george isaac frederick tupper, facsimilist, 'whose ability in this description of work is...

Cambridge Bibliographical Society

GEORGE ISAAC FREDERICK TUPPER, FACSIMILIST, 'WHOSE ABILITY IN THIS DESCRIPTION OFWORK IS BEYOND PRAISE' (1820?—1911)Author(s): ROBIN MYERSSource: Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1978), pp. 113-134Published by: Cambridge Bibliographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41148606 .

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GEORGE ISAAC FREDERICK TUPPER, FACSIMILIST, 'WHOSE ABILITY IN THIS DESCRIPTION OF WORK IS

BEYOND PRAISE' (1820? - 1911) ROBIN MYERS

Work on a Caxton quincentenary exhibition on the progress of Caxton studies at the St Bride Printing Library in 19761 led me, step by step, to George Tupper. William Blades, who with Henry Bradshaw was the centrepiece of that exhibition, mentions Tupper several times, in his various Caxton studies, as an outstanding facsimilist and also as discoverer of the two states of Caxton's type 2 and of the pin-holes in books printed in type 1 . This much was not new, having been known to Gordon Duff, to Seymour de Ricci, to Stanley Morison and to Caxton scholars at work today. What had been overlooked was Blades's mention of three Tuppers of varying City addresses in his preface to the Life and typography. It is a sufficiently uncommon name for it to be a reasonable supposition that they were related to each other, as they have proved to be. Neither had anyone set eyes on Tupper's notes which Blades acknowledged as the source of his own notes on Caxton's types in Volume II of the Life and typography and its later versions. It occurred to me that they would be worth the search. I started by looking G. I. F. Tupper up in the 1919 St Bride library catalogue; there they were, the manuscript notes bound up by Blades, waiting to be looked at. The rest followed on.2 4 1 have just seen the progress made with the facsimile illustration of No. 1 Type and am delighted with it,' William Blades wrote to Henry Bradshaw, 30 November, 1857. 'Given a paper similar in appearance to Caxton's and I would defy Old Caxton himself to have repudiated it as one of his own offspring . . . When my facsimiles are finished I shall take the liberty of sending down to you a proof impression.'3 On 10 September, 1860, he wrote about what was to be Plate XI of the Life and typography of William Caxton, volume II: 'I enclose the plate of No. 1 Alphabet. It does not shew ... the labour expended upon it, but to me it is at present my pet-plate of the series.'4 As a printer Blades was well able to appreciate the technical labour involved, and as an incunabulist, the amount of searching to find the best example of each character, and of each variant of each character, before the facsimilist G. I. F. Tupper could set to work on the tracing of the letters that would make up his alphabet plate. Shrewd also was the inference that pictorial and text pages would appeal to most readers more than these type specimens. Blades set out the problems that had to be overcome in order to produce really exact facsimiles in his preface to Volume I: 4 A few words on the Plates. Only those who have endeavoured to obtain a real facsimile, - one which, for identity of types and exactness of

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measurement will bear the closest examination by the side of the original, - know the excessive difficulty of procuring an Artist clever and patient enough to execute the tracing, and workmen skilful enough to print it, without clogging or some worse distortion. If an engraving on Wood be the medium chosen, the opportunities of error are numerous - first in tracing the tracing on to the face of the block, and then from the engraver's tool. On Copper the difficulties, though of the same nature, are still greater. Lithography affords the only means of obtaining a real facsimile, as there the transfer is direct from the original tracing on to the stone. This method, however, is liable to two sources of error - the stretching of the tracing paper while in the act of being transferred to the stone, and the gradual clogging of the letters in working, to avoid which requires the greatest care and attention. Both these difficulties have been successfully surmounted in those Plates described as "Facsimile", and the Reader may not only depend upon the accuracy of form, but may be sure that the width and depth of the page do not vary from the original, a result due to the care and ingenuity of Mr A. C. Tupper, Barge Yard, Bucklersbury. As no two copies of the same work are in all respects exactly alike, the particular book from which each plate is taken is noted. The peculiar treatment of Plates III and VIII necessitating the adoption of a raised surface, they were carefully engraved on wood [by Mr Edward Whimper]; and ... do not pretend to the niceties of a facsimile.'5

But plates, executed with whatever attention and skill in the tracing and proving, and printed by whatever process, vary from impression to impression. Blades, therefore, was careful to select an advance copy of Volume II for Bradshaw in the first week of March, 1 863, in which the plates were scrutinised to make sure that they were 'all very good impressions/ although this meant sending a copy that was 'slightly soiled on the outside.'6 The importance of presswork is demonstrated by a comparison of the plates of the Life and typography with those of the 1877 revision, a Biography and typography. Not only are there fewer plates, and those mostly but snippets of those in the original work, but also the quality of the machining does less than justice to 'the skilful hand of G. I. F. Tupper . . . whose ability in this description of work is beyond praise.'7 'I can only say,' Bradshaw wrote in his paper on the Image of pity Cut which he found in a Mathias van der Goes book at Cambridge, 'that the facsimile executed for me by Mr G. I. F. Tupper, gives a more faithful representation . . . than I could have believed possible.'8 Yet the impression of it to be found in most copies of Bradshaw' s Collected papers^ 1889, does not show Tupper's excellence as it ought.

Magnificent, on the other hand, are the special impressions of several Tupper facsimiles which Blades got pulled on oldish paper 'similar in appearance to Old CaxtonY and these reside, slim calf bound volumes, among Blades's personal collection at the St Bride Printing Library.9 Tupper was in the habit of signing his work with a distinctive monogram and dating it, sometimes in roman numerals, sometimes in arabic, next to the monogram, or below it or forming a neat pattern round it, as fancy

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Struck. He also varied the position of this cipher; it is usually to be found at the bottom right hand corner of the work, but occasionally in a pictorial plate, in the fold of a garment as in the Assembly of Saints plate, number thirty-eight. Blades's special copies lacked this microscopic proof of Tupper's handiwork penned in indián ink, and only a tell-tale smudge or faint shadow corresponding to the visible monogram of the book's plates, shows us where it had been.

Tupper has left us no such detailed account of his way of working as that given by John Harris in an earlier generation. Did he, for instance, use the transfer paper that had come into use some fifteen or twenty years before his time? 'Its use obviates the necessity of working backwards, as must be done on the stone. When a piece of writing, for example, is transferred face downwards to the stone, and the paper upon which it was written is removed, the back of it is then seen; and when this in turn is inked by the printer, and a piece of paper laid upon it and an impression taken, this impression shows the same appearance as the original piece of writing upon the transfer-paper.'10 Not that Tupper would have had much difficulty with working backwards, to judge from his comment on Bradshaw's Fifteen oes deduction: 'The set-off would be a very nice thing to amuse oneself with,' he wrote, 18 January, 1878; 'Practice in writing on stone has enabled me to read backwards writing just as well as forwards.'11

Although he did not describe his method of working, he did define his terms of reference and his aims in producing a facsimile. In his Notes on the peculiarities ofCaxton's types he explained that the characters in his alphabet plates did not always appear in sequence because fresh ones turned up after the work 'had advanced beyond their proper place. A second tracing might easily have set this right - but I could not be content to have possibly multiplied such errors as even the most careful tracing must possess.' There was a 'palpable appearance of carelessness between the types in the alphabets and those in the specimens using that type; this arises from the elaborate search that has been made for the most perfect specimen of each character, & which, when found has been imitated carefully without any attempt at perfecting even a broken line of a "mácele" in the printing ... If any one should Ever go over this ground again . . .' he concluded, he would advise 'as I at first intended, giving two representations of each character - one shewing the true face of the type - discarding the surplus ink round the edges - and the other an exact fac-simile of an average impression as it appears.'12

Most of Tupper's life we must suppose to have been spent in run-of-the- mill copying, and the facsimilying of incunabula was but a pleasurable sideline. In an earlier generation John Harris had at least scraped a living of some sort by making up copies of early books for the British Museum and noblemen's libraries, notably Earl Spencer's at Althorp. Perhaps times had changed, but at all events the Tupper business suffered badly during the five and a half years (1857-1863) that the two brothers, George and Alexander,

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were engaged on work for Blades's book, as the former explained in some embarrassment to Bradshaw.13

