A Short History of English Printing, 1476 to 1898

H >> Henry R. Plomer >> A Short History of English Printing, 1476 to 1898

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[Illustration: William Morris

Printer 1891-1896.]

EDITED BY
ALFRED POLLARD

A SHORT HISTORY

OF

ENGLISH PRINTING

1476-1898

BY HENRY R. PLOMER

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUeBNER
AND COMPANY, LIMITED
1900

The English
Bookman's
Library

Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty

EDITOR'S PREFACE

When Mr. Plomer consented at my request to write a short history of
English printing which should stop neither at the end of the fifteenth
century, nor at the end of the sixteenth century, nor at 1640, but
should come down, as best it could, to our own day, we were not without
apprehensions that the task might prove one of some difficulty. How
difficult it would be we had certainly no idea, or the book would never
have been begun, and now that it is finished I would bespeak the
reader's sympathies, on Mr. Plomer's behalf, that its inevitable
shortcomings may be the more generously forgiven. If we look at what has
already been written on the subject the difficulties will be more easily
appreciated. In England, as in other countries, the period in the
history of the press which is best known to us is, by the perversity of
antiquaries, that which is furthest removed from our own time. Of all
that can be learnt about Caxton the late Mr. William Blades set down in
his monumental work nine-tenths, and the zeal of Henry Bradshaw, of Mr.
Gordon Duff, and of Mr. E. J. L. Scott, has added nearly all that was
lacking in this storehouse. Mr. Duff has extended his labours to the
other English printers of the 15th century, giving in his _Early English
Printing_ (Kegan Paul, 1896) a conspectus, with facsimiles of their
types, and in his privately printed Sandars Lectures presenting a
detailed account of their work, based on the personal examination of
every book or fragment from their presses which his unwearied diligence
has been able to discover. Originality for this period being out of the
question, Mr. Plomer's task was to select, under a constant sense of
obligation, from the mass of details which have been brought together
for this short period, and to preserve due proportion in their
treatment.

Of the work of the printers of the next half-century our knowledge is
much less detailed, and Mr. Plomer might fairly claim that he himself,
by the numerous documents which he has unearthed at the Record Office
and at Somerset House, has made some contributions to it of considerable
value and interest. It is to his credit, if I may say so, that so little
is written here of these discoveries. In a larger book the story of the
brawl in which Pynson's head came so nigh to being broken, or of John
Rastell's suit against the theatrical costumier who impounded the
dresses used in his private theatre, would form pleasant digressions,
but in a sketch of a large subject there is no room for digressions, and
these personal incidents have been sternly ignored by their discoverer.
Even his first love, Robert Wyer, has been allotted not more than six
lines above the space which is due to him, and generally Mr. Plomer has
compressed the story told in the _Typographical Antiquities_ of Ames,
Herbert, and Dibdin with much impartiality.

When we pass beyond the year 1556, which witnessed the incorporation of
the Stationers' Company, Mr. Arber's _Transcripts_ from the Company's
Registers become the chief source of information, and Mr. Plomer's pages
bear ample record of the use he has made of them, and of the numerous
documents printed by Mr. Arber in his prefaces. After 1603, the date at
which Mr. Arber discontinues, to the sorrow of all bibliographers, his
epitome of the annual output of the press, information is far less
abundant. After 1640 it becomes a matter of shreds and patches, with no
other continuous aid than Mr. Talbot Reed's admirable work, _A History
of the Old English Letter Foundries_, written from a different
standpoint, to serve as a guide. His own researches at the Record Office
have enabled Mr. Plomer to enlarge considerably our knowledge of the
printers at work during the second half of the seventeenth century, but
when the State made up its mind to leave the printers alone, even this
source of information lapses, and the pioneer has to gather what he may
from the imprints in books which come under his hand, from notices of a
few individual printers, and stray anecdotes and memoranda. Through this
almost pathless forest Mr. Plomer has threaded his way, and though the
road he has made may be broken and imperfect, the fact that a road
exists, which they can widen and mend, will be of incalculable advantage
to all students of printing.

