THE FABLES OF ESOPE
(see page [61])]
The Fables of Aesop was issued on March 26th, the first day of the year 1484. This is certainly one of the finest and rarest amongst the books which Caxton printed. It begins with a large full-page frontispiece containing a figure of Æsop similar in treatment to those occurring in some foreign editions. This is found only in the copy at Windsor Castle. In the text there are no less than one hundred and eighty-five wood-cuts, the work of two or perhaps even three different engravers, one of whom apparently cut the illustrations to the second edition of the Game of Chesse. One illustration is engraved in quite a different manner from the rest, and was probably cut hurriedly to replace one accidentally lost or broken, and has an appearance much more resembling modern work than the others, which are simply the ordinary heavy black outline cuts of the period. A complete copy of the book should contain 144 leaves, the last two being blank, and the leaves are numbered. It was twice reprinted in the fifteenth century by Richard Pynson at London, and these two reprints are even rarer than the original, one copy of each being known, and both of them imperfect.
The only perfect copy known of Caxton's edition is in the King's Library at Windsor, and was one of the very few books retained when the Royal Library was handed over to the nation by George IV. A note on the fly-leaf shows the reason for this. "Left to his Majesty by the late Mr. Hewett of Ipswich in Suffolk and delivered to Mr. Allen by Philip Broke, Esq. and Sir John Hewett, Bart. to present to the King." It is in magnificent condition and uncut. The British Museum was fortunate enough to be able to purchase a copy in 1844, which, with the one imperfection of not having the frontispiece, is in as fine condition as the Windsor copy, and in an early sixteenth-century binding by John Reynes. The third and last copy is in the Bodleian, to which it was presented in 1680, with other Caxtons, by Moses Pitt, a London bookseller. It is imperfect, wanting in all about twelve leaves.
A curious broadside was published about this time, which is generally known as the Death-bed Prayers. It contains two prayers to be said by a priest at the bedside of dying persons, and the only known copy, which was formerly in the Spencer Library, was found bound up with a copy of the Pilgrimage of the Soul.
The Order of Chivalry, which was printed in the reign of Richard III., may be ascribed to 1484. The author of the book is not known, but it was translated from the French, and agrees exactly with a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, entitled L'Ordre de Chivallerie, beautifully illuminated, and written in Flanders for Edward IV. Caxton used in this book and the Aesop a large floriated initial letter A, the only large ornamental capital which he seems to have possessed.
Five copies are known, two in the British Museum, two in the Spencer collection at Manchester, and one in a private library in America. The book, which is a small quarto, should contain 52 leaves, the first and last being blank. One copy in the British Museum and one at Manchester are complete as regards text, but neither has both blanks.