The Pentateuch of printing

William Blades explains in his preface why he calls his book The Pentateuch of Printing: the Genesis of the World finds a parallel in the Genesis of Printing, the spread of typography in Exodus, the rules for making a book in Leviticus, and, less directly, the printers' roll of honour in Numbers. The volume carries a memoir of the author with a list of his works by Talbot B. Reed. An illustration shows St. Christopher, captioned as the earliest dated woodcut, from 1423.

A passage about the author says he signed some title pages William Blades, Printer, and studied early printing as a printer first, an antiquary next and a man of letters last. In another passage Caxton, tired of so much writing, goes to Colard Mansion at Bruges, who had set up a press in a room over the church porch of St. Donatus, and about 1474 or 1475 the book is completed and a copy given to the Duchess. A list of books for the student names works such as Cotton's Typographical Gazetteer and Panzer's Annales.