The first issue consisted of three hundred copies only. The publisher's certificate to that effect is usually inserted in the work. "The illustrations of this work, which, unlike facsimiles produced by hand, must _necessarily_ be absolute reproductions of their originals, exceed one hundred in number, and frequently consist of representations of entire pages from many of the most interesting books produced by the early printers. Among them may be mentioned an entire folio page from the first printed Bible, the magnificent work of Gutenberg, richly adorned with ornamental borderings by a contemporary German illuminator. An entire page from the celebrated Psalter of Schæffer, in which the large capitals are printed in colours, in rivalry with the illuminators of the time. Pages from the first books printed in Italy, France, Spain, Flanders, and Holland, accompany the accounts of the introduction of the printing press to those countries; and several such entire pages in facsimile illustrate the description of the works of William Caxton, the founder of the printing press in England. In addition to these and many illustrations of other kinds, will be found a very interesting and an abundant series of examples from the most richly decorated of the French 'Horæ,' and from the profusely illustrated German books produced in the first half of the sixteenth century." The copies dated 1868 are somewhat inferior as regards the plates. HUMPHREYS. Master Pieces of the Early Printers & Engravers. A Series of Facsimiles from Rare and Curious Books remarkable for Illustrative Devices, Beautiful Borders, Decorative Initials, Printers Marks, Elaborate Title-pages, &c. By H. Noel Humphreys, ... Imp. 4to. _London: H. Sotheran & Co._ 1870. First issued in parts, which are preferable for the early impressions of the seventy curious plates. "The great beauty of many of the books produced by the Early Printers, both at regards the remarkable and various character of their Types, and the exquisitely designed Initials and Borderings with which their pages are enriched, is scarcely known and appreciated beyond the narrow circle of enthusiastic bibliographers who have made the first works that issued from the printing press a subject of special study; and it is to make them more widely known that the present work has been projected. The greater part of the examples are now published for the first time, and have never appeared in any other bibliographical work. They comprise designs by Wohlgemuth, Durer, Burgemair, Cranach, and others equally celebrated."