This is a puzzling book. The type so closely resembles Oxford type that
every bibliographer has accepted it provisionally as identical. Yet it
exhibits spaced type, it uses / for a comma (both points unique in
Oxford printing), and the sections are made up in sixes. It is also by
many years the first classic printed in England, the next being a
Terence in 1497. The volume probably consisted of a—e in sixes, allowing
a leaf blank at the beginning: perhaps section e was in eight. The first
half of each section bears signatures. The book was clearly made up of
half quarto sheets, three to each section. Mr. Blades was of opinion
that the type was more worn than that of the Ales: and Mr. E. G. Duff
thinks that the spacing and other peculiarities point to a later date
than 1480.
Fragments known:—b 3–4, c 3–4 are in the Bodleian (Auct. R. supra 3),
having been presented by Sir William H. Cope in 1872. They were
fly leaves in a volume containing five treatises dated from 1491
to 1505, probably bound in Oxford for William Cope (d. 1513) who
lived near Banbury. Also c 1–2, 5–6 are in Merton College Library,
Oxford, among some loose printed fragments.