The British Library Aesop14 was 'purchased in 1844 to supply the place of that retained by George IV'15 and the wood-cut 'admirably supplied in facsimile by Mr Tupper' from the Windsor Castle copy equals any done by John Harris. It is on bull's head paper, which appears to Dr Hellinga to be fifteenth century, and but for the Tupper monogram and Blades's letter to Winter-Jones accompanying his gift of it, it would defy detection. The more Tupper worked on tracings of incunabula the more his fascination with early typography grew. He delayed having the transfer of Bradshaw' s Image of pity indulgence16 made, 25 November, 1863, 'that I might take my original tracing to the Museum to compare more accurately with Caxton's type 5 than I could afford time for whilst down with you, & the result of several hours careful examination is that whilst nearly all the letters in this resemble the corresponding ones in Type 5 too closely in form to admit of the supposition that they are distinct cuttings, there is a visible difference in their size . . . [which] might easily be accounted for ... by the paper not having been damped - on which the Image was taken & therefore not having shrunk after the impression, whilst the paper whereon the Books were printed was most probably damped & therefore did not shrink after printing.'17

George Frederick Tupper, senior, set up as lithographic 'writer' in Pope's Alley, Cornhill, in 1832.18 He had at least three sons and two daughters, George Isaac Frederick being the eldest. The family were, according to W. M. Rossetti, 'said to be 11th cousins' of Martin Farquhar Tupper of Proverbial philosophy fame. He was of Huguenot extraction but my delvings into Huguenot genealogy19 have failed to uncover any City or printing connections between the various Huguenot Tuppers and my lithographic Tuppers. I therefore doubt even this much relationship, despite one piece of tenuous circumstantial evidence; Martin Farquhar made several donations to the Printers' Pension Corporation during the 1 880s which points at least to an interest in the printing trade, if no proof of kinship with the G. F. Tuppers.

I do not know when the two eldest sons, George and Alexander, took over from their father. W. M. Rossetti writes, in 1901, of 'Messrs. Tupper and Sons, a firm of lithographic and general printers in the City',20 but the originai wrappers of The germ bear the imprint, 'G. F. Tupper, Printer, Clement's Lane, Lombard Street.' The two brothers ran the firm until their deaths within five months of each other in 191 1 , and the next year, 1912, the name of Tupper had disappeared from the Post Office Directory and the City Electoral Lists. I conclude that neither was very hard-headed or ambitious in business for, despite the length of years spent in the printing world, there is no mention of either of them or of their firm in trade journals of the period. It is wonderful that the firm survived at all if both brothers hated their work as much as George did, and were habitually as lackadaisical in sending out accounts for work done, as he was in the case of Bradshaw.

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'P.S., I hope/ he wrote, 23 May, 1868, enclosing an account made out at Christmas 1863 for the Image of pity job done the same November, 'you have not felt annoyed at not receiving the enclosed. The fact is - when made out in the usual course, I intercepted it, intending to Enclose it with a note, giving, as I hoped, some particulars of the Curious Indulgence to which it refers. My researches, however, proved unproductive . . . and the interesting document has lain in my desk ever since.'21 Items on the bill include two guineas for the day spent tracing the indulgence in Cambridge and seven and sixpence for transferring to the stone and proving. Their early business dealings seem to have been in the same uncommercial style, the other proof that they were at work as printers being the Pre-Raphaelite journal, The germ, four numbers, 1850. The youngest brother, John Lucas, got his lithographic brothers into his circle and it was agreed that they should have the job of printing this youthful contribution to literature and art history, now so famous as a statement of Pre-Raphaelite aims. George and Alexander even contributed two negligible pieces to it.22 After two numbers had had discouragingly small sales, it was touch and go whether the journal should fold then and there. But 'the printing firm - or Mr George I. F. Tupper as representing it - came forward, and undertook to try the chance of two numbers more,' W. M. Rossetti wrote. 'The title was altered (at Mr Alexander Tupper's suggestion) to "Art and Poetry, being Thoughts towards Nature, conducted Principally by Artists" ... I continued to be editor; but, as the money stake of myself and my colleagues in the publication had now ceased, I naturally accommodated myself more than before to any wish evinced by the Tupper family . . . All efforts proved useless. People would not buy "The germ" ... so the magazine breathed its last ... Its debts exceeded its assets' (by some £33) and 'what may have been the loss of Messrs. Tupper on Nos. 3 and 4 I am unable to say.'23

It cannot be that all their business affairs were thus conducted, for the firm must have provided an adequate living in its heyday, even though the three hundred pounds or so that each brother left at his death can hardly be considered a worthwhile legacy for extraordinarily long working lives, whatever today's equivalent might be. Yet George's spinster daughter Lilian Catherine may not have inherited much saleable goodwill from a firm run by a nonagenarian (George died at ninety-one) and an octogenarian (Alexander was eighty-six) though she had been left 'all my one half share of the business carried on by myself and my aforesaid brother in equal shares' even if the said brother had lived to do 'his utmost for the benefit of my said daughter in respect of the conduct of the said business or if necessary of its disposal or amalgamation.'24 George's only son, George William Robert, did not work in the firm.

The germ, like all journals in the past, was printed letter-press and the firm is listed in directories and rate books for the years 1850-1911 as 'Lithographic and General Printers'; yet this must have been a very minor part of the work if George, writing to Bradshaw on the Fifteen oes discovery, could say, 'I am not well up in Printing Office work, but I believe it to be no

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uncommon thing to see pages of type tied round to keep the types together waiting to be put into borders which contain other pages of type then in course of printing.'25 Indeed The germ's title pages are set within decorative borders in the manner here described. Significantly, too, Tupper's notes on Caxton's types are free of the technical terminology that falls from the lips of a practising printer, while Tupper expresses himself both in the Notes and in his letters on typographical subjects to Bradshaw in the language of the layman, exceptionally articulate, intelligent and observant. I conclude from this that the amount of general printing that the firm did was very small and that the bulk of work was on the lithographic side. I have argued elsewhere26 that the general post that the firms of G. F. Tupper and Blades, East and Blades played in the matter of premises during the 1880s shows a close association between the two firms. Much of Tupper's lithographic work might have been for security printing.

Alexander (1825?- 191 1) the younger of the partners, is the shadowiest of the three brothers. His short paragraph on 'Swift's dunces' in The germ is the only thing that we have from his pen and tells us nothing of his personality. He seems to have been a bachelor and in his later years shared a house with his brother George, then a widower, and his son and daughter, at 28 Parkhill, Clapham, then and still a secluded road nearly all, including number 28, now rebuilt. Alexander left his all - £313.4s.9d., mostly in North Navigation Collieries shares - to a widowed sister, Catherine Anne Lewis of Grays Inn Place. Since George disclaimed much knowledge of printing office procedure I presume Alexander to have been the brother with the technical expertise, capable of transferring his brother's tracing to the stone and of taking a proof without stretching the tracing paper or clogging the letters.

John Lucas (1826?- 1879) was the youngest of the three. He never worked in the family firm but trained as an artist and sculptor at the Royal Academy. It was at classes at the Academy that he met the young artists who formed the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Millais, Holman Hunt to whom he wrote a sonnet in 1850, Thomas Woolner the sculptor and the art critic F. G. Stephens, the latter two becoming his particular friends. The year after he entered the Academy, 1848, he met William Michael Rossetti and in 1869 the two of them went on holiday together in Florence. Just before they met, Tupper had 'shunted off into a special line of work, being installed as an anatomical draughtsman at Guy's . . . The tendency of his mind was as much scientific as artistic'27 Rossetti adds, a tactful way of telling the reader that his friend was not much of a creative artist. J. L. Tupper left Guy's in 1863 and went to Rugby where, two years later, he became the school's technical drawing master. He and Woolner had specialised in sculpture at the Academy and there is, in the Oxford Museum, a life size statue sculpted by Tupper, of Linnaeus 'as a young man, clad in skins suited for a traveller in semi-arctic regions; he is abstractedly contemplating a flower which he has plucked as a specimen.'28 He married in 1871 and had a son and a daughter, the former, called after his

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father, becoming a better known sculptor than John Lucas senior. His experience in teaching 'geometrical and scientific drawing' led to publication of a work of unreadable turgidity on art education, and as poetaster he contributed two poems to The germ. W. M. Rossetti published his complete poems posthumously with a biographical introduction. Pulled into Blades's Caxtonian orbit, J. L. Tupper drew the frontispiece portrait of Margaret of Burgundy 'in chalk' for the Life and typography. He was very likely, being a medical artist, better at figure drawing than his brother George. His one recorded comment on the Caxton subject is physiognomical rather than typographical. 'My artist,' Blades wrote to Bradshaw, 22 December 1860, of the portraits of Edward IV and Margaret of Burgundy which were both to be used as illustrations, 'says he perceives a strong likeness between brother and sister, which if correct will prove their genuineness.'29 He was witness at his eldest brother's marriage to Eliza Millachip at Steeple Aston in July 1868. The brothers shared literary and artistic tastes and had medical and Pre-Raphaelite friends in common.

