Chronicles of England | [Here begynneth a shorte and a breue table on these cronycles], [ca. 1510], containing perhaps the first printed view of London

Chronicles of England

[Here begynneth a shorte and a breue table on these cronycles], [ca.1510]

Folio (256 x 187 mm), gothic type, text in 2 columns, 171pp. (only, of 188+), large woodcut on A1 (repaired and with manuscript title by James Stone of Oldland (see provenance)), printer's device on verso of 2C7 (cut with loss and partially supplied in ink), further in-text woodcuts, several sixteenth-century marginal annotations, eighteenth-century blindstamped calf, rebacked, lacks 2A1-6 (title, table and prologue) and all after 2c7, final page of confrontation provided in facsimile tipped-in, signatures a2 and a3 inserted between B3 and B4, some text cut and substituted for other passages on other pages, numerous repairs, joints starting, sold not subject to return

The incompleteness of the present volume has caused bibliographical confusion since the late seventeenth century. A manuscript title, added by "James Stone of Oldland" in 1684, asserts that it is the 1497 edition by Wynkyn de Worde. An eighteenth/early-nineteenth-century owner, Joseph Harford of Bristol, has instead identified it as "the Edition of the Fructus Temporum priunted by Richard Pynson AD 1510. See the Device at the End & Herberts Edition of Ame's History of Printing. Vol. I p. 256 JH." His son Charles Joseph Harford adds his own note: "I cannot find this agrees with this description, or Ames, or in them any Device at page 256 Vol 10. but at the end of the Book is a mutilated Colophon of Pynson, but I confess I cannot make it agree with the Book there described. CT Harford."

The present volume contains perhaps the first printed view of London (see second image).

PROVENANCE:

"James Stone of Oldland, 1684": ownership inscription; Joseph Harford of Bristol (c.1740s-1820s): bibliographical note to flyleaf; by descent to his son, Charles Joseph Harford (1764-1830), lawyer and antiquarian: bibliographical note to flyleaf; sold Bloomsbury Auctions, 16 November 2006, lot 300