Podcast appearances and mentions of William Caxton

The story of St George is a corker. Slays a dragon, saves of princess, survives dreadful torture. Where does it come from? A rather odd English translation by publisher William Caxton of the 13th C classic collection The Golden Legend captured the weirdness.

Jackie and Jen tackle the history of the holiday that, well, is more holy that holi...Questions/comments/concerns/recommendations? Email us at raginromantics@nopl.org!Books/primary sources we mention:Bede's MartyrologiumGolden Legend (Legenda Aurea) by Jacopo de VoragineThe Parliament of Fowls by Chaucer (trans. by Kline, 2007)Poem by Charles, Duke of OrleansHowland Valentine example (Mtholyoke.edu)The Wolf Den by Elodie HarperGammer Gurton's GarlandRomain de la poirePucking Around by Emily RathOut of the Woods by Hannah Bonam-YoungDeep End by Ali HazelwoodOther episodes:#82 Virginal myths#71 Chivalric loveSources:"The dark origins of Valentine's Day" (Seipel, 2022)"Sts. Marius, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum, Martyrs" ( Congregation Of The Sisters Of The Divine Redeemer, American Region, 2025)"Chapter 42 of the Golden Legend by Jacobus Voragine (1275), translated by William Caxton, 1483" (Christianiconography.info)"The Life of Claudius" (Historia Augusta, web, 2021)"What the mythical Cupid can teach us about the meaning of love and desire" (Christensen, 2022)"Amethyst" (huffmanjewelers.com)"The History of the Heart Shape" (Robinson, 2024)"Lupercalia" (history.com, 2024)"The Evolution of Valentine's Day" (Hohn, 2023)"The History & Mythology Of Amethyst" (Varianceobjects.com)"The Parlement of Foules" (britannica.com)"The First Valentine" (Petty, 2023)Esther Howland 1847 (MtHolyoke.edu, 2025)

In this episode, Greg Jenner is joined in 15th-century England by Dr Lydia Zeldenrust and comedian Robin Ince to learn all about the early history of book printing.2024 marks the 550th anniversary of the first book printed in English: a history of Troy, produced in 1474 by William Caxton. In the decades that followed, numerous printing shops would be set up across the country, and a huge variety of texts printed, including those that carried potentially dangerous ideas.Starting with the origins of printing in East Asia, this episode explores the first century of printing in England, looking at how books were produced and by whom, what sorts of texts were being printed, who was reading them, and how the state reacted to this new industry.This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Jon Norman Mason Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

In this episode, Greg Jenner is joined in 15th-Century England by Dr Lydia Zeldenrust and comedian Robin Ince to learn all about the early history of book printing. 2024 marks the 550th anniversary of the first book printed in English: a history of Troy, produced in 1474 by William Caxton. In the decades that followed, numerous printing shops would be set up across the country, and a huge variety of texts printed, including those that carried potentially dangerous ideas. Starting with the origins of printing in East Asia, this episode explores the first century of printing in England, looking at how books were produced and by whom, what sorts of texts were being printed, who was reading them, and how the state reacted to this new industry. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Jon Norman Mason Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

In this episode of the SCBWI Podcast, we are joined by Richard Jesse Watson!Port Townsend painter, illustrator, and sculptor, Richard Jesse Watson, has received numerous awards and several of his books were New York Times Bestsellers. His paintings hang in museums, corporate and private collections internationally. Watson is an accomplished artist and perpetual experimenter. He often breaks out of boxes in his quest for originality. "His work is a process of thinking: …to balance and nod to the extremes on either end of an idea.” Kristin Tollefson, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.“I love being in this zone coaxing dreams into reality or caressing reality back into a dream.”  Buy The Legend of Saint Christopher: From the Golden Legend, Englished by William Caxton, 1483 here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-legend-of-saint-christopher-from-the-golden-legend-englished-by-william-caxton-1483-margaret-hodges/12578003?ean=9780802853608and check out the rest of his art here:https://www.rjwatsonart.com/SCBWI on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scbwi/SCBWI on Twitter: https://twitter.com/scbwiBecome an SCBWI member today: https://www.scbwi.org/join-scbwi/Shop the SCBWI Bookshop.org page: https://bookshop.org/shop/SCBWISupport the show

Adam Smyth loves books - as well as being a Professor of English Literature he runs an experimental printing press from a cold barn in Oxfordshire. Who better then to tell us about the quirky pioneers of print, the subject of his new publication The Book-Makers? In this programme he takes us to 1490s London to tell the story of Wynken de Worde, a Dutch immigrant who came to work at William Caxton's press, the very first printing enterprise in England. A canny businessman, de Worde set about making all things printed into Early Modern must-haves.At the same time as books and printing took hold in England, a network of communications grew across Early Modern Europe. Dr Esther van Raamsdonk is an expert in Anglo-Dutch relations and the people, goods and ideas that moved back and forth across the North Sea at the time. We will learn how myriad changes they brought continue to shape our society and also about the many cheese-based jokes published about the low countries when relations soured.And Dr Elise Watson researches books and early modern Catholicism. She has stories to tell about crafty Dutch Catholic lay sisters running bookshops, establishing schools and outselling the guilds in Amsterdam with their book stalls and door-to-door peddling. What sort of influence did they have on Early Modern England?Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy

Plotter, kidnapper, smuggler and, oh there was something else.  What was it now? In the episode we mention finding out about the history of punctuation.  Here's a link to an episode of the very wonderful podcast History of the English Language.  https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2021/07/29/episode-150-a-capital-offense/