'My books are the chattels which I most value,' George wrote in his will. His letters to Bradshaw show him to have been a more discerning and meticulous scholar than Blades was, for all that his output was so much less and none published. He was less hide-bound as well as being freer of verbal pomposities. In addition to being the firm's artist he seems to have been the accountant and as such felt himself quite out of his element. The only friends he made in the Trade were Blades, 'the only City man with whom I can be said to be on visiting terms',30 and the Cambridge printer, John Palmer, of 23 Jesus Lane, 'my good friend Palmer' with whom he shared a 'literary tendency'. His discontent with his life showed itself, to my mind, as far as such things can be judged at this distance of time, in a mild hypochondria, or at least a pre-occupation with health which association with the medical profession fed. There are constant references to ailments in his letters to Bradshaw. He would only come to Cambridge, 9 November 1863, 'if a severe cold which I now have will have sufficiently abated to allow me proper use of my eyes.'31 Three days later it 'unfortunately keeps me still very unfit for work, and I think, all things considered, it would be very unprofitable for me to come down next Saturday - not that I should mind the sweeping provided they did not make such a dust as to affect my ink working.'32 In 1870 he had a 'severe illness' which appears to have been partly nervous, in the 1880s he had 'a very severe attack of bronchitis' and finally his hand got the shakes which shows itself in his handwriting thereafter. His will, drawn up in his mid eighties when he can be supposed to have been suffering the uncomfortable rheumatic and other troubles of the aged, deepens my impression of a valetudinarian interest in his health. A man who lived to ninety-one could not, after all, have been very frail; despite the adage about creaking gates. His daughter had 'devoted her life to me and tenderly cared for me through many years of ill health so that my life has been, with all that belongs to it, virtually hers.'33 He and his doctor '(intimate since boyhood) were in the habit of discussing such matters,' he

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explained to Bradshaw in offering extraordinarily uninhibited advice on how the latter might cure his piles. 'Many years ago/ he wrote, 22 May, 1878, before launching into graphic detail, 'when my Brother was at Guy's Hospital he had a slight attack of haemorrhoids and treated them successfully with Nitric Acid. He mentioned it to Hilton and others of the Staff - since when I believe it has been much used. Very earnestly do I hope you may have no occasion to try this painful but, I fully believe, almost certain remedy.'34

But he also took practical steps to find a congenial way of earning a living and made several efforts to get out of the lithographic business. In 1870, on recovering from the 'severe illness', he and Bradshaw discussed the possibility of his employment in a gentleman's or nobleman's library. He had been persuaded, whether by his wife and family or friends we do not know, 'to make every effort to find some employment less destructive to my health than my present one,' he wrote to Bradshaw, 25 April 1871, 'with its long hours of close application' (to art work?) 'and intense anxiety' (over the firm's finances?) 'and I have already carried out my determination so far as to have made one application (unsuccessfully) for a Secretaryship. Hence, this may be the last time you may see me in my present . . . capacity. My sole reason for mentioning this to you is that however necessary I may know this change to be, you will be sure I feel some reluctance in cutting myself off for ever from the hope (now long deferred) of carrying out those Typographical investigations which I so successfully began, and which the opinion of yourself, and that of one or two whose opinion is worth anything in such matters, has led me to believe I am not wholly unfitted for - so that rather than do myself this violence I am anxious to obtain a Librarianship or some such post which would at once supply the opportunities I desire and the very moderate Emolument that could content me. Your acquaintance with existing Libraries and your position at Cambridge might possibly bring to your knowledge some vacancy that would be suitable to me.'35 At that point Bradshaw thought of Lord Lindsay's library for he 'really goes in for early printing . . and knows a great deal about it,'36 but this turned out to be a castle in Spain for, Tupper told him, 1 1 January 1 875, 'Lord Lindsay fits out a Transit expedition which costs probably more than it would to give as it were a picture of the origin and progress of Typography & wood engraving. I honour him for it but would not be sorry if someone had the other taste.'37

He considered that something in the medical world would be better than continuing in the Trade but in the event he failed there too, and died in lithographic harness forty years later. 'One who habitually receives payment for uncongenial work,' he told Bradshaw, 9 November 1863, 'is impressed with a feeling that money is a compensation for torture.'38 He never specified what he hated about his life in printing but there are constant references to his hatred of it. At one point (14 November 1873) he thought that his ability in drawing up balance sheets might qualify him for hospital administration: 'I intend to make a point of my knowledge (practical) of the best modes of showing statistics - which I think ought to enable me to

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facilitate the labours of the Distributing Committee by placing before them in the most comprehensible form (at coup d'oeil) a comparison of the works, means, needs etc of the various Hospitals. You may possibly remember having seen some table or charts of statistics arranged by me which will explain my meaning. I merely mention this to show that I hope to do some earnest work if I should even get such an appointment as this.'39

Perhaps the secrecy in which he felt obliged to apply for jobs worked against his getting them, for he could not use as referees those who knew his professional capabilities best. Instead he had to make do with artists, in those days scorned for a bohemian lot, unworldly clergymen and scholars whose testimony may not have counted for much. 'Many Secretaries and Managers with whom I am acquainted in business would, of course, be able to testify to my business acquirements and their opinion ought to have weight, but I dare not mention the subject to them because of the ill effect their knowledge of my contemplating getting out of the business would have - in the event of my failure.' I do not know whether his father-in-law, a clerk in the Bank of England, was in his confidence. 'Even Blades (whose position in the City now gives him considerable influence . . .) must not know it for the selfsame reason. Hence my testimonials will have to come from Holman Hunt, Rossetti, Woolner, several clergy, Medical Men etc and if I could add one from you I am sure it would have weight . . .'40

His depression at finding himself thus stuck must have deepened when his wife died towards the end of the 1870s after a few years of marriage, and about the same time his brother John at what was, for that family, the youthful age of fifty-two. In these circumstances his typographical researches were both a consolation and a reminder of the passing years as he struggled to fit them into the interstices of a fraught working life, for he seems to have lacked Blades's commercial flair and to have been, like Bradshaw, held back by self-doubt. 'My typographical researches have been almost wholly suspended since I saw you,' he told Bradshaw in commenting on Lord Lindsay's transit expedition, '& I now quite . . . despair of carrying out my scheme. Each unproductive year counts as two years won; & moreover, I do not see that I am one whit nearer the possibility of devoting my time to the subject than I was years ago - One thing is clear - viz. nobody who can afford the luxury cares about the subject.'41 Bradshaw's 'little tract' on the Fifteen oes had the power 'to re-kindle a spark of the old enthusiasm which I thought domestic affliction had quenched for ever,' he wrote on black-edged paper, 18 January 1878, but it frustrated him at the same time. 'I fear, however, that I have not been able to apply myself to the work with the old vigour or it may be that having to snatch moments from the urgent business that presses on me has not left me a fair chance of following you to your conclusions . . ,'42 The comments he then makes show him to be still perfectly on the ball.

The five and a half years in which he and his brother Alexander worked on Blades's book must have been among his most fulfilling, however detrimental to business. Most of the work on it was done in London or its

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environs. George was in and out of the British Museum so much at one time that he could speak of it with a proprietary 'we'. The Althorp books, including the Propositiojohannis Russell*1 were loaned to Blades, so Tupper could also work on them in leisurely tranquility. 1858 seems to have been his travelling year; he went to Oxford for the St John's College Cato44 to Ham House for the Governali presumably to Windsor for the Aesop,46 and to Cambridge for the Book of good manners47 and the Doctrinal of sapience 4% He made a further eleven tracings from British Museum books during that year, and sixteen the next. 1862 was his heaviest year, in which he did at least twenty-one tracings, but these cannot have been used for his Notes on the peculiarities of Caxton' s types, dated 1860 and 1861 by Tupper, and on the cover 'MS 1861' in Blades's writing after he had given them to Blades to make use of as he pleased. In all Tupper traced one hundred and six specimens of Caxton and other early printing, allowing each alphabet plate to count as only one each. These made up into fifty-five plates in the Life and typography. He had occasion to revisit Oxford in 1868 when he 'was gratified by the sight of your Caxton discoveries - the English Ars Moriendi49 & the Governayle.'50 In Cambridge there were not only 'glorious old things' to see and trace, but also three friends, an unnamed Fellow of Corpus who dined him in Hall, 25 November 1863,51 John Palmer the printer and, of course, Henry Bradshaw.

