The demand for printed books in England, a demand which had, as we have seen, antedated the establishment of Caxton’s Press at Westminster, was much greater than could be satisfied by either Caxton, or his immediate successors, De Worde and Richard Pynson, and the importation of books from Paris, Rouen, Bruges, Antwerp, Cologne, and other continental cities, increased steadily during the last part of the fifteenth and the first portion of the sixteenth century. Of a number of the English publications of this period, the editions were printed on the Continent especially for the English market. Humphreys cites, among other instances, a series of missals printed in 1516 by Olivier of Rouen for the church of York, and an edition of the Chronicles of England printed (in English) in Antwerp, in 1493, by Gerard Leew.[59] These Rouen missals were among the last of the Roman Catholic books of service printed abroad for the use of the English churches, as, in 1534, these churches adopted the Ritual of the Reformation. The title of the chronicles reads, “Chronycles of the Lond of Englond.”

The history of this volume came to possess some importance apart from its relation to the chronology of the English printing-press. In 1664, Richard Atkyns, a graduate of Balliol, printed in London a monograph entitled, The Original and Growth of Printing, Collected out of History and the Records of this Kingdome. Wherein is also Demonstrated that Printing Appertaineth to the Prerogative Royal, and is a Flower of the Crown of England. It was the purpose of Atkyns to recommend himself to the attention of King Charles II. by proving that printing was a royal privilege, and for this purpose it was desirable that there should be evidence of the introduction of the art into England under royal protection. The history of the establishment of the printing-press of Caxton did not give grounds for such a claim. In this Oxford volume bearing date 1468, Atkyns found, however, the evidence which could be made to serve his purpose. He goes on to give in his narrative a story, more or less confused, as to persons and places, the purport of which was, that at the instance of Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, King Henry VI. had taken measures to bring into the kingdom a “printing-mold.” The King, says Atkyns, was a “good man and much given to works of this nature.” He was very ready to further the undertaking, and he provided a considerable sum of money, to be used for enticing away some of the workmen from Harlein in Holland, where the art had recently been invented by John Cuthenberg. “The money was confided to me, Robert Tournour, Master of the Robes, who took into his assistance Mr. Caxton, a citizen of good abilities, who traded much in Holland.” Further details of the journey to Holland made by Tournour and Caxton are given, with the final result that they succeeded in getting off one of the under workmen, whose name was Frederick Corsells (or Corsellis). It was not thought prudent to set Corsellis to work in London, and he was, therefore, taken to Oxford, where, according to this theory, he instituted the first printing-press in England. Atkyns goes on to point out that “This press at Oxon was at least ten years before there was any printing in Europe (except at Harlein and Mentz) where also it was but new born.” Later, “the King set up a press at St. Albans and another at the Abbey of Westminster, where they printed several books of Divinity and Physics (for the King, for reasons best known to himself and Council, permitted no law books to be printed), nor did any printer exercise that art but only such as were the King’s sworn servants; the King himself having the Price and Emolument for Printing Books.” For the mixing up in this narrative of Harlem and Koster and Mentz and Gutenberg, it is to be noted, Atkyns refers, as his authority, to an old manuscript in Lambeth, which has, however, not been found.

This story of Atkyns is dismissed by Madan (as it had previously been dismissed by Humphreys and Blades) as a “clumsy forgery.”[60] It is of interest, however, as indicating the theory of the Crown, or at least the theory which the Crown was supposed to favour at the time of Charles II., concerning the relation of the printing-press to the Crown and the historic foundation for the royal claim to control and supervise printed literature.

If the corrected date of 1478 be accepted for the Rufinus, it still appears that the work of printing in Oxford began very promptly after the establishment of the Caxton Press in Westminster. It is further evident from the comparison of the typography and other manufacturing details of this first Oxford volume and of its immediate successors, that the methods and instruction of the Oxford printers were not derived from London or from Bruges, but are to be connected directly with the undertakings of the printers of Cologne, and more particularly with the orifice of Ulrich Zell, whose name has already been referred to.