The Pew Research Center found in 2022 that nearly 25% of top-ranked podcasts were true crime-related. In the next set of episodes, host Nat Cardona speaks with Dianne Berg, college professor and author of What's behind our enduring fascination with wives and mothers who kill, to explore why this niche of true crime fascinates so many.  In this first episode, we discuss the history of the public's nearly-fanatical interest in mothers and wives who commit murder and why societies are particularly fascinated by these stories.  To learn more about Dianne Berg, click here.  Episode transcript Note: The following transcript was created by Slack and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically: Hey there, as a listener of this podcast, you must be at least somewhat into the whole true crime genre. But did you know that True Crime is the most common topic among top ranked podcasts? To be specific? The Pew Research Center reports that in 2022 almost a quarter of top podcasts are primarily about true crime. Welcome to Lee Enterprise's Late Edition Crime Beat Chronicles. I'm your host Nat Cardona. In the next two episodes, we're going to explore a very niche area of true crime stories. The obsession that fans seem to have with killer wives and mothers. But how does one even begin to tackle such a complex topic? Enter Dianne Berg. She's a professor at Clark University and the author of the article, what's behind our enduring fascination with wives and mothers who kill her? Research traces this phenomenon back to literature from the 15 hundreds and 16 hundreds with clearly printed details of the early fascination that people had with murderesses. And here's my interview with Dianne just to kick things off. Why don't you just tell me a little bit about yourself and your background and what you do? Nowadays. Ok. I, that's kind of hard to answer. I mean, where he, ok. Well, once upon a time before I decided to become an academic, I, was, the education program manager at a Museum of Medieval and Renaissance Arms and Armor, in Worcester, Massachusetts, called the Higgins Armory Museum, which is now sadly defunct. I left years before, it, it went out, sort of went out of business. But while I was there, I learned a great deal about, armor and, and weapons and warfare and medieval politics and things. I was always very interested in medieval renaissance, history and literature. But not so much that side of it. But it kind of opened up, a different window in, into these things for me doing that work. And when I left there, I realized that what I had enjoyed most about that job was researching and developing education programs. So, essentially, you know, going down research rabbit holes and writing things up. So I went and I got a master's degree and I did the master's degree basically to see if I wanted to get a phd. And after I had finished that, then I decided that I did indeed want to get a phd. So, my dissertation, my doctoral dissertation focused on kind of, literary representations of true crime between about 1550, 1650. And it was very interesting because the thing that jumped out at me when the project first started, the sort of germ of the project came about by accident when I was researching something completely different. And I came across this pamphlet about a woman named Margaret Vincent. And in 1616, she strangled two of her Children. She had 31 was away at the wet nurse and so was spared and she did so because she believed that she was saving them, she was saving them. She was taking them out of a sinful world. And her reason for this was that she wanted to convert to Roman Catholicism. And she thought if they didn't do that, then they were going to be damned. And her husband was not on board with that because basically being a Catholic was illegal was essentially illegal in early 17th century England. So she did this bad thing for what she believed were good reasons and this just rang a bell in my head because back in 2001, this woman named Andrea Yates in Texas who was an evangelical Christian. She strangled all five, she strangled and drowned all five of her Children. And like Margaret Vincent laid them out neatly on a bed and said afterwards that she had done so in order to save them. And so the, you know, this really kind of struck me and I wondered how many other cases where they're out there like this because we always hear about mothers who kill their Children as being, you know, evil monsters or, they want to get rid of the kids because they want to start a new relationship or, there's all these kinds of lurid stories that have been in the news just in the past 30 years or so. I think someone like Casey, Anthony. Right. But what about good mothers? Right. What about good mothers who do this terrible thing for what they believe at the time are good reasons. And then of course, we've just had this Lindsay Lacy case here in Massachusetts, which is unbelievably tragic and it is kind of still evolving in, in Andrea Yates case. Postpartum psychosis was at play in Lindsay Clancy's case. It certainly sounds as if postpartum psychosis was at play. We can't know what was going on with Margaret Vincent in 16 16, but she did have a new baby at the time. So, you know, I can't prove it. But I have, but I have my theories. So anyway, that particular story, stumbling upon that particular story was the kind of impetus for my doctoral work. And for most of the things that I've published since, and I'm actually about to teach a class focused on these, these kinds of stories and that leads us here today, which is why I'm talking with you. We had found that piece, the what's behind our enduring fascination with wives and mothers who kill because of all the things you said. It's just the, the women as the monsters and it's such a, there's so few and far between that. Yeah, it, people latch on to it and are fascinated by it. So we'll just kind of jump into, the piece that you've written today. Thank you for that all that back story leading us up to Margaret Vinson, Andrea Yates. And we'll get more into the modern day examples and parallels that you drew even with that Utah mother, which is how you started your article. But I kind of just want to jump into and maybe this is just me fan girling. But the the tolstoy quote that you popped in there, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way was a really good way to kick off. Why this could be a source of interest for a lot of people looking at, you know, other people and being like, oh, that's another family's problem and that, that can't happen here and we'll get into all of that. The first thing I wanna jump into is you mentioned how true crime is. Nothing new. It's always been a tale as old as time that people are fascinated with it and devour it in different ways. Nowadays, we've got the podcasts and the documentaries and novels and this and that. But from your background and the you know, 15, 50 16 50 that, that time range, it was not, obviously those things you mentioned, ballads, domestic tragedies and these penny pamphlets. Can you, like, explain what those are like? Like, what the hell are those? Yeah, it's really interesting. So, you know, there's no, news reporting in this period, right? Like what we would think of as, you know, news reporting. But news does get disseminated obviously. So, you know, if there's a big scandal, there is going to be ways for people to find out about it. So we're, it's very interesting because we're also kind of in the early days of print, right? The printing press arise in England in 14 75 William Caxton is the first guy to use the printing press in London in 14 75. And he starts printing, aside from obviously religious things, you know, we're gonna are gonna get kind of priority. He printed the Canterbury Tales and he, he printed Thomas Mallory's more Arthur. It sort of like gives us some sense of what people were interested in reading, right? So think about like, what were the first websites, right? Because you can really make the printing press analogous to the internet. Like, so what were the first things that started appearing on the internet? It tells us something about what people were interested back in those like embryonic. It, you know, information superhighway days. So by the middle of the 15 hundreds. You're getting more kind of political tracks being printed And starting to see chronicles. So basically, these are what pass for. They're not really news, they're kind of somewhere between like the encyclopedia Bria or something. There's several chronicles that are very famous and their names aren't, aren't really important for our conversation. But Rafael Hole and, and John Stow several others and they print these sort of big chronicles that are gonna give you the history of England, everything important that ever happened. And, and mostly they just talk about kings and queens and battles and the usual things you would expect. But this murder that happened in 15 51 which I write about in the article Thomas Arden, he was murdered on Valentine's Day 15 51 by his wife Alice and she conspired with her lover, a guy named Mosby, and some of some of their servants and a couple of hired killers. The whole thing is actually kind of slapstick when I teach this. When I teach the, the text that's based on the play Arden and my students are always like, I've had these murders compared to the wet Bandits in home alone, they're kind of incompetent. That was good. But but I can't get it out of my head. But anyway, so this is, these are just middle class bourgeois people living in a London suburb. And there's nothing important or famous or particularly interesting about them except the woman conspires to murder her husband. And this winds up in one of these chronicles, it winds up in Holland. It's chronicle amidst like, you know, Julius Caesar invading Britain and things like that. And the reason he included this seemingly ordinary and unimportant episode he says is because of the horribleness thereof because the idea of a wife killing her husband is so horrible, right? It goes against nature. It goes against the sort of political theology of the time it threatens order in the household. And in this period, there's this kind of analog framing of the household as like a miniature state, a little commonwealth. There's a long tract about it by Robert John Dodd and Robert Clever that comes out in the 15 hundreds. And essentially, it's kind of just saying that the household is just like a miniature kingdom and of course, who's at the top of the