The Mirroure of the World : Ms Bodley 283 (England c. 1470-1480) : The Physical Composition, Decoration and Illustration. With an Introduction by Kathleen L. Scott

Printed for the Roxburghe Club, Oxford, first edition, 1980. Two hundred copies were made available for sale. Cherry quarter morocco and boards, top edge gilt, large folio,. xiii, 68 pp, 21 leaves of facsimile (some heightened in gilt), [8] pp of plates. From the introduction: "The Roxburghe Club has decided to make available in a partial reproduction a little-known late Middle English manuscript that contains the illustrations of an outstanding pen artist associated with William Caxton in another manuscript. The Club's choice of MS Bodley 283 is a happy one, for the book is one of the most important examples of English production surviving from the second half of the fifteenth century. ..The object of my introduction is to describe the physical characteristics of the book; to explain its production in terms of contemporary English practice and, when necessary, continental production; to discuss the Caxton Master's style and the history of his illustrations; and to record new discoveries which concern the border illuminators and the Caxton Master. The entrepreneur who planned this book and organized materials and labour had available the finest illustrator of the period, two excellent border artists, and a patron willing to bear the cost of a large volume with pictures; and we shall see how their collaboration proceeded." From a contemporary review by Maurice Keen: "The feature that must most immediately strike one who opens this new volume is the very high standard of reproduction. If one lays this 1980 volume alongside the MS of the Mirroure from which the plates are taken (MS Bodley 283) the fidelity of the reproduction of the brown ink drawings of its illustrator, the Caxton Master, with their vivid realism, their delicately drawn draperies, and distinctive dense pen strokes for shading, is almost breathtaking.. This Roxburghe Club edition of the Mirroure of the Worlde offers, through its plates and through Dr Scott's perceptive and expert elucidations, a singularly vivid visual demonstration of influences at work on English MS book production in the age of Caxton. The Club's high standards and her scholarship, in combination, do justice to an original work of great interest and considerable beauty. Slightly faded around the head of the spine, otherwise Very Good.