This printer was one of the assistants of Wynkyn de Worde, and a legatee under his will. He was also a stationer and bookseller, dwelling at the Rose Garland in Fleet Street, where he carried on business from about 1515 to the year 1547 or beginning of 1548. His productions are not only few in number, but very rarely ever met with. He seems to have been fond of small and fugitive pieces, of which, doubtless, a large number have perished owing to the popularity which formerly attended publications of this kind. The number of his works catalogued by Ames amounts to 12. This printer must not be confounded with William Copland (post), whose productions are, comparatively speaking, common.
According to Bale, this printer was a citizen of London, and married the sister of Sir Thomas More. The date of his birth is not known, but he died in 1536, leaving two sons, one of whom, William, succeeded to his business. Ames mentions 31 works printed by John Rastell and 15 by William, and among the former is the famous Pastyme of People, or Cronycles of Englond, of which only three perfect copies are known to exist. A fac-simile reprint was issued in 1811 by Dr. Dibdin. An original copy of this work, which contains 18 woodcut full-length portraits of the kings, was, though imperfect, sold at the Wimpole sale, in June, 1888, for as much as £79. A copy of the reprint is worth about 30s.
Books printed by this workman, which are only 13 in number, are seldom seen. Much—and probably it is no exaggeration to say, most—of the work of the English printers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has been destroyed, and it is probable that between the years 1521 and 1537, when John Skot, or Scott, as he sometimes spelled his name, is known to have been working, a large number of publications was issued from his press, of which not a trace remains. There is a good copy of the diminutive tract known as The Rosary, printed by Skot in 1537, in the library of Earl Spencer at Althorpe.
