William Caxton — A Reader’s Guide

The Evidence of Types and Watermarks

Duff's primary method is typographical analysis. He assigns each book to a phase of Caxton's press by the typeface used, distinguishing 'Type 1' (the first, used at Bruges) from later founts cut in Westminster. The descriptions are precise: '39 lines to the page in two columns' for the Paris and Vienne, or the note that the Directorium Sacerdotum is 'a folio of 160 leaves, the first… most probably blank'.

Watermarks appear only occasionally, but when they do—as in the discussion of the Speculum Vitae Christi—Duff uses them to argue for dating or to identify variant editions. He never speculates beyond what the physical object shows. The pace here is methodical, almost forensic, as he builds a chronology from material clues.

Provenance and the Lives of Copies

Duff repeatedly interrupts his technical descriptions to tell the story of a particular surviving copy. The Royal Book copy that sold for £2,225 in 1902 is traced from Thomas Archer, parson of Houghton Conquest, to a church library, then to auction. The Directorium copy was stolen from Cambridge University Library around 1778, bought by William Bayntun, and eventually entered the King's Library. These narratives shift the pace from dry enumeration to something like a detective story.

Duff's voice becomes more animated when recounting these thefts and sales. He notes with dry disapproval that the Directorium 'should not rightly belong' to the British Museum. The effect is to remind the reader that every incunable has a history beyond its printing—a history of loss, recovery, and commercial value.

Illustrations as Evidence of Craft

Duff pays close attention to woodcuts, especially those in the Speculum Vitae Christi and the Mirrour of the World. He notes that the Speculum cuts are 'much more graceful in design and better in execution than any which preceded them', and attributes them to 'a new engraver'. He observes that Caxton did not use the full series of these cuts in any single edition—odd illustrations reappear in later books, suggesting a stock of blocks reused over time.

The Image of Pity woodcut, inserted as a singleton in the Directorium, is described in detail: 'a half-length figure of Our Lord with the hands crossed… the spear and the reed with the sponge'. Duff's language here becomes more visual and less technical, offering a rare moment of aesthetic appreciation before returning to the business of collation.

Duff's monograph rewards a patient reader. The density of bibliographical detail can be overwhelming, but the provenance anecdotes and the careful tracing of type evolution provide a concrete sense of how Caxton's press operated. Readers unfamiliar with incunabula may wish to keep a glossary of terms at hand; those already versed in book history will appreciate Duff's precision and his occasional dry wit. The book is best read not as a biography but as a working bibliography with a narrative thread.

Leafing through Duff’s careful catalogue of Caxton’s types, I felt that quiet reverence for objects that outlive their makers. It reminded me of another bibliographer’s devotion, the way Dorothy Porter built her own monuments out of patience and paper. That same sense of tending a fragile record, of making sure the names aren’t lost, lingers in The Negro in the United States; a selected bibliography. Compiled by Dorothy B. Porter — Story, Setting & Ideas.