cover with deep flaps. H250 x W172mm, 192 pages. Acquired from Antiquariaat Schot, 19 April 2021.
Photos of the books: Books On Books Collection. Copyright in the books: © 1927 The Grolier Club. © Bibliothéque de l’Image.

The art of the alphabet seems to be a rite of passage for graphic artists. Perhaps it is that art and the alphabet find common ground in the urge to make sense of the world. Perhaps it’s that the alphabet’s invention, development and artistic treatment present a rich tradition for artists to follow or challenge. Perhaps it’s that letterforms and the alphabet offer raw material, subject and organizing principle all in one. Semic or asemic. Calligraphic, typographic or even plastic. Representational or abstract. All are options. But most often, something bookish results. From Islam Aly’s 28 Letters(2013) to Ludwig Zeller’s Alphacollage (1979), a significant part of the Books On Books Collection is taken up with book art based on the ABCs and letterforms. The Collection’s two facsimiles of Geofroy Tory’s Champ Fleury provide a useful historical backdrop that throws into relief several of the Collection’s works and their performance of this rite of passage. 

Left to right: double-page spread and cover from Aly’s 28 Letters; A from Zeller

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60542 ***

PAINTER AND ENGRAVER: FIRST ROYAL PRINTER: REFORMER OF ORTHOGRAPHY AND TYPOGRAPHY UNDER FRANÇOIS I.

AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE AND WORKS, BY AUGUSTE BERNARD, TRANSLATED BY GEORGE B. IVES.

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS: MDCCCCIX

PRINTERS' PREFACE.

ERNARD'S monograph on Tory was first published in 1857, when M. Bernard was already a recognized authority on the history of typography. In 1865, after an interval devoted largely to a search for further information concerning Tory, and for probable examples of his work as an artist, a second edition of the book appeared, enlarged by more than one-half, arranged more systematically, and embellished with several additional engravings of designs which are, in the author's opinion, attributable to Tory. The Iconography, which forms the third part of this revised edition, did not appear as such in the first edition, although a small part of the material it contains may be found scattered through that edition. It now occupies more space than the Biography and Bibliography combined. The new arrangement necessitated more or less repetition where, as in many instances, the same book is referred to by M. Bernard in more than one section of his work; and this repetition sometimes reveals discrepancies between the different descriptions. Where such discrepancies have been discovered by him the translator has endeavoured to correct them, generally, in the absence of an opportunity to inspect the volume in question, assuming that the description in the bibliographical section is more likely to be trustworthy; in a number of cases, however, inspection of title-pages themselves, or of reproductions thereof, has enabled him to correct numerous minor errors in transcription.

The kindness of the late Mr. Amor L. Hollingsworth, in lending his fine copy of the first edition of 'Champ fleury,' made it possible to collate therewith M. Bernard's numerous