Caxton's Romances and Their Early Tudor Readers

Abstract

In “Caxton’s Romances and Their Early Tudor Readers,”Yu-Chiao Wang considers the fifteenthand sixteenth-century reception of romances printed by England’s first printer, such as the Morte d’Arthur, Eneydos, and Recuyell of Troye. The physical evidence of particular copies, including annotation, suggests that the principal owners included merchant-class circles in London and Antwerp; provincial gentlewomen and Oxford clerics; and, on occasion, the Tudor court, although typically the hands of servants are present rather than annotation by the nobility. These discoveries shift the basis for investigating the early Tudor readership of medieval romance, the business success of the first English press, and the distribution of early printed books generally.  -   W.Harry Rylands,ed.,The Four Visitations of Berkshire, , , , – (London, ),.  William Page,ed.,The Victoria History of the County of Buckingham,  vols. (London, –),:.  On Caxton’s success and the failure of other contemporary printing ventures in England, see Blake, Caxton and English Literary Culture, –. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.243 on Thu, 06 Oct 2016 04:40:45 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms