This book would naturally appeal especially to the richer class, and De Worde not only took especial pains with it, but struck off copies upon vellum, some of which have come down to our own day. From a typographical point of view the book is of great interest, for it is printed throughout in a foreign type which made its appearance in England on this occasion only. It was used at Gouda by Govaert van Os, but he seems to have discarded it about 1490 when he removed to Copenhagen. Besides acquiring this fount De Worde also obtained a number of woodcut capital letters, which are used in all his earliest books, and one or two woodcuts, which he used frequently until they were broken and worn out. It has always been a puzzle to me why, if De Worde had had this fount of type beside him for several years, he never used it before, and why, having used it this once, he never used it again. Not a single letter ever appears in another book, and yet the type is a handsome one.
1498 saw the issue of three fine folios: the Morte d’Arthur, of which the only known copy is in the John Rylands Library at Manchester, the Golden Legend, of which the only known perfect copy is in the same library, and lastly the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer. The only perfect copy of this book was sold lately in the Ashburnham sale for £1000, and is now in a private library in America. The first of these three books, the Morte d’Arthur, is a reprint of Caxton’s edition, but it differs from it in having illustrations. These are no doubt of native workmanship, and might be justly described as the worst ever put into an English book, being coarsely drawn, badly designed, and incompetently engraved. The Golden Legend is a mere reprint of the earlier editions, but is interesting for two points in the colophon. The first is an example of the carelessness of the printers. The words in the earlier editions run, “Thus endeth the legend named in latin legenda aurea, that is to say in Englysshe the golden legende, for lyke as golde passeth all other metals, so this legende exceedeth all other books, wherein be contained all the high and great feasts of our lord” and so on. In this edition a line has been omitted, and the words run, “For like as golde passeth all other metalles, wherein ben contained all the highe and grete festes of our lord.” Now although the omission makes nonsense of the whole sentence, it is reprinted exactly the same in the later editions issued by De Worde and Julian Notary.
The other point is the date in the colophon, which runs, “Fynysshed at Westmynster, the viii day of Janeuer, the yere of oure lorde Thousande . cccc. lxxxxviii. And in the xiii year of the reygne of kynge Henry the VII.” Now as the 13th year of Henry VII ran from August 22, 1497, to August 21, 1498, it is clear that De Worde in speaking of January 8, 1498, meant 1498 as we would calculate, and not 1499, and therefore that he began his year on the first of January and not on the 25th of March, a most important point to be settled in arranging dated books. Another later proof as to De Worde’s dating may be mentioned. In the tracts which he printed between January 1 and March 25, 1509, he speaks of himself as printer to the king’s mother, but after Henry VIII succeeded in 1509 he styles himself printer to the king’s grandmother, so that he clearly used our method of dating.
About the year 1498, De Worde introduced his second device, the largest of the three used in the fifteenth century. It is almost square, with a broad border, and having Caxton’s mark and initials above a flowering plant. Between July and December, 1499, a series of small nicks was cut all round the outside edge, and this gives us a useful clue to checking the dates of several books.
In 1499, De Worde brought out an edition of Mandeville’s Travels. It was not the first edition published in England by a year or two, but it was the first with illustrations, and most realistic illustrations they are. No doubt it was a very popular book, and the two copies known, one in the Cambridge University Library, the other at Stonyhurst, are both imperfect. Fortunately by means of the two we can obtain an exact collation. This year seems to have been a very busy one. While the dated books in the other years of the fifteenth century never rise above four, in this year there are ten, and a considerable number of undated books can be assigned to this year as well. Among them are a number of small poetical pieces by Lidgate, reprints of Caxton’s editions. One of these reprints shows how careless a printer W. de Worde was. He reprints the Horse, the Shepe, and the Ghoos, from a copy of Caxton’s wanting a leaf, but never noticing anything wrong prints straight ahead, making of course nonsense of the whole.