The second Oxford publication, bearing an unquestioned date of 1479, is an edition of a treatise by Bishop Ægidius de Columna, of Rome. The third work, issued in the same year, was a Latin translation, prepared by Brunus of Arezzo, of the Ethics of Aristotle. The fourth publication, issued in 1480, was an edition of the oration of Cicero, Pro Milone. Both Madan and Blades are of opinion that the book probably belonged to Oxford and to this year, although the evidence is not conclusive. If the book has been correctly placed, it is the first Latin classic printed in England, the second being a Terence issued (in London) in 1497.[61] The work of the first printing-press of Oxford came to a close suddenly in 1487. The printing at St. Albans ceased at about the same time. The first printers in Oxford did not connect their names with their volumes. The name of the printer of the Rufinus and of the Ægidius has not been traced. The printer of the Cicero, and of some works following the Cicero, is identified as Theodoricus Rood de Colonia. The same name appears in connection with that of Thomas Hunt (Anglicus) as the printers together, in 1485, of the Letters of Phalaris. Thomas Hunt’s name is recorded in 1473, as that of a Universitatis Oxoni Stationarius. A record has been preserved, bearing date 1483, in which Sir Thomas Hunt agrees to sell certain books in Oxford at fixed prices. Madan suggests that the stopping of the Oxford Press in 1487 may have been due to the departure of Rood for Cologne, as he finds record of the printing in Cologne in that year of certain books in a type similar to that used for the preceding Oxford volumes, by a printer registered as Theodoricus.

During the years 1517 and 1518, editions of Burley on Aristotle, Burley’s Principia, and three or four other books were printed in Oxford by Johannes Scolar and Carolus Kyrfoth. These were evidently Germans, and were probably from Cologne. Three of the works were issued cum privilegio. After 1518, printing ceases in Oxford for nearly forty years.[62]

The beginning of printing in the University of Cambridge was delayed until about 1520. This was nearly fifty years later than the establishment of the printing concerns connected with the University of Paris, and twenty-five years later than the beginning of the series of editions of the classics issued from the Aldine Press of Venice, which may properly also be described as the Press of the University of Padua. The first publication of importance bearing the imprint of Cambridge University was an edition of Bulloc’s translation of Lucian, issued in 1521.

The business of printing in London took a great development when De Worde associated with him in the management of the Caxton Press his assistant Richard Pynson, who had been one of Caxton’s apprentices. These printers made a large use in their volumes of engraved illustrations, the blocks for which were in great part imported from the Continent. Many of these engravings had evidently been prepared originally for Flemish or German books, and, having been purchased at second hand, were frequently introduced into English books, without any regard to their fitness in character, or to any relation to the text. They were apparently, in fact, utilised not as illustrations but simply as adornments. This practice of importing illustrations from the Continent and of scattering them miscellaneously through texts with which they have no relation, is not unknown among English publishers of the nineteenth century.

After the death of De Worde, Pynson continued the work of the Caxton Press with his own imprint. Among the more important of his earlier issues were the translation of Froissart, by Lord Berners, and his English version of the famous Navis Stultifera Mortalium, issued under the title of The Shyp of Folys. Up to the date of about 1490, the fonts used in the Caxton Press were purchased either in Bruges or in Cologne. In 1493, Pynson imported some French fonts, which probably came from Rouen. Lord Berners makes the “Book-fool,” the first described of the passengers of the Ship of Fools, to speak as follows:

“The fole” (whose modern name would, of course, be “bibliomaniac”) possesses his books, in short, for show, for the repute of having a library, and for their fine binding:

Pynson did not confine his list to books of satire or of amusement, although these formed by far the larger proportion of his publications. He continued the series of chronicles begun by Caxton. In 1516, he published the Chronicle Fabyan, in which Brute, of the regal family of Priam of Troy, is made the founder of the first colony in the British Isles. With hardly an exception, the books of both De Worde and Pynson were very fully illustrated. Their interest in illustrated texts had been formed in the environment of the Flemish school, the printers in which seem to have considered that a book without illustrations was hardly complete. It was of course also the case that the class of literature selected by the first group of the English printers was in its subject-matter much more available for illustration than were the classical texts or the controversial and theological treatises which were at this time absorbing so large a share of the attention of the printers in Paris, in Germany, and in Switzerland.

