The Printed Book: Its History, Illustration and Adornment: From the Days of Gutenberg to the Present TimeBouchot, Henri
History
The Printed Book: Its History, Illustration and Adornment: From the Days of Gutenberg to the Present Time
Bouchot, Henri
Bookbinding -- History; Books; Books -- History; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
It is to be remarked that the Mayence men did not turn towards Holland.
Is it that they found there the descendants of Laurent Coster firmly
established in their workshops? Must the coexistence, the simultaneous
advance, of the invention in Germany and in the Low Countries be
admitted? It is a secret for us and for many others, but we know for
certain that Flemish printers were established at Utrecht in 1473, at
Delft, Bruges, Gouda, Zwoll, Antwerp, and Brussels. At Louvain there
was besides John of Westphalia, who published in 1474 a work of Peter
Crescens, and several other works.
Colard Mansion was printing at Bruges about 1473; and was employed by
William Caxton, who had been for some years trading as a merchant in the
Low Countries, to print the "Recuyell of the Histories of Troy," by
Raoul Le Fevre, which Caxton had translated into English at the command
of Queen Margaret. This was issued in 1474, and was the first book
printed in the English language. In 1475 or 1476 Caxton returned to
England with a fount of types, which he had employed Mansion to cut and
cast for him, and established himself as a printer in the precincts of
Westminster Abbey. In 1477 he produced the first book printed in
England, "The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers," followed by a
large number of important works, many of them written or translated by
Caxton himself. Thus was typography firmly established in England; and
Caxton's immediate successors, Wynken de Worde, Richard Pynson, William
Machlinia, have had a glorious roll of followers, which has never been
broken to this day. From Westminster the art spread in England to
Oxford, where Theodoricus Rood, from Cologne, printed an _Exposicio
Sancti Jeronimi_ in 1478; and to St. Albans in 1480 by a printer who has
never been identified, and who produced the famous "Chronicle" and "Boke
of St. Albans."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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