Illustrated books -- Bibliography; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
While Grafton was the King's printer for English books, the post of
Royal Printer in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew had been conferred in 1547 on
Reginald or Reyner Wolfe. Wolfe, who had come to England from
Gelderland, was at first a bookseller, and was employed by various
distinguished persons as a letter-carrier between England and Germany.
When he set up as a printer in 1542, with type which he seems to have
obtained from a relative at Frankfort, he was employed by the great
antiquary, John Leland, and by John Cheke, Professor of Greek at
Cambridge, for whom he printed in 1543 two Homilies of S. Chrysostom in
Greek and Latin, this being the first Greek work printed in England.
During Edward VI's reign he does not seem to have been given much to do
in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, but printed Cranmer's _Defence of the
Sacrament_ and _Answer unto a Crafty Cavillation_. After keeping quiet
during Mary's reign he enjoyed the patronage of Elizabeth and Archbishop
Parker, and lived, like Grafton, till 1573.
Though he never worked on a large scale, Wolfe certainly raised the
standard of printing in England. In John Day it is pleasant to come to a
native Englishman who did equally good work, and that in a larger way of
business. Day was a Suffolk man, born in 1522 at Dunwich, a town over
which the sea now rolls. He began printing in partnership with William
Seres as early as 1546, but, save some fairly good editions of the
Bible, produced nothing of importance during this period. His first fine
book, published in 1559, is _The Cosmographicall Glasse_, a work on
surveying, by William Cunningham. This has a woodcut allegorical border
to the titlepage, a fine portrait of Cunningham, a map of Norwich, and
some good heraldic and pictorial capitals. Its text is printed
throughout in large italics. The book thus broke away entirely from the
old black-letter traditions of English printing, and could compare
favourably with the best foreign work. Day printed other folios in this
style, and in some of them instead of a device placed a large and
striking portrait of himself. In 1563 he printed the first edition of
_Acts and Monumentes of these latter and perillous days touching matters
of the Church_, better known as _Foxe's Book of Martyrs_. This is a book
of over two thousand pages, and is plentifully illustrated with woodcuts
of varying degrees of merit. Day by this time had attracted the
patronage of Archbishop Parker, and in 1566 printed for him a book
called _A Testimony of Antiquitie, showing the auncient fayth of the
Church of England touching the sacrament of the body and bloude of the
Lord here publikely preached and also receaved in the Saxons tyme, above
600 yeares agoe_. For this sermon, attributed to Archbishop Aelfric,
some Anglo-Saxon type, the first used in England, was specially cut.
Later on Day printed at Lambeth Palace Parker's _De Antiquitate
Britannicae Ecclesiae_. He also printed Ascham's _Scholemaster_ and
other important works.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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