Robert Copland EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
printerIn publishing, printers are both companies providing printing services and individuals who directly operate printing presses. With the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450, printing—and printers—proliferated throughout Europe.Today, printers are found...
and
authorAn author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, is said to have been a servant of
William CaxtonWilliam Caxton was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England...
, and certainly worked for
Wynkyn de WordeWynkyn de Worde was a printer and publisher in London known for his work with William Caxton, and is recognized as the first to popularize the products of the printing press in England....
. The first book to which his name is affixed as a printer is
The Boke of Justices of Peace (1515), at the sign of the Rose Garland, in
Fleet StreetFleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
, London. Anthony à Wood supposed, on the ground that he was more educated than was usual in his trade, that he had been a poor scholar of
OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
.
His best known works are
The hye way to the Spytlell hous, a dialogue in verse between Copland and the porter of St Bartholomew's hospital, containing much information about the vagabonds who found their way there, including
Thieves' CantThieves' cant or Rogues' cant was a secret language which was formerly used by thieves, beggars and hustlers of various kinds in Great Britain and to a lesser extent in other English-speaking countries...
; and
Jyl of Breyntford's Testament, dismissed in
Athenae Oxonienses (ed. Bliss) as a poem devoid of wit or decency, and totally unworthy of further notice.
He translated from the
FrenchFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
the romances of
Kynge Appolyne of Thyre (W de Worde, 1510),
The History of Helyas Knyght of the SwanneThe story of the Knight of the Swan, or Swan Knight, is a medieval tale about a mysterious rescuer who comes in a swan-drawn boat to defend a damsel, his only condition being that he must never be asked his name...
(W de Worde, 1512, 1522), and
The Life of Ipomydon (
Hue de RotelandeHue de Rotelande was an important Cambro-Norman poet writing in Old French at the end of the 12th century.-Life:He was a cleric and a native of Rhuddlan. He wrote in Credenhill, Herefordshire...
), not dated. Among his other works is
The Complaynte of them that ben too late maryed, an undated tract printed by Wynkyn de Worde. William Copland, the printer, supposed to have been his brother, published three editions of
Howleglas, perhaps by Robert, which in any case represent the earliest English version of
Till EulenspiegelTill Eulenspiegel was an impudent trickster figure originating in Middle Low German folklore. His tales were disseminated in popular printed editions narrating a string of lightly connected episodes that outlined his picaresque career, primarily in Germany, the Low Countries and France...
.
The Knyght of the Swanne was reprinted by W. Copland in 1560?, in William John Thoms's
Early Prose Romances, vol. iii., and by the
Grolier ClubThe Grolier Club is a private club and society of bibliophiles in New York City. Founded in January 1884, it is the oldest existing bibliophilic club in North America. The club is named after Jean Grolier de Servières, Viscount d'Aguisy, Treasurer General of France, whose library was famous; his...
(1901); the
Hye Way in
William Carew HazlittWilliam Carew Hazlitt was an English bibliographer.The son of barrister and registrar William Hazlitt and grandson of essayist and critic William Hazlitt, Hazlitt was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School and was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1861...
's
Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England, vol. iv. (1866).
See further the Forewords to
Frederick James FurnivallFrederick James Furnivall , one of the co-creators of the Oxford English Dictionary , was an English philologist...
's reprint of
Jyl of Breyntford (for private circulation, 1871) and
John Payne CollierJohn Payne Collier , English Shakespearian critic and forger, was born in London.-Reporter and solicitor:...
,
Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language, vol. 1. p. 153 (1865). For the books issued, from his press see
Hand-Lists of English Printers (1501–1556), printed for the Bibliographical Society in 1896.