So a stray comment on this meta thread had me adding my thoughts to the end on Hob’s mention of going into printing. But I don’t think my thoughts got seen much because they were fairly off topic. But! The history of printing is a particular pet topic of mine so I wanted to expound on this a bit. Because it’s one of the echoing storylines that Gaiman weaves through the centuries to show how interconnected that time is. And it’s also an echo we see in the larger series about literature, stories and language.

In 1489, we get this panel where Hob mentions that he’s taken up a new trade called…printing. (Not that there’ll ever be real demand for it)

But it’s not until 1589 that we learn the name of this mysterious friend: William Caxton. (Mentioned by Hob as Billy Caxton)

But who was William Caxton?

Caxton was an Englishman in the mid-1400s who started his career as a cloth maker and merchant. By the 1450s, he was living on the continent in Bruges and by 1465, he had turned to politics. With the War of the Roses underway in 1470, he had turned his attention to bringing printed books to the untapped market in England.

Printing was a new industry in the mid-1400s in Europe. (As opposed to the printing traditions of Asia.) Gutenberg had used his jewelry-making expertise to cast individual letters for printing around 1440, and developed a printing press that revolutionized books, publishing and illustration in Western Europe. Caxton likely traveled to Germany and saw a press in action around 20-30 yrs later before buying his own and setting up shop on the continent. Demand for works in English was low on the continent, so he soon moved his shop back to London.

What Caxton did was revolutionary for the time. No one was printing books in English. Even in England, scholars preferred Latin and French, considering them more beautiful and more expressive. Caxton not only brought a whole new trade/industry back to England…he also played an important part in our linguistic history. By translating works into vernacular English—specifically his London dialect—he was saying that English literature traditions were just as worthy as Latin or French for scholars and the masses. His work helped to standardize spellings at a time of great linguistic change. And his dialect that he was using became more widespread through his publishing. Plus, through his poor translation, English adopted a number of loan words.

The first book he printed once back in England? None other than Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. He later published a second edition containing woodcut illustrations. He mostly published works he thought would be profitable with the gentry and then expanded his market by publishing works of popular fiction. His translation of La Morte D’Arthur helped popularize Arthurian legend.

What did a 15th century print shop look like?

I imagine that when Caxton started out, he might have had to wear many hats. In this woodcut from 1568, two men are setting type into forms in the background while one person inks the form on press and the other pulls the print. Not pictured are separate jobs for folks to carve illustrations like the above out of wood (or use other printing making methods like intaglio, etc) and to bind the books.

Pulling a print could be manually hard work. Once the form is inked and the paper put into place behind a frisket, the whole apparatus is rolled under the platen on the right. Pulling the big level attached to the screw above the platen would apply even weight to the inked form, leaving an impression on the paper. Then, the apparatus would be rolled back out, the paper removed and the process started again. Once all the pages were printed, they would have been bound by bookbinders.

By the 1600s, the print shop could have had multiple presses with even more staff as shown in this engraving. Guilds would have been set up with proper channels for learning the craft. Plus, a whole merchant system was in place to sell all those books, pamphlets and prints.

You can see a press like this in action in this video:

How does this tie into Men of Good Fortune?

Men of Good Fortune is as much a history of England overview as it is a history of English literature/language. By spacing his references out, Gaiman is able to allude to its evolution concisely for the purposes of his story and the limited real estate of his panels.

So here are Gaiman’s key references by date:

In 1389, we see Chaucer out for a drink with a friend in the midst of writing The Canterbury Tales.

In 1489, Hob is working with Caxton to set up his publishing business. Who would then go on to print several editions of Chaucer’s works.

In 1589, Hob refers back to Caxton by name, and we meet Shakespeare.

In 1689, no literature references

In 1789, Hob refers back to Shakespeare’s King Lear having a happy ending and asks after the nature of Morpheus’ deal with him.

In 1889, no literature references

In 1989, up to your imagination!

Hob and printing

For Hob specifically, his involvement could have meant many things. He could have become a typesetter and learned his letters. He could have been pure muscle pulling prints. He could have bound the books or carved the illustrations. And he could have branched out into being a merchant by selling said books. Or…all of the above.