The Image in Print : Book Illustration in Late Medieval England and Its Sources.

Driver, M.W. ; Watson, R. ; British Library.

ISBN 10: 0712348336 / ISBN 13: 9780712348331

Published by British Library, London, first edition, 2004, 2004

About this Item

Cloth, 8vo, 26 cm, xi, 302 pp, ills. From the blurb: "The invention of printing in the fifteenth century brought about profound changes in the making, readership, use and distribution of books. Their text design changed only slightly until black-letter type began to disappear with the introduction of roman and italic type. There was, however, an immediate and fundamental revolution in the nature and appearance of illustration: gone were the unique, colourful and often exquisite illuminations, drawings and decorations that had been supplied in manuscripts by hand. In their place, the early printers introduced woodcuts, printed in black (and sometimes red) alongside the type. Like type, woodcuts were movable, and they lent themselves to re-use from one book to another, passing from father to son, from husband to wife or from printer to printer. Woodcuts could be readily copied and thus may represent a number of characters or scenes. Images in popular printed volumes might appear repeatedly in a variety of contexts, sometimes over many years, used by a number of printers. Because of their multiple uses, woodcuts became, perhaps inadvertently, multivalenced and open-ended in meaning, used to illustrate popular stories and histories published over lengthy periods of time; on the other hand, woodcuts were used less randomly by early printers than has previously been asserted. Martha Driver here invites us to consider evidence for a new social history of book illustration as constructed from the study of the woodcut principally as it was used in books printed in England by Wynkyn de Worde and his successors. Her central focus is on the physical evidence provided by illustrations in incunabula and early-sixteenth-century printed books. Among the subjects under consideration are reading and the development of literacy, and the central role of woodcuts in that process. In addition to promoting the self-education of their readers, illustrated printed books acted as agents of religious, social, and political change as the Middle Ages closed and the Reformation tightened its grip on western Europe. Religious devotion, marriage, work, and everyday life feature in the arresting images that illustrate the text." Very Good in Very Good dustwrapper.

Seller Inventory # ABE-49991

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Image in Print : Book Illustration in Late Medieval England and Its Sources.
• Publisher: British Library, London, first edition, 2004
• Publication Date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0712348336
• ISBN 13: 9780712348331
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Book Arts & Illustration

About this title

Synopsis

Woodcuts are a unique resource in the study of late medieval and early modern books: they have much to tell us about how books were produced and for what purposes, about reading habits and developments in literacy, and about the part that books played in social, political, and religious change. The central focus of this volume is on the physical evidence - pictures and texts - provided by books produced during the pre- and early Reformation periods, ranging from the products of the earliest English printers such as William Caxton, Richard Pynson, and Wynkyn de Words, through woodcut images of holy women and black people, to books that were censored, defaced, and glossed by Protestant reformers.

About the Author

Martha W. Driver is a co-founder of the Early Book Society for the study of Manuscripts and Printing History as well as Distinguished Professor of English and Women's and Gender Studies at Pace University in New York.