← Heavyweight
Loading summary
Transcript21 lines
- [00:00]
Tim Harford
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
T-Mobile Advertiser
Guaranteed Human in today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster and level up every tool in their arsenal. T Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the Experts@ookla Speedtest. And they're using that network to launch Super Mobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built in security and seamless satellite coverage. That's your business Supercharged. Learn more@supermobile.com Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. Best business plan based on a combination of advanced network performance coverage layers and security features. Best network based on analysis by OOKLA of speed test intelligence data 1h 2025.
- [00:57]
IBM Advertiser
So let me get this straight. Your company has data here, there and everywhere, but your AI can't use the data because it's here, there and everywhere? Seems like something's missing. Every business has unique data. IBM helps your AI access your data wherever it lives. To change how you do business, let's create smarter business. IBM.
- [01:25]
T-Mobile Advertiser
This message is brought to you by Apple Card It's a great time to apply for an Apple Card. You'll love earning unlimited daily cash on every Purchase. That includes 3% daily cash when you buy the latest iPhone, AirPods and Apple. Watch at Apple through this special referral offer. When you get a new Apple Card, you can earn bonus daily cash. To qualify, you must apply at Apple Code Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs bank usa Salt Lake City. Branch offer may not be available elsewhere. Terms and limitations apply.
- [02:00]
Bosch Advertiser
You've probably heard me say this connection is one of the biggest keys to happiness and one of my favorite ways to build that scruffy hospitality. Inviting people over even when things aren't perfect. Because just being together, laughing, chatting, cooking makes you feel good. That's why I love Bosch. Bosch fridges with vitafresh technology keep ingredients fresher longer, so you're always ready to whip up a meal and share a special moment. Fresh foods show you care, and it shows the people you love that they matter. Learn more, visit Boschomeus.com.
- [02:41]
Jonathan (Heavyweight Podcast Host)
Pushkin hey everyone, Jonathan here. You know, on Heavyweight, we often talk with people about mistakes they've made. And there's another show on the Pushkin Network called Cautionary Tales that also wades into those waters about human errors, but it comes at it from a kind of historical perspective. It's hosted by economist and author Tim Harford. Tim covers all kinds of story worthy moments, sometimes tragic ones. You know like plane crashes and shipwrecks and collapsing dance floors to kind of show you what went wrong. And today I was gonna play you a favorite episode of mine. It's just about regular people, in a way, just making very poor decisions. It's a story about two men, their book publishing company and the font that destroyed their friendship. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And if you like what you hear, subscribe. Find more episodes of Cautionary Tales anywhere you get your podcasts.
- [03:51]
Tim Harford
November 1916. The world has gone mad. Over in northern France, the Battle of the Somme has been raging. But here in West London, an old man has been making his own crack crazy plans. If I'm foolish, well, what can be more foolish than the whole world? He writes in his journal. My folly is of a light kind. It's true that what he's doing isn't as bad as trench warfare, but that is the lowest of low bars. Here he is now, limping through the fog and the darkness along the north bank of the River Thames, struggling with the weight of the wooden box he's carrying. Look at him. He's nervous, looking around, terrified that he might be stopped by a policeman, that they might ask him about his heavy burden. There are plenty of police around. After all, there's a war on. Imagine if he was caught. He'd imagined it himself many times. The police, the public, the newspapers. What a weird business it is, beset with perils and panics. I have to see that no one is near or looking. Yes. Don't look too closely or he'll get nervous. Keep your distance, take your time. There he goes, down the riverside walk towards Hammersmith Bridge, that elegant late Victorian suspension bridge across the river. Watch him heave that box up onto the railings. What's he doing if you missed it? Not to worry. He'll be back tomorrow. Maybe even later tonight. This is not a moment of madness, it's a long term project. Hitherto I have escaped detection, but in the vista of coming nights, I see innumerable possibilities lurking in dark corners. And it will be a miracle if I escape them all. If anyone figures out what he's doing, it will ruin him. But what is he doing? I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales. To understand the old man and his folly, we need to go back almost three decades further, to a lecture given at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in London in November 1888. The arts and Crafts Exhibition Society was all about simple, beautiful design and above all, respectful of the Skill of the artisan. In the audience that evening were some of the greats of the Arts and Crafts movement. The lecturer was nervous. His name was Emory Walker and he wasn't used to public speaking, especially not in front of such a distinguished crowd. But his friend Thomas Cobden Sanderson, the man who