In this classic first volume of English Books and Readers, first published in 1952, H. S. Bennett covers in detail the history of books from Caxton down to the incorporation of the Stationers' Company, discussing the evidence for public literacy, the regulation of the book trade, the demand for books, the authors, translators, and printers of early books, and their methods. It is a history of society at the opening of the Art of Printing, without which civilization as we know it could hardly have taken shape at all - a chapter in the human story, unique in its significance and remarkably obscure before this book was first published.