Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham, A Testimonie of antiquitie, London: John Day, [1566?]. The second edition.

Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham, A Testimonie of antiquitie, London: John Day, [1566?]. The second edition.

At least two printed states prior to the first edition reveal how the work was produced. As the sheets were printed, they were carefully compared to the manuscripts, which had been marked up to make proofreading as easy as possible. The states prior to the first edition show a progressive shift in punctuation to the Anglo-Saxon usage, the introduction of new passages, and the reduction of printing errors. The editor, John Joscelyn, added letters and extracts during the proof stages that increased the work by one-half and must have caused Day, already coping with the problems of an unfamiliar language in a new type face, considerable difficulty. The second edition, illustrated here, is a further corrected version which was probably set immediately after the first. The Spencer copy was acquired from Bernard Quaritch in 1972; it once belonged to Maurice Johnson of Spalding (1688-1755), librarian of the Royal Society and eminent antiquary and bibliographer.

Clubb A1566.1