The first Bible published in England was Tyndale’s English version of the New Testament. This first issue, however, was printed, not in England, but in Cologne, at the Press of Quentell. Tyndale was by birth a Welshman. After studying in Oxford and in Cambridge, he sojourned in Antwerp, and in that city he completed, in the year 1525, with the assistance of John Fryth and Joseph Royes, his translation of the New Testament. The supplies of the book when forwarded to London were very promptly bought up; but as soon as the ecclesiastical authorities had an opportunity of examining the book, it was put under ban, and all copies that could be found were seized and destroyed. At the instance of the Roman Catholic party in England, Tyndale was, in 1536, arrested at Antwerp, under the authority of the Emperor Charles V., and after being imprisoned for eighteen months, was burned. A similar fate befell his assistants, Fryth having been burned at Smithfield, and Royes in Lisbon. It is not clear from the record at what time the translation by Tyndale of the Pentateuch was produced, but it appears not to have been printed until after Tyndale’s death. In 1535, a complete English Bible, comprising Tyndale’s version of the New Testament and the Pentateuch and a translation prepared by Coverdale and others, of the remaining books of the Old Testament, was printed on the Continent, the name of the printer not being given. Humphreys is in accord with Wanley in the belief that this Coverdale Bible was printed at Zurich by Christopher Froschauer. Coverdale utilised, as the basis of his portion of the translation, the German Bible of Luther, but makes references also to the Latin Vulgate.

Fortunately for the freedom of the English Press and for the spread of religious belief through the instruction of the Scriptures, it happened that, shortly after the completion of the Coverdale Bible, Henry VIII. wanted to marry Anne Boleyn. I need not here refer to the large results brought about in connection with this particular preference of the King. It is sufficient to point out that, with the close of the supremacy of the papal power in England, and with the addition of Great Britain to the list of the countries accepting the principles of the Reformation, the printing and distribution of the English version of the Scriptures became practicable. It would not be correct to say that from this date the printing-press in England was free, but it was the case that it became free for the production of the Protestant Scriptures and of other Protestant literature, while it was also the case that the censorship put in force by the authorities of the English Church never proved as severe, or as serious an obstruction to publishing, as had been the case with the ecclesiastical censorship of the Catholics.

The Coverdale Bible contains a series of graphic illustrations, the designs for which some of the historians have attributed to Holbein. The work was dedicated to King Henry VIII., and the dedication makes reference to his “just wyfe and vertouous prencesse Queene Anne.” In the later editions, the name of Anne is replaced in succession by those of the later queens.[63]

The Bible known as “Matthews’s” was published in London, in 1537, by Grafton. This appears to have been the first English Bible that was published under the authority of the State. A royal license or privilege for the publication was procured for it by Archbishop Cranmer, who had interested in the undertaking Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex. Humphreys speaks of Grafton, the English publisher, as having furnished five hundred pounds for the undertaking, the remaining portion of the cost being provided by Cranmer and Cromwell. The text was a combination of Tyndale’s and Coverdale’s. The type is from a German font, and the work was probably printed in Hesse.[64]

The first English Bible printed in England was the translation by John Hollybushe, which was issued in 1538 by John Nicholson, in Southwark. The great Cranmer Bible was printed between 1539 and 1541, by Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch. The funds for its publication were supplied by Cranmer and Cromwell, and the magnificent illustrations are ascribed to Holbein. This work is described as the finest specimen of typography and the best example of artistic and graphic illustrations that had as yet been published in England. The text contains a number of variations from that of Tyndale and Coverdale. The first edition bore on the title-page the arms of Cromwell, but in the second edition, printed in 1540, these arms were omitted, the Earl having perished on the scaffold in July, 1540. A separate edition of this Cranmer Bible was printed in 1539 by John Bydell, under the editorship of the Greek scholar Taverner. This publication constituted an infringement of the patent issued to Grafton, but no steps appear to have been taken for his protection. Grafton continued for some years to be the authorised publisher for the Reformed Church of England, and he published in 1549 the first authorised Prayer-Book of the Church.

