Verard had preceded Simon Vostre in the publication of books of hours, but his first volume dated 1487 was not successful for the want of borders and frontispieces. At the most he had introduced figures intended for illumination, which, as well as the vignettes, were cut in wood. In 1488, the same year that Simon Vostre commenced his publications, Verard put forth, by "command of the King our lord," the book called the _Grandes Heures_, which is in quarto, Gothic letter, without paging, twenty lines to the full page. This _Grandes Heures_ contained fourteen engravings, large borders in four compartments, smaller subjects and initials rubricated by hand. He also published more than two hundred editions between 1487 and 1513, and among them the _Mystère de la Passion_, with eighty figures; the _Grandes Chroniques_, in three folio volumes, printed by John Maurand; the _Bataille Judaïque_ of Flavius Josephus; the _Legende Dorée_ of Voragine, all books for which he called to his aid rubricators, illuminators, and miniaturists. From the first he had two shops where he put his productions on sale: one on the Pont Notre Dame, the other at the Palace of Justice, "au premier pilier devant la chapelle où l'on chante la messe de messeigneurs les présidents." From 1499, when the Pont Notre Dame was burned, Verard transported his books to the Carrefour St. Severin. At his death in 1513 he was living in the Rue Neuve Notre Dame, "devant Nostre-Dame de Paris." [Illustration: Fig. 30.--Page of the _Grandes Heures_ of Antony Verard: Paris, fifteenth century.] Besides Verard, Vostre, and Pigouchet, many others will be found who imitated them in the publication of books of hours. The first was John du Pré, who published a Paris missal in 1481, and who was at once printer and bookseller. Like Pigouchet, Du Pré printed books of hours on account of provincial publishers, without dreaming of the competition he was creating for himself. The encroachments of the publishers upon one another, the friendly exchanges, the loans of plates and type, form one of the most curious parts of the study of the Book. Thielman Kerver, a German, also began to put forth books of hours in 1497 in Paris, ornamenting them with borders and figures on wood, and modelling his work completely upon that of Simon Vostre. But after having imitated him, he was associated with him in the publication and sale of the Paris Missal; the competition of these men was evidently an honest one, or the sale of pious works was sufficient to maintain all engaged in it. Established on the Pont St. Michel, at the sign of the "Unicorn," he sold his stock to Gilles Remacle about the beginning of the sixteenth century.