William Caxton and Early Printing in England, by Lotte Hellinga

Abstract

This excellent and timely study offers a stimulating account of the formative period of English printing, from Caxton’s publication of the first book printed in the English language until the death in 1535 of Wynkyn de Worde, who had joined Richard Pynson in dominating the London book world following Caxton’s death in 1492. Although Lotte Hellinga draws on specialised bibliographical findings, including those that underlie her exemplary Volume 11 of the Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now in the British Library (2007), it is her goal to render this information accessible to the general reader. She succeeds admirably, even though specialists will profit equally well from her presentation of up-to-date research and analysis in this very informative book. Dr Hellinga situates the opening phase of printing in England within the continental context from which it emerged and on which it depended. In so doing, she establishes an essential point that ‘printing history is . . . inseparable from mercantile history’ (p. 10). Indeed, Caxton’s prosperity was essential to his capitalisation of the printing-house that he established in Westminster. He developed an unusual plan to set up an insular vernacular press after spending many years in the Low Countries and Rhineland. In the course of producing a few Latin books in Cologne, he had learned how to organise a printing enterprise, not as someone involved in the technology of production but as a publisher who oversaw and financed a complicated and risky business operation. Years spent in Bruges as Governor of the English Nation (that is, the community of English merchants) allowed him to familiarise himself with the importance of aristocratic patronage, the production of Burgundian illuminated manuscripts and printed books, and the reading habits of a socially stratified reading public.