The Final Metamorphosis

Gutenberg Bibles are rare as the printings of William Caxton, the first Englishman to set his language in movable type. Both are as common as telephone books compared to a handwritten Caxton manuscript. When the Englishman's 15th century translation of the first nine books of the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses, a series of moralizing fables, was sold at auction in London's Sotheby's (TIME, July 8), the illustrated gem fetched $252,000--a record high for any book ever sold to the public. A New York dealer bought it, and the 272-page manuscript seemed destined to remain forever separate from the other six books of the Meta morphoses, bequeathed by Diarist Samuel Pepys in 1703 to Cambridge's Magdalene College.

Under British law, an export license was held up for half a year and then delayed an additional month to see if native money might rescue this national treasure. Government pleas, fund-raising attempts, and entreaties by Magdalene College succeeded in getting only about a third of the needed funds --until last week, when in the nick of time the remainder came from the most unexpected pockets. U.S. Book Publisher George Braziller, who has published fine art reproductions, got Eugene B. Power, founder of University Microfilms, a subsidiary of Xerox Corp., to give $200,000 to redeem the rare edition for the Cambridge scholars.

The work will be united with the last six Ovid books at Magdalene, but there is an ulterior motive behind the gift. Braziller, who says that his "greatest pleasure" was publishing a facsimile of an extremely rare 15th century Dutch manuscript, The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, has the rights to reproduce the entire Caxton book in a limited edition of 1,000. Braziller will use the profits to pay Power back the $200,000. So two U.S. businessmen have combined to leave the Caxton work in Great Britain, yet permit the public to tuck a splendid facsimile away in libraries for study and delectation.

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