The Huth–Martin copy
7 JACOBUS DE VORAGINE; CAXTON, William (trans.)
Fifth and final Wynkyn de Worde edition. In its first printing, the Golden Legend was the largest and most elaborate production of the first printer in English, William Caxton. It is an English translation of Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea ( c .1267), a collection of legends for the feasts of saints (the Sanctorale) and other major days of the liturgical year (the Temporale). The Legenda aurea was one of the most popular and influential books in the later medieval Western world; it circulated widely, and was repeatedly translated into many vernacular languages. Caxton based his translation on the French version of Jean de Vignay, but he also used the Latin original and a previous English translation, the Gilte Legende , with some personal additions. In reworking the text, Caxton omitted some saints found in Voragine’s original, but also added many extra stories (many of them English or Irish) from manuscript sources. His version is unique in its sequence of Old Testament lives from Adam to Judith; in fact, this section of his text is little more than a transcription of the Bible, circumventing then current laws that prevented the publication of the Bible in English. Caxton’s successor Wynkyn de Worde first printed the work in 1493, at first omitting the stories from the Bible, and then complete in 1498, 1507, and 1521. After the English Reformation, no further edition was published in England until William Morris. Wynkyn’s 1527 edition is rarely found complete in commerce. Of the other eight copies that have appeared at auction since 1975, all had one or other of repairs affecting text, supplied leaves, facsimile work, or were outright defective.
Canterbury sparsely crossed out in ink at early date, rare minor marginal spot or thumb mark. A very good copy, still crisp and generally clean. ¶ Ames II 108; ESTC S111988; Lowndes VII 2795; STC 24880. Not in Pforzheimer. Provenance: Thomas Antrobus (his inscription; 24 August 1598); William Maskell (signature and bookplate); William Simonds Higgs (armorial bookplate); Henry Huth and his son Alfred Henry Huth (red morocco ticket gilt; Sotheby’s London, 8–11 July 1919, lot 7833); G. D. Smith; M.E.G. (initials on pull-off case); H. Bradley Martin (Sotheby’s New York, 1 May 1990, lot 3296); Howard Knohl (Sotheby’s New York, Selections From The Fox Pointe Manor Library, 26 October 2016, lot 303).
Thus endeth the legende, named in latyn Lege[n]da aurea that is to saye in englysshe the golden legende. London: printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 27 August 1527 £50,000 [ 159901 ] Folio (283 × 193 mm). Nineteenth-century diced calf gilt, turn-ins gilt, marbled endpapers, yellow edges; skilfully rebacked. Housed in a custom orange levant pull-off case gilt, by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, for J. W. Robinson Co., with the gilt monogram M.E.G. Black letter, double column. Full-page woodcut on A1 verso and 79 woodcuts in text, various sizes (some repeated) a few highlighted with a contemporary light purple wash, including the figures of the Virgin and the Pope in the full-page cut, Wynkyn de Worde’s woodcut printer’s device (McKerrow 49) within woodcut border incorporating Caxton’s initials (McKerrow 50) on verso of last. Light age yellowing, dark water-stain to outer edge of five leaves, A2 and following few leaves thumb-marked in lower outer corner, verso of last a little dusty, small hole in blank lower margin of A1, and in d3, between columns, just touching one letter, the life of Saint Thomas of
SIXTY FINE ITEMS
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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