Besides the indebtedness already stated to the works of Blades, Mr.
Gordon Duff, Mr. Arber, and Mr. Reed, acknowledgments are also due for
the help derived from Mr. Allnutt's papers on English Provincial
Printing (_Bibliographica_, vol. ii.) and Mr. Warren's history of the
Chiswick Press (_The Charles Whittinghams, Printers_; Grolier Club,
1896). Lest Mr. Plomer should be made responsible for borrowed faults,
it must also be stated that the account of the Kelmscott Press is mainly
taken from an article contributed to _The Guardian_ by the present
writer. The hearty thanks of both author and editor are due to Messrs.
Macmillan and Bowes for the use of two devices; to the Clarendon Press
for the three pages of specimens of the types given to the University of
Oxford by Fell and Junius; to the Chiswick Press for the examples of the
devices and ornamental initials which the second Whittingham
reintroduced, and for the type-facsimiles of the title-page of the book
with which he revived the use of old-faced letters; to Messrs. Macmillan
for the specimen of the Macmillan Greek type, and to the Trustees of Mr.
William Morris for their grant of the very exceptional privilege of
reproducing, with the skilful aid of Mr. Emery Walker, two pages of
books printed at the Kelmscott Press.

That the illustrations are profuse at the beginning and end of the book
and scanty in the middle must be laid to the charge of the printers of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in whose work good ornament
finds no place. It was due to Caslon and Baskerville to insert their
portraits, though they can hardly be called works of art. That of Roger
L'Estrange, which is also given, may suggest, by its more prosperous
look, that in the evil days of the English press its Censor was the
person who most throve by it.

ALFRED W. POLLARD.

[Illustration: Decorative]

CONTENTS AND LIST OF PLATES

PAGE

EDITOR'S PREFACE, vii

CHAPTER I

Caxton and his Contemporaries, 1

CHAPTER II

From 1500 to the Death of Wynkyn de Worde, 31

CHAPTER III

Thomas Berthelet to John Day, 61

CHAPTER IV

John Day, 79

CHAPTER V

John Day's Contemporaries, 103

CHAPTER VI

Provincial Presses of the Sixteenth Century, 122

CHAPTER VII

The Stuart Period (1603-1640), 154

CHAPTER VIII

From 1640 to 1700, 187

CHAPTER IX

From 1700 to 1750, 228

CHAPTER X

From 1750 to 1800, 261

CHAPTER XI

The Present Century, 282

INDEX, 323

LIST OF PLATES

Portrait of William Morris, _Frontispiece_

Portrait of Roger L'Estrange, _at p._ 203

Portrait of Caslon, " 239

Portrait of Baskerville, " 265

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Device of William Caxton.]

CHAPTER I

CAXTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

The art of printing had been known on the Continent for something over
twenty years, when William Caxton, a citizen and mercer of London,
introduced it into England.

Such facts as are known of the life of England's first printer are few
and simple. He tells us himself that he was born in the Weald of Kent,
and he was probably educated in his native village. When old enough, he
was apprenticed to a well-to-do London mercer, Robert Large, who carried
on business in the Old Jewry. This was in 1438, and in 1441 his master
died, leaving, among other legacies, a sum of twenty marks to William
Caxton.

In all probability Caxton, whose term of apprenticeship had not expired,
was transferred to some other master to serve the remainder of his term;
but all we know is that he shortly afterwards left England for the Low
Countries. In the prologue to the _Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye_
he tells us that, at the time he began the translation, he had been
living on the Continent for thirty years, in various places, Brabant,
Flanders, Holland, and Zealand, but the city of Bruges, one of the
largest centres of trade in Europe at that time, was his headquarters.
Caxton prospered in his business, and rose to be 'Governor to the
English Nation at Bruges,' a position of importance, and one that
brought him into contact with men of high rank.

In the year 1468 Caxton appears to have had some leisure for literary
work, and began to translate a French book he had lately been reading,
Raoul Le Fevre's _Recueil des Histoires de Troyes_; but after writing a
few quires he threw down his pen in disgust at the feebleness of his
version.

Very shortly after this he entered the service of Margaret, Duchess of
Burgundy, sister of Edward IV. of England, either as secretary or
steward. The Duchess used to talk with him on literary matters, and he
told her of his attempt to translate the _Recueil_. She asked him to
show her what he had written, pointed out how he might amend his 'rude
English,' and encouraged him to continue his work. Caxton took up the
task again, and in spite of many interruptions, including journeys to
both Ghent and Cologne, he completed it, in the latter city, on the 19th
September 1471. All this he tells us in the prologue, and at the end of
the second book he says:--

'And for as moche as I suppose the said two bokes ben not had to fore
this tyme in oure English langage | therefore I had the better will to
accomplisshe this said werke | whiche werke was begonne in Brugis | and
contynued in Gaunt, and finyshed in Coleyn, ... the yere of our lord a
thousand four honderd lxxi.' He then goes on to speak of John Lydgate's
translation of the third book, as making it needless to translate it
into English, but continues:--

'But yet for as moche as I am bounde to contemplate my fayd ladyes good
grace and also that his werke is in ryme | and as ferre as I knowe hit
is not had in prose in our tonge ... _and also because that I have now
god leyzer beying in Coleyn, and have none other thing to doo at this
tyme_, I have,' etc.

