John Baskerville was born in Wolverley near Kidderminster on 28 January 1706. He may have begun his working life as a footman to a clergyman from King’s Norton, but in 1726 he moved to Birmingham, where he set up as a writing master (a calligraphy teacher) and a gravestone letter cutter.

Baskerville was highly entrepreneurial, and soon began a business “japanning” objects, covering them in varnish to make them appear as if lacquered in the Japanese style. It was a lucrative enterprise, enabling him to purchase a good plot of land and build his own home.

Around 1750, he started another business, as a type founder and printer. The leading type founder in London at the time was William Caslon, and Baskerville aimed to revolutionise what he saw as Caslon’s staid typefaces and layouts.

Baskerville’s first book was a quarto-sized collection of the works of Virgil. It came out in 1757, ran to 450 pages, and sold unbound for one guinea. As he had hoped, it was radically different to anything then on the market, with a bold, original typeface, sharp lines, an innovative, shiny, deep black ink, and glossy, smooth, wove paper.

The typeface Baskerville had created for the book was a major leap forward in design, with more natural letter forms and strong contrasts between its thin and thick strokes. It introduced a novel calligraphic element that was not present in existing typefaces like Caslon’s, and took its inspiration from fine handwriting and copperplate engraving. The italic, in particular, was festooned with swashes, flourishes, and homages to his days as a writing master.