kingdom, right? The husband and the father, right? Everybody is subordinate just like the king is the head of the nation and God is the head of the universe. And this is the analogy. So if a wife kills her husband, it's it's a political crime, it's treason, it's like killing the king, right? So, whereas if a husband kills his wife, he's guilty of murder. And depending on his social class, he'll, he'll be hanged or maybe beheaded. If a wife kills her husband, she's gonna be burned because that's the penalty for treason. So this case gets way more attention than you would think it should merit and winds up in this chronicle and inspires a play called Arden of Fabric, which comes circa 15 90. We don't know the writer is unknown. And it also inspired at least one battle ballad that we know of that came out way later like 16 30 or something. Which Ventri likewise is Alan Alice Arden, just before she dies before she gets burned at the stake. And basically, she goes on for, I think 90 19 verses about how terrible she is and how sorry she is and how, what she did was really, really wrong and you should never tell. So there's all this kind of like rhetorical work that these kinds of cases serve beyond just saying, OK, this is a crime, this is what happened. These are the details. It's like, so what right. Going back to what you were saying about Tolstoy, right? It's like, how can this be used weaponized to kind of reinforce the status quo? And what's the word I want? Sissuade discourage people, other people from doing this kind of thing, right? Show them what the consequences are. Mhm Yeah. It's the, the true life scary story to keep people in line. Yes. Yeah. Yes, for sure. Ca a cautionary tale the cautionary tale. Yes. Yeah, we need to take a quick break. So don't go too far. Ok. So we're gonna toggle a little bit between current day and going back and it's going off of the things that you just mentioned. So this is probably pretty straightforward and most people especially like true crime junkies should know this. But statistically crimes committed, you know, whether it be a murder, a rape, a burglary kidnapping. it's typically by somebody, you know, and it's typically a man who does it and I mean, I devour these True Crime podcasts and you always hear whatever the case, it's like the husband always does it or the boyfriend and, and it's true and, and, and that's sad. But then it's like, ok, move on because it's time a dozen. So when you've done your right, it's just a Tuesday. Right. You know? Right. Right. Right. It's a 20, that's sad. And then it's like, so like when you've done your research in, in, on all your historical, you know, literature and all, whatever have you, my guess would be that you haven't seen men as portrayed in these cautionary tales as much as, you know, Margaret Vincent or Alice Arden that you mentioned. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, and it, I didn't really answer your question about the pamphlets and this ties into that. So, these pamphlets are basically cheap. I make them kind of analogous to, tabloid newspapers, you know, the things that you see at the supermarket checkout or, or online now, you know, with the kind of like the, the, the red thing in the UK, they call them red tops because they always have like a red headline. And, you know, it's like, oh, you know, demon mother murders, helpless angel Children, you know, that, that kind of stuff. And they, they're grabby and they're cheap and they're really disposable, right? You read that and then you line the cat box with it or something. And that's, these pamphlets were cheap like that. They were mass produced. you could buy it. They lured, they always featured these, like, really kind of, lurid woodcuts, showing, you know, somebody hacking someone's head off or strangling a baby or whatever. And the funny thing is that they're really kind of like early modern clip art. They reuse the images over and over again and just changed the headline, which I think is really funny. They're sort of like memes. Yeah. I'm no kidding. Yeah, they are. They're like memes. So anybody would look at this image even though it's been used like six different times for 66 different context. It's like, oh, well, that's like, oh, that's like, you know, somebody strangling their wife or something, you know, and it's just like, you know what this is gonna be about. So, yeah, I think, I wrote a lot about this. The way men, male perpetrators and female perpetrators are portrayed in these kinds of texts. So, yeah, the pamphlets for sure, because they've got this kind of, again, the rhetoric is so similar to what you see in these tabloids that it's funny, it's really kind of like overwrought really over the top, kind of hysterical. Do you remember Nancy Grace? She used to be on TV. She used to always follow, she'd be like, if somebody murders their kid, she's the one on TV. Like that kind of tone that like screaming outraged, but kind of like titillated. It's like, yeah. Oh, I'm, I'm like pointing the finger. These people are monsters, but I love it, you know, the tone is very, very, very similar. So when a man does this kind of stuff, he's definitely what he's done is wrong. So a man like kills his family or something, the portrayal of him is definitely, you know, the disapproving. But what he has done the, the sort of social crime he has committed is, is called petty tyranny because a man is supposed to be in charge, right? He's supposed to have all the power. But if he, it's, and it's ok for him to chastise his subordinates, right? Like it's his job to chastise his subordinates, you know, he should beat his Children. If they misbehave, he should chastise his wife if she's, if she's insubordinate, right? But he shouldn't kill them, right. He shouldn't beat them to the point of, you know, maiming them or seriously harming them and he certainly shouldn't kill them. So, when a man does these kinds of things, he has abused his power and that is very much disapproved of. But there's also kind of a whiff of, there's often kind of a whiff of, well, what made him do it, what drove him to it? Right. Does this sound at all familiar? You know, and I, I, ok, so it's, it's just funny that you brought this up because one of my notes that I I had mentioned is like going beyond like a guy who kills his wife. You know, Scott Peterson comes to mind with Lacey Peterson and then Chris Watts, the family annihilator, right? With his pregnant wife, right? And you see every time these, these stories hit the news, like, you know, I often, I often just sort of have news on when I'm cooking in my kitchen and these things come on and I'm just like, I've got like a wooden spoon in my hand and I'm like, he did it like I know he did it like, you know, he totally, he definitely did it. And I'm always right. Yeah. And it's just, it is. So, so those two names and everything that you just had mentioned, I had this inner dialogue yesterday when I was thinking about it because it goes back to the top, like, why are, why are you and I talking today the why do we care so much when it's a wife and, or mother as opposed to the, you know, we can be like, oh, you know, Chris Watson Scott Peterson, like those guys are terrible, nail rotten hell. But again, it goes back to when it's a woman, it's that monster. It's a evil. And then I kind of had this own thought dialogue. I'm a mother myself and I'm, I'm actually pregnant. So I'm gonna have a baby in four weeks. Thank you. So I'm kind of like, you know, going through all of these things and, you know, very much in the, you know, what makes me different from these other women who have done this historically or in more recent history. But the thing that comes to mind is there is just something so grabbing about when women do this because you carry the child for so long and you birth the child and it's so much more intimate than the father who's removed and can kind of clean his hands in the sense of when there is a murder, you can go, you know, and that's because he's not involved. So in the, in the natural process of pregnancy and birth. So, yeah, when there are these women historically or modern day that do this, it's like how, you know, you just sit there and go, how you know, how could this happen? And that's where we'll wrap up this week. Come back next week where Dianne and I discuss how society has evolved or remain the same as far as discussing women's wellness, postpartum ghost and how all of that contributes to violence committed by women.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the last decades of the fifteenth century, life in England was finally starting to settle down after years of upheaval and conflict during the Wars of the Roses which had riven society since the mid 1450s. Waves of Plague had decimated the population, causing widespread distress but providing unexpected opportunities for those who survived. The cultural and political landscape were ripe for change. This week's guest, the distinguished historian Nicholas Orme, takes us back to this time. He guides us back to 1480, a year he describes as being ‘on the cusp'. ‘It is not exactly a year of great achievement', he argues, but in England it was ‘a year of great promise.' Nicholas Orme is Emeritus Professor of History at Exeter University, he has written more than thirty books. Tudor Children, his latest, takes the reader from birth to adulthood through the themes of work, play, religion and education. For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com. Show notes Scene One: Westminster. William Caxton's shop, where he is selling books, 80% of them in English, including his printed edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales which helps to develop the 'King's English', based on the Midlands dialect. Scene Two: Oxford. William Waynflete is opening his new grammar school, Magdalen College School, which for the first time is going to teach classical, rather than medieval, Latin and bring England into the Renaissance. Scene Three. Bristol. William Worcester is measuring and describing the streets of the city: the first ever historical survey of an English town.  Memento: Second edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales published by William Caxton. People/Social Presenter: Violet Moller Guest: Nicholas Orme Production: Maria Nolan Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours Theme music: ‘Love Token' from the album ‘This Is Us' By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ See where 1480 fits on our Timeline

