Printer's & publishers' devices in England & Scotland, 1485-1640.

  • McKerrow, R. B. (Ronald Brunlees), 1872-1940.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Printer's & publishers' devices in England & Scotland, 1485-1640. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    rough classification of them, which, however imperfedt, will serve to give some idea of the subjedl as a whole. In the first place we have the large group of devices which represent or include the sign at which the printer or publisher worked. With some notable exceptions, such as those of Wynkyn de Worde and Pynson, most of the early devices are of this type. Several even of de Worde's fall within this class, or at least on the border line of it, inasmuch as they include his sign of the Sun, though with so many other objedts besides that it would be diffi- cult indeed to infer from them the name of his place of business. Of this class may be mentioned the Trinity devices of Jacobi and Pepwell (Nos. i6, 33, 34, 52), the Maiden's Head of Richard Faques (No. 31), and the Mermaid of Rastell (No. 37). Peter Treveris, who traded at the ' Wodows' or ' Woodwoses,' a kind of wild men of the woods, common in heraldry as ' supporters,' had a male and female figure covered with long hair and bearing bows and arrows (No. 60): Berthelet had the well-known figure of Lucrece (No. 80), which was also his sign: Wyer a cut of St. John the Evangelist (Nos. 67, 68, 70): the Coplands' devices included their sign of the Rose Garland (Nos. 71 and 73), and so on. In later times we find other examples of the same class, such as the Mermaid of Bynneman (Nos. 149, 155), the Star of Denham (Nos. 150, 211, 214), and the Lucrece of Thomas Purfoot (Nos. 151, 161, 173); but relatively they are far less numerous than during the first century of printing. The next class in importance consists of those devices which represent a rebus or pun upon the owner's name, such as those of Grafton, a tun with a graft or shoot growing in or through it. Most printers whose name happened to end in -ton seem to have used a device of this kind.^ Thus William Norton had a tun with the word ' Nor' on it, and a sweet-william growing out of it ' As did many who were not printers. Camden in his Remains, ed. 1870, p. 180, instances the rebuses of Morton, Luton, Thorneton and Ashton.