English in Print from Caxton to Shakespeare to Milton
Publication Year: 2008
Published by: University of Illinois Press
front cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Download PDF (37.2 KB)
pp. vii-viii
Preface
Download PDF (65.8 KB)
pp. ix-xii
This survey of early English printing draws upon the collections of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Elizabethan Club at Yale University. These libraries hold two of the most remarkable English Renaissance collections in America. The Elizabethan Club, founded in 1911, contains over three hundred outstanding volumes of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature, ...
Abbreviations
Download PDF (351.1 KB)
pp. xiii-xiv
Introduction
Download PDF (2.8 MB)
pp. 1-44
This exhibition explores the history of the book in England from the time of the introduction of printing to the mid-seventeenth century. The books displayed are intended to show the stages by which the printed book evolved from early handpress volumes, which in most respects imitated the characteristics of medieval manuscript books, ...
Catalog of the Exhibition
1. Early English Printing
Download PDF (1.8 MB)
pp. 47-58
When printed books became available, scriptoria did not close their doors. On the contrary, manuscripts went on being produced — and sometimes preferred by their owners — throughout the fifteenth century. These two copies of the same text, one a manuscript, the other an early printed edition, ...
2. A World of Words
Download PDF (3.3 MB)
pp. 59-82
This may be the earliest surviving schoolbook written exclusively in English. It is also the only known copy of this pedagogical text for teaching young children their ABCs and simple prayers. These sheets were probably intended to be used for a hornbook since they are printed on only one side.1 ...
3. “For the Regulating of Printing”
Download PDF (3.7 MB)
pp. 83-106
The effort to control the distribution of texts predates printing. In 1401, the De haeretico comburendo, an act of Parliament, threatened anyone found with “books or any such writings of wicked doctrine and opinion” (i.e., Wycliffite or Lollard views) with fines, imprisonment, and even death by burning.1 ...
4. The Place of Translation in Early English Printing
Download PDF (3.9 MB)
pp. 107-136
William Caxton began his literary career not as a printer, but as a translator. In the epilogue to the first book printed in English, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye (1473 / 74), he claims that requests for additional copies of his translation induced him to learn the art of printing in the first place. ...
5. From the Stage to the Page
Download PDF (5.4 MB)
pp. 137-174
No monopolies or general patents were issued for the printing of plays, masques, or interludes. This may reflect a certain disregard for such works as literature, at least in the Elizabethan period. Whatever the reason, the lack of royal patents for the genre meant that any member of the Stationers’ Company could register and print a work for the stage. ...
6. Making English Books
Download PDF (4.9 MB)
pp. 175-200
This remarkable fragment of a Shakespeare quarto illustrates a sixteenth-century English book in the making. Normally, a quarto is printed as four pages on each side of a sheet and then folded twice to produce four leaves or eight pages of a book. In England, however, it was not uncommon for early printers to use half sheets, like the one shown here, ...
Notes
Download PDF (84.8 KB)
pp. 201-206
Bibliography
Download PDF (134.7 KB)
pp. 207-218
Index
Download PDF (239.4 KB)
pp. 219-234
back cover
E-ISBN-13: 9780252091537
Print-ISBN-13: 9780252033469
Page Count: 256
Publication Year: 2008