It is a fair assumption, without evidence to the contrary, that it was William Blades who first got Tupper to take an interest in Caxton and other incunable typography. We do not know how early in his career Blades started on Caxton but by the mid 1850s both he and the Tuppers were hard at it. I have spoken elsewhere of the use that Blades made of Tupper's Notes on Caxton 's types and of the acknowledgement he made to him for his astute discoveries of the two states of type 2 and of his observation of pin-holes in books printed in type 1 and nowhere else.52 Tupper's own views on Blades's slapdash way with proofs have only come to light since I first began work on Tupper.

'You say,' he wrote to Bradshaw, commenting on his Image of pity paper,53 11 June 1875, 'the text of the indulgence54 is not printed with moveable types. No doubt you are right - I have no notes of my own by me, but the very faint memory I have is on the same side, yet Blades, to whom I have just referred for another purpose, speaks of "the remains of a sentence in type for which the block was pierced." which means that said sentence was in moveable types - but I had no end of trouble with him on even worse things than this - not because he disagreed with me, but because he accidentally omitted my conclusions - all his proofs were taken in duplicate - he had one & I the other - & he was supposed to copy my corrections (if he accepted them) on his own for the press. It is but a renewal of grief to think of the sad omissions that were made.'55

Both Blades and Tupper, as they constantly told Bradshaw, got more and more occupied with non-bibliographical obligations as the years went by, principally those of keeping a business and a family afloat. That, as much as

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temperament, must account for many of Blades's bibliographical shortcomings, yet his energy, constantly refuelled by success and acclaim, still drove him on.56 Tupper's private life, left as he was with young children when he was in his fifties, cannot have run as smoothly as Blades's, nor was his business as prosperous. Blades was something of a pragmatisti Tupper was, like Bradshaw, a perfectionist even to the point of procrastination. What might he and Bradshaw have otherwise produced with Tupper's artistic skill and their combined intellectual powers? For they were birds of a feather in a way that neither really was with Blades.

As soon as Tupper's work for Blades was off hand, Bradshaw started with exciting propositions of his own which Tupper, even before his marriage and the birth of his children, felt bound to turn down. 'Injustice to others,' he wrote, 4 November 1863, 'whose interests I have to care for, if not for myself I feel bound to restrain my indulgence in these expensive luxuries. Happily you have no idea the torture a literary tendency is to a man who has to provide sufficient for the day.'57 'My case is this,' Bradshaw wrote temptingly next day, 'I want to get lithographic facsimiles of several things here which I cannot take up to London - My pocket will not of course allow me to do very much at one time; but I am most anxious to do what I can - and for this purpose I write to you as by far the most experienced facsimilist of such things known to me ... I should of course pay all your expenses - and that would be nothing very deadly - so please let me hear again ... If you intend designedly to give up all connexion with that branch of lithography, it is a different case - and I am only reduced to go elsewhere - but if it is only that you cannot afford to do a congenial work if it brings you no return, then it is for you to say so. So please write me one line.'58 Tupper wrote, by return, not just one line but a long letter explaining how awkward he felt at mentioning money at all and agreeing to come to Cambridge and trace Bradshaw's Image of pity. ,59

Some years later he made a facsimile of a 'Cisianus' calendar60 for Bradshaw, and in his long letter of comment (18 January 1878) on the Fifteen oes fragment he rgvealed that 'I finished the Fac-simile years ago & made copious notes, but have never got them into form. I must look up a Copy of the Fac-simile & send it to you - the notes, if you care to have them, must follow when I can make them understandable.'61 'The proof and your notes on the Cisianus I have certainly never seen,' Bradshaw told him four years later, 9 April 1882. 'I should have been most ungrateful never to have written about them and most foolish never to have made use of them during the last seven years, when I have been working so much at these primeval presses.'62 Two years later Tupper, looking through 'a volume of Ephemerides at the B.Museum' found another 'Cisioianus' calendar which is a good deal more elaborately decorated than the Cambridge one;63 'The type of the subject matter is a very trifle smaller than Caxton's no.4 & somewhat similar in character. If you write, perhaps you will kindly tell me whether you ever received my notes on the Pf ister Type with Tracing of the Alphabet,64 which I sent you in the far distant past. I trust you did, and that

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they may have been useful. Always sincerely yours.'65 Unhappily the notes have disappeared, nor do I know whether Bradshaw ever sent them back to Tupper. The strange thing is that the Cisianus fragment, which Bradshaw had presented to the University Library in 187066 was still in Tupper's possession when Bradshaw died in 1886 together with the facsimile. After two anxious Tupper letters to Professor Robertson Smith, the fragment and the facsimile found their final resting place in Cambridge.67

Bradshaw and Tupper were both intermittent, to say the least, correspondents, and when they did break silence, which was usually with an apology, they seemed to exhaust themselves by writing at length. 'I was not a little shocked the other day,' Tupper confessed, 25 April 1871, ťto find that just a year had elapsed since I must have led you to expect (what I then believed) that I should shortly be at Cambridge';68 while a typical Bradshavian opening, 2 October 1871, was 'You know my habits in letter writing, so I need say no more, except for the hundredth time that I am very sorry.'69 They wrote, between gaps, of projects begun and never finished, some no more than thought about, since they were always, for different reasons, pressed for time. Tupper wrote quite optimistically, 23 May 1868, 'as I am near the completion of my fac-simile of Caxton's "Curial",70 and think of accompanying it with a short monograph, you would greatly oblige me by letting me know whether, in the course of your researches, you have met with any other M.S. S of that work than those mentioned by Mr Blades . . .'71 But by 30 June Bradshaw was to believe that 'I fully sympathise with your want of opportunity when I tell you that my Curial has not progressed one jot since I wrote to you.'72 The last we hear of it is in the much quoted letter of 10 January 1878, 'My fac-simile of the Curial ... is finished but the Editorial work is again stopped. A few months ago, when business gave me some opportunity, I worked very hard at it - mainly to divert my mind - & did no inconsiderable amount of research & collation - but there is still much more to do & I do not care to print a half done task.'73

A third set of notes accompanied the letter of 23 May 1868. 'Do you know a little book by W. de Worde, called an "Almanacke for XII Yere"?'74 I enclose you my notes of it. It is a pretty little thing, and were the subject more interesting I might be inclined to re-produce it.'75 Tupper was, like Bradshaw, generous in sharing his ideas and in putting his work at the disposal of others. It is one of their most endearing traits, but we must regret that Bradshaw's carelessness deprives us of exceedingly valuable comment on early types, judging by the one piece of Tupper's to survive, that entrusted to Blades.

Bradshaw, for his part, sent Tupper copies of his publications, Memoranda numbers 3 and 576 and the paper on the Image of pity. Tupper's epistolary observations on them are detailed and penetrating. He established himself as independent and sharp-eyed when, in his Caxton notes, he pointed out the connection between the types of Van der Goes and Caxton, a connection which Blades chose to ignore in his Life and typography. 'A long while ago,' Tupper wrote to Bradshaw, 9 November

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1863, perhaps referring to these notes, 'I traced Types 2 & 3 to Van der Goes & now I believe I have traced them to Veldener - we ought to find all the other Types of Caxton among the foreign printers. No.l I am particularly anxious about. Keep Cologne in the field of your telescope . . . not that it seems to me to disturb the Colard Mansion theory one bit.'77 Three days later he had 'not time to say anything about Veldener & Van der Goes now - except that I am glad you agree with me that Veldener's is of the No. 2 family.'78 Is it possible these letters inspired Bradshaw's marginal comment against Blades's statement in Volume II: 'I cannot help thinking that he and Mansion owed much to Veldener.'?79

