A. B. C. WITH THE PATER NOSTER, AVE, CREDE AND X COMAUNDEMENTES. Folio, single sheet; folded to make a booklet of 4 leaves, 12mo. 3⅞ by 2¾ inches. Preserved in full morocco box. Printed at London in the Old bayly by Richard Lant. No date, but about 1536.

A unique child's book which had disappeared from sight for over a century. Variously considered by authorities as having been intended as a Horn Book or as an education book for the very young scholar.

Last seen by bibliographers at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, the volume is described as follows by Ames-Herbert-Dibden's Typographical Antiquities, 1816, Vol. III, page 581, item 1779:—

"The ABC &c. Without date. Octavo. It begins with five differ­ent Alphabets, and Gloria Patri▪ then the Pater-noster, &c., grace before meat, and after. Printed only on one side, to be folded as blank pages to be pasted together, and make one leaf of two; or four small leaves of the whole sheet. Licensed by the Company."

From 1816 on, the volume seems to have disappeared. Pollard, apparently from the above entry, records the fact that the work was printed by Lant (Handlist of Books Printed by English Printers Bibliographical Society) but indicates no copy known.

Duff, Century of the English Book Trade also had not seen a copy. He records that the Old Bailey address was the first of several addresses at which Lant printed,—hence books without date printed at that address must of necessity ante-date those of established dates printed at other location.

Though Pollard, in a haphazard fashion, gives Lant's dates as 1542-1563 (op. Cit.), Duff records that "Richard Lant, Printer, in London, was made a freeman of the Stationers on the 6th September, 1537, and paid 44 shillings for the privilege.... When he started printing, he was living in the Old Bailey." Thus proving Pollard in error, and establishing the fact that in 1537, Lant was already a recognized printer of sufficient standing to be admitted to the Stationers Company.

The volume under consideration bears a manuscript date of 1536, written in an old hand. While this is not conclusive evidence of its actual date, the writer may have had access to evidence now no longer available. Certainly the sheet was printed before 1542 when Lant was sent to the Fleet prison for printing Tolwyn's The Manne of Synne (of which no copy now survives.)

[Page] The date of 1536, if it is the correct date, would establish this as the earliest known English A. B. C., the earliest known English Horn Book (for it can be considered as such) and the earliest known book printed in England strictly for children!

Lant, moreover, is the rarest of all English printers; far more rare, for instance, than is Caxton. Of the many books that he printed from 1536 or 1537 until 1563, most have disappeared entirely. Only two of his works are recorded in the British Museum for instance, and there are none at Cambridge.

• 1. The present example, printed by Richard Lant. Unique. Not in the Short Title Catalogue.
• 2. A.B.C. for children. J. King. No date. Entered at the Stationers 1561/2. S.T.C. No. 18. Unique copy at Queen's College, Oxford.
• 3. The B. A. C. (sic) booke in Latyn and in Englysshe. T. Petyt. No date but said to be 15 [...]8. S.T.C. No. 19. Unique copy at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
• 4. The A. B. C. set forth by the Kynges Majestie. W. Powell. No date, but said to be 1545. S.T.C. No. 20. Unique copy in the British Museum.
• 5. The A. B. C.; with the catechisme. for the Company of Stationers, 1633. S.T.C. No. 21. Unique copy was in the Guild Hall Library, London.

The rarity of these little books requires no summing up after the above evidence.