Next to Grafton, the most eminent of the English printer-publishers of the sixteenth century, was John Day, who has been called the English Plantin. He greatly improved the Greek and the italic types, and was the first to make use of Saxon characters. His most important publication was The Acts and Monuments of the Church, by John Fox, commonly called Fox’s Book of Martyrs, issued in 1563. This work exercised probably a larger influence than any English book of the century in completing the conversion of England from Romanism to Protestantism, an influence which continued through the following centuries. John Fox was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and after the death of Queen Mary (during whose reign he had been an exile in Switzerland) he was made a prebendary in Salisbury. I do not find any record of his publishing arrangement with Day. The Book of Martyrs came into immediate and continued demand and ought to have brought to its author large returns. His interest in the undertaking was, however, evidently in connection with the fight against Rome, and it is quite probable that he made his literary labour a contribution to the cause of the Reformation. The book, which was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, was printed in excellent style, and the effectiveness of the long series of dramatic and tragic narratives was very much heightened by the graphic and well-executed illustrations. Its publication was evidently considered by the Protestant friends of Day to be the chief glory of his career. Over his tomb in the village of Bradley Parva, the following epitaph is inscribed:

The plan and compass of the present work will not permit any detailed account of the work of the English printers and publishers during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These centuries were periods of very great literary activity, and were rendered noteworthy by the production of some of the greatest works in the literature of the world. A list of authors which includes such names as those of Shakespeare, Spenser, Jonson, and Bacon, gives an indication of the importance as a lasting property of the books of the Elizabethan writers. The literary productiveness of England came, however, in advance of any system of law for the protection of literary producers, and it is probable that neither the writers above specified, nor any of their contemporaries, secured compensation from the sales of their books.

Miss Scott,[66] in her scholarly monograph on Elizabethan translations from the Italian, in referring to the large influence exercised by the literature of Italy upon the work of the writers of the Elizabethan age, says that she has “collected more than one hundred and sixty translations from the Italian, made by ninety translators. The translators include nearly every well-known Elizabethan author, except Shakespeare and Bacon.” Apart from the translations, it is evident that a very liberal use was made by English authors of the time, and especially by the dramatists, of Italian stories and other literary material which could be reshaped for the requirements of English readers. Italy seems in fact to have served as a kind of literary quarry for the authors of Elizabeth, very much as Greece had done for the writers of the Augustan age.

The taste for romances appears to have continued without abatement throughout the sixteenth century, the stories put into print being very largely translations or free adaptations of French and Italian tales. It was a period when Italian thought and Italian literary methods were beginning to exert a very large influence upon both writers and readers in England. Roger Ascham declaimed against the pernicious tendencies of the Italian literature in much the same language as has been used to-day against the influence of French books upon the morals of English readers. From Paynter’s Palace of Pleasure, printed in 1561, which contained a series of studies from French and Italian authors, were derived the plots of several of Shakespeare’s plays, including that of Romeo and Juliet.[67] Certain of these volumes secured what can be described as a popular success. The Goodli History of the Ladye Lucres of Scene in Tuskane and of her Lover Eurialus, a translation from the Æneas Piccolomini, went through twenty-three editions in the fifteenth century and was eight times translated.[68] I do not find record of the names of the fortunate publishers, but it is not probable that the publisher who arranged for the translation first issued, was able to keep his version from being appropriated by others.

Mr. Furnivall cites a curious list of books which, in 1575, were recorded as the property of a man of the lower-middle class, a mason by trade,—such a man, remarks Jusserand, as would have been an average member of a Shakespearian audience. The titles include Kyng Arthurz Book, Huon of Burdeaus, The Foour Suns of Aymion, Bevis of Hampton, Lucres and Eurialus, and a number of other illustrated romances.[69]

English readers of the time were not only interesting themselves in translations from the Italian, but were evidently to some extent prepared to read their Italian literature in the original. Among the books of which editions printed in Italian were issued in London in the latter part of the sixteenth century, was the Pastor Fido of Guarini, published in 1590.[70]

