Some Notes on Early Woodcut Books, with a Chapter on Illuminated Manuscripts

"Some Notes on Early Woodcut Books, with a Chapter on Illuminated Manuscripts" by William Morris is a study of the artistic details and the historical role of 15th-century woodcut books. It shines a light on the skill used to make these early printed books, showing how they told stories and looked beautiful at the same time. Morris looks closely at how these books grew over time, especially the fancy designs made by the Ulm and Augsburg printing groups. He talks about different important woodcut books, naming specific ones and the artists who drew them, like Gunther Zainer and John Zainer. The book points out the small details in the art and how the pictures and writing work together, explaining how these books used art to tell stories and show what was important to people back then. In this way, the writing celebrates these old ways of printing and thinking about how they changed books, art, and the way people lived in medieval times.