Reproduction and renewal in de Worde’s reprints of Caxton

This article reconsiders an under-studied aspect of the output of Wynkyn de Worde: his reprints of books first published by William Caxton. They include prologues, epilogues, and other paratextual materials written as a comment on and explanation of the publication at the current moment. Reproduction of materials that seem specific to an earlier edition has usually been attributed to de Worde’s pragmatism or carelessness. But close analysis of de Worde’s editions of Polycronicon, the Golden Legend, the Description of Britain, and the Canterbury Tales suggests that reproducing materials after sometimes more than twenty years, and for a different audience to Caxton’s, could make a reprint seem at once authentic, while, at the same time, something new. This article argues that the decisions that make a reprint can be meaningful even, perhaps especially, when the ‘the book’ stays essentially the same.