The Invention of Printing. [ Second series of Sandars Lectures ]

Privately printed, 1897. Cloth, top edge gilt, small 4to,. xii, 175, [1] pp, 15 plates. From David McKitterick's "Readers in a Revolution": 'Charles Middleton-Wake..delivered four lectures on ‘The invention of printing’, a topic that had so much concerned Bradshaw. Whatever his qualifications as an art historian.. he was no historian of early typography, and he lacked any appropriate analytical skills..While Middleton-Wake was more than willing to deny even the existence of Coster, he was determined not to pronounce priority in favour of either Haarlem or Mainz. His conclusion, based largely on a reading of Hessels, was a confession of judicious ignorance.. Instead, he advanced the novel suggestion that the invention of printing (defined as printing with moveable types) should be attributed to the Brethren of the Common Life, perhaps more specifically at their house at Groenendael, near Brussels. His improbable suggestion did not take root. Presentation inscription on front free endpaper, covers scuffed and marked, corners bumped, spine-ends worn and chipped, small waterstain to upper margin of several leaves, contents otherwise Good with occasional minor marks.