All De Worde’s quarto tracts were got up in the same style, the title at the top of the first leaf printed in one of Caxton’s types, below this a woodcut not always very apposite to the subject of the work. There were two stock cuts of masters with large birches and their pupils seated before them, one of these being among the material obtained from Govaert van Os. These of course were suitable for grammars and school-books. Caxton’s cuts for the Sarum Horae, the Crucifixion, The tree of Jesse, the three rioters and three skeletons, the rich man and Lazarus, and David and Bathsheba, came in very useful for theological books. The only special cut, that is, one specially cut for the particular book and not belonging to a series, that I have found, is that on the title of the Rote or mirror of consolation, which depicts seven persons kneeling before an altar, above which two angels hold a monstrance.
At the end of the year 1500, De Worde moved from Westminster into Fleet Street at the sign of the Sun, the earliest book from the new address being dated May, 1501. This from the point of view of the bibliographer was an extremely well-timed move, for we can at once put all books with the Westminster imprint as before 1501, and all with the London one after 1500, thus dividing clearly the fifteenth and sixteenth century books. At the time of his moving he seems to have got rid of a considerable portion of his stock; some seems to have been destroyed and some sold, for many cuts which had belonged to De Worde or to Caxton are found afterwards in books printed by Julian Notary. De Worde seems to have been a successful business man, for when he moved into Fleet Street he occupied two houses close to St Bride’s Church, one his dwelling-house and the other a printing-office, for which he paid the very high tithe rent of sixty-six shillings and eightpence.
The number of books printed by Wynkyn de Worde in the fifteenth century, counting in different editions of the same book, is 110, and of a considerable number of these only a single copy is known. It would seem probable that the printer, when issuing a small book, printed only a small number of copies, preferring to set up the type for a new edition rather than burden himself with much unsaleable stock. And it is curious how these various editions have been accidentally preserved. Only two copies are known of a book called the Rote or mirror of consolation, printed by De Worde in the fifteenth century, one of them is in the Pepysian library, the other in Durham Cathedral. Yet these two are of quite different editions, the one at Durham being certainly about 1496, the other certainly after the middle of 1499. Of the Three Kings of Cologne we have two editions, though only three copies are known. Indeed, for some time it was thought that each copy represented a different edition, as the copy in the British Museum, evidently bound up separately out of a volume of tracts, had had the last page of the tract preceding it bound in in place of the correct title-page.
Looking at the very large number of small books which De Worde printed between the end of 1496 and 1500, it is surprising how many are known from single copies. I have kept for many years a register of all the copies of early English books which are to be found anywhere, and taking the quartos printed by W. de Worde, which number altogether 70, I find that out of that number 47, that is more than two-thirds, are known to us now from single copies or fragments. And I feel certain that we owe the preservation of the majority of these to a cause we are now doing our best to destroy. A few worthy people centuries ago made collections of these tracts and bound them up in immensely stout volumes, which gave them an air of importance in themselves, and tended to preserve the tracts inside in a much better manner than if bound separately. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that a hundred and fifty of the rarest that De Worde printed during his whole life would have been found a hundred years or so ago bound up in about twelve volumes. Some twenty-two of the rarest of W. de Worde’s in the Heber Library came to him in one volume. Thirteen unique tracts which sold at the Roxburghe sale for £538, were in a single volume when the Duke purchased them fourteen years before for £26. I need only refer you to the University Library, a large number of whose unique Caxton and De Worde tracts came in three or four volumes. Then again, when so many are known only from fragments or single copies we may imagine what a large number have absolutely disappeared.
Some have been lost of late years or have disappeared since they were described. Three unique W. de Worde books of the fifteenth century were supposed to have perished in a fire in Wales in 1807 but fortunately they had been sold by the owner of the library a short time before the fire. Others seem to have drifted into libraries whose owners know nothing about them. There is a unique De Worde printed before 1501, entitled the “Contemplacyon or meditacyon of the shedynge of the blood of our lorde Jhesu Cryste at seven tymes.” This was seen and described by Herbert, who very likely saw it when it was sold at the Fletewode sale in 1774. Since then we have no record of the book, and though every year more information about private collections is published I can come upon no trace of it.