REVIEW QUESTIONS
SUGGESTIONS TO STUDENTS AND INSTRUCTORS
The following questions, based on the contents of this pamphlet, are intended to serve (1) as a guide to the study of the text, (2) as an aid to the student in putting the information contained into definite statements without actually memorizing the text, (3) as a means of securing from the student a reproduction of the information in his own words.
A careful following of the questions by the reader will insure full acquaintance with every part of the text, avoiding the accidental omission of what might be of value. These primers are so condensed that nothing should be omitted.
In teaching from these books it is very important that these questions and such others as may occur to the teacher should be made the basis of frequent written work, and of final examinations.
The importance of written work cannot be overstated. It not only assures knowledge of material but the power to express that knowledge correctly and in good form.
If this written work can be submitted to the teacher in printed form it will be doubly useful.
QUESTIONS
- 1.
- What general conditions made England slow to take up printing?
- 2.
- What special conditions existed in England about the time of the invention of printing?
- 3.
- What is the truth about the story that the first English printed book was dated 1468?
- 4.
- Tell the story of Caxton’s life up to his return to England.
- 5.
- Tell the story of the rest of his life.
- 6.
- How many books did he print, and of what sort?
- 7.
- What remarkable omissions are there in his work, and why?
- 8.
- What was his special field?
- 9.
- What sort of man was Caxton?
- 10.
- What can you say about Caxton’s typography?
- 11.
- What other printers appeared in England during Caxton’s life?
- 12.
- What was the great difference between Caxton and his successors?
- 13.
- Who was Caxton’s successor in business, and what do you know about him?
- 14.
- Who was Pynson, and what did he do?
- 15.
- What do you know about Copeland; Berthelet; Grafton and Whitchurch?
- 16.
- Describe the condition of English printing up to 1550, and give the reason.
- 17.
- What change took place after 1525?
- 18.
- What books were imported, and why?
- 19.
- What was the situation in England all through the Middle Ages with regard to labor troubles?
- 20.
- What social change took place in the nineteenth century, and what was the result?
- 21.
- How did the English deal with the problem of the regulation of printing?
- 22.
- What can you say about English craft guilds?
- 23.
- What were the reasons for the organization of the Company of Stationers?
- 24.
- What was the form of organization of the Company?
- 25.
- What was the Star Chamber?
- 26.
- What were the powers and the duties of the Company?
- 27.
- What followed the organization of the Company?
- 28.
- Give the substance of the edict of 1586.
- 29.
- What did the Company do in the execution of this edict?
- 30.
- What difficulties, other than those caused by the edicts, troubled the printers?
- 31.
- Tell the story of John Wolfe.
- 32.
- What was the result of the reduction in the number of offices, and what was done about it?
- 33.
- Describe English printing apprenticeship at this period.
- 34.
- What were the relations between author, printer, and bookseller?
- 35.
- Tell the story of John Day.
- 36.
- Mention other printers of this time, and give some distinguishing fact about each.
- 37.
- What tendency appears in English printing after Day, and why?
- 38.
- How did printing fare under James I; under Charles I?
- 39.
- Give the substance of the edict of 1637.
- 40.
- What legislation was enacted to protect English printing?
- 41.
- What happened when Parliament got the upper hand, and why?
- 42.
- How did printing fare under Cromwell?
- 43.
- Tell the story of the attempt to incorporate the Company of Printers.
- 44.
- Sketch the course of government regulation from 1662 to 1694.
- 45.
- Tell about Roycroft and his work.
- 46.
- Tell about the four type-founders of this time.
- 47.
- Describe the rise to prominence of the Oxford Press.
- 48.
- What three special changes took place in the eighteenth century?
- 49.
- Tell the story of the invention of stereotyping.
- 50.
- Tell how the publishers became the principal power in the book business.
- 51.
- Give the substance of the copyright act of 1709.
- 52.
- What was the effect of this act on the author and on the manufacture of books?
- 53.
- Tell the story of William Caslon.
- 54.
- Tell the story of Samuel Richardson.
- 55.
- Tell the story of the life of Baskerville.
- 56.
- Tell about Baskerville as a type-founder.
- 57.
- Tell about Baskerville’s press; his methods; the reason for his lack of success.
- 58.
- Was Baskerville’s work a failure, and why?
- 59.
- Tell the story of Charles Whittingham, the elder.
- 60.
- Tell the story of Charles Whittingham, the younger.
- 61.
- Tell the story of Pickering and his alliance with Whittingham.
- 62.
- Tell the story of Morris and the Kelmscott Press.
- 63.
- Describe Morris’s ideas and tell about his work.
- 64.
- What was the effect of Morris’s work?
- 65.
- Name a few of the printers most influenced by him.