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
The greatest achievement of the sixteenth century in England was the
printing of the first English Bible, in Coverdale's translation, in
1535, folio, but even this was printed abroad, the latest investigation
giving it to Van Meteren at Antwerp. The woodcuts in it are by Hans
Sebald Beham; we reproduce one representing Cain killing Abel. Tyndall
had previously printed abroad an English New Testament. Another
importation was Brandt's "Shyp of Folys," printed by Pynson, 1509, and
John Cawood, 1570, the woodcuts in both being copied from the originals
before referred to.
[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Woodcut from Coverdale's Bible, 1535. Cain
killing Abel.]
Folio was the size usually adopted, and in this size the series of
chronicles appeared: Arnold, printed abroad in 1502; Fabian, in 1516;
Froissart, by Pynson, in two volumes, 1523-5; Harding, by Grafton, 1543;
Hall, by the same, 1548; Holinshed, in two volumes, 1577. In the same
size Chaucer was first given to the world entire by T. Godfrey in 1532,
and many times reprinted, and Sir Thomas More in 1557. Polemical and
religious treatises were mostly printed in quarto, as were the poets:
Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, in 1590; Langland's _Pierce Plowman_, in
1550; and Sidney's _Arcadia_, in 1590. Plays were also printed in
quarto, in which shape at the end of the century some of Shakespeare's
single plays were issued.
From the great perfection to which the liturgies, or books of hours, had
been brought by Vostre, Verard, and others in France, it is not perhaps
extraordinary that the service books for English use should have been
mostly printed abroad. Those for Salisbury and York were produced at
Paris, Rouen, and Antwerp. A Salisbury Primer in English was printed by
John Kyngston and Henry Sutton in 1557, and Wynken de Worde printed a
York Manual in 1509. The first English Common Prayer Book, known as
Edward VI.'s, was printed by Grafton in 1549, who also printed in 1545
Henry VIII.'s Primer in Latin and English. Edward's book is curious as
having on the last page a royal order as to the price at which it was to
be sold: "No maner of persone shall sell the present Booke vnbounde
aboue the price of two shillynges and two pence. And bound in Forell for
ii_s._ x_d._, and not aboue. And the same bound in Shepes Lether for
iii_s._ iii_d._, and not aboue. And the same bounde in paste or in
boordes, in Calues Lether, not aboue the price of iiii_s._ the pece."
Cranmer's Catechism was printed by Nicholas Hill in 1548, with
twenty-nine woodcuts by Hans Holbein, one of which we reproduce,
representing Christ casting out devils.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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