Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> In 1476 William Caxton set up the first printing office in England in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. During the next eighty years presses were founded in a number of other towns including St Albans. Tavistock and Abingdon as well as in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. According to the Rev. Samuel Seyer. writing in the early nineteenth century a press was set up in Bristol Castle in 1546 and was ‘used dayly for the honour of God. Seyer’s evidence is not satisfactory and if there was such a press none of its works has survived. In 1557 the Stationers’ Company was incorporated in London and given a monopoly of printing with extensive powers of control. and this was strengthened by the grants of privileges or copyrights to individual members of the Company. State regulation was made even more strict by the Star Chamber decrees of 1566 and 15862. After 1586 provincial printings ended abruptly and apart from the two University presses no printing was allowed except in London and its suburbs. At that time there were 21 printers owning 53 presses and the Star Chamber decree forbade the establishment of any more. In 1615 by order of the Stationers’ Company the number of printers in London was limited to twenty-two and in 1637 the number was reduced to twenty. The regulations (LL)