Artsfest Online: Jessica Glaser Reading - VE Day War Diary of Beatrice Warde

Beatrice Warde (1900-69) is best known as publicity manager of the Monotype Corporation, and as the ‘First Lady of Typography’. During World War Two she became an anti-Fascist campaigner founding the Anglo-American book exchange, ‘Books Across the Sea’ to foster cultural understanding through books and in so doing counter complacent attitudes towards the Nazi threat. She was also a diarist and many of her accounts of life in wartime Britain were published in Bombed But Unbeaten: Excerpts from the War Commentary of Beatrice L. Warde and in the New York Herald Tribune ‘Book Review, Readers Guide’. This presentation is a reading of her unpublished VE day entry, written as letter to her mother, the New York journalist May Lamberton Becker (1873-1958) and to other American friends. This reading was recording on 18 June 2020.

Jessica Glaser is an associate Senior Lecturer in Graphic Communication at the University of Wolverhampton and partner in Bright Pink Communication Design. Jessica is working on a PhD examining the circumstances of Beatrice Warde as First Lady of Typography. She has written a number of books on design and typography, including The Graphic Design Exercise Book and is a regular contributor to conferences.

Thanks go to the University of Wolverhampton, ArtsFest, for hosting this event.