On Those Felicities that Embelish Our Typography -- Or, On 18th Century Ligatures

Believe it or not, this is something that I've frequently wondered about (having worked at Colonial Williamsburg, being an editor, and preparing publications for print). There's got to be a better document out there, but this one from Microsoft can't be that bad. Oh, and the font referred to in this document (Wyld), can be downloaded with a ligature macro here.