h2g2 Literary Corner: How Cool Was Printing?
Created | Updated Feb 19, 2017
This month, the h2g2 Post Editor fulfills a personal promise [threat] to Guide Editor Bluebottle. Namely, to devote the month of February to a Literary Corner tribute to the literature connected to the Isle of Wight.
The Isle of Wight's literary connections are a fruitful source of inquiry, and we are grateful to Bluebottle for his Guide Entry and inspiration here.
This week, we pause to admire the work of Sir Anthony Woodville, patron of William Caxton and editor of Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers. It was a best-seller in 1477, so don't mock. Now, when you read this semi-facsimile preface, you may mock…
As usual, with the Editor's footnotes.
How Cool Was Printing?
FOUR hundred years ago, in the year 14771, a great marvel appeared in England, and many of her proudeft nobles and wealthieft citizens wended their way to the Almonry at Weftminfter, to fee the fmall wooden printing prefs which William Caxton had brought from Bruges and there fet up in a tenement called the "Red Pale," and to gaze in wonder at its almoft fupernatural productions.
The "Dictes and Wife Sayings2 of the Philofophers" was iffued as a firft-fruit of Caxton's prefs, and the caufes which led to its felection form a ftory not without much hiftorical intereft.
In the year 1 470 upon the reftoration of King Henry VI. to the throne of England, Edward IV. and his partifans fought refuge at the Court of his brother-in-law, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. William Caxton was then "Governor of the Englifh Nation abroad," or Merchant Adventurers, whofe head-quarters were at Bruges3, and he was therefore the moft influential among the many foreigners who refided in that city. There can be no doubt that during the few months which elapfed before Edward IV. regained the Englifh Crown Caxton had it in his power to render many important fervices to his expatriated countrymen, and thus laid the foundations of that friendfhip and patronage which in after years proved of fo much advantage to him, and which was in all probability a ftrong inducement to his adoption of a new vocation and fettlement at Weftminfter.
However this may have been, it is certain that Earl Rivers, the brother of Edward's Queen, Elizabeth, was among the earlieft to welcome and encourage Caxton. Good-will towards one who had always been a ftaunch adherent of the White Rofe, and perhaps alfo a little pardonable vanity in wishing to fee in print his own tranflation, may have led the Earl to patronife the infant prefs4. So it came to pafs that on the eighteenth day of November, 1 477, was completed the "Dictes and Sayings of the Philofophers," the book which is indifputably the firft iffued in this country bearing a diftinct indication of its date of printing, and the only fure ftarting-point in the hiftory
of Englifh Typography.
What grave incredulity would have feized the fagacious Earl and his fober printer5 had they been told that after the lapfe of four centuries their countrymen would be honouring their memories in connexion with that very work, and that a copy of it, however torn and
time-worn, would be thought the brighteft gem of which an Englifh library could boaft6! How would the printer have laughed to fcorn7 the idea that an art which would employ funbeams8 inftead of types – one almoft as ufeful and precious as his own – would one day be ufed to reproduce with minuteft accuracy this early work of the Englifh prefs, and that this volume would be deemed a fitting tribute to his memory.
The "Dictes and Sayings " were a kind of fober Joe Miller9 to our forefathers, who lived in times when the changes and chances of life made men much more grave and thoughtful than at the prefent day. Thefe worthies gleaned from its pages pleafant ftories and fmart repartees, wherewith to feafon their converfation, as well as words of wifdom upon the more ferious afpedcts and events of life.
Ed. Note: Wasn't that just the cutest thing? Want more? Of course you do, Bluebottle. Check it out here. Just don't blame us if you need your jaws unwired after.
Also, we note that personally, we prefer Caxton's font to the 1877 one. But then, we always argue about fonts with the h2g2 geeks, who are the champions of sans serif.
