typeface style, 1802 (the type was created in the 1750s), named for John Baskerville (1706-1775), British type-founder and printer.
The initial version were cut by John Handy under Baskerville's watchful eye. The result is the epitome of Neoclassicism and eighteenth-century rationalism in type -- a face far more popular in Republican France and the American colonies than in eighteenth-century England, where it was made. [Robert Bringhurst, "The Elements of Typographic Style," 1992]
The surname is Norman, from Boscherville, Eure.