It was an enterprise that helped transform a marginalised language into a global powerhouse. Lydia Zeldenrust tells Spencer Mizen how, some 550 years ago, a middle-aged merchant called William Caxton did something that would change the course of literary history: he produced the first book ever printed in the English language. She also explores the challenges Caxton faced – from defying the hegemony of Latin and French to deciding which of England's many regional dialects to plump for – in order to go where no printer had gone before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"it would be like a miner finding the Star of India Sapphire"

They may be 450 years old but they're called 'baby books' – the oldest printed books are baby books!

The haunting drone of an air conditioning unit in an ancient corridor in the impressive John Rylands library in Manchester. The unit is designed to dry out the air to protect the ancient and valuable books, and the building itself, but adds a sinister edge to such a dark, almost Gothic space.  The library was commissioned in 1890 by his wife Enriqueta Rylands in memory of her late husband. This world class collection includes the oldest known piece of the New Testament, the St John Fragment. Other treasures of the vast, varied collection include magnificent illuminated medieval manuscripts and a 1476 William Caxton edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Episode: 2339 How women traded their distaffs for a new life.  Today, the distaff side.

We know that Edward IV had a rather large library of books. On this episode the wonderful Danie Burton joins us to discuss Edward IV's introduction to printed books, when the printing press was brought to England, and the man who brought it. Imagine a world where books had to be written by hand. While it guaranteed beautiful craftmanship it was not accessible to all. The printing press introduced a world to medieval England that many could not have imagined. Find Tudors Dynasty merchandise here: https://tudors-dynasty-podcast-merch.creator-spring.com/ Image of Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, three of their children and William Caxton - Painting Credits: Hosted by: Rebecca Larson Guest: Danie Burton - Twitter Website  Editing: Rebecca Larson Voice Over: David Black Music by: Ketsa, Alexander Nakarada, and Winnie the Moog via FilmMusic.io, used by EXTENDED license. Resources: TudorsDynasty.com TudorsDynastyPodcast.com YouTube.com/TudorsDynasty Patreon.com/TudorsDynasty

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://quiteaquote.in/2021/08/13/william-caxtonas-long-as-money-endureth/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/quiteaquote/message

