A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898. Henry Robert Plomer

A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898

of information lapses, and the pioneer has to gather what he may from the imprints in books which come under his hand, from notices of a few individual printers, and stray anecdotes and memoranda. Through this almost pathless forest Mr. Plomer has threaded his way, and though the road he has made may be broken and imperfect, the fact that a road exists, which they can widen and mend, will be of incalculable advantage to all students of printing.

Besides the indebtedness already stated to the works of Blades, Mr. Gordon Duff, Mr. Arber, and Mr. Reed, acknowledgments are also due for the help derived from Mr. Allnutt's papers on English Provincial Printing (Bibliographica, vol. ii.) and Mr. Warren's history of the Chiswick Press (The Charles Whittinghams, Printers; Grolier Club, 1896). Lest Mr. Plomer should be made responsible for borrowed faults, it must also be stated that the account of the Kelmscott Press is mainly taken from an article contributed to The Guardian by the present writer. The hearty thanks of both author and editor are due to Messrs. Macmillan and Bowes for the use of two devices; to the Clarendon Press for the three pages of specimens of the types given to the University of Oxford by Fell and Junius; to the Chiswick Press for the examples of the devices and ornamental initials which the second Whittingham reintroduced, and for the type-facsimiles of the title-page of the book with which he revived the use of old-faced letters; to Messrs. Macmillan for the specimen of the Macmillan Greek type, and to the Trustees of Mr. William Morris for their grant of the very exceptional privilege of reproducing, with the skilful aid of Mr. Emery Walker, two pages of books printed at the Kelmscott Press.

That the illustrations are profuse at the beginning and end of the book and scanty in the middle must be laid to the charge of the printers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in whose work good ornament finds no place. It was due to Caslon and Baskerville to insert their portraits, though they can hardly be called works of art. That of Roger L'Estrange, which is also given, may suggest, by its more prosperous look, that in the evil days of the English press its Censor was the person who most throve by it.

Alfred W. Pollard.

CONTENTS AND LIST OF PLATES

Table of Contents

	PAGE
Editor's Preface,	vii
CHAPTER I
Caxton and his Contemporaries,	1
CHAPTER II
From 1500 to the Death of Wynkyn de Worde,	31
CHAPTER III
Thomas Berthelet to John Day,	61
CHAPTER IV
John Day,	79
CHAPTER V
John Day's Contemporaries,	103
CHAPTER VI
Provincial Presses of the Sixteenth Century,	122
CHAPTER VII
The Stuart Period (1603–1640),	154
CHAPTER VIII
From 1640 to 1700,	187
CHAPTER IX
From 1700 to 1750,	228
CHAPTER X
From 1750 to 1800,	261
CHAPTER XI
The Present Century,	282
Index,	323

LIST OF PLATES

Table of Contents

Portrait of William Morris,	Frontispiece
Portrait of Roger L'Estrange,	at p. 203
Portrait of Caslon,	" 239
Portrait of Baskerville,	" 265

Fig. 1.—Device of William Caxton.

CHAPTER I

Table of Contents

A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898. Henry Robert Plomer