Anatomy of a Typeface is a book on typefaces written by Alexander Lawson. The book is notable for devoting entire chapters to the development and uses of individual or small groupings of typefaces. Beyond Anatomy of a Typeface Lawson has considered and discussed the classification of types. Within Anatomy, Lawson arranges the typefaces by classification. In his preface, Lawson qualifies his classification: "After using this system in the teaching of typography over a thirty-year period, I know that it is reasonably effective in the initial study of printing types. I am not disposed to consider it faultless by any means. A classification system, after all, is simply a tool ... Its primary purpose is to help people become familiar with these forms preparatory to putting them to effective and constructive typographic use."

Following are the thirty-one chapters of Anatomy of a Typeface: the Black-letter Types: Goudy Text and Hammer Uncial; Old Style Types: Cloister Old Style, Centaur

Centaur (typeface)

Centaur is a Humanist Type Family originally drawn as titling capitals by Bruce Rogers in 1914 for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The matrices were cut by Robert Wiebking and the type was privately cast by the American Type Foundery. The typeface is based upon several Renaissance models...

, Bembo

Bembo

Bembo is the name given to a 20th-century revival of an old style serif or humanist typeface cut by Francesco Griffo around 1495.The typeface Bembo seen today is a revival designed under the direction of Stanley Morison for the Monotype Corporation in 1929.It is considered a good choice for...

, Arrighi, Dante, Goudy Old Style, Palatino

Palatino

Palatino is the name of a large typeface family that began as an old style serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf initially released in 1948 by the Linotype foundry.In 1999, Zapf revised Palatino for Linotype and Microsoft, called Palatino Linotype...

, Garamond

Garamond

Garamond is the name given to a group of old-style serif typefaces named after the punch-cutter Claude Garamond . Most of the Garamond faces are more closely related to the work of a later punch-cutter, Jean Jannon...

, Galliard, Granjon

Granjon

Granjon is an old style serif typeface designed by George William Jones in the period 1928–1929, and based on the Garamond typeface that was used in a book printed by the Parisian Jean Poupy in 1592. The roman design was from Claude Garamond and the italic version was from Robert Granjon...

, Sabon

Sabon

Sabon is the name of an old style serif typeface designed by the German-born typographer and designer Jan Tschichold in the period 1964–1967...

, Janson

Janson

Janson is the name given to an old-style serif typeface named for Dutch punch-cutter and printer Anton Janson. Research in the 1970s and early 1980s, however, concluded that the typeface was the work of a Hungarian punch-cutter named Miklós Tótfalusi Kis...

, Caslon

Caslon

Caslon refers to a number of serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I , and various revivals thereof.Caslon shares the irregularity characteristic of Dutch Baroque types. It is characterized by short ascenders and descenders, bracketed serifs, moderately-high contrast, robust texture, and...

, Baskerville

Baskerville

Baskerville is a transitional serif typeface designed in 1757 by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England. Baskerville is classified as a transitional typeface, positioned between the old style typefaces of William Caslon, and the modern styles of Giambattista Bodoni and Firmin Didot.The...

, Bodoni

Bodoni

-Cold Type versions:As it had been a standard type for many years, Bodoni was widely available in cold type. Alphatype, Autologic, Berthold, Compugraphic, Dymo, Harris, Mergenthaler, MGD Graphic Systems, and Varityper, Hell AG, Monotype, all sold the face under the name ‘’Bodoni, while Graphic...

, Bulmer

Bulmer (typeface)

Bulmer is the name of transitional serif typeface originally designed by William Martin in 1792 for the Shakespeare Press. The types were used for printing the Boydell Shakespeare folio edition....

, Bell

Bell (typeface)

Bell Gothic is a realist sans-serif typeface designed by Chauncey H. Griffith in 1938 while heading the typographic development program at the Mergenthaler Linotype Company...

, Oxford, Caledonia

Caledonia (typeface)

Caledonia is a transitional serif typeface designed by William Addison Dwiggins in 1938 for the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.Dwiggins chose the name Caledonia, the Roman name for Scotland, to express the face's basis on the early nineteenth century Scotch Roman typeface however, though Dwiggins...

, Cheltenham

Cheltenham (typeface)

Cheltenham is a display typeface, designed in 1896 by architect Bertram Goodhue and Ingalls Kimball, director of the Cheltenham Press. The original drawings were known as Boston Old Style and were made about 14" high. These drawings were then turned over to Morris Fuller Benton at American Type...

, and Bookman

Bookman (typeface)

Bookman or Bookman Old Style is a serif typeface derived from Old Style Antique and designed by Alexander Phemister in 1858 for Miller and Richard foundry. Several American foundries copied the design, including the Bruce Type Foundry, and issued it under various names. In 1901, Bruce refitted...

; Newspaper Types: Times Roman

Times Roman

Times New Roman is a serif typeface commissioned by the British newspaper The Times in 1931, created by Victor Lardent at the English branch of Monotype. It was commissioned after Stanley Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically antiquated...

; Twentieth-century Gothics: Franklin Gothic

Franklin Gothic

Franklin Gothic and its related faces are realist sans-serif typefaces originated by Morris Fuller Benton in 1902. “Gothic” is an increasingly archaic term meaning sans-serif. Franklin Gothic has been used in many advertisements and headlines in newspapers. The typeface continues to maintain a...

; Square-serif Revival: Clarendon

Clarendon (typeface)

Clarendon is an English slab-serif typeface that was created in England by Robert Besley for Thorowgood and Co. , a type company formerly known as the Fann Street Foundry until approximately 1838. The font was published in 1845 after Besley, an employee of the foundry since 1826, was made a partner...

; Humanist Sans-serif Types: Optima

Optima

Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf between 1952 and 1955 for the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, Germany.-Characteristics:...

; Geometric Sans-serif Types; Futura

Futura (typeface)

In typography, Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed in 1927 by Paul Renner. It is based on geometric shapes that became representative visual elements of the Bauhaus design style of 1919–1933...

; and Script, Cursive, and Decorated Types; Type Making from Punch to Computer.

The third printing of Anatomy appeared in 2002.