had given the Arts and Crafts movement its name, had urged him to speak. So Emery did. Thomas Cobden Sanderson and Emery Walker made an unlikely couple of friends. Thomas Cobden Sanderson had gone to Cambridge, trained to be a fancy lawyer and married an heiress. Emory Walker was working class, the son of a coachmaker who dropped out of school at the age of 13 because his family needed him to get a job. There's a wonderfully contrasting pair of portrait photographs of the two. Walker has a hard wearing tweed three piece suit. It looks as tough as barbed wire and he looks like he sleeps in it. His face with bushy moustache is care lined, cheekbones prominent from under the brim of a black fedora. His eyes stare almost haunted and he's clutching a cat like he's about to crush its ribcage with his bare hands. And Thomas Cobden Sanderson, he's wearing a big white floppy beret so huge it looks like somebody accidentally dropped the raw dough for a pizza on his head. Instead of a tie, he has a ribbon at his throat and he's wearing an artist's gown like a preschooler heading for the paint box. An effete artist and a hard man who's seen some hard times. That's how they seem. Emory Walker may not have gone to Cambridge, but that evening at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, he knew what he was talking about. He'd made a career in printing and photography with a particular expertise in reproducing images on the printed page. Despite his nerves, he was rising to the occasion. Emery's talk was a magisterial history of type, design, printing and illustration from its very beginning in the 1400s. In a darkened room, he projected slides showing the printed page through the ages and highlighting the way in which early printing existed alongside and in harmony with manuscripts. Photographically enlarging the images, Emery was able to show the exquisite craft of 15th century type designers from Venice, the center of the new printing industry in the 1470s. Then Emery showed a sad decline. After just a few decades, the quality of printing started to fall apart. The printed page could be beautiful, but it could also be cheap and mass produced, and printers increasingly favoured the cheap over the beautiful. Nobody had ever seen such images projected in a lecture. And the content was as important as the format. Emory Walker was telling the great Arts and Crafts masters a story that echoed their deepest convictions. A story about crude mass production, crowding out elegance and honest craft. With his enchanting slides and the tragic tale they told, Emory Walker cast a spell. The most prominent member of the audience fell under that enchantment. He was William Morris, Oxford educated, wealthy, the creator of gorgeous floral textiles and wallpapers that are the epitome of Arts and Crafts. Inspired, William Morris himself decided to set up a printing press. A printing press that would reclaim the book itself as a work of art. Morris established what became known as as Kelmscott Press. And he did nothing without first asking the advice of Emory Walker. Kelmscott Press books were collector's items as soon as they were made. One of Emery's contributions had been to help with the typeface, based on a Venetian type. Emery photographed the Venetian book from the 1470s, enlarging the letters so they could form the basis for a beautiful dense black type called golden type. It looked almost medieval, and it was undoubtedly beautiful. But then William Morris died. What now? Thomas Cobden Sanderson, like William Morris, had fallen in love with the idea of making beautiful books. But he had a different vision for what a beautiful book could be. While Morris was harking back to medieval manuscripts, Cobden Sanderson wanted something with more space on the page, a simpler layout and a lighter typeface. He thought William Morris had made a mistake in making a blacker, heavier version of Venetian type. Better to get something finer, more like the original. As one critic put it, William Morris's books were full of wine. Early Venetian pages were full of light. Cobden Sanderson wanted to make books that were full of light. Cobden Sanderson shared his dreams with his journal. I must before I die, create the type for today of the book beautiful and actualise it. Paper, ink, writing, printing, ornament and binding. I will learn to write, to print and to decorate. An awe inspiring, daunting project. A project perhaps best undertaken in company. And so Cobden Sanderson approached Emery Walker, the man who he had inspired and who had inspired him in turn. But Walker was more than a colleague. He was a dear friend. Walker's family lived at 3 Hammersmith Terrace, Cobden Sandersons at 7 Hammersmith Terrace. Their families became so close that they rented a pair of summer cottages in the country, so that when they went on summer holidays, they'd still be together. When one of his early experiments went awry, with an element printed upside down. Cobden Sanderson gave it as a memento to Emory Walker with the inscription to a perfect friend. An imperfect souvenir. And the friends shared a political vision as well as an aesthetic one. They saw each other regularly, not only at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, but at the Hammersmith Socialist Society. They believed in the dignity of honest work, the fundamental equality of every person, on the importance of sharing prosperity. Their perfect partnership would be called the Dove's Press. It would produce some works of astonishing beauty and an act of incredible ugliness. Cautionary Tales will be back after the break.