Once upon a time, the right to copy text wasn't really necessary. If one had a book, one could copy the contents of the book by hiring scribes to labor away at the process and books were expensive. Then came the printing press. Now, the printer of a work would put a book out and another printer could set their press up to reproduce the same text. More people learned to read and information flowed from the presses at the fastest pace in history.  The printing press spread from Gutenberg's workshop in the 1440s throughout Germany and then to the rest of Europe and appearing in England when William Caxton built the first press there in 1476. It was a time of great change, causing England to retreat into protectionism, and Henry VIII tried to restrict what could be printed in the 1500s. But Parliament needed to legislate further.  England was first to establish copyright when Parliament passed the Licensing of the Press Act in 1662, which regulated what could be printed. This was more to prevent printing scandalous materials and basically gave a monopoly to The Stationers' Company to register, print, copy, and publish books. They could enter another printer and destroy their presses. That went on for a few decades until the act was allowed to lapse in 1694 but began the 350 year journey of refining what copyright and censorship means to a modern society.  The next big step came in England when the Statute of Anne was passed in 1710. It was named for the reigning last Queen of the House of Stuart. While previously a publisher could appeal to have a work censored by others because the publisher had created it, this statute took a page out of the patent laws and granted a right of protection against copying a work for 14 years. Reading through the law and further amendments it is clear that lawmakers were thinking far more deeply about the balance between protecting the license holder of a work and how to get more books to more people. They'd clearly become less protectionist and more concerned about a literate society.  There are examples in history of granting exclusive rights to an invention from the Greeks to the Romans to Papal Bulls. These granted land titles, various rights, or a status to people. Edward the Confessor started the process of establishing the Close Rolls in England in the 1050s, where a central copy of all those granted was kept. But they could also be used to grant a monopoly, with the first that's been found being granted by Edward III to John Kempe of Flanders as a means of helping the cloth industry in England to flourish.  Still, this wasn't exactly an exclusive right but instead a right to emigrate. And the letters were personal and so letters patent evolved to royal grants, which Queen Elizabeth was providing in the late 1500s. That emerged out of the need for patent laws proven by Venicians in the late 1400s, when they started granting exclusive rights by law to inventions for 10 years. King Henry II of France established a royal patent system in France and over time the French Academy of Sciences was put in charge of patent right review. English law evolved and perpetual patents granted by monarchs were stifling progress. Monarchs might grant patents to raise money and so allow a specific industry to turn into a monopoly to raise funds for the royal family. James I was forced to revoke the previous patents, but a system was needed. And so the patent system was more formalized and those for inventions got limited to 14 years when the Statue of Monopolies was passed in England in 1624. The evolution over the next few decades is when we started seeing drawings added to patent requests and sometimes even required. We saw forks in industries and so the addition of medical patents, and an explosion in various types of patents requested.  They weren't just in England. The mid-1600s saw the British Colonies issuing their own patents. Patent law was evolving outside of England as well. The French system was becoming larger with more discoveries. By 1729 there were digests of patents being printed in Paris and we still keep open listings of them so they're easily proven in court. Given the maturation of the Age of Enlightenment, that clashed with the financial protectionism of patent laws and intellectual property as a concept emerged but borrowed from the patent institutions bringing us right back to the Statute of Anne, which established the modern Copyright system. That and the Statue of Monopolies is where the British Empire established the modern copyright and patent systems respectively, which we use globally today. Apparently they were worth keeping throughout the Age of Revolution, mostly probably because they'd long been removed from the monarchal control and handed to various public institutions. The American Revolution came and went. The French Revolution came and went. The Latin American wars of independence, revolutions throughout the 1820s , the end of Feudalism, Napoleon. But the wars settled down and a world order of sorts came during the late 1800s. One aspect of that world order was the Berne Convention, which was signed in 1886. This  established the bilateral recognition of copyrights among sovereign nations that signed onto the treaty, rather than have various nations enter into pacts between one another. Now, the right to copy works were automatically in force at creation, so authors no longer had to register their mark in Berne Convention countries. Following the Age of Revolutions, there was also an explosion of inventions around the world. Some ended up putting copyrighted materials onto reproducible forms. Early data storage. Previously we could copyright sheet music but the introduction of the player piano led to the need to determine the copyright ability of piano rolls in White-Smith Music v. Apollo in 1908. Here we saw the US Supreme Court find that these were not copies as interpreted in the US Copyright Act because only a machine could read them and they basically told congress to change the law. So Congress did. The Copyright Act of 1909 then specified that even if only a machine can use information that's protected by copyright, the copyright protection remains. And so things sat for a hot minute as we learned first mechanical computing, which is patentable under the old rules and then electronic computing which was also patentable. Jacquard patented his punch cards in 1801. But by the time Babbage and Lovelace used them in his engines that patent had expired. And the first digital computer to get a patent was the Eckert-Mauchly ENIAC, which was filed in 1947, granted in 1964, and because there was a prior unpatented work, overturned in 1973. Dynamic RAM was patented in 1968. But these were for physical inventions. Software took a little longer to become a legitimate legal quandary. The time it took to reproduce punch cards and the lack of really mass produced software didn't become an issue until after the advent of transistorized computers with Whirlwind, the DEC PDP, and the IBM S/360. Inventions didn't need a lot of protections when they were complicated and it took years to build one. I doubt the inventor of the Antikythera Device in Ancient Greece thought to protect their intellectual property because they'd of likely been delighted if anyone else in the world would have thought to or been capable of creating what they created. Over time, the capabilities of others rises and our intellectual property becomes more valuable because progress moves faster with each generation. Those Venetians saw how technology and automation was changing the world and allowed the protection of inventions to provide a financial incentive to invent. Licensing the commercialization of inventions then allows us to begin the slow process of putting ideas on a commercialization assembly line.  Books didn't need copyright until they could be mass produced and were commercially viable. That came with mass production. A writer writes, or creates intellectual property and a publisher prints and distributes. Thus we put the commercialization of literature and thoughts and ideas on an assembly line. And we began doing so far before the Industrial Revolution.  Once there were more inventions and some became capable of mass producing the registered intellectual property of others, we saw a clash in copyrights and patents. And so we got the Copyright Act of 1909. But with digital computers we suddenly had software emerging as an entire industry. IBM had customized software for customers for decades but computer languages like FORTRAN and mass storage devices that could be moved between computers allowed software to be moved between computers and sometimes entire segments of business logic moved between companies based on that software. By the 1960s, companies were marketing computer programs as a cottage industry.  The first computer program was deposited at the US Copyright Office in 1961. It was a simple thing. A tape with a computer program that had been filed by North American Aviation. Imagine the examiners looking at it with their heads cocked to the side a bit. “What do we do with this?” They hadn't even figured it out when they got three more from General Dynamics and two more programs showed up from a student at Columbia Law.  A punched tape held a bunch of punched cards. A magnetic tape just held more punched tape that went faster. This was pretty much what those piano rolls from the 1909 law had on them. Registration was added for all five in 1964. And thus software copyright was born. But of course it wasn't just a metallic roll that had impressions for when a player piano struck a hammer. If someone found a roll on the ground, they could put it into another piano and hit play. But the likelihood that they could put reproduce the piano roll was low. The ability to reproduce punch cards had been there. But while it likely didn't take the same amount of time it took to reproduce a copy Plato's Republic before the advent of the printing press, the occurrences weren't frequent enough to encounter a likely need for adjudication. That changed with high speed punch devices and then the ability to copy magnetic tape. Contracts (which we might think of as EULAs today in a way) provided a license for a company to use software, but new questions were starting to form around who was bound to the contract and how protection was extended based on a number of factors. Thus the LA, or License Agreement part of EULA rather than just a contract when buying a piece of software.  And this brings us to the forming of the modern software legal system. That's almost a longer story than the written history we have of early intellectual property law, so we'll pick that up in the next episode of the podcast!

