Читать книгу A Brief History of Printing in England. A Short History of Printing in England from Caxton to the Present Time онлайн

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Two notable instances of his literary honesty appear. After the publication of his first edition of Chaucer, an acquaintance came to him and called his attention to the fact that he had followed a very imperfect manuscript. His friend said that his father had a very fine manuscript and Caxton at once arranged for a loan of it. Finding that through following an imperfect text he had omitted many things from Chaucer’s text and inserted many others which did not belong there, he at once printed a correct edition, probably at very serious loss to himself. The unsold copies of the first edition became useless and the cost of a second edition was equal to the first, as the work had to be entirely done over again from the beginning. The other instance must be judged by the standards of his time rather than ours, but showed his desire to present only correct texts to his readers. Caxton published in 1483 a translation of John Mink’s “Liber Festivalis.” An independent translation was published at Oxford in 1487. A few years later Caxton published a second edition, but followed the Oxford text rather than his own earlier translation.