Paul Johnston (July 17, 1899 – February 18, 1987) was among the printers and artists who defined a new American style of printing, typography and book design in the 1920s and 1930s.
Now part of the bohemian Village scene, while still working for Arens, PJ set up his own press, intending to publish a magazine of new literature, like Transition in Paris and Broom in Italy.
He showed an editor at Random House his work along with a proposal to print fine press editions of the country's best contemporary poets and writers.
[2] The Poetry Quartos, a limited edition of 475 copies, designed and printed at his press in Silvermine, Connecticut, was published by Random House in 1929.
The poets were Robert Frost, Genevieve Taggard, Vachel Lindsay, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Theodore Dreiser, Elinor Wylie, William Rose Benét, H.D., Louis Untermeyer, Alfred Kreymborg, Conrad Aiken, and Witter Bynner.
[3] The Prose Quartos appeared in 1930 in a limited edition of 875 copies, and included the work of Stephen Vincent Benét, Sherwood Anderson, Conrad Aiken, Carl Van Vechten, Louis Bromfield and Theodore Dreiser.
"[2] Johnston's article on the American type designer Frederic Goudy appeared in The Fleuron, published by Stanley Morison.
His correspondence with Frederic Goudy and the typescript manuscript for this article are in the Providence Public Library (Rhode Island) Special Collections.
[2] Johnston became good friends with Bobby Edwards, the publisher of Quill and a ukulele maker and player, who performed in the Greenwich Village Follies.
Quill chronicled the 1920s Bohemian Village scene in a tongue-in-cheek style, assessing its unique characters and social and artistic trends.
[13] For many years, Johnston lived in a garret on the third and top floor of 128A West 10th Street, on the corner of Greenwich Avenue, the former home of Egmont Arens.
His diary began after his divorce and near fatal hospitalization in mid-life, and was thousands of pages long, typed single-spaced on onion-skin paper.