Caxton's Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye : A Critical Edition

«This edition is the fruit of Professor Matsumoto’s lifelong devotion to the study of the story of Troy in the Middle Ages, beginning with his edition of the major alliterative poem The Destruction of Troy by John Clerk. As well as articles on the subject, Professor Matsumoto has published invaluable concordances to The Destruction of Troy, The Laud Troy Book and John Lydgate’s massive Troy Book. Given the renewed interest in William Caxton, this excellent edition of The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye makes a valuable contribution to scholarship.»

(Thorlac Turville-Petre, Professor Emeritus, University of Nottingham)

The book is about the genealogy of the ancient Greek gods and the legend of Troy.

William Caxton, for almost thirty years, led his life as a merchant, a diplomat and a cosmopolitan in Bruges, at that time the most prosperous international center of trade in northern Europe. This book is his translation of Raoul Lefèvre’s French original, as well as being the first printed book in English.

The undercurrent throughout the book is an everlasting and universal theme of mankind: «love and war/peace», the human nature of love and the folly of war. Thus, the ancient pagan gods are humanized and modernized in the late Middle Ages. Both Lefèvre and Caxton shared the antiwar sentiments in this book, which consists of the genealogy of the ancient Greek gods in Books I and II and the Troy legend in Book III.

This new edition, with an extensive introduction by the editor, makes this text accessible to new audiences.