The English provincial printers, stationers and bookbinders to 1557Duff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
History
The English provincial printers, stationers and bookbinders to 1557
Duff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
Book industries and trade -- Great Britain; Printing -- Great Britain -- History
Having obtained some type Siberch started to work for himself, and his
first production was a speech of Dr Henry Bullock delivered before
Wolsey when the Cardinal visited the University in the autumn of 1520.
This is a small pamphlet of eight leaves, devoid of all ornament,
and it was published between February 13, the date of the dedication
and the end of the month, in 1521. The type used appears to be new,
but where it was obtained is not settled. It bears a very strong
resemblance to some of Pynson’s, but is not quite identical. At present
we do not know much about the early business of type-cutting, but it
seems clear that, soon after the commencement of the sixteenth century,
different printers went to a common source for their type, and that
type-cutting was not a part of the printer’s business, as it was when
printing was first invented, but a special trade. New types would thus
tend to conform more to a common model. Of this first Cambridge book
four copies are known, but unfortunately there is no copy in Cambridge,
the four copies being in the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Lambeth
Library, and Archbishop Marsh’s Library, Dublin. The Bodleian copy had
belonged to Richard Burton, the author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_,
the Lambeth one to Archbishop Bancroft, so that at any rate for a few
years, between 1646 and 1662, this latter copy was with the rest of the
Archbishop’s books upon the shelves of the University Library.
About April, in 1521, according to Bradshaw’s calculation, Siberch’s
second book appeared, the sermon of Augustine, _De miseria ac brevitate
vitæ_, a book of twelve leaves. The printer had added a little to his
stock of type, for there is a Greek motto on the title-page which is
also enclosed between two border-pieces.
This type is interesting as the first genuine moveable Greek type used
in England. A year or two earlier W. de Worde had introduced a few
words of Greek into an edition of one of Whitinton’s Grammars, but
the words were roughly cut on wood. Pynson did not begin to use Greek
until 1524 in a work by Linacre, and in the preface he offers a curious
apology for its imperfections, praying the reader to pardon missing
breathings or accents, since he had but recently cast the Greek types
and had not prepared a supply sufficient to finish the work completely.
The amount of Greek printing in all Siberch’s books put together is
very small, hardly enough to call for the cutting of a special fount,
for it must be borne in mind that a Greek fount is infinitely larger
and more complex than a Roman. One specially complicated fount used at
Venice in 1486 contained about 1350 sorts. It seems probable therefore
that we must look to some foreign source for this type, and its
identification might throw some further light on Siberch’s business
career.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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