- [15:46]
IBM Advertiser
So let me get this straight. Your company has data here, there and everywhere, but your AI can't use the data because it's here, there and everywhere? Seems like something's missing. Every business has unique data. IBM helps your AI access your data wherever it lives to change how you do business. Lets create Smile to business IBM.
- [16:14]
T-Mobile Advertiser
In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster and level up every tool in their arsenal. T Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network according to the experts at Ookla Speed Test. And they're using that network to launch Super Mobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built in security and seamless satellite coverage. With Super Mobile, your performance, security and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand. With built in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients. And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite to mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid. That's your business. Supercharged. Learn more@supermobile.com seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. Best Business plan based on a combination of advanced network performance, coverage layers and security features. Best Network based on analysis by Ookla of Speed Test Intelligence Data 1H 2025.
- [17:36]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. The holiday season can be exhausting with all the parties and the end of year celebrations. But don't forget to take care of yourself by stocking up on your favorite nutritional products. Now through December 30, shop in store and online and save on items like Cliff Snack Bars, Luna Bars, Boost Nutritional Energy Drinks, Premier Protein Shakes, Z bar variety packs, open nature powder and body fortress protein powder offers end December 30th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [18:07]
Sophie Cunningham
This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or osa, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.
- [18:54]
Tim Harford
What could be more fun than setting up a new creative enterprise with your closest friend late in October 1899, Cobden Sanderson was excitedly talking to his journal again. Today Mother and I have been tidying up stairs in the attics where in a few days we hope to begin as printers. By mother he didn't mean his mother. He meant the mother of his children, Annie Cobden Sanderson had been a huge influence on Thomas. She gave him her family name, Cobden, and her family inheritance, which was a solid source of funds. Most importantly, she urged him to quit being a lawyer and give himself over to his real passion, arts and crafts. Annie was putting up all the money to pay for this new business. Emery and Thomas were supplying well their expertise and enthusiasm. Together, the three of them would create the Doves Press, which we hope to make as famous as the Kelmscott Press. Won't it be fun? A few days later he added, Soon Mr. Walker and myself, sitting on high stools, will begin printing. Isn't that fun? Quite a new business. We are wondering what great book we shall begin with. Perhaps it will be the Bible. Oh, to be in love. Cobden Sanderson was in love, it seems, with Emory Walker and the book. Beautiful and the Dove's Press. But the first flush of love does not always last. The first page of the Dove's Bible hits like a divine thunderclap. In the beginning fills the first line, big and red and bold, all caps like a tabloid newspaper headline decades ahead of its time. Even bolder. The eye of in the beginning runs all the way down the page, alongside the block of text, a strong red vertical line. Stunning, brave, so beautiful. It is one of the most celebrated pages in the history of printing. After the shock of that bold red eye, the deeper beauty emerges from the typeface, which was called simply Doves. Every Doves Press book was set in the same font, doves type 16 point. There were no illustrations and only a few flourishes, such as that red vertical. The first volume of the Doves Bible was published in 1903, but the effect is shockingly clear and modern. Like the Venetian masterpieces before them, Doves Press pages really were full of light. Doves type