ABSTRACT
In the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, lie hundreds of blocks of carved wood, remnants of an age in which woodcuts and wood engravings were slotted into printing formes alongside tiny letters moulded from lead.2 At the skilful hands of printers, the blocks and type would be composed to produce a wide range of multi-media pages where words and pictures could interact in vibrant ways. Two of the Huntington blocks, residents of a small red box known simply as Armstrong 13, are closely variant carvings of the same image, a woman dressed in Caroline-era fashion, gesturing with open arms. One of these cuts is older and very worn (woodcut number 66) while the other is much newer, its lines still sharp (number 33); see Figure 23.1.
