This is not intended as a full bibliography on the topic discussed. Many of the books or articles to which we refer will lead you on to more specialist work in their fields.

On Caxton in general

Lotte Hellinga, William Caxton and early printing in England (London: British Library, 2010). ISBN 9780712350884

George Painter, William Caxton: A Quincentenary Biography of England’s First Printer (London: Chatto and Windus 1976). ISBN 070112198X

Lotte Hellinga, Caxton in Focus (London: The British Library, 1982). ISBN 0904654761

"William Caxton: An Exhibition to Commemorate the Quincentenary of the Introduction of Printing into England (London: The British Library, 1976). ISBN 0714103888

Caxton's books

Catalogue of books printed in the XVth century now in the British Library. Part XI, England. ('t Goy-Houten, 2007). ISBN 9789061943792

E. Gordon Duff, Fifteenth century English books : a bibliography .... Revised edition by Lotte Hellinga. (London, 2009). ISBN 9780712350723

On Caxton as a member of the Mercers' Company

A. Sutton, ‘Caxton was a Mercer: His Social Milieu and Friends’, in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1992 Harlaxton Symposium, edited by Nicholas Rogers (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1994), pp. 118-48. ISBN 1871615674

On Caxton’s stay in Cologne

J. G. Birch, ‘William Caxton’s Stay at Cologne’, The Library, 4th ser. 4 (1924) 48-52. ISSN 00242160

Horst Buzellos, ‘Köln und England 1468-1509’, Mitteilungen aus dem Stadtarchiv von Köln, 40 (1971), 431-67

Severin Corsten, Die Anfänge des Kölner Buchdrucks (Cologne, 1955)

Severin Corsten, ‘Caxton in Cologne’, Journal of the Printing Historical Society , 11 (1975/6), 1-18.

Paul Needham, ‘William Caxton and his Cologne Partners’, in Ars impressoria: Entstehung und Entwicklung des Buchdrucks Eine internationale Festgabe für Severin Corsten zum 65 Geburtstag, edited by Hans Limburg and others (Munich, 1986), pp. 103-31. ISBN 3598105878

On Caxton in the low countries

Lotte and Wytze Hellinga, ‘Caxton in the Low Countries’, Journal of the Printing Historical Society, 11 (1975/6), 19-32

Wytze and Lotte Hellinga, The Fifteenth-Century Printing Types of the Low Countries , 2 vols (Amsterdam, 1966)

Lotte Hellinga, ‘Caxton and the Bibliophiles’, Actes du onziéme congrès international de bibliophilie (Brussels, 1979), pp. 11-38

On Caxton and the introduction of printing to England

Lotte Hellinga, Caxton in Focus (London: The British Library, 1982). ISBN 0904654761

Lotte Hellinga, ‘Printing’ in History of the Book in Britain, Volume III, c.1400 to 1557, edited by L. Hellinga and J. B. Trapp (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 65-108. ISBN 0521573467

Howard Nixon, ‘Caxton, his Contemporaries and Successors in the Book Trade from Westminster Documents’, The Library, 5th ser. 31 (1976), 305-26

On Caxton and his readers and patrons

W. J. B. Crotch, The Prologues and Epilogues of William Caxton, (London, 1928)

Caxton's Own Prose, edited, with an introduction, by N. F. Blake (London, 1973). ISBN 0233964754

George Painter, William Caxton: A Quincentenary Biography of England’s First Printer (London, 1976). ISBN 070112198X

C. Meale, ‘Patrons, Buyers and Owners: Book Production and Social Status, in Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375-1475, edited by J. Griffiths and D. Pearsall (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 201-38. ISBN 0521257360

Lotte Hellinga,‘Reading an Engraving: William Caxton’s Dedication to Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy’, in Across the Narrow Seas: Studies in the History and Bibliography of Great Britain and the Low Countries Presented to Anna C. Simoni (London, 1991), pp. 1-15. ISBN 0712302603

On indulgences

Paul Needham, The Printer and the Pardoner (Washington DC, 1986).
Paul Needham writes about some specific fragments of indulgences printed by Caxton but places them in the wider framework of Caxton’s productions as well as in the context of the institutions who tried to raise money from indulgences.

On the cultural background for the sale of indulgences specifically in England see for instance:
Joel T. Rosenthal, The Purchase of Paradise: Gift Giving and the Aristocracy, 1307-1485 (London: Routledge & K. Paul, [1972]) ISBN 0710072627

On Caxton’s English

Norman Blake, Caxton and His World (London, 1969). ISBN 0233960937

Norman Blake, The Textual Tradition of the Canterbury Tales (London: Arnold, 1985). ISBN 0713164484

Norman Blake, ‘Caxton’s Second Edition of the Canterbury Tales’, in The English Medieval Book: Studies in Memory of Jeremy Griffiths, edited by A.S.G. Edwards, Vincent Gillespie and Ralph Hanna (London: The British Library, 2000), pp. 135-153. ISBN :0712346503

Lotte Hellinga, ‘Manuscripts in the Hands of Printers’, in Manuscripts in the Fifty Years after the Invention of Printing: Some Papers Read at a Colloquium at the Warburg Institute on 12-13 March 1982, edited by J. B. Trapp (London, 1983), pp. 3-11. ISBN 0854810617

On printing

An excellent introduction to the technique of printing is Philip Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). ISBN 0198181507

The earliest full explanation of how to print was produced by Joseph Moxon in 1683. It is still a highly readable and useful book. It also exists in several facsimile editions, most recently:
Joseph Moxon, Mechanick exercises on the whole art of printing (1683-4) edited by Herbert Davis & Harry Carter (New York: Dover Publications, 1978). ISBN 048623617X

On books becoming marketable merchandise see for instance John Flood ‘”Volentes sibi comparare infrascriptos libros impressos...”: Printed Books as a Commercial Commodity in the Fifteenth Century’ in Incunabula and Their Readers: Printing, Selling and Using Books in the Fifteenth Century, edited by Kristian Jensen (London: The British Library, 2003), 139-151. ISBN 071234769

A fascinating new theory of how Gutenberg made his type has been proposed by Paul Needham and Blaise Agüera y Arcas and has been published by Blaise Agüera y Arcas, ‘Temporary Matrices and Elemental Punches in Gutenberg’s DK Type’, in Incunabula and Their Readers: Printing, Selling and Using Books in the Fifteenth Century, edited by Kristian Jensen (London: The British Library, 2003), pp. 1-12. ISBN 071234769

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