During the lifetime of Shakespeare, there were published of his no less than seventy-two separate original works, plays and poems, the first in date being Venus and Adonis, in 1593, and the last, The Rape of Lucrece, in 1616. A number of these volumes reached a third or fourth edition, and, notwithstanding the lack of adequate book-selling machinery, the sales of many of them appear to have been considerable. The authorities on the life of Shakespeare are, however, I believe, in substantial accord in the conclusion that the author secured from these sales no direct benefit, and that the independent fortune accumulated by him was derived from his pay as an actor, from the interest later possessed by him in the business of the theatre, and probably, also, from some recognition on the part of the performing companies of the author’s right to a share of the profits earned by his plays. Shakespeare apparently benefited by stage-right if not by copyright. The seventy-two publications above referred to include only those which, having been duly entered for copyright, may be described as “authorised.” There are various references to unauthorised editions, but no record of any one of these having been suppressed. The first issue of Venus and Adonis, printed by Richard Field, was certainly authorised, as it contained a dedication by the author. The copyright was registered in the name of Field, while the book was published by John Harrison. A diary of the time speaks of the selling price as being twelve pence.[71] Lucrece, published in its first edition in the year following, was, like the earlier book, dedicated by the author to the Earl of Southampton, and was likewise printed by Field for Harrison. We find from this time an increasing tendency to separate the business of printing from that of publishing, while the copyright entry is nearly always made in the name of the printer. The Comedy of Errors, printed in 1594, was entered as belonging to the Lord Chamberlain’s company, that to which Shakespeare was at the time attached. It was the case with other, though not with all, of the plays, that the copyright was vested in the company for which they had been written. The first publisher who secured copyright in a play of Shakespeare’s was Andrew White, who, in 1597, made entry of Richard the Second. Neither in this case nor in that of the long list of other printers and publishers who, during the lifetime of the author, “claimed copie” in Shakespeare’s writings, does it appear by what authority they undertook to control such “copie.” While there may possibly in the case of the plays have been assignments or authorisations on the part of the theatre company, there is, I understand, no record of, or specific reference to, any such assignments. The first collection of Shakespeare’s plays for which any measure of completeness was claimed, was presented in the well-known folio of 1623, the publication of which was supervised by Heminge and Condell, who had been fellow actors with the dramatist. It does not appear what compensation, if any, the two editors secured for their labours from printer or from publisher.

In order to find an instance of the payment of “copy money” for an original work, we must look forward sixty years later than the death of Shakespeare. The oft cited agreement between Milton and the printer Samuel Simmons, which was executed in April, 1667, is possibly the earliest of the kind in the history of publishing in England. Under this agreement, the copyright of Paradise Lost was assigned for a present payment of five pounds, with the obligation for a further payment of the same amount when 1300 copies had been sold. The agreement authorised the printing of a second and a third edition (no limit being fixed for the number of copies in either) on the payment, at the time of each printing, of the further sum of five pounds. The author received before his death ten pounds in all, and his widow later relinquished for the sum of eight pounds all further right in the “copy.” The first impression of the poem had not been sold at the expiration of seven years, and trivial as the honorarium to the author certainly was, it is probable, as Sir Walter Scott remarks, that the publisher did not make much by his bargain.

As an example of a more remunerative transaction, may be cited, among others, the arrangement between Dryden and the publisher Tonson for the poet’s translation of Virgil, an undertaking from which Dryden received nearly £1300. The date of the agreement was 1695, less than thirty years later than the date of the sale of Paradise Lost. We are now, however, approaching the period of copyright law, while it was the case that during the last years of the seventeenth century, the printer-publishers of the Stationers’ Company appear to have been sufficiently powerful, in advance of copyright statutes, to secure for their “copies” a substantial measure of protection, and thus to maintain the common-law property rights assigned to them by their authors.

The earliest catalogue of books published in England contains a list “of all books printed in England since the dreadful fire, 1666, to the end of Trinity term, 1680.” The statistical results of this catalogue of the productions of the press for fourteen years have been ascertained. The whole number of books printed was 3550; of which 947 belonged to divinity, 420 to law, 153 to physic; 397 were school-books. About one-half of these works were single sermons and tracts. Deducting the reprints, pamphlets, single sermons, and maps, it is estimated that, upon an average, 100 new books were produced in each year.[72] This average, which is based upon the estimate of Knight, does not, however, give an accurate impression of the actual production of each year,—the output of the later years of the series being much more considerable than of those immediately succeeding the fire.