New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2019. Item #1503

Oblong 8vo. 225 x 275 mm., [8 ¾ x 10 ¾ inches]. viii + 400 pp., including Appendices: Chronology; After Word(s); References; Index. Two-hundred and seventy-five mostly color illustrations within the text. Publishers’ blue illustrated paper over boards. Book is Fine: minor dent along the top left edge of the back cover; light soiling and shelf wear; otherwise in excellent condition with the text block clean and without any additions or alterations.

First Edition. Frank Romano (b. 1941) is an American editor, author, and scholar. He began his career in printing at the Mergenthaler Linotype Company and later went on to work as publisher and editor of various magazines during the late twentieth century focused on typography and graphic arts including TypeWorld and Electronic Publishing. He is the current president of the Museum of Printing in Haverhill, Massachusetts and Professor Emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology where he taught regularly from 1990 to 2010. History of Desktop Publishing follows earlier works on the history of printing such as History of the Phototypesetting Era (2014) and History of the Linotype Company (2014). It details the evolution of computer-based publishing, which began in earnest in the mid-1980s and ended around 1995 with the widespread adoption of the internet, covering all of the key people, companies and technologies that contributed to its development. With extensive reference materials, including a remarkably detailed chronology that gives a year-by-year account of all desktop publishing products released between 1983 and 1995. It also includes valuable contributions by artist Miranda Mitrano and a forward by publisher Gene Gable. The phenomenal scholarship won the book an Honourable Mention from the 18th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography in 2022.

Price: $70.00