A companion to literature student

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 102, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Money, Money, Money 1: In 2004 a new version of this coin depicted the peace medal Lewis and Clark gave to Indians during their exploration. a nickel. 2: Iraq's 25-dinar note features Saddam Hussein on the front and this ancient city's Ishtar Gate on the back. Babylon. 3: This tiny country, whose capital is Vaduz, uses the Swiss franc as capital. Liechtenstein. 4: Seen here is one of these currency units from a country that's in the zone. the euro. 5: Indonesia's 500-rupiah note depicts this endangered rust-colored ape sitting in a tree. orangutan. Round 2. Category: See You In Court 1: Deaths in its Pinto made it the first U.S. corporation to face criminal charges over product design. Ford. 2: The government sued Frank Snepp over his 1977 book based on his years with this agency. CIA. 3: In 1977 the Supreme Court ruled that John Bates, in this profession, had the right to advertise low fees. lawyer/law. 4: Carol Burnett's suit against the National Enquirer for this hinged on whether the Enquirer was really a newspaper. libel. 5: Perhaps because no one could figure out what he'd been trying to do, Aaron Burr was acquitted of this in 1807. treason. Round 3. Category: A Few Good Men 1: In May 1883 this showman put on his first "Wild West Show". Buffalo Bill Cody. 2: In 2004 this Fijian set a record for pro golf winnings in one year, $10,905,166. (Vijay) Singh. 3: This man who partnered with Charlie McCarthy was the first president of the TV Academy. (Edgar) Bergen. 4: This pop artist created 1958's "Three Flags", a triple portrait of the American Flag. Jasper Johns. 5: Many of Geoffrey Chaucer's works were first printed around 1477 by this man, England's first printer. William Caxton. Round 4. Category: Noted Scribes 1: From 1903 to 1905, American author Winston Churchill served in the legislature of this "Granite State". New Hampshire. 2: Shortly after arriving in France in 1924, he completed "The Great Gatsby". F. Scott Fitzgerald. 3: This essayist wrote 3 children's stories, the last being "The Trumpet of the Swan" in 1970. E.B. White. 4: He's written plays based on his works, including "Dandelion Wine" and "Fahrenheit 451". Ray Bradbury. 5: While serving as an ambulance driver, he was injured at Fossalta di Piave, Italy on July 8, 1918. Ernest Hemingway. Round 5. Category: All The "Right" Moves 1: It's the correct 2-word prefix to the titles of earls and barons. Right Honourable. 2: Bring up a pop-up menu by doing it with your mouse. right-click. 3: 60-footer of the North Atlantic. a right whale. 4: Hillary Clinton once said a "vast" this had existed "against my husband since the day he announced for president". a right-wing conspiracy. 5: The text of the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment deals with this. the right to bear arms. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel got into lots of legal trouble in 1443, 1451, 1452, and might or might not have done the things he got accused of, but he did indeed enter into a plot, along with Richard Neville, to overthrow King Edward IV, for which he ended up in prison. Too bad for him! But lucky for us, because that's when he wrote The Hoole Book of Kyng Arthur and of His Noble Knyghtes of The Rounde Table, which got published, after his death, by William Caxton, which is why we know it. Caxton, by the way, made a bunch of editing decisions, one of which was to shorten the title to Le Morte d'Arthur . Your hosts explain lots of things -- Malory's legal troubles, where Le Morte d'Arthur fits into Arthurian literature, his feud with the Duke of Buckingham -- and some holy oil given to Becket by the Virgin Mary herself, and Dickens' connection to Marshalsea prison. It's all connected. Really.

In this BodCast from the Friends of the Bodleian, Professor Dame Marina Warner interviews Anne Louise Avery, writer and art historian, on the subject of Avery's recent book, Reynard the Fox https://bodleianshop.co.uk/products/reynard-the-fox Based on William Caxton's bestselling 1481 English translation of the Middle Dutch, but expanded with new interpretations, innovative language and characterisation, this edition is an imaginative retelling of the Reynard story. With its themes of protest, resistance and duplicity fronted by a personable, anti-heroic Fox making his way in a dangerous and cruel world, this gripping tale is as relevant and controversial today as it was in the fifteenth century. Reynard the Fox is available to purchase at [http://www.bodleianshop.co.uk

Poet Daljit Nagra and crime writer Val McDermid discuss capturing different forms of speech, a sense of place, and politics - in a conversation organised with the Royal Society of Literature and Durham Book Festival, and hosted by presenter Shahidha Bari. Plus, how the medieval fable of Reynard the Fox has lessons for us all today. As a new translation and retelling by Anne Louise Avery is published, she joins Shahidha to discuss the book with Noreen Masud - a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker from Durham University. Based on William Caxton's translation of the medieval Flemish folk tale, this is the story of a wily fox - a subversive, dashing, and anarchic character - summoned to the court of King Noble the Lion. But is he the character you want to emulate, or does Bruin the Bear offer us a better template? Reynard the Fox, a new version with illustrations, is published by the Bodleian Library, and is translated and retold by Anne Louise Avery. Daljit Nagra is the author of British Museum; Ramayana - A Retelling; Tippoo Sultan's Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!!; and, Look We Have Coming to Dover. Val McDermid is the author of several crime fiction series: Lindsay Gordon; Kate Brannigan; DCI Karen Pirie; and, beginning in 1995, the Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series, which was televised as Wire in the Blood. Her latest book - a Karen Pirie thriller - was published in August 2020 and is called Still Life. Details of events for Durham Book Festival https://durhambookfestival.com/ One of the events features Durham academic Emily Thomas talking about travel and philosophy - you can hear her in a Free Thinking episode called Maths and philosophy puzzles https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fws2 Crime writer Ian Rankin compared notes on writing about place with Bangladeshi born British author Tahmima Anam in an RSL conversation linked to the Bradford Literature Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000khk6 You can find more book talk on the website of the Royal Society of Literature https://rsliterature.org/ There are more book interviews on the Free Thinking playlist Prose and Poetry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh This includes: Anne Fine with Romesh Gunesekara; Irenosen Okojie with Nadifa Mohamed; and Paul Mendez with Francesca Wade. Producer: Emma Wallace

William Caxton introduced the mass production of books to England in the 1470s. He was also the first person to print books in the English language via the printing press. Caxton’s publications reveal the priorities and concerns of a businessman, … Continue reading →

Far from being a time of darkness, the Middle Ages was an essential period in the grand narrative of Western history. But what was it like to actually live in those extraordinary times? Now you can find out. These 36 lectures provide a different perspective on the society and culture of the Middle Ages - one that entrenches you in the daily human experience of living during this underappreciated era. Drawing on history, literature, the arts, technology, and science, these lectures will deepen the way you understand not only the Middle Ages but everything that came afterward: From the Renaissance, to the Enlightenment, to your own world. Filled with amazing insights, this series brings you closer than ever before to life as it was lived and felt. You'll meet the likes of William Caxton, England's first printer who not only printed and distributed a variety of works but also often had to translate them himself; learn about Hugh of Payns and the role of his Knights Templar - organized for the protection of pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem - in the creation of the first modern bank; see how communities dealt with marriage in a time when the church had not yet drawn this institution into its orbit; and much more. Rich with information and period detail (including revealing examples of medieval literature from the English, French, Norse, Icelandic, and Italian worlds), these lectures will dramatically increase your understanding of how lives in the Middle Ages were really lived.