was a collective effort. Thomas Cobden Sanderson gave aesthetic direction, but Emory Walker had been the inspiration, as well as overseeing production and photographically enlarging the work of the Venetian masters, who, of course, were themselves part of the collaboration. An employee of Walker's actually drew the design and a brilliant craftsman cut the tiny type punches. And who paid for it all? Annie Copton Sanderson. The result of this collective effort, Doves is often said to be the most beautiful type in the world. It's elegant, with clean lines and subtle serifs and just the faintest suggestion of the human at work. One writer described it as slightly rickety, as though somebody had knocked into the compositor's plate and jiggled every letter almost imperceptibly. It is unique. Nobody really knows why Emery and Thomas fell out. A family friend later recalled of Walker, he was the kindest and gentlest of men, and I always found it hard to believe that he could have had a row with anyone. Perhaps the problem was that the two men had different expectations. Emory Walker hadn't married into money. He had other businesses to run. He knew printing. He had sourced the machinery, found the right workers, dealt with the practicalities of setting up Doves Press. But then he trusted Thomas to handle the day to day printing. Thomas Cobden Sanderson may have joyfully imagined Emery at his elbow as they sat together on high stools printing the book. Beautiful. Emery Walker had other things to do. Walker was a professional printer. He thought it unnecessary to check every single sheet, explains Robert Greene, a type designer. Cobden Sanderson was not a professional printer, but he was a perfectionist. This was the problem between the two men. Cobden Sanderson seems to have resented Emery Walker's absence. But then again, when Walker did offer an opinion, Cobden Sanderson was outraged. In 1902, Cobden Sanderson set out his grievances in a letter to Walker. You objected to the adoption of the original edition of Paradise Lost for our edition. You objected to the spelling and you objected to the capitals in the text, to my arranging of in the beginning and to the long initial I, and said it will never do. You objected to the position of the title of the first book of Genesis on the left hand page and said it was hateful. You objected to the table of contents, and only the other day you objected to my arrangement of Isaac's address to his 12 sons. He never sent the letter. Instead, he sat simmering with frustration, but determined to finish the work on the great Doves Press books they had begun together. The small team of printers and typesetters at Doves Press worked on nothing but the Bible for three years. The result, said one critic, was dangerously near to absolute perfection. While Dove's Press was winning plaudits from the critics, it wasn't making money. The Bible project was popular. All 500 copies sold out in advance. But there was a limited market for incredibly beautiful yet expensive books. The business only kept going because Annie was subsidising it from her inheritance. But that inheritance couldn't last, and all three of them had reason to be frustrated. Annie because she was effectively bankrolling Thomas's hobby. Thomas because he was doing most of the work, and Emery because he could see so much potential in the Dove's style and the Dove's typeface, if only they could use it for longer print runs of more affordable books. Four years after his unsent rant, Thomas Cobden Sanderson finally wrote to Emory Walker to explain that the relationship was over. My dear Walker, now that the Bible, a great work, is finished and as moreover the whole work of the press does in fact fall upon me, I should like to dissolve our punishment and to become solely responsible for the press. It was agreed. In the event of dissolution, you would be entitled to a fount of type for your own use. This I would ask you to exchange for some equivalent, as I do not think that either of us would like to see two presses at work with the type which has been hitherto unique. Ah, yes, that was a sticking point. Cobden Sanderson touched Dove's type every day, obsessed over the perfection of the books he was typesetting and printing, and