As early as 1870, before the advent of William Martin Conway in Bradshaw's life, Tupper and Bradshaw were exchanging epistolary thoughts on a history of fifteenth century book illustration. This is already known from Prodiero.80 Tupper, 25 April 1871, agreed with Bradshaw as to 'the investigation in which you are (and I would be) engaged being a true & important contribution to Art literature but I may not trust myself to enlarge upon this subject now.81 It would be delightful to see your admirable sketch of a systematic Analysis fully carried out - that, however, needs faithful copies of the various examples so as to bring them as it were face to face & thus get a fair comparison of both Art and Execution. Very much more might have been done in Blades's book in that respect, by a more judicious selection of Wood-cuts had not his self acknowledged appreciation of Art effectually barred my suggestions. No small amount of Art knowledge - Artistic as well as chronological - is needed fully to satisfy the subject.'82 'You are right in saying,' Bradshaw replied the next week, "'No small amount of Art Knowlege - artistic as well as chronological - is needed to satisfy the subject." I wish I had the Art knowledge which I have not. My only feeling is that it is necessary for somebody to do the chronological part, as a necessary basis for the artistic part to be built upon. I feel I can contribute to the chronological part, from the work which my position here has forced upon me; and so I am content to do my share conscientiously, in the hope that some one else will do his part with equal conscientiousness.'83

Nine years later Bradshaw found that 'some one' capable of doing and willing to do the artistic part. He trained one of his young proteges, William Martin Conway, in the Bradshavian method, and paid out of his own pocket for him to travel the Continent collecting data in great libraries there. This, Tupper, with his responsibilities, would never have been able to do. Moreover he and Bradshaw stood in another relationship to each other, both men in middle age with a name already made in their respective spheres, neither awed by the other while appreciating the qualities and skills of the other. A collaborative book by them would have been masterly but, for a variety of reasons, could never have been. But it is to be regretted that Conway's book84 could not have had the addition of fine Tupper facsimiles - these sparking off a set of illuminating notes on the cuts, seen with the

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artist's eye, to be put at the disposal of the author and then left for posterity to find lurking on the shelves of Cambridge University Library.85

NOTES

1 Caxtoniana, or the progress ofCaxton studies. . . 1976 (cited as Caxtoniana). 2 The present study is to some extent a sequel to: Robin Myers, William Blades s debt to

Henry Bradshaw and G. I. F. Tupper in his Caxton studies, 'The Library, 5th ser. vol. 33 no. 4 (1978) (cited as Blades's debt to HB. and GIFT.).

3 University Library, Cambridge (cited as ULC) Bradshaw correspondence; additional manuscripts 2591, fo. 22 (hereafter cited by Catalogue and folio number).

4 Add. 2591, fo. 60. 5 William Blades: Life and typography of William Caxton, 2 vols 1861-63 (cited as Life

and typography) I x. 6 Atid. 2592, fo. 180. 7 William Blades, Biography and typography of William Caxton, 1877 (cited as Biography

and typography) Preface. 8 Henry Bradshaw, 'On the earliest engravings of the indulgence known as the "Image of

Pity",' with a facsimile, Cambridge Antiquarian Society Communications, III (1867) 135 - 52. Reprinted in Collected Papers of Henry Bradshaw, 1889, (cited as 'Image of pity' paper).

9 i) For a list of these special copies see Appendix I. Dr Lotte Hellinga examined them for me and pronounced the paper to be early, though not contemporary with Caxvon.

ii) Caxtoniana pp. 13 - 14 describes some of the facsimiles in Blades's collection, includine some done bv Tupper.

10 W. D. Richmond, The grammar of lithography. A practical guide. 1 st ed. 1 878, pp. 6 and 7.

1 1 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 12 G. I. F. Tupper, Notes on the peculiarities ofCaxton s types, 1859-61 (cited as Notes or

Notes on Caxton's types) (MS St Bride 22508). 13 Add. 2591, fos 204 & 206, 4 & 6 November 1863. 14 Duff 4: De Ricci 4(1). 15 Life and typography 11 160. 16 Oates4112. 17 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 18 Michael Twyman, 'Directory of London lithographic printers 1800-1850 , Journal of

the Pùntine Historical Society 10 (1974/5). 19 W. C. L. Guérin, Our kin, genealogical sketches . . . of Hugenot families, 1 890; grangerised

copy in the Huguenot Library, University College, London. 20 W. M. Rossetti, introduction to facsimile reprint of The Germ, Elliot Stock, 1901 , p. 9. 21 Add. 2591, fo. 549. 22 Alexander Tupper, 'Swift's dunces', The Germ no. 2, 1850. 23 W. M. Rosetti, op. cit. 24 Will of G. I. F. Tupper, signed 6 April 1907; probate granted 19 February 1912. 25 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 26 Blades's debt to HB. and GIFT. 27 J. L. Tupper, Poems, selected and edited with an introduction by W. M. Rossetti. 28 Ibid. 29 Add. 2591, fo. 65. 30 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 31 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 32 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 33 Will, op. cit. 34 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 35 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence.

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36 Add. 2592, fo. 212, 27 April 1870. 37 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 38 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 39 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 40 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 41 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 42 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 43 De Ricci 90 (1): Duff 367. 44 De Ricci 15 (2): Duff 78. 45 De Ricci 47 (1): Duff 165: Goff G- 328. 46 De Ricci 4 (1): Duff 4. 47 De Ricci 65 (1): Duff 248. 48 De Ricci 40 (2) Duff 127: Goff D- 302. 49 De Ricci 5: Duff 33. 50 De Ricci 47 (2): Duff 165. 51 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 52 Blades's debt to HB. and GIFT. 53 Op. cit. n. 8 above. 54 De Ricci 50 1 : Duît 174. 55 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 56 Caxtoniana pp. 8-13 exemplifies some of the ways in which this energy shewed itself. 57 Add. 2591, fo. 204. 58 Add. 2591, fo. 205. 59 Add. 2591, fo. 206. 60 Cmanus zu dutsche; broadside by the printer ot the 36- line Bible, Mainz, given by

Bradshaw to ULC. 1870. Oates 18. 61 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 62 Add. 2592, fo. 702: at this date Bradshaw was urging W. M. Conway to work on the

woodcuts in early Netherlands books. 63 Cisioianus, Eyn dutz Kauender, Cologne 1486: BMC I 268, BL IC 4481. 64 The 36-line Bible, now identified as printed by Gutenberg of Mainz, was then believed

to have been printed by Pfister of Bamberg; see Appendix I. 65 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 66 The portfolio containing the Cisianus calendar (Oates 1 8) and the Tupper facsimile of it

is inscribed presented by Henry Bradshaw, M.A. Librarian, in 1870'. 67 Add. 2588, fòs 600 & 601: 26 April and 2 May 1887. 68 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 69 Add. 2591, fo. 293. 70 De Ricci 20 (1): Duff 84: Tupper had traced the last 8 lines and colophon for Blades in

1862: Life and typography plate 35(c) see Appendix II. 71 Add. 2591, fo. 549. 72 Add. 2591, fo. 579. 73 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 74 Wynkyn de Worde, Almanacke for XII yere, 1508: STC 387: BL C. 18. a. 24. 75 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 76 List of the founts of type and woodcut devices used by printers in Holland in the fifteenth

century, Memorandum no. 3, Cambridge, June 1871, & Notice of a fragment of the Fifteen Oes and other prayers printed at Westminster . . about 1490-91, preserved in the Library of the Baptist College, Bristol, Memorandum no. 5, Cambridge, November 1877. Reprinted in Collected Papers of Henry Bradshaw, 1889.

77 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 78 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence. 79 Life and typography I 52. 80 G. W. Prothero, Memoir of Henry Bradshaw, Cambridge, 1888, contains a facsimile of

Bradshaw's letter to Tupper, 6 May, 1870 (facing p. 360). 81 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence.

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82 Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence.January 1875. 83 Add. 2592, to. 214. 84 W. M. Conway, The wood-cutters of the Netherlands in the fifteenth century ' Cambridge,

1883. Unillustrated. 85 No research can get under way without help from those who are experts in fields

contiguous with one's own. The present study, above all, owes much to incunabulists, for I come to the fifteenth century via the nineteenth and soon find myself in unfamiliar places. Dr Lotte Hellinga, more than anyone else, guided me throughout as well as spurring me on by her infectious enthusiasm for what I was trying to do. Dr Dennis Rhodes also helped me with incunable information and shewed me some of the British Library copies of works that Tupper traced. David McKitterick at Cambridge was never too busy to find me boxes likely to contain Tupper treasures in the University Library. James Mosley at St Bride's scrutinised Tupper facsimiles with me, and let me photo-copy the famous notebook so that I could study it at home.

