Lost, Burned and Recovered: Tracing the Provenance History of a Copy of Caxton’s Golden Legend in the John Rylands Library

Abstract

extensive libraries prior to their sales.1 Among them was what was described as the Important and Valuable Library of the Late George Offor, Esq, including a copy of William Caxton’s Golden Legend (1483– 84).2 This study demonstrates that this copy, hitherto believed to be lost, managed to survive the fire and is Incunable Collection R4591 in the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester [hereafter M].3 M is in ‘pure’ first setting and now lacks ninety-three leaves and contains 356