The Abrupt End of the "Long S"

Around 1800, European typography saw a revolutionary change: the "long s" disappeared from book pages. Although books without the "long s" had appeared since the mid-18th century, at the turn of the 1770s and 1780s Bodoni and Didot began regularly printing books without the symbol, these were still exceptions. It was not until 1800 that the use of the "long s" was almost completely abandoned. Although books printed in this way continued to appear over the next few years, they were now the exception rather than the rule.

Below are the most dramatic examples of the departure from the "long s". The first is the book Instructive rambles in London and the adjacent villages published in London in 1800 (photos 1 & 2), where pages 100-1 are still printed with the "long s", while the following pages, 102-3, are not. Photo 3 also shows the book The governess; or Evening amusements at a boarding school from 1800, where the change was even more radical, affecting pages 108 & 109.

Photos from: Paul W. Nash, The abandonment of the long s in Britain in 1800 , "Journal of the Printing Historical Society", New Series, No. 3/2001