The Westminster printer was patronised by the king and by the mighty of the land, and also by the Duchess of Burgundy, and with his pen, as well as with his press, he sought to supply the books and literature which the taste of the time demanded. “The clergy wanted service-books,” says Mr Blades, “and Caxton accordingly provided them with psalters, commemorations and directories; the preachers wanted sermons, and were supplied with the ‘Golden Legend,’ and other similar books; the ‘prynces, lordes, barons, knyghtes & gentilmen’ were craving for ‘joyous and pleysaunt historyes’ of chivalry, and the press at the ‘Red Pale’ produced a fresh romance nearly every year.” From his arrival at Westminster about 1476 until his death about 1491—the date is not exactly known—Caxton was continually occupied in translating, editing, and printing, though beyond the prologues, epilogues, and colophons to his various publications he composed little himself, his principal work being the addition of a book to Higden's Polychronicon, bringing that history down to 1460. His translations number twenty-two.
The long list of his printed works includes a Horæ, printed about 1478, and now represented only by a fragment, which is of great interest as being probably the earliest English-printed service-book extant. It was found in the cover of another old book, and is now in the Bodleian Library.
Other books printed by Caxton were the Canterbury Tales; Boethius; Parvus et Magnus Catho, a mediæval school-book, the third edition of which contains two woodcuts, probably the earliest produced in England; The Historye of Reynart the Foxe, translated from the Dutch by Caxton; A Book of the Chesse Moralysed, a second edition of the Game and Play of the Chesse, printed by Caxton abroad; The Cronicles of Englond; The Pylgremage of the Sowle, believed to have been translated from the French by Lydgate; Gower's Confessio Amantis; The Knyght of the Toure, translated by Caxton from the French; The Golden Legend, consisting of lives of saints compiled by Caxton from French and Latin texts; The Fables of Esope, etc., translated by Caxton from the French; Chaucer's Book of Fame; Troylus and Creside; Malory's Morte d'Arthur; The Book of Good Manners, translated by Caxton from the French of Jacques Legrand; Statutes of Henry VII., in English, the “earliest known volume of printed statutes”; The Governal of Helthe, from the Latin, author and translator unknown, the “earliest medical work printed in English”; Divers Ghostly Matters, including tracts on the seven points of true love and everlasting wisdom, the Twelve Profits of Tribulation, and the Rule of St Benet; The Fifteen Oes and other Prayers, printed by command of “our liege ladi Elizabeth … Quene of Englonde, and of the … pryncesse Margarete,” and the “prouffytable boke for mānes soule and right comfortable to the body and specyally in aduersitee and trybulacyon, whiche boke is called The Chastysing of Goddes Chyldern.”
Between seventy and eighty different books, besides indulgences and other small productions, are attributed to Caxton's press, and the works just named will serve to give an idea of their diversity and range. Some of the most popular were printed more than once; of the Golden Legend, for example, three editions are known, and of the Dictes or Sayings, the Horæ, and Parvus et Magnus Catho, and several others, two editions are known. There is also a strong probability that many of Caxton's productions have been lost altogether, since thirty-eight of those yet extant are represented either by single copies or by fragments.
BOYS LEARNING GRAMMAR, from Caxton's “Catho” and “Mirrour of the World.”
Caxton, according to Mr Blades, used six different founts of Gothic type, but Mr E. Gordon Duff, in his Early English Printing, credits him with eight founts. His books are all printed on paper, with the exception of a copy of the Speculum Vitæ Christi in the British Museum, and one of the Doctrinal of Sapyence, in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.
The well-known device of Caxton was not used by him till 1487. It is usually understood to stand for W.C. 74, but its exact meaning is not known. Blades believes that it refers to the date of printing of The Recuyell, the first product of Caxton's typographical skill.