two-line great primer

Two-line great primer was a standard size of letterpress type, corresponding to 36 points in the modern Didot system. It sat between two-line English (28 point) and two-line double pica (48 point) in the historical hierarchy of metal type sizes. The name derives from the old English nomenclature for type, where "great primer" was a specific body size used primarily for display work, headings, and large-format printing before the point system achieved universal adoption.

The term "two-line" refers to type cast on a body that measures approximately two lines of standard text, making it roughly double the height of body text. Metal type of this size was cast as individual sorts from brass matrices fitted into a steel mold, with the body height controlling the point size. A 36-point character would sit on a metal shank that tall, and multiple characters locked together in a composing stick would form a line of display type.

Decline and obsolescence

Two-line great primer fell out of regular use after the mid-twentieth century as phototype and digital composition replaced hot-metal letterpress. The system of named sizes, which included great primer, double pica, paragon, and English, gradually gave way to point measurements alone. Printers working before 1960 would recognize the term; those after 1980 rarely encountered physical examples. The type itself is now scarce, found mainly in museum collections and heritage printing shops that maintain historical equipment.

Confusion between the old nomenclature and the point system was common. A "great primer" in the old system was smaller than a "double pica" but larger than an "English," but these names never mapped neatly to exact point sizes across different foundries. The addition of the "two-line" prefix clarified that you meant type cast on a body double the standard baseline, but even then, slight variations existed. This ambiguity, combined with the adoption of metricated systems in Europe and the dominance of phototype, erased the need for such terminology.

For archivists, book historians, and operators of surviving letterpress equipment, knowledge of these old size names remains practical. Type specimen books, printing ledgers, and equipment manuals from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries use this vocabulary exclusively. Understanding that "two-line great primer" means roughly 36 points allows researchers to cross-reference with modern type libraries and to identify typefaces in historical documents.