[Histories].

the Princes in the Tower

The first separate printing of Sir Thomas More's histories of the unfortunate Princes in the Tower and their alleged persecutor Richard III.

More (1478-1535) allotted specific blame for the disappearance and death of the Princes to Sir James Tyrell, a servant of their uncle the Duke of York, who had been executed for treason in 1502. His description of the future Richard III as an ambitious usurper 'little of stature, evill featured of limbes, crooke-backed, the left shoulder much higher than the right... malicious, wrathfull and envious' has influenced all future depictions of the King from Shakespeare through to the modern day.

The Histories itself exists in two distinct forms, in English and in Latin text editions, neither of which is a mere translation of the other, and both of which were unfinished and unpublished at the time of More's death in 1535. His nephew William Rastell, in his introduction to the collected English works of More, testifies that the Histories were written in about the year 1513, whilst More was serving as Under Sheriff of London.

The English text was the first to circulate, initially in manuscript form, from which the first edition of the work was printed in 1543 by Richard Grafton, albeit without attribution to More. It was printed again in 1548 and 1550, this time with More's authorship acknowledged, before appearing in full in Rastell's collected works of 1557.

At the beginning of Mary's reign, Rastell withdrew to Louvain in the Low Countries, where he died in 1565. That year an edition of More's Latin works, including the Latin text of his Histories was published for the first time, likely from Rastell's original manuscript source.

This edition published nearly 100 years after the first appearance of the text, marks the first separate printing of More's Histories.

First edition, first state printed for the Company of Stationers with dedicatory epistle signed 'W.S.'; 12mo (15 x 9 cm); 2 engraved plates (laid down), early MS inscription in Latin to margin of N3, text continuous despite erratic pagination, 6ff (F6, P6, P7, X3, X6 and X7) supplied from a shorter copy, title and final f. laid down, early paper repair to N5 with slight loss to text, S11-12 torn with slight loss to fore-edge margin not affecting text, lacking front and final blank ff, bookplate to front pastedown, tightly bound, occasional toning, a few small marginal tears; 19th-century sprinkled calf by Jenkins & Cecil, later rebacked, spine lettered in gilt, edges stained yellow, extremities a little rubbed with minor loss, very good; [8], 144, 135-179, [3], 185-422, [p.'325'], 426-461, [1]pp.

ESTC R5586; 4Wing 2688; Gibson 64a.