On My Way to Kaatskill, Sunnyside

Goudy’s signature on “Rip Van Winkle” #1227

BY TRACY HOFFMAN
President of the Washington Irving Society

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Last week, I promised to find the font Kaatskill, and I did. It’s easy to find online. Some packages appear to be around $40, while others are over $100.

Before I invest in the type, though, I’m checking with my university’s IT department. Certainly, professors in other departments have requested additional typefaces. It could be as simple as the click of a button, or it might require some red tape. Either way, I’ll keep at it until I have the font loaded onto my computer.

This week in my Early American Lit class, as I was attempting to help undergraduate students find topics and arguments for their research papers, I briefly mentioned the Kaatskill font designed for “Rip Van Winkle.”

I was hoping someone might get excited about bibliography, researching the history of the texts assigned to them. I thought, perhaps, how a text was typeset would light somebody’s fire. We had already discussed the standardization of spelling after reading Samson Occom, and a few seemed genuinely interested in grammar, spelling, and the textual emendations.

The response to Kaatskill: “Will you be requiring this font for upcoming papers?”

I laughed, mostly because I was taken aback by the response. I had thought about using the family of type on the Washington Irving Society page. I even had thoughts of using Kaatskill for a theoretical scholarly journal. Surely we could use it, if we ever decided to launch a journal. But requiring it for student papers hadn’t crossed my mind.

My 30-second font lecture didn’t accomplish much, but students were excited about my upcoming trip to New York to visit Irving’s old haunts. They get Monday off to do an online assignment about their research projects.

Here’s hoping someone will surprise me with at least one comment about type for the online assignment.

I’ll be back again next week, on the other side of Sunnyside. My flight leaves on Saturday, and I return late Tuesday. God willing, I’ll have a few paragraphs to drop here next Wednesday about the trip.

And that’s all I have for this “92 degrees in Texas” Wednesday in October. I love receiving feedback from readers! Please feel free to add to the conversation wherever you like: Twitter, Facebook, on this page. Also feel free to message me at Tracy_Hoffman@baylor.edu. I try to respond to all correspondence on Wednesdays, and also update the WIS page.

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