Physical Description
Object description

Rubrication and decorated initials

Hand decoration

Binding description

Accompanying material
History
Image Gallery
Works Referred

 

Administration Information |

© Caxton and Beyond |

Back to A census of Incunabula |

 



 

Canterbury Tales: London, British Library, BL.167.c.26 = IB.55009

Summary:

Imp.

BMC XI p. 103

DeR(C) 22.1

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: Codex

Material: Paper (stocks 11-26)

Size: 271 mm x 189 mm (dimensions of all - size of leaves)

Foliation and/or Pagination: 'Copy for the present edition was apparently divided between the verse prologue to Melibeus and the prose Tale of Melibeus for concurrent composition and printing. Quire [K], containing the prologue, consists of 10 leaves instead of the regular 8, its final leaf a blank. The Tale of Melibeus proper then begins on the first leaf of a fresh quire [L]. This coincides with a division in the sequence of paper use. Quires [L-Z, aa] begin with a run of stock 15, and end with a mixture of stocks 17, 20, 23-25, in an approximate parallel of the paper stock sequence of quires [a-z, A-K] of the first part.' (BMC XI, 104)

Collation:

Imp. Lacking: sig. a-c (except 1 unidentified leaf from a table), sig. 1.1-7, 28.2, all after 49.1 (save 3 unidentified leaves). Unidentified leaves and sig. 28.1, imperfect and patched, with loss of text.

Condition:

'Without the blanks. Leaf [a]1 has been mutilated along the outer margin, and the text, which is affected only on the verso, supplied in pen-and-ink facsimile. Leaves [a]1-8, [I]1, and [aa]2-4 are hinged, and leaf [aa]5 inlaid'. (BMC XI, 104)

Rubrication and decorated initials:

Number of hands: 1

Summary: Rubricated throughout with small, neat intials. Double (and sometimes single) paragraph marks consistently mark the beginnings and ends of tales and prologues.

Hand: Initials
• Scope: throughout
fol. 2r
fol. 2v
fol. 3r
fol. 3v
fol. 4r
fol. 6v
fol. 14v
fol. 16v
fol. 38r
fol. 47r
fol. 48r
fol. 52r
fol. 54v
fol. 68v
fol. 77r
fol. 79v
fol. 97r
fol. 97v
fol. 109v
fol. 126v
fol. 130r
fol. 139r
fol. 152r
fol. 159v
fol. 169v
fol. 267r-1
fol. 267r-2
fol. 277r
fol. 325v
fol. 347v

Hand: Paraphs
• Scope: throughout
fol. 16v
fol. 54v
fol. 68v
fol. 77r
fol. 97r
fol. 97v
fol. 109v
fol. 130r
fol. 139r
fol. 152r
fol. 159v
fol. 169v
fol. 325v
fol. 347v
fol. 373r

Hand decoration:

Rubrication throughout.

Binding Description:

'Bound in 18th-century brown russia tooled in gold, an insect roll along the border and the arms of George III subsequently added in the centre [...]'. (BMC XI, 105)

Accompanying Material:

'Several items which were formerly bound in a copy of Chaucer’s Works printed by Thomas Godfray, 1532 (lot 2275 in J. West sale-catalogue, 29 March 1773) are now tipped in at the beginning of the volume as follows: (1) two letters, dated 21 and 29 April 1746, from Abraham Joseph Rudd of St. John’s College, Oxford, to Joseph Ames, giving bibliographical information concerning the volume in the library of that college containing Caxton’s editions of Chaucer’s Troylus and Creseyde (De Ricci 26: 1), the Canterbury Tales, second edition (De Ricci 23: 1) and Quattuor Sermones, first edition (De Ricci 85: 2, cf. Ames-Herbert, vol. 2, and about the volume Bone (1932); (2) an illuminated portrait of Chaucer, on vellum, apparently an 18th-century copy of an original otherwise unknown, but closely related to the portrait in British Library MS. Add. 5141, which itself derives from the Hoccleve portrait in Harl. 4866, fol. 91 (see Spielmann (1900), Plates I and III).' (BMC XI, 104)

History:

Provenance:
• H. T. (inscription 1556)
• Anthony Huggett (inscription, 17th century)
• ‘A scarce collection’, sold at Baker and Leigh, 29 April-4 May 1771, lot 1000, purchased by James West.
• James West (his sale, March 1773, lot 2274, G. Nicol for King George III).

Acquisition: King George III's copy. With the King’s Library press-mark 167.c.26.

Image Gallery:

Works referred:

BMC XI p. 103
DeR(C) 22.1
The British Library, Treasures in Full Caxton's Chaucer (http://www.bl.uk/treasures/caxton/homepage.html)

Administration Information:

Edited by Lauren MacDougall, 14/05/2015.

Images in 'Image Gallery' are supplied by Lotte Hellinga and scanned by Caroline Bardell and Jamil Teja on 30/01/14. Images in 'Rubrication and decorated initials' are quoted from the British Library's Treasures in Full Caxton's Chaucer (http://www.bl.uk/treasures/caxton/homepage.html), courtesy of the British Library.