hated the idea that Walker might take the Dove's typeface and use it to make something unworthy. He might print advertisements or use it for product packaging. Who knew? In truth, Walker had done as much as anyone to champion the book beautiful and as much as anyone to create Dove's type. It seemed most likely that he would use Dove's type to print elegant but affordable books. There was no technical reason why both men couldn't have a copy of the type, but Cobden Sanderson couldn't bear the thought of Emery Walker using it. And Emory Walker insisted that he had every right to do so. Walker may have been the kindest and gentlest of men, but he wasn't a pushover. If he didn't fight, he wrote to a friend in 1909. The only alternative is to be a passive resister and allow him to despoil me and that I don't like. A few weeks later, he sued Cobden Sanderson. Cobden Sanderson shared his reaction to that news with his journal. He wasn't afraid of being fined or even imprisoned for nothing on earth will now induce me to part with the type I am. What he does not appear to realise a visionary and a fanatic. And against a visionary and a fanatic he will be beat himself in vain. Their mutual friends despaired at the situation. But eventually one of them, Sidney Cockerell, managed to broker a compromise. Thomas COBBEN Sanderson was 68 years old. Emory Walker was over a decade younger. What if Cobden Sanderson had exclusive use of the Doves type until he died, and then the metal type and the right to use it would pass to Emory Walker? Cockerell's idea was a fudge and it was not what Walker had been promised. But reluctantly, Walker agreed. He might not have done so had he realised what Thomas Cobden Sanderson was planning. Thomas had already written to the company who had manufactured the first a decade before. They had, in their storerooms up in Edinburgh, the punches and matrices for doves. The matrices were molds to make more copies of the Dove's type. The punches were tools to make more matrices. As long as they existed, Doves type would never die. Take the punches and matrices out of storage, wrote Cobden Sanderson, and send them to me. Cautionary tales will be back after the break.
- [31:12]
IBM Advertiser
So let me get this straight. Your company has data here, there and everywhere, but your AI can't use the data because it's here, there and everywhere? Seems like something's missing. Every business has unique data. IBM helps your AI access your data wherever it lives. To change how you do business, let's create smarter business IBM.
- [31:40]
T-Mobile Advertiser
In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster and level up every tool in their arsenal. T Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network according to the experts at Ookla Speed test. And they're using that network to launch Super Mobile. The first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built in security and seamless satellite coverage. With Super Mobile, your performance, security and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand. With built in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients. And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite to mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid. That's your business. Supercharged. Learn more@supermobile.com seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. Best Business based on a combination of advanced network performance, coverage layers and security features. Best Network based on analysis by Ookla of speedtest intelligence data 1h 2025 hey.
- [33:02]
Ryan Seacrest
It'S Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. The holiday season can be exhausting with all the parties and the end of year celebrations, but don't forget to take care of yourself by stocking up on your favorite nutritional products. Now through December 30th. Shop in store and online and save on items like Cliff Snack Bars, Luna Bars, Boost Nutritional Energy Drinks, Premier Protein Shakes, Z Bar Variety Packs, Open Nature Powder and Body Fortress Protein powder offers end December 30th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [33:33]
Sophie Cunningham
This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly A medicine company.
