Our first edition of “Pens and Types: or Hints and Helps for those who Write, Print, or Read,” was especially prepared for the benefit of persons connected with the press. It had, however, a wide circulation among persons of all professions, and became a reference book in some notable institutions of learning.

This second edition contains all that was valuable in the first, besides several new chapters and additions, as set forth in the author’s preface: and on account of its past reputation and the merits of the added matter, we bespeak anew the favor of printers and teachers,—of both which professions Mr. Drew may fairly be considered a representative; and although he has, in his book, kept his personality out of sight, even using the editorial “we,” his fitness for a work of this kind will, we think, be made apparent by a brief sketch of his career.

After twenty years of teaching, Mr. Drew returned to the purlieus of the printing-office, as proof-reader at the University Press, Cambridge, and afterward with John Wilson & Son, and Alfred Mudge & Son.

Next he became proof-reader in the Government printing-office, at Washington, where for more than nine years he remained, reading press-proofs of the various Government publications, including many volumes issued by the Smithsonian Institution, and giving valuable assistance to the Civil Service Commissioners, in the technical examination of proof-readers for the Government Departments. At the age of seventy-six he retired from public employment, and prepared this second edition for the press. May he live long, and enjoy the reward of an industrious and useful life—and a huge remuneration from an enormous sale of his Second Edition.