Does anybody know how to find the book “Scripts”

James Puckett

I have a copy of the lettering manual Scripts, by Rand Holub, who authored several other design books. It’s a typical book of the period—lots of lettering examples spiral bound with hard covers. I bought it about ten years ago at Strand Books for $2.75. I want to buy another copy and I can’t find one. Bookfinder brings up nothing and there’s nothing on eBay. It does appear in some academic libraries Was this book republished under another title? Is it rare for some reason? It seems odd that an old Watson-Guptill book would be so hard to find.

John Savard

It does indeed seem odd that a book from such a major art publisher as Watson-Guptill would be hard to find.

However, I checked AbeBooks, which is usually an excellent source for out-of-print books; not only was Scripts not there, but the only two listings for two of his other books were print-on-demand versions.

Oak Knoll has an original copy of one of his other books.

Page images of one of his other books, from a copy at the University of Michigan, are available online at Hathi Trust. This indicates that the work is somehow out of copyright, so it's possible the author died without his literary rights being inherited unambiguously - leading to the books going out of print after a short time.

That's just a guess, but it seems like the most likely possibility for an unusual situation like this.