A Treatise of Melancholie

The French Wars of Religion caused many French Protestants to flee to London during Elizabeth I’s reign. Among these was the bookseller and printer Thomas Vautrollier, working initially with another French immigrant, Jean Desserans. Vautrollier became known as one of London’s most accomplished printers. He used printing types designed by two major French type designers, Robert Granjon and Claude Garamond. In a very successful career, Vautrollier published some 150 books between 1570, when he set up independently at Blackfriars, and 1587. Alongside translations from French, educational works from elementary levels upwards, and other subjects (the work shown discusses mental depression), he printed Protestant theology, including several editions of Jean Calvin’s Institutes in English and Latin, and works by Martin Luther, whom Vautrollier kept in the public eye at a time when Calvinist theology prevailed. Vautrollier’s Protestantism may be seen even through his device with the motto: ‘Anchora spei’ (‘Anchor of hope’). His legacy is shown partly in the continuation of his business by one of his former apprentices, Richard Field, who in 1588 married Vautrollier’s widow Jacqueline: among Field’s output were William Shakespeare’s first two published works, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, and many important Shakespearean sources.