References: Unpublished Documents

(a) The University Library, Cambridge (cited as ULC): catalogued and miscellaneous correspondence between Henry Bradshaw, G. I. F. Tupper and William Blades. The catalogued correspondence is in ULC Additional Manuscripts 2591, 2592, 2588, and is dated (1863 - 87). References to the catalogued correspondence is by MS number and folio (e.g. Add. 2591, fo. 204). (b) Marriage lines of G. I. F. Tupper, copy 29 April 1977 of original 23 July 1868.

(c) Will, (copy) of G. I. F. Tupper, 6 April 1907 and probate (copy) 19 February 1912.

(d) Will (copy) of Alexander Cohen Tupper, 26 June 1911, and probate (copy) 24 August 1911.

(e) St Bride Printing Library (cited as St Bride's): G. I. F. Tupper, Notes on the peculiarities of Caxton's types, 1860-61. MS 22508.

(f ) University Library, Cambridge: Henry Bradshaw's annotated copy of William Blades, Life and typography of William Caxton, 2 vols. 1861-63 (Adv. b. 77.18-) (cited as Life and typography). (g) University Library, Cambridge: Mb Notebooks oí rtenry tfradsnaw, ¿y vois. (Add. mbb 4545_4573).

(h) Printers' Pension Corporation: lists of members and benefactors, 1863-88.

APPENDIX I: A census of facsimiles by G. I. F. Tupper including those no longer extant:

British Library (formerly British Museum Library) cited as BL John Rylands Library, Manchester cited as JRL St Bride Printing Library cited as St Brides's University Library, Cambridge cited as ULC

(1) 55 plates in William Blades: Life and typography of William Caxton, 2 vols, 1861-63: (cited below as Blades). These comprise 106 separate items and a vast number of tracings if we take into account the number of separate items needed for each of the 6 alphabet plates. 6 of the facsimiles of extracts were afterwards pulled on old paper and individually bound for Blades's private collection, now contained in the St Bride Printing Library, whose pressmarks are given in brackets. These, and 2 other separate impressions of facsimiles appearing in Blades, are numbers (a) to (f) below: -

(a) i) Signature djr, 'O gloriosa femina' with Image of pity cut from BL Horae I: De Ricci 50 (1), Duff 1 74: Blades plate 48 (b): Tupper monograms and dates erased (21132).

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ii) duplicate set (21133). iii) another, on modern paper, tipped in and bound with (b) iii below (3321).

(b) i) 2 leaves of Douce Horae I, Bodleian Library: De Ricci(2), Duff 174: Blades plate 26A: (21156).

ii) Duplicate, leaves bound in a different order: (21134). iii) another, on modern paper, bound in with (a) iii above: (3321).

(c) 1st leaf of BL Officium visitationis BVM: De Ricci 43 (1), Duff 148: Blades plate 36 (a): monogram erased: inscription on fly-leaf 'made for the exhibition at South Kensington' (i.e. the Quatercentenary celebration, 1877): (21187).

(d) i) 1st page of Ham House Governai: De Ricci 47 (1), Duff 165: Blades plate 53: signed 'GIFT 58': (21341).

ii) Another impression, also on old paper, as frontispiece to facsimile edition of Governai, edited by Blades, 1858: signed 'GIFT 58': (21237).

(e) Frontispiece woodcut, unique, of Windsor Aesop on Bull's head paper, making up BL copy: De Ricci 4 (Windsor, 1, BL, 2), Duff 4: Blades phte 24: signed 'GIFT 1858': given to BL by Blades, 1858.

(f) Woodcut of 'Assembly of saints' from BL copy of Golden legend I, used as frontispiece for Holbein Society edition, 1878: De Ricci 98 (2), Duff 408: Blades plate 38: monogram smudged and partially erased.

(2) (or 107) 'Image of pity' cut (Oates 4112) found by Bradshaw on blank verso of the last leaf of Colloquium peccatoris et crucifixi, Mathias van der Goes, Antwerp, 1487 (Oates 3948): reproduced in, On the earliest engravings of the indulgence known as the 'Image of pity', Cambridge Antiquarian Society Communications ; III (1867), 135 - 52: reprinted in Collected papers of Henry Bradshaw, 1889; no monogram.

(3) (or 108) Cisianus zu dutsche, broadside; Oates 18: given to ULC by Bradshaw, 1870 discussed by Tupper 1 December, 1884 (miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence): the handing over of the broadside and the facsimile were the subject of letters from Tupper to Robertson Smith, 26 April and 2 May 1887 (Add. 2588, fos 600 and 601): 'GIFT' n.d. Tupper also mentions three tracings in letters to Bradshaw.

(4) (or 109) BL, King's Library copy of Caxton, Curial, 6 leaves to accompany a short monograph: De Ricci 20 (1), Duff 84: Als 23 May 1868 (Add. 2591, fo. 549): the last 8 lines and colophon had formed plate 35 (c) in Life and typography.

(5) (or 110) BL, Wynkyn de Worde, Almanacke for XII yere, 1508: STC 387: BL C.18.a.24: Als 23 May,- 1868 (Add. 2591, fo. 549).

(6) (or 1 1 1 ) 'Pf ister' alphabet to accompany notes on 'Pfister' type: this was done from the BL 36-line Bible (C.9.d.5,6) formerly ascribed to Pfister of Bamberg, now identified as Gutenberg of Mainz. Bradshaw bought three leaves (22,51,56) of volume II for ULC in the Culemann sale of 1870: Oates 16; he used this, and probably Tupper's notes, for the paper he read to the Library Association, May 1 885, on Early Bibles (Prothero, Memoir of Henry Bradshaw, 1887, p. 305): Hain 3032. GKW 4042: Als 1 December 1884 (Miscellaneous Bradshaw correspondence).

APPENDIX II: Census of facsimile plates in William Blades: Life and Typography of William Caxton, and executed between 1858 and 1863:

The titles of Caxton's works vary from editor to editor; those used here follow G. D. Painter, William Caxton, a quincentenary biography, 1976. Other dates, as given by Painter, consist of place and year of printing; number of Caxton's type (up to 8, Blades having only recognised 6 and two states); signature and number of lines facsimiled; De Ricci, Duff numbers; for Bruges books BMC IX; for books now in American libraries which, in Blades's day, were in private hands, Goff; for ULC books, Oates; present location of Althorp copies; indication

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of Tupper monogram and date in the form it appears on the facsimile; corresponding plate number, if any, in William Blades, Biography and typography of William Caxton, ÌS77.

Volume I: (8 plates) Frontispiece: Margaret of Burgundy. Drawn in chalk and lithographed by John Lucas

Tupper [I860]: signed 'J. L. Tupper, lith.ad.orig.' Plate I: (a) Domus anglorum: 'GIFT' n.d.

(b) The old Jewry, where Caxton passed his apprenticeship; from Agga's map, 1440: 'GIFT 61'.

Plate II: Buonaccorso Montemagno, Débat des trois chevalereux princes, Bruges n.d.: Colard Mansion type 1: recto of first leaf, 22 lines of BL copy: BMC IX pp. 132-3, IB 49406: GIFT lx: 6 lines only used as Plate IV, Biography and typography, 1877.

Plate III: Boece, De la consolation de philosophie, Bruges, n.d. Colard Mansion type 1: leaf 44v, 25 lines of copy formerly in Public Library, Bruges, acquired by ULC, 1870: Oates 3304: GKW 4579: wood engraving by Edward Whimper, 'imitation' (Blades's term for quasi-facsimile).

Plate IV: Le livre de Vordre de chevallerie: MS written at Bruges for Edward IV: 22 lines with decorative initial from copy in Royal Library, BL: Royal MS 14.E.Ü: 'GIFT lxi'.

Plate V: (a) Le recueil des histoires de Troie, Bruges, [1475]: Caxton type l:42r, 10 lines of BL copy: De Ricci 3b, Duff 243, BMC IX IB 49410: 'GIFT' n.d. (b) The recuyell of the histories of Troy, Bruges [1475]: Caxton type I: Book II, recto of last leaf, 8 lines of King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 3 (3), Duff 242, BMC IX IB 49431: GIFT n.d. 5 lines of each work used for Plate III, Biography and typography, 1877.

Plate VI: (a) Méditations sur les sept psaumes penitentiaux, Bruges [1475]: Caxton type 1: first 11 and last 8 lines, Old Royal Library, BL côpy: De Ricci 3 (d), Duff 25, BMC DC IB 49408: each piece 'GIFT' n.d. (b) Histoire de Jason, Bruges [1476]: Caxton type 1: Last 10 lines of Eton College copy: De Ricci 3 (c), Duff 244: 'GIFT lix'.

