Only one block-book is known to have been printed in France, and that is _Les Neuf Preux_, or the Nine Champions. The nine champions are divided into three groups: first, classical heroes--Hector, Alexander and Julius Cæsar; next, Biblical heroes--Joshua, David and Judas Maccabæus; and lastly, heroes of romance--Arthur, Charlemagne and Godefroi of Boulogne. The portraits of these celebrities are accompanied by verses. This block-book dates from about 1455. Other block-books were the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, _the Apocalypse of St John_, _the Book of Canticles_, _Defensorium Inviolatæ Virginitatis Beatæ Mariæ Virginis_, _Mirabilia Romæ_; various German almanacks, and a _Planetenbuch_, this last representing the heavenly bodies and their influence on human life. The last of the block-books, so far as is known, was the _Opera nova contemplativa_, which was executed at Venice about 1510. From one point of view the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, or Mirror of Salvation, is the most curious of its kind. It is looked upon as the connecting link between block-books proper and type-printed books. Its purpose seems to have been to afford instruction in the facts and lessons of the Christian religion, beginning with the fall of Satan. It is founded on an old and once popular manuscript work sometimes ascribed to Brother John, a Benedictine monk of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Four so-called "editions" of the _Speculum_ are known, two of which are in Latin rhyme, and two in Dutch prose, all four having many points in common and standing apart from the later and dated editions afterwards produced in Germany, Holland, and France. In these early copies the body of the work consists of a text printed from moveable types, with a block-printed illustration at the head of each page. But one of the Latin editions is remarkable for having twenty pages of the text printed from wood blocks. How and why these xylographic pages appear in a book whose remaining forty-two pages are printed from types is a mystery. They are inserted at intervals among the other leaves, and for this and other reasons it is considered improbable that they were printed from blocks originally intended for a block-book, to help to eke out a not very plentiful stock of type. Moreover, no entirely xylographic _Speculum_ exists to lend colour to such a theory. The time and place of origin of the _Speculum_ are unknown, and bibliographers are not agreed as to the order in which the several "editions" appeared. But such evidence as exists points to Holland as the home of the printed _Speculum_, and those who believe that Coster of Haarlem invented typography, credit him with having produced it.