Far from being a time of darkness, the Middle Ages was an essential period in the grand narrative of Western history. But what was it like to actually live in those extraordinary times? Now you can find out. These 36 lectures provide a different perspective on the society and culture of the Middle Ages - one that entrenches you in the daily human experience of living during this underappreciated era. Drawing on history, literature, the arts, technology, and science, these lectures will deepen the way you understand not only the Middle Ages but everything that came afterward: From the Renaissance, to the Enlightenment, to your own world. Filled with amazing insights, this series brings you closer than ever before to life as it was lived and felt. You'll meet the likes of William Caxton, England's first printer who not only printed and distributed a variety of works but also often had to translate them himself; learn about Hugh of Payns and the role of his Knights Templar - organized for the protection of pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem - in the creation of the first modern bank; see how communities dealt with marriage in a time when the church had not yet drawn this institution into its orbit; and much more. Rich with information and period detail (including revealing examples of medieval literature from the English, French, Norse, Icelandic, and Italian worlds), these lectures will dramatically increase your understanding of how lives in the Middle Ages were really lived.

Far from being a time of darkness, the Middle Ages was an essential period in the grand narrative of Western history. But what was it like to actually live in those extraordinary times? Now you can find out.These 36 lectures provide a different perspective on the society and culture of the Middle Ages - one that entrenches you in the daily human experience of living during this underappreciated era. Drawing on history, literature, the arts, technology, and science, these lectures will deepen the way you understand not only the Middle Ages but everything that came afterward: From the Renaissance, to the Enlightenment, to your own world.Filled with amazing insights, this series brings you closer than ever before to life as it was lived and felt. You'll meet the likes of William Caxton, England's first printer who not only printed and distributed a variety of works but also often had to translate them himself; learn about Hugh of Payns and the role of his Knights Templar - organized for the protection of pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem - in the creation of the first modern bank; see how communities dealt with marriage in a time when the church had not yet drawn this institution into its orbit; and much more.Rich with information and period detail (including revealing examples of medieval literature from the English, French, Norse, Icelandic, and Italian worlds), these lectures will dramatically increase your understanding of how lives in the Middle Ages were really lived.

Far from being a time of darkness, the Middle Ages was an essential period in the grand narrative of Western history. But what was it like to actually live in those extraordinary times? Now you can find out.These 36 lectures provide a different perspective on the society and culture of the Middle Ages - one that entrenches you in the daily human experience of living during this underappreciated era. Drawing on history, literature, the arts, technology, and science, these lectures will deepen the way you understand not only the Middle Ages but everything that came afterward: From the Renaissance, to the Enlightenment, to your own world.Filled with amazing insights, this series brings you closer than ever before to life as it was lived and felt. You'll meet the likes of William Caxton, England's first printer who not only printed and distributed a variety of works but also often had to translate them himself; learn about Hugh of Payns and the role of his Knights Templar - organized for the protection of pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem - in the creation of the first modern bank; see how communities dealt with marriage in a time when the church had not yet drawn this institution into its orbit; and much more.Rich with information and period detail (including revealing examples of medieval literature from the English, French, Norse, Icelandic, and Italian worlds), these lectures will dramatically increase your understanding of how lives in the Middle Ages were really lived.

Micah 6:8 NLT 'No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.' April 23rd is St George’s Day, the patron saint of England, but also of Georgia, Romania, Malta, Portugal, Palestine and Catalonia. St George was probably born in Cappadocia (Turkey) in the third century. His parents were Christians and, following his father’s death, he and his mother moved to Palestine. As a young man he joined the Roman army, rising to the position of tribune. However, when the emperor Diocletian came to power, he instigated a harsh persecution of Christians. George resigned his commission in protest and was arrested, tortured and beheaded in Lydda. As for slaying dragons, this is traced to a book printed by William Caxton, of printing press fame, in 1483, as a collection of fantastic tales of saints’ lives written by a French bishop. However, the metaphor of dragon-slaying is useful. For St George, in contesting the emperor’s express command, had to slay the dragon of fear within him. It is the prophet Micah who reminds us of the need to slay all such dragons that stand in the way of justice. Today is a day when we can reflect upon those acts of kindness we have engaged in over the past year. Any act of kindness counts – supporting a neighbour, providing a lift and suchlike. Indeed, we are called to random acts of kindness in an attempt to counter the self-centred materialism that has taken hold of life globally. God gazed on St George’s sacrifice, just as God sees your acts of kindness. These are the oil that drives the engine of God’s kingdom in the earth. Without them, evil will triumph. The fact that it doesn’t is a clear indication of the many who choose to walk with Micah, doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly. QUESTION: How might you demonstrate the justice and kindness of God by serving others? PRAYER: Lord, give me opportunities today to do good, and the courage to take them.