Plate VII: (a) Propositiojohannis Russell, Westminster, [1477 or 1478]: Caxton type 2: first page, Althorp, JRL copy: De Ricci 90 (1), Duff 367: 'GIFT lix'. (b) Speculum animae Henrici de Hassia: Ulric Zeli type: last leaf verso of unspecified copy: 'GIFT lxi'.

Plate Vili: Cordiale, French version, Bruges, 1476: Caxton types 2*, 3: 5r of Old Royal Library, BL copy: De Ricci 2 (1), Duff 108, BMC IX IB 4937: wood engraving by E. Whimper, 'imitation*.

Volume II: (49 plates) Plate IX: Watermarks in Caxton's paper: transparencies traced by Tupper, idealised

versions not assignable to a Briquet number, each 'GIFT 63': (1) bull's head tau; (2) fleur-de-lis in shield surmounted by cross (3) letter P: (4) letter Y: (5) unicorn: (6) 3 fleurs-de-lis in shield (arms of France) (7) 2 bends in shield (Arms of Troye) (8) hand: (9) St Peter (10) double keys.

Plate IX A: early wood-cuts of the printing press: each 'GIFT' n.d., some very faint: (1) from B. L. Hegsippus, 1511 (BL 4515.f.) (2) from MS in Bagford collection (Harleian MS 5915 no. 202) (3) from BL copy of Von Menschen lere (BL 3906 d.9) (4) from MS in Bagford collection (Harleian MS 5915 no. 201) (5) from BL copy of Eygentliche Beschreibung, 1568 (BL 554.b.39) used as Plates VII, VIII, IX of Biography and typography, 1877.

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Plate IXB: Moral proverbs, Westminster, 1478: Caxton type 2: 2 examples of 12 lines of opening page of BL Grenville copy shewing effects of weak and strong ink: De Ricci 27 (3), Duff 95: 'imitation' taken from Blades's type facsimile, set in types cast in pewter.

Plate IXC: Scales shewing the relative sizes of Caxton types: 'GIFT 62'. Plate X: Caxton's device from Sir William Tite's copy, now in the Public Library,

New York, of Mirror of the world II, Westminster [1489]: Caxton type 6: De Ricci 95 (6), Duff 402, Goff M-884: 'GIFT 1858': Plate XVIII of the Biography and typography, 1877, is of a different, unspecified device.

Plate XI: The alphabet of type 1: 'GIFT' n.d. Plate XII: Recuyell of the histories of Troy, Bruges [1475]: Caxton type 1: 40r of BL

King's Library copy: De Ricci 3 (3), Duff 242, BMC DC pp. 129-30 IB 49431; GIFT lviii.

Plate XIII: The alphabet of type 2 and 2*: 'GIFT lx' Plate XIV: Canterbury tales I, Westminster [1478]: Caxton type 2: page shewing

Parson's tale, BL copy: De Ricci 22 (1), Duff 87: 'GIFT lix'. Plate XV: Mirror of the world I, Westminster, [1481]: Caxton type 2*: a5r from BL

copy: De Ricci 94 (2), Duff 402: 'GIFT' 58. Plate XVI: The alphabet of type 3: unsigned (but by Tupper). Plate XVII: (a) Boethius, Westminster [1487]: Caxton types 2, 3: 9 lines of BL

Grenville copy: De Ricci 8 (b), Duff 47: 'GIFT' (almost illegible), (b) Psalterium, Westminster [1483]: type 3: 16 lines of a5r, BL copy: De Ricci 84 (1), Duff 354: 'GIFT 1862' (almost illegible).

Plate XVIII: The alphabet of types 4 and 4*: 'GIFT 62'. Plate XIX: Pilgrimage of the soul, Westminster, 1483: Caxton type 4: first page of

BL copy: De Ricci 73 (1), Duff 267: 'GIFT lix'. Plate XX: Knight of the tower, Westminster, 1484: Caxton type 4*: first page of King's

Library, BL copy: De Ricci 63 (1), Duff 241: 'GIFT 58'. Plate XXI: The alphabet of type 5: 'GIFT' just visible. Plate XXII: Speculum vitae Christi II, Westminster [1490]: Caxton type 5: cjv of BL

copy: De Ricci 10 (4), Duff 49: 'GIFT' n.d. Plate XXIII: the alphabet of type 6: 'GIFT 62'. Plate XXIV: Eneydos, Westminster [1490]: Caxton type 6: b6v of BL Grenville copy:

De Ricci 96 (8), Duff 404: 'GIFT 62'. Plate XXV: (a) Diets of the philsophers I, Westminster, 1477: Caxton type 2: last five

lines of BL copy: De Ricci 36 (1), Duff 123: 'GIFT 62'. (b) Cordiale, Westminster, 1479: Caxton types 2*, 3: last page of BL copy: De Ricci 33 (1), Duff 109: 'GIFT 62'.

Plate XXVI: (a) Diets of the philosophers I, 2nd issue, Westminster, 1477: Caxton type 2: last 4 lines and unique colophon of JRL Althorp copy: De Ricci 37 (1), Duff 123a: GIFT lix. (b) Diets of the philosophers II, Westminster [1480]: Caxton type 2*: last 4 lines and colophon of BL copy: De Ricci 38 (1), Duff 124: 'GIFT lix'.

Plate XXVI A: Horae ad usum S arum I, Westminster [1477 or 1478]: Caxton type 2: 4 pages from Bodleian fragment of 8 leaves: De Ricci 50 (2), Duff 174: each page 'GIFT 62'.

Plate XXVII: Moral proverbs, Westminster, 1478: Caxton type 2: last page of Britwell (now Huntingdon Library, San Marino, California) copy: De Ricci 27 (3) Duff 95, Goff C-473: 'GIFT '59'.

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Plate XXVIII: (a) and (b): Cato I, Westminster [1483 or 1484]: Caxton types 2*, 4: first 4 lines and last 3 from ULC copy: De Ricci 13 (1), Duff 76, Oates 4066: each 'GIFT '58'. (c) Horse, sheep and goose I, Westminster [1476]: Caxton type 2: first 4 lines of ULC copy: De Ricci 69 (1), Duff 261, Oates 4061: 'GIFT '58'. (d) Horse, sheep and goose II, Westminster [1477 or 1478]: Caxton type 2: last 3 lines of ULC copy: De Ricci 70 (2), Duff 262, Oates 4069: 'GIFT '58'.

Plate XXIX: Cato III, Westminster [1482]: Caxton type 2*, 3: 2 cuts, (Grammar and Logic) from St John's College, Oxford copy: De Ricci 15 (2), Duff 78: each 'GIFT '58'.

Plate XXX: Mirror of the world I, Westminster [1481]: Caxton type 2*: a7v (the Creator) and c4v (Logic) from BL copy: De Ricci 94 (2), Duff 40: 'GIFT '58'.

Plate XXXI: (a) Reynard the fox I, Westminster [1481]: Caxton type 2*: last 12 lines of King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 87 (1); Duff 358: 'GIFT 1862' (very faint), (b) Of old age, of friendship, of nobility, Westminster, 1481: Caxton type 2*, 3: last 10 lines of King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 31 (3), Duff 103: 'GIFT 1862'.

Plate XXXII: (a) Chronicles of England I, Westminster, 1480: Caxton type 4: colophon of Lambeth copy: De Ricci 29 (4), Duff 97: 'GIFT' n.d. (b) Chronicles of England II, Westminster, 1482: Caxton type 4: colophon of King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 30 (1), Duff 98: 'GIFT' n.d. (c) Godfrey of Boloyne, Westminster, 1481: Caxton type 4: last page of King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 46 (4), Duff 164: 'GIFT lx'

Plate XXXIII: (a) Polychronicon, Westminster, 1482: Caxton type 4: aiiiv shewing mixture of long and short commas from Grenville, BL copy: De Ricci 49 (10), Duff 172: 'GIFT' illegible date. (b) Confessio amantis, Westminster, 1483: Caxton type 4, 4*: colophon of BL copy: De Ricci 48 (1), Duff 166: 'GIFT', illegible date.

Plate XXXIV: Aesop, Westminster, 1484: Caxton type 3, 4*: unique frontispiece of Windsor (George III) copy: De Ricci 4 (1), Duff 4: 'GIFT 1858'.

