Wynkyn de Worde and the Marketing of European Romances in England

Although Wynkyn de Worde’s reputation as the printer of romances in England has been well-studied, current scholarship focuses almost exclusively on his verse romances – homegrown narratives seen as quintessentially ‘English’. De Worde’s prose romances have a more uneasy position within the English literary canon; their status as translations means they have fallen by the wayside. This paper aims to reinstate their place in literary history, arguing that their status as immigrant texts is a strength. These are multicultural enterprises that give insight into attempts to align English literary activity and book production with a European cultural capital.

In his marketing of European bestselling romances, De Worde shows an active desire to participate in a shared cultural space and not fall behind on international literary fashions. The romances’ transnational nature becomes a selling point, and several marketing innovations previously ascribed to De Worde were in fact copied from continental printers. The paper also considers how these European romances fit into a period now seen as preoccupied with the construction of ‘English’ authorial identity, and the emergence of nationalist ideas that shaped early English canon formation.