Then at the end of the third book he says that, having become weary of
writing and yet having promised copies to divers gentlemen and
friends,--

'Therfor I have practysed and lerned at my grete charge and dispense to
ordeyne this said book in prynte after the maner and forme as ye may
here see,' etc.

The book when printed bore neither place of imprint, date of printing,
or name of printer. The late William Blades, in his _Life of Caxton_
(vol. i. chap. v. pp. 45-61), maintained that this book, and all the
others printed with the same type, were printed at Bruges by Colard
Mansion, and that it was at Bruges, and in conjunction with Mansion,
that Caxton learned the art of printing. His principal reasons for
coming to this conclusion were: (1) That Caxton's stay in Cologne was
only for six months, long enough for him to have finished the
translation of the book, but too short a time in which to have printed
it. (2) That the type in which it was printed was Colard Mansion's. (3)
That the typographical features of the books printed in this type (No.
1) point to their having all of them come from the same printing office.

Caxton's own statement in the epilogue to the third book certainly
appears to mean that during the course of the translation, in order to
fulfil his promise of multiplying copies, he had learned to print. He
might easily have done so in the six months during which he remained in
Cologne, or during his stay in Ghent. That it was in Cologne rather than
elsewhere, is confirmed by the oft-quoted stanza added by Wynkyn de
Worde as a colophon to the English edition of _Bartholomaeus de
proprietatibus rerum_.

'And also of your charyte call to remembraunce
The soule of William Caxton, the first prynter of this boke,
In laten tongue at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce
That every well-disposed man may thereon loke.'

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Part of Caxton's Preface to the 'Recuyell of the
Histories of Troye.' (Type 1.)]

If any one should have known the true facts of the case it was surely
Caxton's own foreman, who almost certainly came over to England with
him. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that type No. 1 is totally
unlike any type that we know of as used by a Cologne printer, and,
moreover, Caxton's methods of working, and his late adoption of spacing
and signatures, point to his having learnt his art in a school of
printing less advanced than that of Cologne. In the face of the
statements of Caxton himself and Wynkyn de Worde, we seem bound to
believe that Caxton did study printing at Cologne, but the inexpertness
betrayed in his early books proves conclusively that his studies there
did not extend very far. In any case it must have been with the help of
Colard Mansion that he set up and printed the _Recuyell_, probably in
1472 or 1473. In addition to this book several others, printed in the
same type, and having other typographical features in common with it,
were printed in the next few years. These were:--

_The Game and Playe of the Chess Moralised_, translated by Caxton, a
small folio of 74 leaves.

_Le Recueil des Histoires de Troye_, a folio of 120 leaves.

_Les Fais et Prouesses du noble et vaillant chevalier Jason_, a folio of
134 leaves, printed, it is believed, by Mansion, after Caxton's removal
to England. And,

_Meditacions sur le sept Psaulmes Penitenciaulx_, a folio of 34 leaves,
also ascribed to Mansion's press, about the year 1478.

About the latter half of 1476 Caxton must have left Bruges and come to
England, leaving type No. 1 in the hands of Mansion, and bringing with
him that picturesque secretary type, known as type 2. This, as Mr.
Blades has undoubtedly proved, had already been used by Caxton and
Mansion in printing at least two books: _Les quatre derrenieres choses_,
notable from the method of working the red ink, a method found in no
other book of Colard Mansion; and _Propositio Johannis Russell_, a tract
of four leaves, containing Russell's speech at the investiture of the
Duke of Burgundy with the order of the Garter in 1470.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Part of Caxton's Epilogue to the 'Dictes and
Sayinges of the Philosophers.' (Type 2.)]

