The use of William Caxton's type 3 by John Lettou and William de Machlinia in the printing of their Yearbook 35 Henry VI, c.1481-1482

Abstract

• WILLIAM CAXTON'S Type 3, which was the second type used by him when setting up his business in Westminster in 1476, was a fresh casting of a sharply cut, well-aligned Gothic by Johan Veldener, a typographer then active in the Low Countries. It measures 135 mm over twenty lines. The typeface shows to good effect in Caxton's Boethius of c.1478, and was used as a bold face or headline type in his Cicero printed in 1481, where it was set in line with another Veldener type, a formal batarde Type 2:135B, cast on the same body. When we come to examine the use the two earliest printers in London, John Lettou and William de Machlinia, made of this same typeface a few years after its introduction by Caxton, and of other typefaces from the Caxton repertoire, a number of interesting questions arise.