- [34:13]
Tim Harford
Thomas Cobden Sanderson was capable of enraged outbursts of destruction. One day, for example, he was binding a book and realised the leather for the binding didn't fit. Here's what happened next in his own words. In a burst of rage they took the knife and cut the slips and tore the covers and boards off and tossed them to one side. Then in a very ecstasy of rage seized one side again, tore the leather off the board and cut it and cut it and slashed it with a knife. Then I was quite calm again. That was a fit of white hot rage. But now Cobden Sanderson would act in cold blood. His plan was simple. He had promised that after he died, Emory Walker would get the Dove's type. But he never had any intention of fulfilling that promise. Instead, he would destroy the type utterly. That was no easy task. When Walker and Cobden Sanderson referred to a fount of Doves type, or what we'd call a font, they were referring to a set of metal letter slugs sufficient to typeset pages of print. That meant several copies of each letter, perhaps dozens of copies, as well as copies of punctuation marks and other symbols. All things considered, a font of type was a serious assemblage of heavy metal. And Thomas Cobden Sanderson planned to bequeath that heavy metal to the River Thames. So there we are in the freezing fog of November 1916, watching a stubborn, stubborn old man shuffling from the Doves Press bindery the half mile or so to the green and gold towers of Hammersmith Bridge. He's convinced that the police will stop him, that there will be a national scandal. Of course, nobody has any particular reason to stop stop an old man with a heavy burden. And if they did stop him and find that his wooden toolbox was packed not with tools, but with slugs of metal type, then so what? Cobden Sanderson had been planning this for years. The week before Easter 1913, he'd made several trips to the bridge, carrying some of the punches and matrices that would let Emory Walker make his own font of the Doves type. At the end of each trip, the same scene, Cobden Sanderson looked west towards the Doves Press building itself and the setting sun. Then he hurled the matrices into the river. He thus controlled the only font of Dove's type that would ever exist and would use it to print the last few Doves Press books. Now, late in 1916, he would finish what he'd started by destroying that font. But the sheer scale of the task was incredible. There was over a ton of metal tons pipe at Doves Press, and Thomas COBBEN Sanderson, now 76 years old, had to carry every ounce of it to the bridge and throw it into the river. His journals vividly record the act and give no hint that he ever had doubts. I have to see that no one is near or looking. Then over the parapet, a box full, and then the audible and visible splash. One night, I'd nearly cast my type into a boat. Another danger, which unexpectedly shot from under the bridge. He perfected the project, however, adapting his toolbox to the task. At the bridge, I cross to the other side. Take a stealthy look round and if no one is in sight, I heave up the box to the parapet, release the sliding lid and let the type fall sheer into the river. The work of a moment. He had plenty of opportunity to practice. Marianne Tidcombe, who wrote the definitive history of Doves Press, estimates that the old man could not have carried more than 15 pounds of type on each half mile journey to the bridge. To carry the full ton and more of metal would have taken at least 170 furtive trips. In any case, his journals show that the whole business took almost six months. He had plenty of time to stop and reconsider. He never did. At the end of it all, the most beautiful type in the world was gone, just so an old man could be sure that nobody else would ever be able to use it. The final publication of the Doves Press was a catalogue of all the books the press had published over its 16 years of operation. On the last page, the last page ever printed by Doves Press, Thomas Cobden Sanderson boasted of his deed to the bed of the River Thames, the river on whose banks I have printed all my printed books. I, the Dove's Press, bequeath the Dove's Press fount of type, the punches, matrices and the type in use at the Doves Press at the time of my death. Was he serious? It wasn't clear, but their mutual friend Sydney Cockerell feared the worst. He wrote to Cobden Sanderson telling him that he'd made a terrible mistake. I believe that you will come to see that your sacrifice to the River Thames was neither a worthy nor an honourable one. Cockerell was wrong. The historian Marion Tidcombe wrote Cobden Sanderson never regretted it. Indeed, he took delight in it and found comedy in the tragedy. Emery Walker eventually became Sir Emory Walker, a pillar of the art and design community. His house has been preserved as a museum of Arts and Crafts. The playwright George Bernard Shaw called him an almost reprehensibly amiable man. The architect Philip Webb called him the universal Samaritan, whose services were laid on like water. The chief compositor at Doves Press said that he carried everywhere with him an atmosphere of genial friendliness. Thomas Cobden Sanderson had a different description. In a letter to his lawyers, he once wrote, Mr. Emery Walker is, and always has been, perhaps must be a tradesman. It's a line that says more about Cobden Sanderson than about Walker. In 1922, five years after destroying the Dove's type Thomas Cobden Sanderson died. Emory Walker asked Annie to hand over the type, and when she