On his arrival in England, Caxton settled in Westminster, within the
precincts of the Abbey, at the sign of the Red Pale, and from thence, on
November 18th 1477, he issued _The Dictes and Sayinges of the
Philosophers_, the first book printed in England. It was a folio of 76
leaves, without title-page, foliation, catchwords or signatures, in this
respect being identical with the books printed in conjunction with
Mansion. Type 2, in which it was printed, was a very different fount to
that which is seen in the _Recuyell_ and its companion books. It was
undoubtedly modelled on the large Gros Batarde type of Colard Mansion,
and was in all probability cut by Mansion himself. The letters are
bold, and angular, with a close resemblance to the manuscripts of the
time, the most notable being the lowercase 'w,' which is brought into
prominence by large loops over the top. The 'h's' and 'l's' are also
looped letters, the final 'm's' and 'n's' are finished with an angular
stroke, and the only letter at all akin to those in type No. 1 is the
final 'd,' which has the peculiar pump-handle finial seen in that fount.
_The Dictes and Sayinges_ is printed throughout in black ink, in long
lines, twenty-nine to a page, with space left at the beginning of the
chapters for the insertion of initial letters. It has no colophon, but
at the end of the work is an Epilogue, which begins thus:--

'Here endeth the book named the dictes or sayengis | of the
philosophers, enprynted, by me william | Caxton at Westmestre the yere
of our lord .M. | CCCC.LXXVij.'

Caxton followed _The Dictes and Sayinges_ with an edition of Chaucer's
_Canterbury Tales_, a folio of 372 leaves. The size of the book makes it
probable that it was put in hand simultaneously with its predecessor,
and that the chief work of the poet, to whom Caxton paid more than one
eloquent tribute, engaged his attention as soon as he set up his press
in England. He also printed in the same type a Sarum _Ordinale_, known
only by a fragment in the Bodleian, and a number of small quarto tracts,
such as _The Moral Proverbs of Christyne_, which bears date the 20th of
February; a Latin school-book called _Stans Puer ad Mensam_; two
translations from the Distichs of Dionysius Cato, entitled respectively
_Parvus Catho_ and _Magnus Catho_, of which a second edition was
speedily called for; Lydgate's fable of the _Chorl and the Bird_, a
quarto of 10 leaves, which also soon went to a second edition; Chaucer's
_Anelida and Arcite_, and two editions of Lydgate's _The Horse, the
Sheep, and the Goose_.

During the first three years of Caxton's residence at Westminster he
printed at least thirty books. In 1479 he recast type 2 (cited in its
new form by Blades as type 2*), and this he continued to use until 1481.
But about the same time he cast two other founts, Nos. 3 and 4. The
first of these was a large black letter of Missal character, used
chiefly for printing service books, but appearing in the books printed
with type 2* for headlines. With it he printed _Cordyale, or the Four
Last Things_, a folio of 78 leaves, the work being a translation by Earl
Rivers of _Les Quatre Derrenieres Choses Advenir_, first printed in type
2 in the office of Colard Mansion. A second edition of _The Dictes and
Sayinges_ was also printed in this type, while to the year 1478 or 1479
must be ascribed the _Rhetorica Nova_ of Friar Laurence of Savona, a
folio of 124 leaves, long attributed to the press of Cambridge.

After 1479 Caxton began to space out his lines and to use signatures,
customs that had been in vogue on the Continent for some years before he
left. In 1480 he brought the new type 4 into use. This was modelled on
type 2, but was much smaller, the body being most akin to modern
English. Although its appearance was not so striking as that of the
earlier fount, it was a much neater letter and more adapted to the
printing of Indulgences, and it has been suggested that it was the
arrival of John Lettou in London, and the neat look of his work, that
induced Caxton to cut the fount in question. The most noticeable feature
about it is the absence of the loop to the lowercase 'd,' so conspicuous
a feature of the No. 2 type. With this type No. 4 he printed Kendale's
indulgence and the first edition of _The Chronicles of England_, dated
the 10th June 1480, a folio of 152 leaves. In the same year he printed
with type 3 three service-books. Of one of these, the _Horae_, William
Blades found a few leaves, all that are known to exist, in the covers of
a copy of _Boethius_, printed also by Caxton, which he discovered in a
deplorable state from damp, in a cupboard of the St. Albans Grammar
School. This was an uncut copy, in the original binding, and the covers
yielded as many as fifty-six half sheets of printed matter, fragments of
other books printed by Caxton. These proved the existence of three
hitherto unknown examples of his press, the _Horae_ above noted, the
_Ordinale_, and the _Indulgence of Pope Sixtus IV._, the remaining
fragments yielding leaves from the _History of Jason_, printed in type
2, the first edition of the _Chronicles_, the _Description of_
_Britain_; the second edition of the _Dictes and Sayinges_, the _De
Curia Sapientiae_, Cicero's _De Senectute_, and the _Nativity of Our
Lady_, printed in the recast of type 4, known as type 4*.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Caxton's earliest Woodcut. Headline in Type 3.]

