The Old Printer and the Modern Press

by Charles Knight

The Second Part embraces a very broad view of the Progress of the Press to our own day, especially in relation to the important subject of Cheap Popular Literature.

In treating of the remarkable revolution of our times in the prices of books, I cannot avoid incidentally noticing some of my own labours in that direction. I have done so as slightly as possible; and, I trust, in the impartial spirit of an honest chronicler.

CONTENTS.

PART I.
Page
CHAPTER I.
The Weald of Kent—Caxton's School-days—French disused—English taught —Variations in English—Books before Printing—Libraries—Transcribers— Books for the Great—Book Trade—No Books for the People—Changes produced by Printing	[1]
CHAPTER II.
The Mercer's Apprentice—His Book-knowledge—Commerce in Books—Schools in London—City Apprentices—City Pageants—Spread of English Language— English Writers—Chaucer—Gower—Lydgate—The Minstrels—National Literature	[19]
CHAPTER III.
Caxton abroad—Caxton's mercantile pursuits—Restrictions on Trade—Caxton's Commission—Merchants' Marks—Beginnings of Printing—Playing Cards—Wood-engraving—Block-books—Moveable Types—Guttenberg—Guttenberg's Statue—Festival at Mentz	[44]
CHAPTER IV.
The Court of Burgundy—Caxton a Translator—Literature of Chivalry—Feudal Times—Caxton at the Ducal Court—Did Caxton print at Bruges—Edward the Fugitive—The new Art	[62]
CHAPTER V.
Rapidity of Printing—Who the first English Printer—Caxton the first English Printer—First English Printed Book—Difficulties of the first Printers—Ancient Bookbinding—The Printer a Publisher—Conditions of Cheapness in Books	[85]
CHAPTER VI.
The Press at Westminster—Theological Books—Character of Caxton's Press—The Troy Book—The Game of the Chess	[109]
CHAPTER VII.
Female Manners—Lord Rivers—Popular History—Popular Science—Popular Fables—Popular Translations—The Canterbury Tales—Statutes—Books of Chivalry—Caxton's last days	[125]
CHAPTER VIII.
The Chapel—The Companions—Increase of Readers—Books make Readers—Caxton's Types—Wynkyn's Dream—The first Paper-mill	[153]
Appendix	[167]
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
Cheap Popular Literature—Conditions of Cheapness—Popular Literature of Elizabeth's reign—Who were the Readers	[179]
CHAPTER II.
Imperfect Civilisation—Reading during the Civil Wars—Reading after the Restoration—French Romances—First London Catalogue, 1680—Authors and Booksellers—Subscription Books—Books in Numbers—The Canvassing System	[197]
CHAPTER III.
Periodical Literature—Prices of Books—18th Century—Two Classes of Buyers—The Magazines—Collections of the Poets—The Circulating Library—Cheap Book-Clubs	[218]
CHAPTER IV.
Continued dearness of Books—Useful Knowledge Society—Modern Epoch of Cheapness—Demand and Supply—The Printing-machine—The Paper-machine—Revival of Woodcutting	[238]
CHAPTER V.
London Catalogue, 1816-1851—Annual Catalogues, 1828, 1853—Classes of Books, 1816-1851—Periodicals, 1831, 1853—Aggregate amount of Book-trade—Collections and Libraries—International Copyright—Readers in the United States—Irish National School-books	[260]
CHAPTER VI.
Cheap Fiction—Penny Periodicals	[277]
CHAPTER VII.
Degrees of Readers—General Improvement—Newspaper Press—Newspaper Press National—Agricultural Readers—General desire for Amusement—Supply of real Knowledge	[286]
CHAPTER VIII.
Free Libraries—In Towns—In Rural Districts—Influences of the best Books	[303]

PART I.
THE OLD PRINTER.

CHAPTER I.

The Weald of Kent—Caxton's School-days—French disused—English taught—Variations in English—Books before Printing—Libraries—Transcribers—Books for the Great—Book Trade—No Books for the People—Changes produced by Printing.

In the first book printed in the English language, the subject of which was the 'Histories of Troy,' William Caxton, the translator of the work from the French, in his prologue or preface, says, by way of apology for his simpleness and imperfectness in the French and English languages, "In France was I never, and was born and learned mine English in Kent, in the Weald, where I doubt not is spoken as broad and rude English as in any place of England." The Weald of Kent is now a fertile district, rich in corn-land and pasture, with farm-houses and villages spread over its surface, intersected by good roads, and a railway running through the heart of it, bringing the scattered inhabitants closer and closer to each other. But at the period when William Caxton was born, and learnt his English in the Weald, it was a wild district with a scanty population; its inhabitants had little intercourse with the towns, the affairs of the busy world went on without their knowledge and assistance, they were more separated from the great body of their countrymen than a settler in Canada or Australia is at the present day. It is easy to understand therefore why they should have spoken a "broad and rude English" at the time of Caxton's boyhood, during the reign of Henry V. and the beginning of that of Henry VI. William Lambarde, who wrote a hundred and fifty years after this period, having published his 'Perambulation of Kent' in 1570, mentions as a common opinion touching this Weald of Kent, "that it was a great while together in manner nothing else but a desert and waste wilderness, not planted with towns or peopled with men as the outsides of the shire were, but stored and stuffed with herds of deer and droves of hogs only;" and he goes on to say that, "although the property of the Weald was at the first belonging to certain known owners, yet it was not then allotted into tenancies." The Weald of Kent came to be taken, he says, "even as men were contented to inhabit it, and by piecemeal to rid it of the wood, and to break it up with the plough." In some lonely farm, then, of this wild district, are we, upon the best of evidence, his own words, to fix the birth-place and the earliest home of the first English printer.