The Load of Unicorn is a children's historical novel written and illustrated by Cynthia Harnett

Cynthia Harnett

Cynthia Harnett was a highly acclaimed English writer of children's historical fiction.Known for her exceptional attention to detail and meticulous background research, combined with ingenious and engrossing plots, Harnett wrote only seven novels. The Wool-Pack won the Carnegie Medal in 1951...

. It was first published in 1959, and was republished by Egmont Classics

Egmont Publishing

The Egmont Group is a media corporation founded and rooted in Copenhagen, Denmark. The business area of Egmont has traditionally been magazine publishing but has over the years evolved to comprise media generally....

 in 2001. It is set in London

Norman and Medieval London

This article covers the history of London from the Norman conquest of England in 1066 to the 16th century.-Norman invasion:The Norman invasion of Britain in 1066 is usually considered to be the beginning of the Medieval period. William, Duke of Normandy, killed English king Harold Godwinson in the...

 in the fifteenth century, and concerns the adventures of an apprentice of William Caxton

William Caxton

William 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...

, the printer. This book has been published in America as The Cargo of the Madalena.

Explanation of the title

The title refers to a load of paper from Flanders

County of Flanders

The County of Flanders was one of the territories constituting the Low Countries. The county existed from 862 to 1795. It was one of the original secular fiefs of France and for centuries was one of the most affluent regions in Europe....

, printed with the Unicorn watermark

Watermark

A watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light , caused by thickness or density variations in the paper...

, which has been ordered by Caxton but never delivered.

Plot summary

Benedict, known as Bendy, has been apprenticed by his forward-looking father to the printer William Caxton. This infuriates his mean half-brothers who are scrivener

Scrivener

A scrivener was traditionally a person who could read and write. This usually indicated secretarial and administrative duties such as dictation and keeping business, judicial, and history records for kings, nobles, temples, and cities...

s and fear that the new-fangled printing press will drive them out of business. They have secretly waylaid the printer's delivery of new paper and are hiding it. Bendy knows about it but is worried about the consequences of telling, especially as his half-brothers may be involved with Lancastrian rebels

House of Lancaster

The House of Lancaster was a branch of the royal House of Plantagenet. It was one of the opposing factions involved in the Wars of the Roses, an intermittent civil war which affected England and Wales during the 15th century...

.

Caxton sends Bendy and another apprentice on a quest to find the complete manuscript of Thomas Mallory's stories of King Arthur

Le Morte d'Arthur

Le Morte d'Arthur is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table...

, but it proves dangerous as others are also on the trail.

Allusions to history

There is lots of detail about life in London in the fifteenth century and especially about the craft of printing, all meticulously researched. In the author's postscript, she explains the process of researching and writing the book, and compares then and now. The endpapers of the first and some later editions are printed with fifteenth-century maps of London, and the illustrations show many of the everyday objects of the time.