The first book printed by Caxton with illustrations was the third
edition of _Parvus_ and _Magnus Chato_, printed without date, but
probably in 1481. It contained two woodcuts, one showing five pupils
kneeling before their tutor. These illustrations were very poor
specimens of the wood-cutter's art.

To this period also belongs _The History of Reynard the Fox_ and the
second edition of _The Game and Play of Chess_, printed with type 2*,
and distinguished from the earlier edition by the eight woodcuts, some
of which, according to the economical fashion of the day, were used more
than once.

In type 4, Caxton printed (finishing it on the 20th November 1481) _The
History of Godfrey of Bologne; or, the Conquest of Jerusalem_, a folio
of 144 leaves. In the following year (1482) appeared the second edition
of the _Chronicles_, and another work of the same kind, the compilation
of Roger of Chester and Ralph Higden, called _Polychronicon_. This work
John of Trevisa had translated into English prose, bringing it down to
the year 1387. Caxton now added a further continuation to the year 1460,
the only original work ever undertaken by him. Another English author
whom Caxton printed at this time was John Gower, an edition in small
folio (222 leaves in double columns) of whose _Confessio Amantis_ was
finished on the 2nd September 1483. In this we see the first use of type
4*, the two founts being found in one instance on the same page. The
first edition of the _Golden Legend_ also belongs to 1483, being
finished at Westminster on the 20th November. This was the largest book
that Caxton printed, there being no less than 449 leaves in double
columns, illustrated with as many as eighteen large and fifty-two small
woodcuts. The text was in type 4*, the headlines, etc., in type 3. For
the performance of this work Caxton received from the Earl of Arundel,
to whom the book was dedicated, the gift of a buck in summer and a doe
in winter, gifts probably exchanged for an annuity in money. Several
copies of this book are still in existence, its large size serving as a
safeguard against complete destruction, but none are perfect, most of
them being made up from copies of the second edition. The insertions may
be recognised by the type of the headlines, those in the second edition
being in type 5. Other books printed in type 4* were Chaucer's _Book of
Fame_, Chaucer's _Troylus_, the _Lyf of Our Ladye_, the _Life of Saint
Winifred_, and the _History of King Arthur_, this last, finished on July
31, 1485, being almost as large a book as the _Golden Legend_.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--From Caxton's 'Golden Legend.' (Types 4* and
5.)]

No work dated 1486 has been traced to Caxton's press, but in 1487 he
brought into use type 5, a smaller form of the black letter fount known
as No. 3, with which he sometimes used a set of Lombardic capitals. With
this he printed, between 1487 and 1489, several important books, among
them the _Royal Book_, a folio of 162 leaves, illustrated with six small
illustrations, the _Book of Good Manners_, the first edition of the
_Directorium Sacerdotum_, and the _Speculum Vitae Christi_. During 1487
also he had printed for him at Paris an edition of the _Sarum Missal_,
from the press of George Maynyal, the first book in which he used his
well-known device. The second edition of the _Golden Legend_ is believed
to have been published in 1488, and to about the same time belongs the
Indulgence which Henry Bradshaw discovered in the University Library,
Cambridge, and which seems to have been struck off in a hurry on the
nearest piece of blank paper, which happened to be the last page of a
copy of the _Colloquium peccatoris et Crucifixi J. C._, printed at
Antwerp. This was not the only remarkable find which that master of the
art of bibliography made in connection with Caxton. On a waste sheet of
a copy of the _Fifteen Oes_, he noticed what appeared to be a set off of
another book, and on closer inspection this turned out to be a page of a
Book of Hours, of which no copy has ever been found. It appeared to have
been printed in type 5, was surrounded by borders, and was no doubt the
edition which Wynkyn de Worde reprinted in 1494.

In 1489 Caxton began to use another type known as No. 6, cast from the
matrices of No. 2 and 2*, but a shade smaller, and easily
distinguishable by the lowercase 'w,' which is entirely different in
character from that used in the earlier fount. With this he printed on
the 14th July 1489, the _Faytts of Armes and Chivalry_, and between that
date and the day of his death three romances, the _Foure Sons of Aymon_,
_Blanchardin_, and _Eneydos_; the second editions of _Reynard the Fox_,
the _Book of Courtesy_, the _Mirror of the World_, and the _Directorium
Sacerdotum_, and the third edition of the _Dictes and Sayinges_. To the
same period belong the editions of the _Art and Craft to Know Well to
Die_, the _Ars Moriendi_, and the _Vitas Patrum_.

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