The writer has consulted a considerable range of authorities, a few of the more accessible of which are cited in the short list of books for supplementary reading. Mention should be made of the very excellent study of John Baskerville, privately printed by Col. Josiah H. Benton, of Boston. This book may perhaps be found in the larger public libraries. Here, as always, it is to be regretted that although much has been written on the subject of printing and of the history of printing a good general history of the subject is still greatly to be desired.
CONTENTS
| Chapter I PAGE | |
| The English Pioneers | [7] |
| Chapter II | |
| The Regulation of the Industry and the Company of Stationers | [18] |
| Chapter III | |
| John Day and the Dark Ages of English Printing | [34] |
| Chapter IV | |
| The Eighteenth Century: the Period of Transition | [49] |
| Chapter V | |
| The Whittinghams and the Modern Book | [68] |
| Supplementary Reading | [76] |
| Review Questions | [77] |
PRINTING IN ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
The English Pioneers
England was slow to take up printing and slow and backward in the development of it. It was 25 years after the invention of printing before any printing was done in England. It was many years after that before the work of the English printers could compare with that done on the continent. The reason for this is to be found in the conditions of the country itself. Although the two great universities had long been in existence, Oxford dating back to 1167 and Cambridge to 1209, England as a whole was a backward country. In culture and the refinements of civilization, as well as in many more practical things, England was not so far advanced as the rest of Europe nor was it to be so for many years to come.
England at this time was an agricultural and grazing country. A colony of Flemings had been brought over to start the cloth industry. There was still, nevertheless, a large export of wool to Flanders, which was there woven and sent back as cloth. The English nobles lived largely on their estates, looking after their tenants, hunting for diversion, and doing a little fighting occasionally when life became otherwise unbearably uninteresting. They were not an educated class and the peasantry were profoundly ignorant. The cities which, as always, depended upon manufacture and commerce were just beginning to grow, with the exception of some of the seaport towns which were already prosperous and wealthy.
Not only was this general condition true, but there were special conditions which rendered the middle of the fifteenth century unfavorable to culture and to the introduction of a new invention auxiliary to culture. In 1450 England was shaken and horrified by the bloody insurrection of peasants, with its attendant outrages, known as Jack Cade’s Revolt. Scarcely had order been restored when a disputed succession to the crown plunged the country into the bloody civil war between the adherents of the Houses of York and Lancaster, known as the Wars of the Roses. This period of civil strife lasted for thirty years and affected the general welfare of England very seriously. It was especially marked by mortality among the noblest families in the realm, many of which were actually exterminated.
Some time within this bloody half-century the art of printing was introduced into England. There is in existence a book printed in Oxford and dated on the title page 1468. Upon the existence of this book, and upon a somewhat doubtful legend, has been built a claim that English printing originated in Oxford. This claim, however, has practically ceased to be maintained. The legend appears to be baseless, and it has been generally concluded that the date is a misprint and that it should be 1478, an X having been dropped in writing the Roman date, a not uncommon error in publications of this period. Historians have now generally agreed that the introduction of printing in England is due to William Caxton, one of the most interesting figures in the whole annals of printing.
Caxton was born in the Weald, or wooded land, of Kent, a place of simple people and uncouth speech, about 1421. As a boy he was apprenticed to Robert Large, a prominent mercer or silk merchant of London. On the death of Large, not many years later, Caxton went to Bruges, in Belgium, then part of the territory of the Dukes of Burgundy, and became connected with the so-called English “Nation” or “House.” This was a chartered company of merchant adventurers similar to the companies which later settled certain portions of North America and to the famous East India Company. Caxton appears to have been successful in business and became Governor of the English “Nation” in 1462.