About 1478-9 was issued the Rhetorica Nova of Laurentius of Savona, of which two copies are known, one in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the other in the University Library of Upsala. Now although this book had been known and examined by many for two hundred years, and is printed in the most widely used of Caxton’s types, yet it was not recognised as a Caxton until it was examined by Henry Bradshaw in 1861. The colophon says that the work was compiled in the University of Cambridge in 1478, and it was in consequence described by all the early writers as the first book printed at Cambridge. Strype wrote an account of the Corpus copy to Bagford, who in his turn wrote of it to Tanner, and he in his turn communicated it to Ames. Ames then inserted it at the head of his list of books printed at Cambridge, and the mistake, as is usual in such cases, was copied in turn by each succeeding writer on printing.
In 1480 considerable changes are to be found in Caxton’s methods of work, owing no doubt to competition, for in this year a press was started in London by a certain John Lettou. He appears to have been a practised printer, and his work is certainly better than Caxton’s, his type much smaller and neater, and the page more regularly printed. He also introduced into England the use of signatures. Signatures are the small letters printed at the foot of the page which were intended to serve as a guide to the bookbinder in gathering up the sheets. From the earliest times they were added in writing both to manuscripts and the earliest printed books, but about 1472 printers began to print them in type, and the habit soon became general. Caxton’s use of signatures begins in 1480 and was doubtless copied from the London printer.
At the beginning of 1480 Caxton had printed an indulgence in his large type, the second of his founts, and immediately afterwards the London printer issued another edition in his small neat type. Caxton promptly had another fount cut of small type, and issued with it a third edition of the indulgence.
It is a matter much to be regretted that Henry Bradshaw never issued one of his Memoranda on the subject of these indulgences, for he had collected much interesting information, and was the first to point out the variations in the wording of the different issues as well as the discoverer of several unknown examples.
The year 1481 saw the introduction of illustrations, which were first used in the Mirror of the World. In it there are two sets of cuts, one depicting various masters, either alone or with several pupils, the other are merely diagrams copied from those found in manuscripts of the work. These diagrams are meagre and difficult to understand, so much so that the printer himself has put several in their wrong places. The explanatory words inside the diagrams, which would no doubt have been printed in type had Caxton had a fount small enough, are written by hand. It is interesting to notice that in all copies of the book the same handwriting is found, though I am afraid it would be unsafe to conclude it to be Caxton’s. The period from 1480 to 1483 is the least interesting as regards Caxton’s books. Besides the Mirror of the World only two books contain woodcuts; the Catho, and the second edition of the Game and Playe of the Chesse. The two cuts in the Catho had been used before in the Mirror, but the sixteen in the chess-book are specially cut, though clearly by a different artist from the one who made those for the Mirror. Mr Linton in his book on wood-engraving expressed the opinion that many of these cuts were of soft metal, treated in the same manner as a wood-block, but whenever we find any of them in use for a long period, the breaks which occur in them and the occurrence sometimes even of worm-holes show that the cut must have been of wood.
Among the other books of this period are the first and second editions of Caxton’s Chronicle and Higden’s Polycronicon. The unique copy of the Latin Psalter in the British Museum, a Caxton which remained unidentified until fairly recently, also belongs to about 1480, but perhaps the most interesting book of all is the first edition in English of Reynard the Fox. This was translated by Caxton from the Dutch, the translation being finished in June, 1481, and the book evidently printed at once. It is curious that this book, which would lend itself so readily to illustration, was not printed with woodcuts, but Caxton after using them in 1481 made no further move in this direction until 1484, when another group of illustrated books appeared. It always looks as though Caxton, and indeed his own words tend to prove it, was much more interested in the literary side of his work than in the mechanical, and therefore only called in the aid of the wood-engraver when he thought it absolutely necessary. He wished his books to be purchased on their merits alone, and therefore did not try, like the later printers, to use illustrations merely to attract the unwary purchaser. On the other hand, as none of the other printers in England issued illustrated books, he had no competition to contend with.
A book which may have been printed about this time, but if so has entirely disappeared, is a translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid. In the Pepysian Library is a MS. of books x.-xv., with the following colophon: “Translated and fynysshed by me William Caxton at Westmestre, the 22 day of Apryll, the yere of our lord 1480 And the 20 yere of the Regne of Kyng Edward the fourth.” It seems very improbable Caxton would have taken the trouble to make this translation had he not intended it to be printed, and he mentions it in one of his prologues amongst a series of books which he had translated and printed. This MS. was bought by Pepys at an auction in 1688.
Another interesting point to be noticed about it is that it contains the autograph of Lord Lumley who inherited the library formed by the Earls of Arundel. Now William Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, was one of Caxton’s patrons, and the manuscript may have been presented to him by Caxton himself.
The period from 1483 to 1486 is more interesting. First in order comes the first edition of Mirk’s Liber Festivalis and its supplement the Quattuor Sermones. The next is a small quarto pamphlet known as the Sex quam elegantissimæ epistolæ, and consisting of letters that passed between Sixtus IV. and the Venetian Republic. The only copy known was found bound up in a volume of seventeenth century theological tracts in the library at Halberstadt, and was sold in 1890 to the British Museum for £200. After these come a series of English writers, Lidgate’s Life of our Lady; Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Cressida, and Hous of Fame; Gower’s Confessio amantis, and the Life of St Wenefrede. The Canterbury Tales is the second edition published by Caxton, and has a peculiarly interesting preface by the printer, in which he tells us that having some six years before printed the Canterbury Tales, which were sold to many and divers gentlemen, one of the number had complained that the text was corrupt. He said, however, that his father had a very fine MS. of the poem which he valued highly, but that he thought he might be able to borrow it. Caxton at once promised that if this could be done, he would reprint the book. This second edition is ornamented with a series of cuts of the different characters, and one of all the pilgrims seated together at supper at an immense round table. This cut does duty several times later on as the frontispiece of Lidgate’s Assembly of the Gods.
In the same year as the Canterbury Tales appeared two other illustrated books, the Fables of Esop, and the Golden Legend. The Esop has one large full-page cut of Esop used as a frontispiece and which is found only in the copy at Windsor Castle, and no less than a hundred and eighty-five smaller cuts, the work of two if not three engravers, one being evidently the man who made the cuts for the chess-book.