A Century of the English Book Trade

This biographical dictionary gives a fascinating picture of the spread of printing in England up to the mid-sixteenth century.

Edward Gordon Duff (1863–1924) was a librarian and bibliographer specialising in the early history of the printed book. This biographical dictionary, first published in 1905, contains short accounts of the lives of printers, bookbinders and booksellers working in England up to 1557, and remains a standard reference work.Edward Gordon Duff (1863–1924) was a bibliographer and librarian with a particular interest in early printed books. He was librarian of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, from 1893 to 1900, and Sandars Reader in Bibliography at Cambridge in 1899, 1904 and 1911. Alongside research and writing he also did freelance cataloguing. Duff's work set new standards of accuracy in bibliography, which he considered a science. This 1905 work, published by the Bibliographical Society, contains short biographies of all the known participants in the English book trade from 1457 to 1557, whether printers, bookbinders, or stationers, organised in alphabetical sequence. It reveals that during the fifteenth century the majority of printers working in England were foreigners, but after 1500 English representation increased. Although Duff's list has been supplemented by more recent research, it remains a valuable work of reference, and sheds considerable light on the early English book trade.