On Episode 15 of Lost the Plot we have Lesley Boland on the show to talk about independent publisher Blemish Books and the Pulpture art project at Noted Festival that upcycled books into artwork. Show Notes: Future Library https://www.facebook.com/Futurelibrary.no/posts/756937187813455 https://www.futurelibrary.no/ Lost Rocks http://www.apublishedevent.net/projects/lost-rocks/editions/a-slow-publishing-event ACT Lit Bloggers of the Future https://actwritersblog.com/2017/05/19/act-literary-bloggers-of-the-future-2017-program/ Whispering Gums https://whisperinggums.com/ Book Awards http://abiawards.com.au/general/the-17th-annual-australian-book-industry-awards-winners-announced/ https://www.perpetual.com.au/MilesFranklin/Award-and-Recipients https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/may/22/brave-ruthless-and-utterly-compelling-leah-purcell-wins-big-at-nsw-premiers-literary-awards William Caxton’s lost pages http://www.bbc.com/news/education-39846929 Jane Austen's Secret Love http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/jane-austen-darcy-wentworth-did-a-sydney-surgeon-steal-her-heart/news-story/75c46de91b052d2b4bc49de0b04b64a6 Pride and Prejudice House for Sale https://www.buzzfeed.com/laraparker/empty-out-your-piggy-banks-now-because-the-house-from-pride?utm_term=.ylwWMXboz&bffbbooks#.mmR7Ok09e Taiwanese Author Commits Suicide https://www.buzzfeed.com/kassycho/author-commits-suicide-after-writing-about-alleged-rapist?utm_term=.arMaKwq4N&bffbbooks#.alAnbdlY9 Support Resources https://www.lifeline.org.au/ https://www.1800respect.org.au/ N K Jemisin in the world's worst interview https://storify.com/nkjemisin/how-not-to-interview-an-author https://archive.is/DnQ3H ...except maybe Paul Beatty's https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/30/more-than-the-n-word-how-a-tense-paul-beatty-interview-raises-bigger-questions?CMP=share_btn_fb Top Borrowed Books in Australia https://www.alia.org.au/news/15524/aussie-readers-craving-local-stories-about-heritage-identity-and-relationships Street Library Controversy http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/hornsby-advocate/streetbased-lending-library-saved-after-threats-to-shut-it-down/news-story/cab0b8a5ed8cf825cb3c37c5068c3975?%3F The Book of Dust https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/26/before-his-dark-materials-how-lyras-story-began-exclusive-extract The Ministry of Utmost Happiness https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/27/arundhati-roy-fiction-takes-time-second-novel-ministry-utmost-happiness?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Facebook Islamophobia Teen Romance Novel http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-31/randa-abdel-fattah-spins-islamophobia-into-aussie-teen-romance/8574990 The Dark Tower https://www.facebook.com/SonyPicturesAUS/videos/1724155807610832/ Game of Thrones https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/16/george-rr-martin-game-of-thrones-spinoffs-all-prequels-hbo-winds-of-winter Harry Potter News https://www.pottermore.com/news/wizarding-world-book-club-coming-soon-to-pottermore http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-12/harry-potter-prequel-handwritten-by-jk-rowling-stolen/8522834?smid=Page:+ABC+News-Facebook_Organic&WT.tsrc=Facebook_Organic&sf78322054=1 https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewchampion/a-super-rare-harry-potter-prequel-has-been-stolen-in-a?utm_term=.igDdONB4X&bffbbooks#.ktAP7zvrq http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-20/harry-potter-fans-warned-against-walking-on-railway-from-film/8543718?smid=Page:+ABC+News-Facebook_Organic&WT.tsrc=Facebook_Organic&sf80469336=1 Canberra Women Writers Network https://www.facebook.com/canberrawomenwriters/ Pulpture http://www.blemishbooks.com.au/pulpture/ http://kbreyd.com/pulpture

During a short but delightful trip to England, I saw the Rosetta Stone, the White Tower at the Tower of London, ancient alphabet tiles and wax seals, a stained glass window honoring William Caxton, and many more wonders. Hear about them all. Read the transcript on the website: http://bit.ly/1o02vuz

William Caxton, the first English printer. This is a replacement for the other file, which wasn't normalized, so the audio was wonky. :) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

William Caxton, the first English printer. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A podcast about William Caxton, the first English printer. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Thomas Malory's "Le Morte Darthur", the epic tale of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. Sir Thomas Malory was a knight from Warwickshire, a respectable country gentleman and MP in the 1440s who later turned to a life of crime and spent various spells in prison. It was during Malory's final incarceration that he wrote "Le Morte Darthur", an epic work which was based primarily on French, but also some English, sources. Malory died shortly after his release in 1470 and it was to be another fifteen years before "Le Morte Darthur" was published by William Caxton, to immediate popular acclaim. Although the book fell from favour in the seventeenth century, it was revived again in Victorian times and became an inspiration for the Pre-Raphaelite movement who were entranced by the chivalric and romantic world that Malory portrayed. The Arthurian legend is one of the most enduring and popular in western literature and its characters - Sir Lancelot, Guinevere, Merlin and King Arthur himself, are as well-known today as they were then; and the book's themes - chivalry, betrayal, love and honour - remain as compelling.With: Helen Cooper Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of CambridgeHelen Fulton Professor of Medieval Literature and Head of Department of English and Related Literature at the University of YorkLaura Ashe CUF Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow at Worcester College at the University of OxfordProducer: Natalia Fernandez.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Thomas Malory's "Le Morte Darthur", the epic tale of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. Sir Thomas Malory was a knight from Warwickshire, a respectable country gentleman and MP in the 1440s who later turned to a life of crime and spent various spells in prison. It was during Malory's final incarceration that he wrote "Le Morte Darthur", an epic work which was based primarily on French, but also some English, sources. Malory died shortly after his release in 1470 and it was to be another fifteen years before "Le Morte Darthur" was published by William Caxton, to immediate popular acclaim. Although the book fell from favour in the seventeenth century, it was revived again in Victorian times and became an inspiration for the Pre-Raphaelite movement who were entranced by the chivalric and romantic world that Malory portrayed. The Arthurian legend is one of the most enduring and popular in western literature and its characters - Sir Lancelot, Guinevere, Merlin and King Arthur himself, are as well-known today as they were then; and the book's themes - chivalry, betrayal, love and honour - remain as compelling. With: Helen Cooper Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge Helen Fulton Professor of Medieval Literature and Head of Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York Laura Ashe CUF Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow at Worcester College at the University of Oxford Producer: Natalia Fernandez.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and influence of William Caxton, the merchant who brought the printing press to the British Isles. After spending several years working as a printer in Bruges, Caxton returned to London and in 1476 set up his first printing press in Westminster, and also imported and sold other printed books. Caxton concentrated on producing popular books that he knew would sell, such as Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' and small liturgical 'books of hours'. The standard of Caxton's printing may have lagged behind that on the continent, but he was a skilful businessman and unusually for printers at the time, he managed not to go bankrupt. The advent of print is now seen as one of the great revolutions in intellectual history - although many scholars believe it was a revolution that took many generations to have an effect.With:Richard Gameson Professor of the History of the Book at the University of DurhamJulia Boffey Professor of Medieval Studies in the English Department at Queen Mary, University of LondonDavid Rundle Member of the History Faculty at the University of OxfordProducer: Natalia Fernandez.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and influence of William Caxton, the merchant who brought the printing press to the British Isles. After spending several years working as a printer in Bruges, Caxton returned to London and in 1476 set up his first printing press in Westminster, and also imported and sold other printed books. Caxton concentrated on producing popular books that he knew would sell, such as Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' and small liturgical 'books of hours'. The standard of Caxton's printing may have lagged behind that on the continent, but he was a skilful businessman and unusually for printers at the time, he managed not to go bankrupt. The advent of print is now seen as one of the great revolutions in intellectual history - although many scholars believe it was a revolution that took many generations to have an effect. With: Richard Gameson Professor of the History of the Book at the University of Durham Julia Boffey Professor of Medieval Studies in the English Department at Queen Mary, University of London David Rundle Member of the History Faculty at the University of Oxford Producer: Natalia Fernandez.