Bob Brown's "1450-1950"

Before Class "read" this: 1450-1950

The above link doesn't include all the material of the 1929 first edition variants, such as this amazing introductory spread in the presentation copies. What a list of luminaries!

Robert Carlton (Bob) Brown's 1450-1950 is one of my favorite books. Period. I find it endlessly fascinating and rewarding. Every reading yields different readings. What was it like for a reader to encounter this in 1929? Is this work even vaguely translatable? How does a reader navigate it? How would a typographic treatment of the text change its interpretative horizon? Compare Brown's work to a popular artist almost one hundred years later: David Shrigley. Shrigley was a finalist (and loser) of the 2013 Turner Prize. This award is a big deal in London, but almost nowhere else. Here's his website. It is amusing: davidshrigley.com. Even though I generally like this kind of thing, compared to Bob Brown it feels very thin and jokey.

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Abigail Thomas: Bob Brown's Reading Machine