could not, he sued. It wasn't so much for compensation. What compensation could there be? But over the principle that Cobden Sanderson did not create the doves type by himself and the dove's type was not his to destroy. Annie had to pay money that after years of subsidising the press she could hardly afford. Both she and Walker, and indeed the whole world, had been impoverished by the stubbornness of a man who was now beyond atonement. Annie died a few years later and her ashes were placed next to his in an urn in the garden wall of the house where they lived together and where the Doves press had operated next door to Emery Walker. Soon after the River Thames burst its banks, the flood waters carried both Annie and Tom Thomas away. Obsession is a strange thing. Almost a century after Thomas sacrificed doves type to the spirit of the River Thames, another type designer, Robert Green, went down to the foreshore at low tide underneath Hammersmith Bridge and poked around in the shingle. Cobden Sanderson had become obsessed with destroying the dove's type. Robert Greene had become obsessed with resurrecting it. At first, he did what Emory Walker had done all those years before, photographing and enlarging the printed pages and trying to discern the shape of the metal that had produced those inked characters in digital form. Green drew and redrew doves over 120 times. The obsession with the type has caused a lot of problems. When you're up all night trying to get the right curve in the leg of an R and you're spending three and a half hours on it, it doesn't go down too well with your wife. Annie Cobden Sanderson would have known the feeling. I'm not really sure why I got started. In the end, it took over my life. But perhaps there's no mystery. Greene couldn't get over the contrast between the beauty of the type and the ugliness of Cobden Sanderson's long act of destruction. As Green says, he claimed to believe in beauty, claimed to be a socialist. Yet the most beautiful thing he created, he doesn't want to share. And he decides to throw it in the river rather than share it with the world. There's only so far you can get by copying the inked letters on a page, though. Everyone told Green that the dove's type had never been found. But he wondered, had anyone really ever looked for it? Which is why he found himself turning over pebbles under Hammersmith Bridge. And there it was, a letter V, still in good shape despite 98 years being tossed around underwater. He found two more pieces within 20 minutes. With the help of professional divers, Green has recovered a total of 150 pieces. Based on the recovered type and his own obsessive redraftings, Robert Greene has now issued a digital version of Doves Type, something that anyone can use for a modest fee. He's donating half of the profits to the Emory Walker Museum. Marion Tidcombe's book the Doves Press is the definitive scholarly history of the affair. For a full list of our sources, see the show notes at Tim Harford. Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fiennes and Ryan Dilly. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brainaudio. Ben Nadaff Hafsa edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents of Melanie Gutteridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jupp, Masaya Munro, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brodie, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference to us. And if you want to hear the show ad free, sign up to Pushkin plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin FM plus. Foreign this is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jewels. Sunday mornings I've got my game day ritual, coffee, lucky socks and now New Morning Uncrustable Sandwiches. It's all about that 12 gram protein boost with the new Uncrustables Bright Eyed Berry or Up and Apple flavors. Bright Eye Berries got a feisty receiver energy up an apple. Your classic do it all tight end, soft, pillowy, packed with protein and easy enough for Gronk to grab from the freezer. Whether you're on the couch, driving to the tailgate or heading to the locker room, New Morning Uncrustable Sandwiches are the MVP of snacks. Your new Sunday kickoff ritual starts here with New Morning Uncrustable sandwiches packed with 12 grams of protein.
- [49:20]
Bosch Advertiser
You've probably heard me say this connection is one of the biggest keys to happiness and one of my favorite ways to build that scruffy hospitality inviting people over even when things aren't perfect. Because just being together, laughing, chatting, cooking makes you feel good. That's why I love Bosch. Bosch Fridges with vitafresh technology keep ingredients fresher longer so you're always ready to whip up a meal and share a special moment. Fresh foods show you care, and it shows the people you love that they matter. Learn more visit Boschomeus.com hey, it's Ryan.
- [49:56]
Ryan Seacrest
Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. The holiday season can be exhausting with all the parties and the end of year celebrations, but don't forget to take care of yourself by stocking up on your favorite nutritional products. Now through December 30th. Shop in store and online and save on items like Cliff Snack Bars, Luna Bars, Boost Nutritional Energy Drinks, Premier Protein Shakes, Z Bar Variety Packs, Open Nature Powder and Body Fortress Protein powder offers end December 30th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [50:26]
Tim Harford
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [50:29]
Bosch Advertiser
Guaranteed Human.