Plate XXXV: (a) F estiai I, Westminster, 1483: Caxton type 4*: last 5 lines and colophon of King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 79 (1), Duff 298: 'GIFT '62'. (b) Aesop, details as for XXXIV: last 13 lines of BL copy: De Ricci 4 (2), Duff 4: 'GIFT '62'. (c) Curial, Westminster [1483]: Caxton type 4*; last 8 lines and colophon of King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 20 (1), Duff 84: 'GIFT '62'.

Plate XXXVI: (a) Officium visitationis BVM, Westminster [1480]: Caxton type 3, 4: last page of unique BL copy: De Ricci 43 (1), Duff 148:'GIFT lx' (b) Order of chivalry, Westminster, 1484: Caxton type 3, 4: De Ricci 81 (1), Duff 58: 'GIFT lx'. used for Plate XIV of Biography and typography, 1877.

Plate XXXVII: Deathbed prayers, Westminster [1487 or 1488]: Caxton type 3, 4*: unique JRL Althorp copy of this 40 line broadside: De Ricci 34, Duff 1 12: 'GIFT lx': 2nd paragraph, 17 lines, used as Plate XI, Biography and typography, 1877.

Golden legend I, Westminster [1484]: Caxton type 3, 4*: woodcut of 'Assembly of saints' from King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 98 (2), Duff 408: 'GIFT' n.d.

Plate XXXIX: Golden legend I (details as for Plate XXXVIII): cuts of Nativity, a4v, and Passion, b6v, from King's Library, BL copy: each 'GIFT lix'.

Plate XL: (a) Golden legend I (details as for Plate XXXVIII): 3 lines from Iiiiv of Lilly the bookseller's cop (now in the Edward Laurence Doheny Memorial Library, St John's Seminary, Camarillo, California) shewing heading in

type 3. Goff J- 148 (31): 'GIFT 62'.

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(b) (c) (d) Golden legend II, Westminster 1487: Caxton type 4*, 5: BL copy: De Ricci 99 (1), Duff 409: (b) shewing same lines as (a) above: (c) woodcut of Noe,e7r: (d) colophon, kk5: all 'GIFT 62'.

Plate XLI: Book of fame, Westminster [1483]: Caxton type 4*: 31 lines, last page with 'Caxton' in margin, King's Lkbrary, BL copy: De Ricci 21 (1), Duff 86: 'GIFT '62'.

Plate XLII: Canterbury tales II, Westminster [1483]: Caxton type 2*, 4*: ciiijr, cut and part of Prologue, BL Grenville copy: De Ricci 23 (3), Duff 88: 'GIFT '62'.

Plate XLIII: (a) Morte d'Arthur, Westminster, 1485: Caxton type 4*: 15 lines of prologue of JRL Althorp copy: De Ricci 76 (2), Duff 283: 'GIFT lix'. (b) Charles the great, Westminster, 1485: Caxton type 4*: 18 lines of last page of epilogue from King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 19 (2), Duff 83: 'GIFTlx'. (c)Paris and Vienne, Westminster, 1485: Caxton type 4*: colophon, 16 lines, of unique BL Grenville copy: De Ricci 83 (1), Duff 337: 'GIFT lx.'

Plate XLIV: (a) Royal book, Westminster [1487]: Caxton type 5: last 16 lines of King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 89 (7), Duff 366: 'GIFT 62'. (b) Directorium sacerdotum I, Westminster [1488]: Caxton type 5: rlOv and last 6 lines of King's Library (formerly ULC) BL copy: De Ricci 77 (1), Duff 290: each 'GIFT '62'.

Plate XLV: Royal book (details as for XLIV): 4 cuts (a) borrowed from Golden legend, (b) (c) (d) borrowed from Speculum vitae Christi: each 'GIFT '62'.

Plate XLV I: (a) Book of good manners I, Westminster [1488]: Caxton type 2: colophon 10 lines, of ULC copy: De Ricci 65 (1), Duff 248, Oates 4103: 'GIFT '58'. (b) Doctrinal of sapience, Westminster [1489]: Caxton type 5: colophon, 13 lines, of ULC copy: De Ricci 40 (2), Duff 127, Oates 4106: 'GIFT 58'.

Plate XLV II: Speculum vitae Christi II, Westminster [1490]: Caxton type 5: 4 cuts, which are, according to Bradshaw (annotations in Life and typography II):- (a) a6r, the author, Bonaventura, presenting his book to the lady to whom it is dedicated: (b) diiv, the offering of the 3 Kings: (c) g8r, the supper at Simon's house: (d) I7v, the entry into Jerusalem: from King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 10 (4), Duff 49: each 'GIFT', (c) dated "62'.

Plate XLV III: (a) Speculum vitae Christi II (details as for XL VII): 4 small cuts; each 'GIFT' n.d.: used for Plate XV, Biography and typography, 1877. (b) Horae ad usum Sarum I, Westminster, [1477 or 1488]: Caxton type 2: one page of text and Image of pity cut from unique Pearson copy (now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York) on vellum: De Ricci 50, Duff 174, Goff H- 420: text 'GIFT 68' [63], cut, 'GIFT 63'.

Plate XLIX: Officium transfigurations Jesu Christi, Westminster [1490]: Caxton type 5: (a) first page shewing red printing and (b) last five lines of unique BL (formerly Congregational Library, Bloomfield Street) copy: De Ricci 42 (1), Duff 146: 'GIFT lix'.

Plate L: (a) F ay tes of arms, Westminster, 1489: Caxton type 6: 11 lines of Ajr of Grenville, BL copy: De Ricci 28 (4), Duff 96: 'GIFT' n.d. (b) Eneydos (details as XXIV): colophon, 6 lines, of BL Grenville copy: Fy 'GIFT' n.d.

copy: Fy

(c) Statutes 7, 3, 4, Henry VII, Westminster [1490]: c8v, 15 lines of BL Grenville copy: De Ricci 93 (2), Duff 380: 'GIFT '59*.

Plate LI: Directorium II, 2nd version, Westminster [1488]: Caxton type 4*, 6: (a) half of I8r and (b) last 6 lines of unique complete Bodleian copy: De Ricci 78 (1), Duff 292: 'GIFT', last piece dated *58' The first piece 'uses old type 4* for the very last time, but printed in black and red... by the correct two-pull technique ... black visibly printed over the red, as

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was the invariable rule in fifteenth century red printing and this shows correctly in Blades's own facsimile.' (Painter 163).

Plate LII: (a) Art to know well to die, Westminster, 1490: Caxton type 6: last 5 lines, Biii, and colophon of King's Library, BL copy: De Ricci 6 (1), Duff 35: 'GIFT' n.d. (b) Wynkyn de Worde, The chastising of God's children, Westminster, 1493: Caxton type 8, 6, De Worde 2, 3: Ajr. title page, 3 lines, and Ajv, 8 lines of BL copy: Duff 85: each piece 'GIFT' n.d.

Plate LII I: Governai of healthy Westminster [1491]: Caxton type 6: first page of Ham House copy (now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York): De Ricci 47 (1), Duff 165, Goff G- 328: 'GIFT 58': used as Plate XIII in Biography and typography, 1877, and for facsimile frontispiece of Blades's facsimile edition 1858.

Plate LIV: (z)Blanchardin and Eglantine, Westminster [1488]: Caxton type 6: 21 lines of Liiir of single leaf in Bagford collection: De Ricci 7 (2), Duff 45: 'GIFT lx' 'The only known existing copy is in the library of Earl Spencer' (now JRL)

' one leaf has also been preserved in the Bagford collections in the British Museum and from this our specimen has been obtained.' {Blades II 217). (b) Four sons of Ay mon, Westminster, 1488: Caxton type 6: last 6 lines of JRL Althorp copy: De Ricci 45 (1) Duff 152: 'GIFT lix'.

Plate LV: Mirror of the world II (details as for X): (a) portion of the prologue and (b) beginning of chapter II of W. Tite's copy, re-using a cut from the Speculum vitae Christi I: (Bradshaw annotations in Life & typography, op. cit.): De Ricci 95 (6), Duff 402, Goff M- 884: each 'GIFT '58'.

Plate LVI: Mirror of the world II (details as for LV): 2 woodcuts, the 3rd and 4th sciences, Grammar, and Arithmetic: 'GIFT '58'.

Plate LVI I: Fifteen oes, Westminster, 1491: Caxton type 8: frontispiece crucifixion from only complete, BL, copy: De Ricci 44 (1), Duff 150: 'GIFT' n.d.

Trans. Cambridge Bibliographical Soc. VII, 1978

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