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

Portrait of William Morris, _Frontispiece_

Portrait of Roger L'Estrange, _at p._ 203

Portrait of Caslon, " 239

Portrait of Baskerville, " 265

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Device of William Caxton.]

CHAPTER I

CAXTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

The art of printing had been known on the Continent for something over
twenty years, when William Caxton, a citizen and mercer of London,
introduced it into England.

Such facts as are known of the life of England's first printer are few
and simple. He tells us himself that he was born in the Weald of Kent,
and he was probably educated in his native village. When old enough, he
was apprenticed to a well-to-do London mercer, Robert Large, who carried
on business in the Old Jewry. This was in 1438, and in 1441 his master
died, leaving, among other legacies, a sum of twenty marks to William
Caxton.

In all probability Caxton, whose term of apprenticeship had not expired,
was transferred to some other master to serve the remainder of his term;
but all we know is that he shortly afterwards left England for the Low
Countries. In the prologue to the _Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye_
he tells us that,