[Westminster: William Caxton, 1481, after 12 August]

Caxton’s translation and edition of the thirteenth-century scientific work Image du monde (Myrrour of the worlde), was the first illustrated book in English. The skills of the woodcut artist employed were not adequate to the task of lettering the simple diagrams shown here, and the captions have been added by hand, either by an early owner or in Caxton’s printing house. This much-travelled copy also bears inscriptions by sixteenth-century inhabitants of Derbyshire, Wiltshire and County Durham.

Inc.2.J.1.1[3494], fols. e2 verso – e3 recto