[The life of Our Lady].

Accession number: 
PML 695
Author: 
Lydgate, John, 1370?-1451?
Published: 
[Westminster] : William Caxton, [1483]
Description: 
[96] leaves ; 28 cm (fol.)
Credit Line: 
Purchased with the Irwin Collection, 1900.
Notes: 

"[T]His book was compyled by dan John lydgate monke of burye, at the excitacion and styryng of the noble and victoryous prynce, Kyng harry the fyfthe, in thonoure glorye & reuerence of the byrthe of our moste blessyd lady mayde wyf, and moder of our lord Jhesu cryst ..." (leaf [pi]1r).
Collation: [pi]² a-l⁸ m⁶: 96 leaves, leaf m6 blank.
Imprint from colophon (leaf m5r).
Paper format: Chancery folio
PML copy leaf dimensions: 25.1 x 18.5 cm
PML copy missing 9 leaves: [pi]1-2, a1, l8-m5 (all replaced in facsimile), and m6 (blank).
Printed in Caxton's type 4:100G.
Sheets a2.7 and a3.6 are known in a different setting, all recovered as fragments of printers' waste from bindings. Proctor and Bühler believed they represented an otherwise unknown edition, but it seems more likely that they were rejected as faulty after printing, and have been replaced by reprinted sheets in the complete copies known (BMC XI 139-40).
Title from explicit (leaf m4v): "Here endeth the book of thelyf of our lady made by dan John lydgate monke of bury at thynstaunce of the moste crysten kynge kyng harry the fyfth."
Verse.

Binding: 
Modern full brown goatskin over paper boards (26.5 x 20.8 cm), in an elaborate retrospective binding by Francis Bedford (stamp on bottom edge of front turn in). Gilt edges.
Inscriptions/Markings: 

Hand decoration: Rubrication unrealized.

Provenance: 
Samuel John Gerson; Richard Farmer (1735-1797), signature (verso of 3rd front flyleaf) with notes on other copies, Caxton, and Lydgate; his sale (Bibliotheca Farmeriana), March 1798, lot 6223, to Nicol; John Ker, Third Duke of Roxburghe (1740-1804); his sale, Evans, 3 June 1812, lot 3257, to Triphook; George Spencer Churchill, Fifth Duke of Marlborough and Marquess of Blandford (1766-1840); his sale (White Knights Library), Evans, 23 June 1819, lot 2766, to Triphook for £17; Edward Vernon Utterson (1776?-1856); his sale, Sotheby's, 23 April 1852, lot 1200, to Pickering for £32 for Corser; Rev. Thomas Corser (1793-1876); his sale, Sotheby's, 28 July 1868, lot 469, to Pickering; Almon W. Griswold (1833-1890), bought 1877 (not in his 1 June 1880 sale of black letter books); Theodore Irwin (1827-1902); J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), purchased with the Irwin collection, 1900.
Classification: 
Century: 
Department: