Libre Caslon Text

Libre Caslon Text is Pablo Impallari's 2014 Caslon revival, drawn specifically for web body text and tuned to read cleanly at 16px. It's a deliberate reinterpretation rather than an old-style cousin, and it keeps the slightly irregular, ink-softened texture of the original — letterforms that look printed rather than plotted, with the warmth that comes from a little unevenness.

That makes it the closest free substitute for Caslon itself, and a strong one for Mrs Eaves, whose letterpress feel descends from the same lineage — Caslon being Baskerville's immediate ancestor. Choose it when a project wants warmth over precision: long-form editorial, book-like layouts, or anywhere a cleanly optimized screen serif would read as too cold. It's available through Google Fonts.