Patents, Pictures and Patronage

John Day (1522-1584) is generally acknowledged to be the foremost English printer of the later sixteenth-century. As well as printing some of the most important books of his day, most notably John Foxe's "Acts and Monuments", he also pioneered enormous advances in English typography and book illustration. Yet despite his legacy, this book is the first full-length study to look into Day's life and legacy.This book places Day in the context of the sixteenth-century printing industry, and examines his disputed origins and establishment as a London printer. His Elizabethan career is discussed, together with the most significant works he printed, and his connections with the Stranger communities in London. Throughout the book Elizabeth Evenden argues that Day's printing empire and wealth were founded on a combination of two crucial factors: outstanding technical skills, and the ability to attract patrons and patents. His success rested on both cheap and expensive print; the former providing his wealth, the later the patronage necessary to secure the valuable patents.The picture of Day that emerges is not one that conforms to the modern image or even seventeenth-century image of a successful printer. Instead he appears as something of a dinosaur: impressive but doomed to extinction. No single printer could print works on the scale that John Day did, and after his death, Day's place in the English printing industry was filled by teams of printers funded by syndicates of booksellers. But during his lifetime, as this book demonstrates, the combination of his technical skill, patronage and wealth enabled him to change the face of English printing and to help influence the course of the English religious policy.