Be prepared to nerd out with me for a second...
I got to see three original William Caxton books today - "The History of Troy," which is the first book ever printed in England, "The Canterbury Tales," which turned out to be only two pages, not the whole book, and "The arte and crafte for to knowe well to deye," which I wrote my Master's thesis on. It was awesome.
Then, I got to see a 1493 printing of John Gower's Confessio Amantis in its original binding: Two wooden blocks stuck together with a piece of animal skin that was drilled into the wood with wooden pegs which were held in place by pieces of twine. Amazing! I had never seen a binding that old before. I was so afraid I was going to break it. And there wasn't anybody even supervising me! What are they thinking???
So, it was a fun trip. Also, whoever re-bound "The arte and crafte" had randomly stuck in a page of Latin at the beginning. I haven't had Latin in two years, but I could read enough to figure out it was a wedding mass. I was proud of myself!
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