Books and Manuscripts

The great Charter called in latyn Magna Carta, with diuers olde statutes whose titles appere in the next leafe Newly corrected
(London: Thomas Petyt, 1542). Third English-language edition. 8vo, 5 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. (140 x 89 mm). (iv), ccix (but 211, some leaves misnumbered), 4 l.; lacking final blank leaf (Dd8). Title-page printed within woodcut border and with woodcut initials. Full contemporary brown calf, rebacked, red morocco spine label, stamped in gilt, extremities and boards rubbed and worn; edges stained red; title-page backed and mounted (previous cataloguer states it was supplied from another copy); gutter split at leaf viii, with signature proud and with leaf viii starting; scattered light spotting to text; bookseller’s ticket at bottom of front paste-down. Beale S-13; ESTC S101057

Scarce early English-language edition of the Magna Carta. This is the first edition of the Magna Carta published by English printer Thomas Petyt (Petit), and the third English translation, executed by George Ferrer. Ferrer’s translation first appeared in Robert Redman’s 1534 edition—the first complete printed English translation—(see lot 102), and was revised and reprinted in 1541 by his widow, Elizabeth Redman to correct several grammatical and printer’s errors. That was followed with this corrected edition, in 1542, with Petyt stating that a “great deal of care” had been taken to correct the text. Along with the 1541 edition, Petyt expanded the contents and arranged the statutes chronologically. It is the last English-language edition printed in the 16th-century.

Thomas Petyt (1494-1565) was a printer in St. Paul’s Churchyard from around 1530-61, and published numerous works over his career, including a Tyndale Bible, with the aforementioned Redman, for Thomas Berthelet, in 1540. In 1543 he was imprisoned with six other printers for printing unlawful books loyal to the Catholic cause. According to DNB, “Between 1536 and 1554 about thirty-nine books bear his name as printer or publisher, among them being several law-books.”